 marneejill [CC BY-SA 2.0] via Flickr
Today: Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, Nigerian linguist, writer, translator, founder of Olongo Africa, and writer and producer of the documentary, Ebrohimie Road.
Issue No. 202T-Pain is Coming
Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún
T-Pain Is ComingNigerian symbolism follows me. In 2017 when I first wrote about maga, a term in Nigerian English/Pidgin connected with email scam culture, I was struck by the implications it had for blind followership and mass delusion, but I didn’t expect it to blow up as it did. The term “maga means fool” caught fire for some reason and flew around the world, and eventually I was quoted even on Snopes, who rated the claim as “Mostly True.” My weekly Medium analytics still throws up that 2017 piece as a perennial readers’ favourite, to this day. And the rise of Trump continues to mirror some of the most risible aspects of Nigerian popular and political culture.  “Maga” was obviously similar in tone and value, relevant, and easy to explain. So too is felony: Nigeria’s current president, Bọ́lá Ahmed Tinubú, like Trump, was elected despite documented evidence of his criminality. There is a sealed felony charge against him from when he lived in Chicago in the early ’90s. He settled U.S. drug dealing and money laundering charges against him for several hundred thousand dollars, and then he sold his presidential candidacy to Nigerians as one for hope and a fight for the masses. Through electoral shenanigans, a feeble opposition, and a bitterly divided country, Tinubú eked out a narrow win and now sits in Abuja. A year later, economic situations in the country have worsened, cronyism thrives, and the electorate—even those who voted for him—have woken up to the reality of their situation. Earlier this year the people found him an appropriate nickname, using the initial of his surname and the prevailing condition of the country: T-Pain. No, not the American musician. So apt is this moniker, and so widespread, that someone in the Nigerian government communications office issued a demand that the public stop using it. (One X/Twitter wag agreed: “Why calling him T-pain when it’s not just one pain. What happened to T-pains”)  U.S. musician T-Pain in 2011 (Image: Will Folsom [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons) T-Pain, the musician, appears to be unaware of the reason for Nigeria’s sudden interest in him. Perhaps the association has led to more streaming of his music in Nigeria. By and large, though, people around the world seeing “T-Pain” in the list of trending topics may not always understand that it is nothing to do with entertainment at all, but is instead a real call of despair. Anyway, I’m back to the USA, where a new T-Pain will take office in a few weeks. Same as the old T-Pain. Another felon. Another dubious politician with a loyalty fetish, a man for whom the law is something to use to one’s personal financial advantage; a leader who bristles at the slightest perception of disrespect; whose family members receive government power, influence, and corrupt money; whose reputation rests on the myth of being a tough, uncompromising bull in a china shop. Every false hope in him will be shattered, sooner or later. Like every authoritarian. It shouldn’t be that my country’s worst incarnations follow me around everywhere I go. But both “maga” and “T-Pain” have done so, along with a lingering dread for what’s to come. The shadows draw it in dust
On the browning face of dawn;
The fall season of coming rust.
The news bears it in like a load
As missives for what we know
To be secrets the darkenings bode.
And here in the silence of night
The queries return about the paths
That lead from here to the plight
That must cleanse the land
Of its whirling rage; the chips
That weigh it through sinking sand.
Traveller, I cannot yet tell where
Is best to be: in the gut of the raging
Beast, or near its fangs laid bare.
HOLLYWOOD SCREENING OF EBROHIMIE ROADIn L.A. this weekend?? Meet Kọ́lá and see a screening of his moving documentary on Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, Ebrohimie Road, a screening in this year’s Africa USA International Film Festival. Sunday, November 17, at 6:30 p.m. at The Aster, 1717 Vine Street. Tickets here!
A HYDRA HEARS THE CUREWhat a celestial review of the new Cure record from Julianne Escobedo Shepherd at the new and wonderful Hearing Things. Though the idea of Robert Smith and his smeared lipstick being 65 whole ass years old is a daunting one (for some), this song is lovely.
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