Kicking Tongues by Karen King-Aribisala

Author:Karen King-Aribisala [King-Aribisala, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803288277
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

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Ultimately Mr. Ijesha was disappointing. He didn’t want to die. Even though it was persuasively indicated by his able assistant that, given the current political climate, dying would be the most appropriate act that he, Mr. Ijesha, could take for his political party and the Nigerian nation as a whole.

But Mr. Ijesha bluntly refused to die. It wasn’t as if the able assistant had not itemised the various death options open to him as leader of the foremost political party in the country. Mr. Ijesha could be stoned to death, for instance, said the able assistant touching his own thumb. He had ten fingers and being a pragmatist went through the various types of dying one by one; and since he had ten fingers he suggested ten death options.

No. Stoning was out. It was too unscientific; too crude. The able assistant smirked and touched another of his fingers.

‘What about being stabbed by several knives? You could be a kind of Nigerian Julius Caesar!’

Mr. Ijesha had not read the play and at this stage of his political life was not about to lose any time reading it.

‘Gunshot wounds?’

Too undignified and messy. Mr. Ijesha hated the sight of blood; especially his own; which meant that hara‐kiri also could not be considered.

Rapidly, the able assistant touched three more of his fingers.

‘I could arrange for you to drink a deadly poison, for you to have a fatal accident, or you could even be arrested, imprisoned and accidentally on purpose shoved out of the prison window like how those white apartheid people used to treat political detainees in South Africa.’

‘This is Nigeria. This is not South Africa!’ shouted Mr. Ijesha, his gestures becoming so animated that the able assistant dropped his hands forgetting just how many of his fingers he had hitherto counted.

‘Mr. Ijesha you are being unreasonable. You cannot live on the pages of Nigerian history if you do not die, preferably today. I thought we had discussed this and that you had agreed …’

‘But I’m already on the pages of history as you call it,’ sobbed Mr. Ijesha.

With the first sound of these not‐so‐heart‐rending sobs, his right‐hand man and advisor and able assistant rushed to the doors of the office and closed them with a loud and somewhat resolute bang. It wouldn’t do for Mr. Ijesha to be seen giving vent to unrestrained emotionalism, unless it was of course tutored emotionalism—such as was employed by some leaders the world over. That certain president, for example, who, it was rumoured, had a whole closet of handkerchiefs on which he had had the days of the week embroidered, together with the presidential insignia, which he used at political parades to dab his eyes as his patriotic tears fell all over his distinguished presidential face.

It is true that sometimes he would mix up the days of the handkerchief; he might accidentally use, say, a Wednesday handkerchief on a Monday or vice versa but even though a president, he was a man and his handkerchief confusion could not be frowned upon for long.

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