The abduction of perfumed first class emir

Not many of us ordinary people have full knowledge of the fate of power. Fate in the sense of what happens to its holders.


Those in the know insist that power is transient. But those who hold it behave as if it is eternal once they are on the throne or in government house. Unless things changed without my knowledge, someone who once called the shots in a government house is now under the command of a ‘Prison Warder’. ( I know we now do not have prisons, only correctional centres. Then why should one want to escape from a correctional centre?)


Scent in the bush describes the current situation where it was reported that a first class emir has been abducted (arrested by a superior power, lord bandit?) along Kaduna – Abuja highway.
When Muhammad Bn Salman was consolidating his power over Saudi Arabia, he arrested fellow princes. But because he has ‘legitimate’ power, he housed them in Hilton International. He did not take them to Arabian desert.
The bandit on the other hand knows that Nigerian governments have relative authority over some sections of cities, but zero authority over forests. That’s why up to 5000+ terrorists would troop out of the forests seeking amnesty from Zulum. How many remain?


An emir up North is a highly pampered species. He has to be perfumed with the best perfume the earth has to offer. And certainly he would not be transported in a VW Beetle. (In order to prove the transience of power, the soldiers who staged a coup against Haile Selassie took him to prison in a VW beetle car. When he hesitated and pointed to the ‘despicable’ vehicle, a lowly soldier pushed him into it.)
Our prayers are for the release of the emir and other hapless travellers who were also abducted.


One wonders how the emir would continue to perfume himself while in the bush. Would he hold court under a tree or would he turn to be a courtier in a bandit’s ‘palace’?


Gradually, government is losing legitimacy. Of course, Nigerian governments do not hold the citizens who elected them in high esteem.
How many have been killed by bandits since Buhari came to power? How many villages sacked? Cattle rustled, livelihood wasted?
It matters not. As long as they would move in convoys, be the sole power to receive and spend citizens’ wealth as they wish…. And INEC is there to conduct the 4-yearly farce, then an occasional emir deprived of perfumes and delicacies in the bush is tolerable.
We read from the media that government would rejig the security architecture. Yet, abductions take place on the road to the nation’s capital. No shame felt by anybody.


Just like the oil pipeline protection contract, it might come to be that high highways be assigned to bandits for them to protect.
With technology, you can have entire highways of Nigeria under 24-hour surveillance. You can also detect the movement of squirrel in any forest, talk less of thousands of human bandits who have to go out to procure sexual enhancers. But the will to protect us is not there.
Nigerian politicians! Why do you hate us this much even though we do not contest your exclusive rights to plunder the treasuries?
Abdullahi Musa
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