TRANCE COP

Believe me, I didn’t misspell this either.

So you let them fool you, Prole? Well that is one of the major attributes of the Talakawa. You believe everything! There used to be this bad joke that if you want to hide anything from the Blackman, write it in a book! And you probably have quoted that in a desperate bid to encourage your ‘fellow blacks’ to read…YOU HAVE BEEN HAD!!!

Wake up and smell the coffee if you are black and you’re reading this because you just proved that –ism wrong! Check out the average African Summa cum Laude graduate of Economics and you will see obvious re-programming and miseducation! You’d hear someone claiming the economy has improved quoting some ‘indices’ which has no bearing on market realities!

And so, I rephrase: If you want to dupe a Blackman, write it in a book! He believes anything he sees in the Newspaper, he even believes what he sees on TV and just apes everything he sees portrayed as ‘Western’.

So much for intro, now let’s move on. (Recall I said in the last post that you should never expect a rant to be coordinated).

Check out the line-up: Transcorp (Trance COP) was incorporated by some of Nigeria's foremost business tycoons namely: Alhaji Aliko Dangote of Dangote Group, Chief Femi Otedola of African Petroleum (AP), Dr.Ndi Okereke-Onyuike, Director General of Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, Jim Ovia, Managing Director, Zenith Bank, Tony Elumelu of UBA, Fola Adeola of Guaranty Trust Bank, Jacob Ajekigbe of First Bank and former CEO of Nigerian Breweries Ltd, Festus Odimegwu amongst others and of course, the (then) Federal government.

Then they threw an Initial Public Offering and in a voice reminiscent of Achilles when he was urging his soldiers to the certainty of their death, they all said “It is yours, Take It” (okay, Bradd Pitt (Achilles) added ‘Immortality’ before his.

Sadly, a good number of Talakawa including the ‘Paratalakawa’ rushed in. The result? Just at the time the Share Value hit 54 Kobo all the way down from N 7:50 Kobo, they close in on you all, suspending trade on the Stock Exchange to “prevent panic sales which may further compound Transcorp’s distress” As usual, the Conglomerate gets protected from the Commoner, Transcorp is shielded from the Talakawa, the Powers-that-be get shielded from the Proletariat!

The first thing that will shred your heart is to learn that the N22 billion realized from the IPO was squandered; plain and simple! The Proles pull their resources to finance someone/select-few’s Klepto-orgies and dump their bastard (for want of better euphemism) at your doorstep, and that is exactly how the game is played.

How come a lot of people fell for this hogwash? How on earth could such a ‘strong’ corporation owe some staff up to Twelve months in arrears?

True to type, the Talakawa must be entertained, therefore a Gladiator must kiss the sands of the Coliseum, and who else could that be, other than Mr. Tom Iseghohi, the Group Managing Director of TRANCE COP . Someone tell Tom that not every Tom, Dick and Harry can afford this Trance! I read the family is threatening to reveal many more dark secrets down to Aso Rock (Presidential Villa) should the ‘victimization’ of their breadwinner ‘for what he knows nothing about’ persist and I laugh (very rare these days) Okay, for the sake of argument, Tom DID NOT PARTAKE IN THE FRAUD. Please! But he knows enough for the family to know some ‘dark secrets’, he must either be too dumb for his own good or just plain negligent and stupid.

That is the dilemma of the Pseudotalakawa.

Now, let me not risk losing you. I earlier mentioned the Paratalakawa they are the middle-class between the Al-majiri (Destitute) and the actual Talakawa , the mechanic, the barber, the motorbike riders who hang on every word the actual Talakawa passes down from the lies he read from the media run by the Masu Sarauta (Aristocrats). Most of them only aspire for the ‘good life’ the Talakawa is ‘enjoying’, and that is why they, also, were hapless victims of the Trance Cop.

The Pseudotalakawa is the Middle Man between the Talakawa and the Masu Sarauta. He is the courier of every fraud, the self-styled scapegoat, the fall man and fodder for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He is the one likely to rot in jail on behalf of his Masu Sarauta. He is the brilliant technocrat who is the King of the Stupid, the Court Jester, the butt (not the Eminem-Sacha Baron Cohen type) of every financial joke.

Back to you and I, the audience that paid to watch the show, not knowing the joke is on us; did we buy ‘Shares’? Yes a good number of us did, simply because we liked what the papers were showing, only to learn some particular share values were ‘doctored’.

Perhaps my role as the Priest of the Proles came with the gift of prophecy; politically charged investments are extremely risky. And I was not willing to palpitate my heart with such risks, hence my resolve from Day-1 NEVER to fall into a TRANCE COP. My brilliant economist friend was so convinced Transcorp was the best thing after HIV (excuse my manners) for the mere fact that he heard the beautiful oratory of one Pseudotalakawa whose mouth is far bigger than his dreams, and He believed. Only it was not ‘counted as righteousness’. It was counted as Mr-Mugu-Dobosi-Yessir! (That’s a street terminology for The Gullible).

I had always believed a Broker’s duty is to keep you Broke, so, never let him/her do the thinking for you; it will be your loss!

By the way, I just sold off a particular stock that reeks of politics…At a loss? DO YOU REALLY THINK I AM STUPID?