On the eve of 2015 Presidential election I warned Nigerians in a Facebook post that they were about to make a choice between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. I am not sure people understood the enormity of that statement or even the weightiness of its implications. In their wisdom Nigerians chose the Deep Blue Sea and since that day that sea has been carrying them tossing them from one calamity to the other, from one disaster to the next like reefs on the mighty waters. First it was recession, then insecurity, then banditry, kidnapping for ransom, terrorism, high-wire corruption of the scale that was never even witnessed under the military, then hunger and extreme poverty. In the meantime we are being warned that "a famine of biblical proportions" is ahead as farmers have deserted the farms as a result of bandits and terrorists that were protected, shielded and defended for 8 years by a government that should fight them and the Àgbákò Party that Nigerians installed in 2015.

Many have perished in the Sea in the last 9 years and it is not certain whether there is anyone under this geographic space who has not been affected one way or the other negatively in the last few years. I cannot blame Nigerians for what they did in 2015 when they gave sovereignty to a party whose sole aim is power - power without purpose or responsibility - and not what to do with it. I am not sure they voted APC in 2019 and I wouldn't call the 2023 episode an election. None with a conscience dare call that an election.

The last one year has been problematic, trying and disastrous for most families. Nigerians have limitless capacity and capabilities for endurance and long-suffering. But many haven't made it through. Mortalities have spiked everywhere. Even basic drugs are no longer affordable to a people who have not eaten well due to constantly rising food inflation.

In the midst of all these calamities and struggle for personal survival another information came to the public domain last week of the tremendous data breach involving NIMC data base of Nigerians so that for as low as a hundred naira anyone's data could be harvested by criminal elements and for sinister purposes. In my opinion this is the most dangerous and suicidal breach of all and the greatest havoc to Nigerians under the APC administration. Soon you will know why.

In essence Nigerians did not elect a party in 2015, they only met Àgbákò without realising it; but those who met àgbákò without fully preparing for the encounter don't live to tell the story. Ask D.O Fagunwa.

A Monster Called Àgbákò

In my opinion Daniel Fagunwa is the greatest writer of Yoruba ancestry of the last hundred years or possibly of all time. In his usage of the Yoruba language, his vivid characters, dramatic figures, evocative power and language, his unimpeachable and unassailable literary imagination, his multitudinous skills to invest his characters with awe and make them assume living consciousness,

his legendary capacity to create a world of meanings - Fagunwa is unequalled in Yoruba language. I weep for children of today who can neither read nor write in Yoruba language. There is a mystery, a majesty and majestic splendour with that language that English or any other language cannot fully capture.

Samuel Crowther made the Yoruba Language as a written form with his Yoruba Bible just as Martin Luther's Bible made the German Language. (That's a story for another day)

Joseph Ayo Babalola in the 1930's took that language and used it as an instrument for mobilization to create a mass movement and spark a religious awakening unequalled in Yoruba, and even Nigerian history.

And Samuel Ladoke Akintola in the 1950's took that language with its evocative power as an instrument for political mobilization across Yoruba land. No Yoruba politician living or dead has used the Yoruba Language with skill and dexterity and with dignity, splendour and intricacies as that worthy Oyo Yoruba man from Ogbomosho. None has equalled him in the past and certainly no politician in the present can even stand near him: some of Akintola's speeches are still used to instruct university students in Yoruba Language till today.

But it was Wole Soyinka who took that language with its potentials, creativity, density and complexity to the English stage and even on the English Language thereby enriching the white man's language to dazzle and mesmerize the world.

To all these giants who have gone before me, a resounding salute. I digress.

I have read all of Fagunwa's books even from Primary School. [Internet generation do you see what you are missing?]

