Cubanisation, Cubanaism, the goat and the claypot - Ik Muo, PhD

This is one of the ocassions when the title did not come easy. I had considered 3 other titles and decided on: Cubanisation, Cubanisim, Cubanamania, Cubanaities and matters related thereto. (You see, I am not a lawyer but I have been surrounded by so many lawyers that I have become an ‘honorary lawyer’. This is for those who always look for my trouble.)  However, early in the morning of  24/7/21, the Spirit reminded me of a song which  gave rise to above title. I am not a beerparlour patron. This is not becauuse I am a saint but because I don’t drink beer stout et al and without these, you will always be a stranger in these joints. However, in my younger days, I used to ocassionally visit the beerparlour  for ‘uka-mgbede’ (benediction)with my friends. And while they were quaffing countless units of  bottled poison, I would deal with chilled Cocacola, my best drink of all times. Unfortunately,  I had to abandon it on the advice of these Medics who would always tell you to ‘run’ from what you like most. And while that was going on, as men were overrun by the beerparlour spirit,  the atmosphere would become charged and we would start singing with a mixture of sonorous and cracked  voices supported with  uncordinated ‘noise’ from the bottles, which had been converted into gongs with the help of spoons knives and whatever. One of themost popular songs then was eghu bute ite nya tiwaa… otego ite ji mebe isi eghu ihe! This simply means: The goat that  gets hold of the claypot should break it without compunction  because  since ages, the pot had dealt mercilessily and  ruthlessly  with   goat-heads.   And you can be sure that plates of goat-head had just been served! Funny enough, from some videos and images flying all over the place, the goats have even gone beyond claypots to attack aluminium pots, including those ones on the fire where probaby goatheads are being boiled.  Thus, the title was changed again.

The goats attacking a boiling pot!

It suddenly occurred to me that Cubana et al were  dealing mercilessly with money because it has dealt with them and their ilk so treacherously in the past. They were in effect humiliating money and saying to it: ‘you are nothing’ as they indulged in reverse-humiliation of money, for having humiluated them  wickedly in their earlier days and still humuliating some of their kins today.  And then, the same Spirit reminded me  of my ocassional practice when I was a bank manager in Kaduna, those good old days when bank-managers still had time to go for lunch-breaks and the closing time depended on whenever the cash ‘ballanced’. I would place a bundle of dirty Naira notes on the floor and turn it into an emergency football, kicking it around and advising my staff to treat the cash as nothing but an  ordinary stock or else they would not survive the resulting temptations. As these thoughts were ‘running around my head’ and in the process of interrogating the science and art  of Cubanisation, I remembered that one DOT-fellow had described the whole show at Oba as a ‘pass-over feast’. That was Ifeanyi Cletus  who argued that  ‘The lavishness and bastardisation of cash( an aspect of Cubanisation) has historical and spiritual connotation. After the worst economic strangulation and annihilation meted out on their parents in 1970(the obnoxious £20 policy), the children rose out of the ashes of that degradation and so, just as the Jews celebrate the feast of Passover every year to commemorate their emancipation from servitude, Nd’Igbo seize every opportunity to celebrate the £20  economic Passover by lavishing hard and soft currencies to commemorate economic survival’. No be me talk this one

When on 15/7/21, I started reading of the eye-popping events at Oba, I believed that the Oba-Man was just looking for what to do with money and my first reaction was to send my shopping list. I simply asked those who knew him to inform him that my car needed replacement ASAP, that my Church needed money to complete its building project and that the road to my abode could do with some ‘refurbishing’. I wanted to leave it at that but I noticed that I could not and thus, I gave some time to the coordinated ‘madness’ that engulfed Oba and indeed, the social media world for a few days. I confess that as at last month, (July 2021), I did not actually know what or who Cubana was. I have heard about the High Priest and I believed that Cubana was a shrine for high profile fellas. Even now, with a benefit of hindsight, the shrine analogy still holds because from what I have seen, heard and read, the Cubana hangouts are exclusive shrines, where those with deep pockets ( both saints and sinners)worship. How can somebody drag 46 cows, ‘live’ to a funeral? How can somebody throw bundles of hard-to-find fresh notes at people (the beginning of the end for our good old spraying)? How can some people showcase upfront, the raw cash they would donate or throw as the case might be? And how did this soft-speaking and sense-full young man attract such assortment of guests including DCP Kyari Indaboski Odumeje DBanj and Davido?

