Somalia as at now is known as a stateless country. Nigerian soldiers are there as UN contingent trying to restore peace.To Professor Wole Soyinka, what is happening in Somalia is seemingly what Nigeria is witnessing with its security macabre dance. To him, the masquerade, that is, the Nigerian State, is about yielding its rope to anarchists. In effect some positive forces must hold the rope of the masquerade to avert the rope lapsing into the hand of negative forces or even allowing it let loose completely to a stateless condition. At that point the masquerade would be rehashing Fela's song to the rope bearer ' the managers, the leaders ' who are you ree'Soyinka was the lead paper presenter at the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM) Chartered Conference held in Abuja on the 26th of September 2011. It is true that it is not always easy to understand the Prof when he applies metaphors. Notwithstanding, I was highly convinced that he was truly addressing managers. The masquerade and who holds the rope ' its manager ' seems to be the real theme of his message though presented as 'Governance in the 21st century Nigeria'. To Kanu Agabi, the President is the masquerade with the constitution as the rope. Though Agabi goofed when he said that Obasanjo was as humble as Jonathan. The hiss from the crowd forced him to swallow his statement. Somehow, the executive power completely vested in the President as against the parliamentary constitution system, makes him a loose masquerade. Sometime, it is easy to believe that the real masquerade is the entire people of Nigeria with their great potentials to reach great height if a good manager holds the rope that controls their movement. Soyinka made cursory remarks that meant a lot for me. He said that a masquerade is not a puppet ' an inanimate object.There, I got a bit confused but agreed that the manager ' Executive President or Governor ' could decide to be a puppet, manipulated by others and, in turn, goes on to manipulate the entire populace. In effect, it becomes a situation of the tail wagging the head or, again, it turns to the Igbo adage that says 'the madman says he knows what he is doing but he does not know the forces pushing him to behave that way'. The Ghanaian will say 'between the horse and the horse rider, who exactly had gone mad, the horse or the rider'It brings to fore the pronouncement of the President that he can't be a Lion or the ruler of Syria. That is agreeable. However, to avoid the 'Somalian Nigeria', it is necessary to understand whether the President or the Governors as the Managers of the masquerade, the entity wearing the mask, Nigeria, are really holding the rope the right way or they chose to be puppets.The statelessness of Somalia is known to have emanated from abject poverty and the leaders pushing the populace to the wall upon which they reacted and started asking the managers 'who are you ree''. This is where Mrs. Nnoli-Edozien feels that no leader should ask Nigerians to make more sacrifices as if there are more sacrifices to make in a country where 70 percent of the population live below poverty level.Somalia's managers seem to have turned poverty of the masses to luxury and it boomerang to having a stateless country. Terror everywhere! Same terror is in Nigeria but Nigerian terror fighters are in Somalia. Soyinka reminded Nigerians that they have been living in terror since Maitasene crisis in which Muslims were even killing Muslims for the sake of euphoric puritism.In all, it is agreed that the masquerade must be self-regulating to avoid 'Somalia in Nigeria' as against turning inanimate ' puppet, hence forcing a statelessness. The axes of power and freedom must be marinated by the rope holders ' leaders and managers ' in a way that there must be balance. The Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM) led by Dr. (Mrs.) Sally Nkem Adukwu-Bolufoko summed it up in its code of conduct as:Service above self: employing more efficient and more economical ways of getting things done; accepting the most scrupulous and transparently honest and ethical process of thought for all decisions; freeing oneself of any fraudulent and corrupt practices.Finally, Deacon Onosode capped it with: honesty in thinking, determined psychological disposition never to join the evil ones and resolute for service so as not to allow negative influences take the controlling rope of the masquerade from the progressive minds.'Dr. Ariole is a lecturer at the University of Lagos.
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