The “drama of existence”: sources and scope : Is that my fault? They do business with me all the time, they and their
tiroro children. If the leaf sticks too long to the soap, it will soon start to
froth on its own.
: Well, the next time one of them comes here, ask him what
happened to Diallo Telli. Yes, let your acada friends tell you what happened
to the first-ever Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity.
: What happened to him?
: Tortured to death by Sekou Toure’s goons. And Sekou
Toure was not Army. Or Navy. Or Air Force. He was a civilian.
: All right, all right, I don’t know why we dey argue self.
:(flaring up) We are arguing because I am tired of hav-
ing everything blamed on us military people. Between Sekou Toure
and General Zia or Pinochet or Arap Moi and Houphouet Boigny and
other one-party African and Asian dictators, tell me, just what is the
difference?
(–)
The catch in the veracity of the Wing Commander’s rationalizations of
the institutionalization of systematic misrule in many parts of the devel-
oping world lies in the fact that his apologia is made in the context of a
dramatic action in which he – and the radically unrepentant militariza-
tion of power which he represents – is being gradually and inexorably
ensnared. He is being ensnared in a diabolic plot which will not only
destroy him as a sacrificial victim of the very cult of power which he em-
bodies, but will also expose the “truth” of his assertions as both illusory,
ethically and spiritually untenable. For this, Soyinka deploys the motifs
and the associated cultic traditions of Esu, the Yoruba trickster god of
mischief and contingency. The following dialogue between Sebe, as Esu’s
agent and the “hunter” in the diabolic plot, and the Wing Commander,
as his unwitting “quarry,” constitutes thecoup de gracein the rout of the
inflated self-possession of militarist absolutism:
: You know something else?
: What is that, dear partner?
: We will make it retroactive.
: You will make what retroactive?
: The campaign of course. The LAW, the Decree, the
penalties. It will show we mean business. And anyway, that’s our style.
That’s how people recognize who’s in charge. That’s the difference between
you and us. Civilians can only operate in linear time. We will go backwards
and forwards at will.
: And in circles. Brilliant! Don’t we know it? Your patron god is
Esu. (Confidentially) And let me tell you, we must not neglect the little
fellow.