190 african appropriations
during the height of the war on Iraq, another director made a very similar
film with Danlasan. This time the comedian played Saddam Hussein (the
poster for the movie can be seen in figure 6.6). New director Kabeer Umar
intended to present a role model to his audience—he envisioned Saddam
Hussein as a brave fighter in a seemingly hopeless situation (personal
interview, March 2003). In Ibro Saddam, the late comedian Lawal A lhas-
san Kaura (aka Kulu), who is featured as Ibro’s sidekick in many camama
movies, plays George W. Bush, or rather “George Kulu Bush.” Ibro Saddam
intentionally reverses the attributions of friend and foe in the dominant
discourse of the West. It is not Saddam Hussein who is presented as the an-
tithesis incarnate of the civilized world but his rival George W. Bush. The
director told me that he took George W. Bush’s last name literally, trans-
lating it according to West African cosmology, in which the “bush”—the
wilderness inhabited by wild animals, spirits, and “pagan” people—is the
antithesis of the human moral universe. Correspondingly, the film opens
with a sequence in which Ibro Saddam comes across George Kulu Bush
as a lost and uncivilized pagan child in the “ bush.” Any bid to civilize
the ungrateful “bush man,” however, is doomed to failure. Despite all
attempts by Saddam at educating George Kulu Bush, the latter cannot
shake off his origins—a Nigerian variant of “the name says it all.” Sad-
dam, on the other hand, is portrayed as a just ruler and upright Muslim.
George Kulu Bush eventually travels to the United States, where he even
succeeds in assuming the presidency. As president, he turns two prison
inmates into his closest members of staff: Donald Rumsfeld, who is said
to serve a sentence for multiple murder, and Colin Powell, imprisoned for
rape. W hen the trio set about concocting war plans jointly with the United
Nations (un), it becomes apparent that access to oil is the real reason for
the offensive; arms inspections to be enforced by the un serve espionage
and war preparation purposes.^7 There is a great scene in the movie, set
in a Nigerian factory, where Hans Blix, the head of the UN Inspection
Commission, played by comedian Ciroki, is using a measuring tape and
a stethoscope in his search for weapons of mass destruction; he does not
find any. George Kulu Bush therefore travels to Iraq in person and tells
his rival: “Your sharp incisor alone is enough of a weapon to justify war,”
which wryly highlights the determination of the United States to wage
war. This movie, too, is still awaiting a sequel.