By Ekanpou Enewaridideke
The time uncanny and the place mysterious Otuaro was recently caught dancing prolongedly for a woman. Some term the prolonged dance a skillfully choreographed ballet, tango and waltz of the end time when the tide still flows with vigour. For Otuaro to be caught dancing it naturally becomes a canal for the spontaneous flow and overflow of applause but dramatically turns a canal for the conveyance and flight of verbal contraband directed at him with deadly accuracy when the dancing is found to be at variance with reasons of governance, cultural obsession, cultural extravaganza, purposive theatricalization to purchase the mind for political reasons, religious devotion, occasional spiritual ecstasy precipitated by divine visitation, and filiation by marriage with the woman for whose valued entertainment the dance is choreographically staged.
In one memorable moment of story-telling sessions in my village always recalled and revisited nostalgically, Timiebi Maika philosophises that when a mind journeys successfully into progressive decomposition, it often hallucinates in ululations and monopolises the secular space backgrounded and supported by a derogatory language deployed in the description of an epic dance staged appreciatingly for a caring woman. For such a mind it is perpetually held captive and becomes the home of descriptive derogatory monsters. Could this be the parallel of the terrifyingly worrisome journey today? Or could this be insanity from an incurable neurotic literary mind for whom a journey of this kind becomes a potent medication for fitful relief or respite?
Otuaro is His Excellency Kingsley Burutu Otuaro, the deputy governor of Delta State, a revered Deacon in Christ Embassy, the passionate lover of any form of writings leavened or laced with marks of impersonality and deep thoughts at the point of production for consumption, particularly the genre Messrs Amafini Akemotubo and Custom Bulou intriguingly term poetry.
Pigeonholed over the years by keen observers as self-effacing, humble, loyal, meek, cultured, composed, resourceful, diligent, wordless in ideation and pragmatic in translation of ideas innovated, the world caught gastroenteritis and cold and felt nauseated, assaulted, stung and embarrassed by the discovery of how Otuaro was caught dancing for a woman – a man always distinguished by his thoughts of evangelism, ecumenism and prayerful orientations. Is Otuaro who is always viewed evangelically and ecumenically as a ruminant capable of this so-called prolonged dance with a woman not bonded to him by marriage? This Otuaro for whom many have volunteered political engineering, political cartography and political canalization without the luxury of formal invitation and professional engagement?
The magnetizing mystery about a deputy governor which produces pleasing vibratory aroma/aura and endears him to the people evanesces when he is caught dancing questionably for a woman without being aware he has been caught – particularly a beautiful woman different from his own dear wife who enjoys unquestionable proprietorship of a doctorate in Engineering.
To be caught dancing jubilantly for a woman, not backgrounded by thoughts of governance, evangelism and ecumenism, the ideals paraded by Otuaro over which people salivate to emulate now wear a disgusting sleeveless garment. This is a self-contradictory dance that beclouds and befogs the radiant dignity once radiated everywhere by Otuaro. Would Governor Okowa swallow these contradictory radiations from Otuaro at a time many have already pledged to work for him pro bono in political engineering and political canalization for the creation of a clear distance not endangered by the silence of a telescope? Is Okerenkoko aware of Otuaro’s dance for a woman at a questionable time and place?
Dancing could be the handmaiden of theatricalization because the life of a man begins with dance and ends with dance – as birth and death differently provoke dance seasonally at their different entry and terminal points. A mother perpetually builds into the child rhythms of dance during occasional lullabied sessions right from birth. Was it this congenital exposure Otuaro was trying to theatricalise as a deputy governor when he was unfortunately caught dancing for a woman? Is Christ Embassy aware of this aberrational dance, the likelihood of which is that of a journey into debauchery insulated from prying eyes?
Could have Otuaro, a consummate connoisseur of literary wine, a great footballer whose soccer genius is still being told nostalgically in Okerenkoko town, ventured into a questionable dance for a woman at a time his blazing evangelical and ecumenical thoughts, activism and advocacy for peace in the Niger Delta have assumed brobdingnagian proportions no Lilliputian can ignore, even in pretended claims of non-knowledge of? Who on earth will forgive this epic fall of a deputy governor gripped inescapably by an overdose of matriarchal drugs administered in wrong routes when they should have taken intravenous routes unseen by wild storytellers and chronic gossips?
When a man errs, the next turn one intuitively turns to is that of apologetic labour for forgiveness but for a man who is meek, honest, loyal, focused, visionary, clear-headed, human, philanthropic and pragmatic, weaned quite early on the diet of Religious Discourse, Educational Discourse, Morality Discourse, Emancipation Discourse, Cultural Discourse, Development Discourse, Tourism Discourse and Peaceful Co-Existence Discourse, there is no justification whatsoever for Otuaro to careen or slide into a questionable dance for a woman and have his passport or identity card of prevarication stamped because he is very much at home with the implications of his action. Only the ignorant merits pardon, rehabilitation and reintegration into society, not Otuaro whose action signals deliberate inversion, prevarication and murder of valued ideals hitherto held with an air of sanctity. It is a case of murder, not a case of manslaughter.
