niS sI noitacudE

Okay, Atlas Cove was somewhere nearby, yet I do not even know the names of the Naval Officers that got killed.

Today, I find it hard to rant, I can only moan. I try to write, but the numbness of my fingers as they hit the keyboard will make the man condemned to using the cyclostyle in this age of digital printing smile in cheeky triumph.

It is very unlikely that any of the so-called Boko Haram ('Boko' is Hausa for "western education" and 'Haram' is Arabic for "forbidden") sect would be reading this, afterall, they claim Western Education is demonic and to save your soul from infernal destiny, you should not bother to read nor write. Just be stupid, plain stupid.

Does Mohammed Yusuf (okay, I forgot the Ustaz prefix) of Maiduguri deserve a character from my keyboard? A ‘Western-Educated’ (he denied it....but at least he could quote the Encyclopaedia copiously) man that had lawyers, rode in SUVs, and lived the good life, reducing some disenchanted Talakawa to Almajiris!

Honestly, where were we when Boko Haram was founded in 2004? When they set up a base dubbed "Afghanistan" in the village of Kanamma in Yobe, close to the border with Niger? Now at the time I am yet to have up to a thousand visitors on my blog, these freaking dudes as at the last count had 30,200 hits in 0.17 seconds on google!

What exactly is the problem? Why would a Mosque be reduced to a façade for a grenade manufacturing company to fight back the ‘invasion of Satanic Culture’ that has been on for over two Centuries? Did God go to sleep and now so much needs one Maiduguri pseudo-cleric to help him out? Why is this Ustaz speaking the ‘demonized’ English and fighting with ‘demonized’ grenades when he is yet to reprogram his mind that has been ‘demonized’ by Western Culture?

These were my thoughts, my frustration as I trod the altar of the Talakawa Temple feeling like a Priest that ran out of incense. That was when the walls around me began to spin, whirling me into its vortex. Then all was still, except for the sound of approaching footsteps. Then I saw him, or should I say it. The creature scribbled something on paper and thrust it in my palm, walking away so fast I had no time to contort my lips into forming any articulate word.

The paper read: niS si noitacudE. This time, I was moved to the verge of reeling a barrage of unprintable words; is this some Graeco-Latinic joke or what? The walls around me sensed my frustrations and I heard ‘read it backwards’. Soon as I did, I was transported right in the midst of a mob. Now, be careful what you wish for, because I was soon to find out that this mob is none other than the grenade-in-the-mosque-making-dagger-carrying-members of the I-am-more-popular-than-you-on-google Haram Boko sect!

Instantly I was bound, the now all-too-familiar blindfold intact and after some worrisome two hour ordeal in which all I heard were gunshots, angry noises, chants and rants, I was face-to-face in a dimly lit room with a man who introduced himself as the Ustaz himself.

Honestly, I had expected a man with horns and a forked tongue, with flames literally escaping every available vent in his anatomy each time he spoke; but I was sore disappointed.

‘You are the Alfa Talakawa, right?’ At this point, I could feel Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, standing on my shoulders, whispering ‘be very afraid’ in my ears. If this man thinks he could recruit me, he picked the wrong guy. The last time I hurt a fly, it was because I joked with its name! Okay, today, I pulled the bike of the dude that bumped my car a la Bruce Banner style, but that is my closest-to-violence record (that is on record).

He did not wait for my response; he just laughed, and laughed. ‘You really think I’d want you on my team, you, a worthless kaffir! He spat. ‘I only brought you here to tell my side of the story.’ I sighed, both out of relief and indignation. Ask me any question and that will be the pattern of our interview.

Are you freaking kidding me? I almost blurted out but managed to say instead: ‘Ustaz, What is Western Education?’

Ustaz: You must be either dumb and you managed to get a ghost-writer for all that you have written or just plain cheeky, wallahi! Soon you will tell me you don’t know Colonialism!

Undaunted by the insult, I went ahead to make my point:

Mathematics has more Arabic origins than English. For instance, ‘Algebra’ comes from Arabic word (al-jabr, literally, restoration) and Algorithm was derived from the name of the great mathematician, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi.

Medicine; which the Nigerian core north has been robbed of, thanks to the complex conspiracy between the Masu Sarauta Governors and Multinational Companies and Pseudotalakawa Health Commissioners/Ministers and hot-headed ignoramus Alfas, has origins that date far back to the Ancient Hammurabi codes of Babylon and that points in the direction of the Arab world!

Now, to the democracy that you so much oppose; were there not primal forms of democracy even in Africa long before ‘Westernization’? In Yorubaland, we had the Oyomesi who regulated governance and no king approached the throne without the vote of the King-Makers. India had its own forms of democracy too, but it was actually the Greek model that the rest of the world built upon with time.

Ustaz: There you go! I was beginning to think you had some intelligence, before you added ‘Greek’ to the whole discussion. The Greeks, the Romans, Britain and eventually America are the ones that imposed Shaitan on the rest of the world! You Kaffir are quick to condemn us of violence, you are so ignorant you forgot about the Crusades and the number of people killed!

You have a point, Ustaz (I addressed him as such because I was within the proximity of his dagger), but tell me, is Islam not growing in America today? Are people converting to Islam because they have a knife on their throats? Even Christianity had more strength when people submitted to persecution and were fed to lions than when it was declared a State Religion. So why do you think it better that Islam be made a State Religion?

Ustaz: Bloody kaffir! You call the Islam of America Islam? You call the one you see in Nigeria Islam? kai! The Islam that people still go to Colonial Schools and take Colonial Medicine, the Islam that is not strong enough to take over the Country!

Ustaz, errr, have you ever heard this quote: ‘Say: O unbelievers! I do not serve that which you serve, nor do you serve Him Whom I serve: Nor am I going to serve that which you serve, Nor are you going to serve Him Whom I serve: You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion.

At this point, I was rewarded with a slap. I saw all the constellations at once and I was tempted to turn the other cheek (I mean the cheek of the other man) but discretion warned against it.

Ustaz: You dare to quote the Quran! If you really want this interview published with your blasphemous lips intact, you had better stick to the realm of our discussion!

Okay, sorry Ustaz, I said gingerly. ‘I like your wristwatch’

Ustaz: Thank you, I got it as a gift from Britain

Okay, I once saw you on BBC, and you spoke good English too.

Ustaz: What exactly is your point?

Ustaz, you are the wise one here, you drive SUVs, and you live in a Western Architectural Masterpiece, am I missing something?

Ustaz: I am in a good mood today and I will answer you. For me, it is almost too late, but I am raising a new generation from the scratch, hoping to redeem my own soul in the process. By the time we are done, Sharia will be entrenched in the Society and by then, I hope you would have been converted; I would hate to be the one to kill you.

Ustaz, who is your financier? Where did you get the money from? Why were you granted bail by the Abuja High Court earlier?

The Ustaz was livid at this point, he charged towards me with a dagger, that was when I opened my eyes and discovered I was sitting on my desk in the office. Ouch! I must have blacked out again, not again!

But really, I would have loved to ask the Ustaz why he was killed in police custody and his alleged financier, Alhaji Buji Foi summarily executed barely 24 hours after…is someone trying to hide something? MAMBM! (Me And My Big Mouth)