Sir: Though the sound of 2023 general elections appear to have come and gone, the decibel of its fury is definitely yet to abate. The body at the receiving end of most of these susurrations remains the Independent National Election Commission (INEC). And this is mostly for its flouting of the very guidelines it had set for the exercise.
Depending on wherever one is coming from or going to – the 2023 election has been described as either the best or worst in the electoral history of the country. This is already the subject of litigation(s) filed before the presidential election tribunal by the ‘losers’.
Then a presenter on the local FM radio station I was locked on to provided me with a flying mnemonic. The otherwise stale news – and the commentary following it – had touched no nerves. Then the invariably as-bored on-duty announcer set a song spinning. According to the emergency disc jockey, it’s titled Small Axe, and comes from Burning, the studio album recorded by The Wailers, a Jamaican reggae band, in 1973.
On end its oft-repeated chorus warned that even though these evil men are big trees, the people remain small axes, sharp and ready to cut them down. A truism attested to by no less a persona than Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the USA. In the apocryphal anecdote, he is credited with having said that given a tree to fell, he’d spend three-quarters of the allotted time sharpening the tool he’d use.
Sadly, as I got into the swing of the groove, the deep lines ceased and the song faded into another paid advert. This one sought participants to yet another vanishing youth empowerment programme. Anyway, being no youth by any ramifications, I promptly left the rank of sleepyheads and rose to face the day.
In its peculiar pitch, The Trees is a report on once upon the problem in the forest between oaks and maples. On their part, the maples thought the oaks ‘too lofty’ thereby grabbing ‘all the light’ also meant for the rest of the forest. The oaks, on their own, wondered out loud why the maples can’t accept how they are made and be happy with the shade they, the oaks, provided them gratuitously.
However, screaming ‘oppression’, the maples formed a union and demanded equal rights. “The oaks are too greedy,” they echoed, “we’ll make them give us light.” According to the song, that was how the death knell of oak oppression in the forest was sounded. Next, “a noble law” was promulgated keeping the trees equal courtesy of “hatchet, axe and saw.”
But deception has a time lag. Like Bob Marley sang elsewhere, ‘You can fool some people some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.’ Of course, there’s also always a first time. It cannot be business as usual forever.
Isidore Emeka Uzoatu wrote from Onitsha, Anambra State.