It was just yesterday I was told a great story while I was on my way to Akparemogbene to see my septuagenarian mother who is already on the voyage to the club of octogenarians. This story strikes me as a very important one because its moral pronounces Otuaro guilty on the one-count charge of being caught dancing for a woman.
Penapena is the great daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Omula Adenike of Oporoza in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State in the country called Nigeria. This great daughter was nursed and nurtured in Tebijor village into a formidable fisherwoman and trader. Raised painstakingly as a monotheist whose beauty carries a magnetic pull many men considered irresistible at that time, Penapena married Napoleon Otuaro and produced three children – Barrister Kingsley Burutu, Mr. Bullet-proof and Barrister Jerry.
It is striking to know that Penapena who did not have a formal education except only as a hardworking fisherwoman and trader under her parental roof, turned stirringly SOCRATIC soon after she had given birth to her three children. She built up a reputation as a dispenser/giver of discourses of different types to her children – discourses already enumerated above, to which Otuaro was exposed from birth. The discourses were built and orally transmitted to nurture her children into responsible men in the society. Even at this moment the discourses from Mrs. Penapena Napoleon Otuaro are still in their progressive journey. Interestingly, Engr. Dr. (Mrs.) Ebierin Otuaro, the wife of His Excellency Kingsley Burutu Otuaro, was inspired by Mrs. Penapena’s Educational Discourse to attain a doctorate in Engineering.
Whatever the children of Penapena have become in the society, it is a product of, and a reflection of, the utility and the positive valence of her oral discourses on different aspects of society. Her discourses are the navigator for the progression of Barrister Otuaro, his siblings and his dear wife Dr. Ebierin Otuaro in this world of paradoxes. Some people have always wondered how she has been able to inject such amazing profundities into her multi-faceted discourses without a formal education. The profundities in her oral discourses make people see the Socrates in her.
A motherly mother she is (Mrs. Penapena Napoleon Otuaro), she always weeps EBIZIMORTICALLY whenever her children weep and whenever her children smile, she casts a look at their faces and smiles too. To Mrs. Penapena Otuaro, life becomes becalmed and deoxygenated without education. She is an enthusiast, an implacable advocate of education in every sphere of life.
This SOCRATIC octogenarian mother called Penapena whose letter of application for admission into the glorious club of nonagenarians has been already written, is the one who gave birth to His Excellency Kingsley Burutu Otuaro, the Deputy Governor of Delta State. As a fisherwoman and trader, her determination is to dish out constant discourses on life and place her children on a progressive trajectory. For this Socratic mother who experienced early departure of her husband, she was determined to give the best to her children. For a Socratic mother who did not have formal education, she was ready to plug all the holes in her children through a continuum of her great discourse series orally given everyday. For a Socratic mother married at 19, she was ready to teach her children everything she missed in her days.
Penapena is not a story teller like Timiebi Maika of Akparemogbene, yet her discourses are weighted in profound knowledge nourishing enough to direct her children on the right path. Her Socratic discourses nourishingly fill the gap of not being a storyteller like Timiebi Maika though her discourses loudly carry the moral echoes of stories told anywhere in the world.
The Socratic Penapena the EXCELLENCYSHIP of whose son has not given her airs of privileged existence and superiority complex in her gradual severance of ties with the club of octogenarians in preference for progression towards the world of nonagenarians now that she is 82 in her voyage on earth, she had her birth day recently celebrated at Mosheshe Estate in Warri where Barrister Soja Smooth musically told her story on stage and kept her captivated in celebration of life on earth with her family of SOCRATISED children, grand children, daughters-in-law and well-wishers. Can anything be more memorable than celebrating a Socratic mother at 82?
In a contextual journey of attempted descriptive exactitude built around Penapena and the Otuaros, Penapena becomes Socrates, Kingsley Burutu the Aristotle, Dr Ebierin, Bullet-proof,Jerry and Penapena’s grandchildren the Plato of our time.With this philosophical contextualization Kingsley Burutu, Dr Ebierin, Bullet-proof, Jerry and Penapena’s grandchildren have become the dispersal units of Penapena’s discourses just as it happened to Socrates, Aristotle and Plato when they laboured philosophically and had the results of their labour dispersed across the world through their products and the consumers of their products. Where that village boy celebrates his storyteller mother, His Excellency Otuaro celebrates his Socratic mother, Penapena, whose philosophically built Socratic architecture would not yield to any seductive dance of collapse because the foundation is strong and the discourse-dispersal units numerous…
It was this Socratic woman called Mrs. Penapena Napoleon Otuaro for whom His Excellency Otuaro danced when she celebrated her 82-old voyage on earth. Otuaro’s dance for the Socratic woman Penapena demonstrates appreciative strokes for a woman whose discourses have shaped his life in many ways. It would be a sacrilege for Otuaro to deny his mother a dance on her special day. Therefore, His Excellency Otuaro is hereby discharged and acquitted of the one-count charge of being caught dancing with Mrs. Penapena Napoleon Otuaro, his golden Socratic mother of many appealing colours much better in effulgence than that coat of many colours.
Happy birthday to the Socratic mother of His Excellency Burutu Kingsley Otuaro!
Ekanpou Enewaridideke, Writes from Akparemogbene.
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