Cubana+ DCP Kyari

 How come that the UGM went on leave during that period? How can someone pay N500,000  or even more  for a bottle of wine sold for less than N5000  about 100 meters away just because he has been consumed by the spirit of Cubanaism?  One Emma Awazie experienced first-hand how well-dressed men were bribing bouncers so as to gain access into Cubana Club Owerri to spend their own money as well as the shock he and his  friends experienced  when they received their bill at the club ‘The bill sat on our table like an orphan for 1 hour. Nobody said a word. The music was like noise to my ears and the AC was blowing heat to my forehead. I kept asking myself ‘wetin carry me enter Cubana…VIP section for that matter...please just enter any Cubana club in your city and buy only 50cl of water;  just water.(Online, 18/7/21) . That is what I call  ‘The Lobito effect’.  Lobito was a first-class boutique at Enugu in the Early 80s and you did not belong if you had not shopped at Lobito. People would even borrow a Lobito shopping bag and stuff it with ‘bend-down’ things, just to create the impression that they belonged!

And funny enough, 3 days after the debut of Cubanisation, the contradiction of the Nigerian society became manifest when somebody in one of our platforms died and there was need to raise money for a ‘befitting funeral’. The first 10 donors raised N13,000 ( the highest was N2000!), an amount not enough to buy the ropes with which the High Priest tethered his 36 cows. That is our reality!

Back to business, I wish to start with an operational definition of terms. Cubanisation and Cubanising is the art of being Cubanaistic: spending money as if it were going out of fashion, good networking, doing good, wild and cash-guzzling partying, revelry and riotous mix of this and that, ‘opendential’ reportage of everything (cost of casket( N30m), pendant,( N50m) cows and cash donated, crates of money to be stoned, and people scrambling for roasted stand-up cow) . Cubanaism is the philosophy, principles, theory and practice of Cubanisation.  When you have got used to these terms, others shall be added onto you.

 Now that we are through with the  background to the study, including operational definition of terms, I wish to touch briefly on the  jocular aspects of the whole show. Comedic things appeal to me because in the good old days, I was a small-time humour merchant, being a pro-bono MC here and there. So, with the eyes of a retired comedian, I first saw the Oba carnival and its aftermath from a different perspective.  Some people mimicked the Catholic Church by constructing a prayer to St Mama Cubana or Mama-Cubana di Aso(Holy Mama Cubana), asking her to ‘pray for us’ or to ask his son to send us some cash!  I now understand what my  classmate and friend, Prof Nwokoma meant when he titled his Inaugural Lecture as Money Answereth All Things( Eccl,10:19).  You see, because of money, this woman was Canonised within 24 hours! Some said that PMB  had brainstormed with  PYO  (That is the VP) and that the government, which borrows recklessly should go to borrow from Cubana and  the funniest part of it was that the Great Lai responded to it,’ swearing’  that the FG never thought of borrowing from the Oba-man. 

Should we borrow from the Oba-Man?

While China, after seeing the absurd opulence at Oba, beleived that Nigeria was just pretending to be poor and gave PMB 3 weeks to liquidate all its indebtedness.  Victor Osuagwu reported that his dead mother has be appearing to him in dreams insisting on a repeat-funeral while one miserable fellow suddenly remembered that he was from Oba because his mother appeared to him in a dream to inform him that her husband was not his father; that his real father was an ‘away-match’ man from Oba. There was this man who cursed his son for asking him if he would bury his mother like Cubana, reminding him that he is from Ugwuoba, not from Oba. Some one even showed PMB watching the Oba show on Dot TV! And before long, posters emerged of Cubana for Presidenty of a country ( United Towns of Anambra State)where the currency is, you guessed right, Cubana.

Some people have given Mama-Cubana the Ghost of the year award and the ceremony its self, funeral of the year award. And of course, at Oba, the practice of stoning people with wraps and bundles of fresh notes debutted. This is the first time people were being stoned and they were enjoying it! Sombody even boasted that if not for those indebted to him, Cubana no fit  measure up to im level! You see, in todays Naigeria, with debts everywhere, killings everywhere, ransoms everwhere and rioutous inflation, it is good to  take things in a lighter mood. We shall discuss some serious maters arising, (still in a laffious manner), next week, 

- Ik Muo, PhD. Dept of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026625

Like| Comment| Share