The beer tales

He taught the Kanawa to take pride in red caps. Red is not a colour you identify with the northern hemisphere, but if the Ibos can do it, the Kanawa can do it better. Last week, the red-capped two-time governor of Kano State decided to make national headline twice in two days.
In the first, you could see him grinning as he led five of his colleagues to the opposition.  Two others broke their rope before they could be taken to the new pen but a five out of seven is an ‘A’ mark. Then, he decided to make a public show of beer the next day. There were those outside Kano of course, who felt that he should have made a secret deal with Bukavu Barracks and invest the proceeds on buying buses to replace the polluting tricycles called A daidata shahu. Kwankwaso understands what intoxicates the masses more than beer and he is giving it to them in large doses.
Everywhere you turn these days, the new political lingo is – please beer with me. A week earlier, some wicked amebos tried to convince us that the word indisposed is euphemism for hangover. The purpose of this article is neither to examine in divisive etymology of the Hausa proverb, bayacin kare, ama yana sha roomo – he considers dog meat a taboo but has no qualms with the stew. Everywhere Bachus and governance clash, the devil’s always in the details.
In far-away Toronto, Mayor Rob Ford has resisted the moral pressure to step aside. His beer-loving colleagues accused him of excessive beering to which he confessed along with a one-chance encounter with crack cocaine. Toronto may not be Sin City, but it’s certainly not a holy land. While walking around that city sometime ago, I discovered an eatery called Shoeless Joe. It reminded me of a similar one from Otuoke.
To Toronto’s moral police, a mayor who confesses to drink driving, wild partying and crack cocaine has lost the moral right to run their city. Ask them to close their beer parlours, and the answer is likely to be a resounding no. Rob Ford’s budget runs on beer, spirits and money from, (do not say so officially) crack cocaine.
In the past, Kano had at least two breweries. Politicians locked down the breweries and threw the keys into Challawa Gorge Dam, so as not to be tempted to retrieve it. If you find an old man in Fagge, or Birnin who built houses or educated their children with earnings from those breweries, please remind them that both the houses and their breadwinning children are haram. Incidentally, when the breweries closed, so did the garment factories. Kwankwaso’s government has not resuscitated the factories, but it pays the moral police.
Those who argue that you cannot legislate morality are unlikely to be fans of Bill Clinton or even Silvio Berlusconi. Clinton deserves our pardon but so does the former Italian prime minister who was officially kicked out of parliament last week. He waited until his enemies drove him out. The three time prime minister, first made money before seeking political power. Over 70 years, he has not divorced himself from the way of lesser mortals – wild parties, including orgies with children young enough to be his grand-daughters and of course a chunky slice of the corruption pie. His girlfriend is now on the vanguard of those taking his case to the Pope! Berlusconi may be down, but there are those who still feed from his business empire.
There are two ways to remain indelible in the minds of the electorate – foolishly build legacies or appeal to the banal cravings of the hoi polloi. The wise do both. For expediency, they are bottle-crushers at the local level and opposition bigwigs at the national level. Both pay electoral dividends just like notoriety.
To those unlearned about the political opposition in Naija, they should think about the difference between the faces of the same coin. In Naija, those who wake up on the same bed of governance are the ruling class; those who seek to supplant them are opposition – two sides, same coin. Those who practice monogamy see the polygamous as opponents until they too accidentally take a second wife. Those who eat cassava bread are in opposition because they envy those who eat wheat bread. Forgive us if you’re alien to these differences. Please beer with us, if our notion of opposition does not conform to the Greek definition of democracy. We have found out, rather painfully how the Greeks have ruined their own notions and we are now in search of a homegrown replacement. If you fall out of favour with your colleagues on the other side, you simply turn round and take your queue on the waiting list. Please beer with us till we get it right.