This is unreal
Let me start by sounding a note of warning. What you are about to read is not real. It was neither written nor conceived. You could be dreaming, hallucinating or floating in a state of trance. So don’t go thinking you are reading anything. Perhaps your sight gives you the impression that you are holding a device that looks like a post Nokia contraption. Nah!! Your eyes are deceiving you. Please pardon me for failing under a circumstance that is similar to your present state. I have wrongly assumed that you are reading whereas it is uncertain that even you are real? Do you exist outside your mind? Please permit me to ask… are your eyes truly seeing what’s written here?
Welcome to my new world… a world shaped by the philosophy of Rene Descartes. In case you don’t know who Descartes is please tarry for a moment to allow me introduce the originator of the theory of Ideas. René Descartes was a French Mathematician, Philosopher and Natural scientist who lived between 1596 and 1650. His thinking and published works influenced scientific researches and helped in shaping algebraic geometry in Mathematics. He, it was who made the philosophical submission ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ (You want to know what that means? Common!! That’s your homework for today)
Please pause here because we are going into a realm of theories and confusing Jargons.
The underlying principle of Descartes Theory of ideas is that only the mind can deduce the existence of an object and that objects that exist outside ones mind may actually not exist whereas they appear to be. He supported his theory with examples of dreams where one could see, touch, feel and taste an object only for the object to become none existing when one wakes up. He submitted that he knows that he exists (Cogito ergo sum) because the ability of his mind to think and examine his own existence is evidence that he exists.
Please before reading any further, pause, breath in deeply and exhale slowly. Close your eyes and let your mind do it’s job… do you exist? Are you a substance in the shape of a human being? Now pinch yourself. Is it a dream? Do you still exist?
Okay! Let’s make quick progress. Descartes submitted that the substance called ‘man’, consists of two distinct parts, the mind and the body and that both are interdependent. He explained that whereas the nature of the mind, is to think, the nature of the body is to expand. In other words, while thinking is the attribute of the mind, extension (shape, length, depth) is the attribute of the body. He elaborated that the mind is designed as the place for meditation, generation of ideas, doubts, judgement and thoughts while body on the other hand was designed as a place to manifest extension either as shape, size or features.
I find this description of the relationship between mind and body quite interesting because it is analogous to the relationship between the ruling class and the ruled. Except that in Nigeria, there is no interdependence between the two. If at all any interdependence exists it seems to be misguided. Whereas the mind being the thinking part, is meant to guide the body, it would appear that in the case of Nigeria it is the body which has lost its shape and form that is guiding the mind. Why else is the Nigerian political class fixated on size rather than value?
So let’s digress from René Descartes to a place called Nigeria. Given I am yet to subject that substance called Nigeria to the mind test, I am uncertain if it exists or it’s a creation of my dream. Let us for the sake of academic exercise not bother about its existence as I share my encounter with two individuals. I flew into MM2 this afternoon. It was a pleasant and uneventful ride aboard an airbus. Disembarkation was normal so I strolled out of the arrival and headed straight to elevator that would take me to the new pick up point. As I waited for the elevator my attention was arrested by the forex rate displayed on the dash board of an fx bureau… ‘USD:buy 435, sell 437’. Out of curiosity, I approached the lady behind the counter and asked to buy USD at the rate displayed. She looked at me with a wry smile. ‘We have two rates she quipped, the quoted rate and the ‘whispered rate’. We don’t have dollars to sell at the quoted rate but we have available at the whispered rate of 575 Naira to a dollar’. She explained that the quoted rate only exists in the imagination of Godwin Emefiele and that the whispered rate is the prevailing market rate. I asked why ‘whispered rate’ she explained that it is the new sing song since CBN decided to hunt down Abokifx for daring to publish the truth. Was I shocked? Nah!! Nothing shocks me anymore. We live in an unreal era. ‘Everything na wash’.
Ten minutes into the Bolt ride that took me home, the driver started a conversation about Femi Fani Kayode and his supposed porting to the APC five years after he’d said he would only join what he described as ‘Alamajiris people’s Congress’ over his dead body. I wasn’t really in the mood for chit chat but this bolt driver was so pleasant that I had no choice but to indulge his curiosity. I had to ask if he was sure FFK is not dead? Let me cast your mind back to a a famous telephone call between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Presidential Candidate Imoru Yar Adua in 2007, when Obasanjo placed a call to Yar Adua who was in London and asked him the question… ‘Imoru, are you dead?’. Has anyone placed a call to heaven to find our if FFK is not on the queue awaiting heavenly decision on his rightful destination? Has any of those Nigerians who are worried about seeming photo illusions of FFK subjected the image to the mind test? What if what was seen at Aso rock was a ghost or the radiance of FFK’s ghost? Nigerians take things for granted jare! Mtshew!!
With that response I was left alone to enjoy the rest of my commute in peace safe for the melodious voice of Simi… ‘lie for me if you know the truth will break my heart’. Simi is so brilliant sha. I am sure she took her brilliance from the hills of Akoko. She knows the remedy for all the ailments of Nigeria. What’s the point bellyaching over little things like the free fall of the Naira, inflation, poverty or insecurity when we can comfortably sing ‘akuna matata’ to the transmutation of FFK or laugh to the DNA tales of Mr. Wazobia and his ex? Nothing is real guys. Nothing. Absolutely nothing!
17th September 2021