‘Gwo gwo gwo ngwo’ The people as fools, victims? (I)

By Uduma Kalu

IN another sense, we can see the song Gwo gwo gwo ngwo by Gentleman Mike Ejeagha, currently made popular by comic star Brainjotter (Chukwuebuka Emmanuel Amuzie), as the limits of deception and the beginning of revolution. In this sense, we see the elephant as the fool deceived by the tortoise and is led to the slaughter.

The elephant in the political setting represents the people.

In Igbo, the community is represented by the people whose strength is likened to that of the elephant. The size of the elephant and its strength are metaphor and symbol for a big nation. You have places like Aba called Enyi Mba, big town, land of might, great people. So too in Ivory Coast.

In Igbo cosmology also, the giant or outsize is seen as big for nothing, that is, brainless. The elephant is therefore seen as a fool but it wants to lead. That is the mockery in the song, enyi na-aga, anyi do gi na azu! ‘Elephant, march on, we are behind you’!

Also in ancient Greece, the people, like the elephant, were also referred to as gullible and foolish. Socrates, in one of his speeches, said he hated democracy, saying it is a government of the foolish, mobs, ignorant people. How would you entrust power to the mob? It will end in anarchy.

It’s no wonder that close to democracy in order of forms of government, tyranny comes next. In the play, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, the gullibility and flexibility of the masses are depicted.

But this is after the killing of Juliua Caesar. Brutus, after giving the first stab that led to the brutal killing of the general, told the crowd gathered at the podium of the Capitol seat of the Roman Senate that he killed his best friend because he Caesar was angling to declare himself emperor by sacking the Republic, symbolised by the Senate. Caesar had accused the Roman Senate of being corrupt, that he was not comfortable with it any more. Brutus said he loved Caesar but that he loved Rome more, and that he killed his best friend to save Rome.

Brutus caught the image of a patriot to the crowd. And it cheered him. But Ben Jondon has also warned in an essay that patriotism is the hideout for scoundrels. Brutus was actually a scoundrel hiding behind patriotism to put himself in power. Imbued by this euphoria of having won over the crowd, Brutus let Mark Anthony, adopted son of Caesar, to address the same crowd.

Anthony, an orator, began by seemingly aligning with Brutus and his co-conspirators. He said he only came there to bury Caesar, not to praise him; after all his alleged ambition led to his death. The crowd was okay with it. Then came the twist.

President Bola Tinubu

“The good are oft buried with their bones,” he said, but becoming emotional, he reminded the crowd of the good things Caesar did for them. If Caesar was ambitious, why did he refuse the crown to be emperor thrice? Yet, he was accused of being ambitious, Mark Anthony went on. Anthony therefore used this opportunity to puncture Brutus’ speech and win over the crowd.

The crowd is like the moon and tide. It moves with the season. The crowd then went on rampage, rioting, hounding and killing the conspirators like a mob.

To show its foolishness and blindness, the mob could not even discern any difference. It is like wild fire. Once ignited like Anthony did to them, it goes crazy, becomes dangerous. It is a tool in the hands of powerful leaders and politicians that manipulate them.

The manipulators can also be pastors, imams or other religious leaders. They can be orators who know how to swing the crowd. They are gifted with the power of words like journalists or writers, leaders and politicians.

The crowd could not differentiate between the two Cinnas. One Cinna was a poet, not a conspirator. The other was the real killer. The crowd nearly killed the poet until it was told he was a poet. Still, the crowd said he must die because of his bad verses. The crowd is blood-thirsty once incensed.

That is the relationship between the elephant and the crowd, the people, in the viral song, Gwogwongwo.

In Nigeria, to show the stupidity of the people, the mass voters in 2015. This is in spite of every warning on Buhari, a man who had passed his active years, whose cognitive ability was questionable; he had no WAEC, but the mob of voters said even if Buhari had NEPA bill, it would vote him. The courts supported him. Bubari won.

What did the Buhari government do? It destroyed the economy and made a mess of the country that will take over a hundred years to correct, if possible. The crowd, like the elephant, chased after him in 2020 after it dawned on it that it had been deceived, as in the song where elephant chases the tortoise in anger when it discovered it had been deceived.

To show that the elephant is a fool is in its excitement to be Chairman of the King’s Ofala, the king had asked that anyone that would get him elephant for the event would marry his beautiful daughter. All suitors failed, including tortoise. But tortoise restrategized and returned to the king that he would get him an elephant. He went and told elephant a tall tale that the king asked him to be the Chairman of his Ofala Festival. Elephant was excited and did not question the lack of due process in the invitation and its aftermath.. incidents in the journey.

In Igbo land, such invitation is sent with a delegation bearing drinks. His role as chairman would be spelt out. There would be back and front visits to smoothen the whole discussion and programme. Elephant fails in all these. Again, he lives in the animal kingdom but does not know the king’s request for an elephant. He is either out of town or not among his colleagues. He could have gone for the princess, too. But he was probably not aware. This shows him aloof and insular or just a snob. Or he allowed his excitement to erase any trace of discernibility in him.

Even on the road to the ofala, tortoise’s exchanges with the king, that he had brought elephant to him should have let elephant into the trick. But he was again fooled by tortoise. The signs on the road, along with the verbal exchanges between the king and tortoise not mean anything to him till it was late. That was only when he protested and began to chase tortoise. But he was overpowered and used by the king, as sacrifice for his Ofala Festival . Tortoise had his spoil of war- the princess’s hand in marriage – the same way politicians, etc use the people to get their spoils of war. The people are just a ride to the spoils of war, of political power lust!

So, yes, the elephant, representing the people, is foolish and gullible, easily swayed and used by the manipulating politicians. It will not ask for due process. It will not question promises and programmes for their applicability or practicality. It will not be questioned. It disdains public debates. It overlooks warnings. It embraces, like elephant embraced the tortoise’s promise of chairmanship of the King’s Ofala Festival, the killer politicians, and is sacrificed at the end. Only when it is late that the crowd/mob/voter begins to protest.

Now, why is the crowd blind? In Nigeria, the story of Buhari and Tinubu sounds like gwogwongwo. The elephant is the people being easily deceived by the politicians, and are willing to be deceived because of ethnic and religious bigotry. The right candidates are rigged out or rejected. When the scales fall off its eyes due to bad governance, the crowd protests. 2020 and 2024 come to mind.

More riots will come. But like 2020, it is doubtful anything tangible will be achieved. The same way elephant lost in its protestations. It was late. But there is also hope the protest will succeed if we see the elephant as the foolish, greedy dictator and the protests are led by the patriots to stop bad governance in the land.

In the end, only a learned and discernible crowd or people can really elect quality leaders. It is only when the altruistic, the educated and enlightened become part of the change mantra that change is possible.

Yes, the social media has become a tool in the hands of the masses. But how discernible are the users? It is one thing to own a social media, it is another thing to understand it.

The tortoises of this world, ebulu, symbol of Igbo wisdom, must be used to dethrone the evil rulers in the land.

So, protest. But for me, it will only succeed when the discernible are its leaders, and with a clear vision of what to do. Or, like 2020’s it will fizzle out again without anything to show for it. Like in the gwo gwo gwọ ngwo song!

* Kalu, journalist, writer and culture critic, wrote in from Aba