One of Fagunwa's famous works - the greatest in my opinion - is the Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole (This book has been translated into English by Professor Wole Soyinka as "The Forest of a Thousand Demons")

In this book is where we encounter a strange being and demonic character and monster by name of Àgbákò, a 16-eyed monster whose movement is usually heralded by noise in the Forest. For a long time Akara Oogun, the central character and protagonist of the work, had been regaled with tales about this fiendish monster by other hunters but he had never met him. He had heard Yorubas prayed, "K'ama pade àgbákò"- meaning, "may we not meet or encounter the monster àgbákò.'

But one day Akara Oogun met him and there was no where to turn or hide. Àgbákò is indeed a demon. He was the type of person you pray not to meet; because to meet him is trouble and to run away from him is disaster. Incantations do not work against him, pleading does not appease him. Cutlass does not cut him, and if he uses his own sword he would cut your hand in pieces; and also rejoin the hand again.

He would wrestle with you till you are exhausted, and when you think you are done he would give you palm wine to drink to regain some strength so as to continue the fight.

What was Fagunwa trying to tell us with this character? It is simply that only a summon to kindred spirits for collaboration and the Mercy of God can separate you from Àgbákò once you are under its clutches because he would not release you. Until something gives...

Did Nigerians meet Àgbákò in 2015 or merely elected a party in power? Àgbákò moves through the Forest with great noise and cacophony of voices; even the trees and grasses give way for him not to enter trouble. We know a party that came with so much noise, empty noise and propaganda and promises- bring $1 to exchange for N1, give stipends for all unemployed people, end insecurity, enthrone true Federalism, increase power generation, fight corruption.... "Change", they cried. "Next Level" they thundered.

Today "change" has turned to illusion and Next Level has become a new low and the road to exponential decay; and "renewed hope" is now in many homes, renewed hopelessness. Their "giant strides" have been seen to be nothing but leaps of fantasy.

The Àgbákò of Fagunwa's creation takes his victims from one wrestling bout to another and from one stress to greater despair until Akara Oogun found himself imprisoned in an underground cellar without food for many days. I do not know where this Àgbákò party and its government will take Nigeria. But the omens are bad; the portent and the signs are not good.

There seems to be an agenda and everyday we are moving close to it. I know it and can see it but it is not yet time to speak.

The NIMC Data Breach

When my wife dragged me and the children to go register our personal information to secure National Identification Number with NIMC I had an unusual reluctance. When I heard all the details they wanted I hesitated. "What if these got into wrong hands?", I asked the official. Because I know in Nigeria government can be very irresponsible, ignorant and wayward; and the officials of government are often, many of them, unpatriotic, mediocres, corrupt and self-seeking. The fear I expressed that day has now come to pass. Somehow our hunch is speaking to us but our overeducated brain won't let us listen.

The danger envisaged by an inquisitive writer has now landed; the calamity has descended to torment us all. For as low as hundred naira now criminal elements can harvest anyone's information from the portal for sinister purposes.

Perhaps you can't see this or understand the implications. Let me help you to see, a writer's purpose is to help people to see.

It means all your data, consisting of personal details like age, home address, phone numbers, wife and children, signature, photos and other details can now be obtained by a third party that should not have them. Do you know what that means in a nation suffused with criminal elements, bandits, kidnappers, terrorists, jihadists and islamists? Endless possibilities. We gave information to an agency of what we supposed to be a government on request with the understanding that they will protect our interest but now those information can now be used against us.

Someone can now use your information to open a bank account offshore, forge a document or even passport, commit wire frauds, etc. Your number can now be cloned by yahoo boys for their purposes with your pictures and signature in tow and how will you exonerate yourself before a largely illiterate population and elite class that is ignorant?

Terrorists and kidnappers can now target you for elimination with the precision and accuracy of Israeli Mossad because they can access all your details and house addresses. The Àgbákò party and its government can take down any critic by first ruining his reputation through their criminal elements by using his details to commit crime and then ordering his arrest for prosecution. This is a government and party that has a solid record of holistic partnership with criminal elements and bandits even by the admission of their own  officials.

So you can see that we are all in trouble. I warned Nigerians: fear APC. Be afraid of APC.

The evil has landed; the danger is here. The fish has caught the fisherman, the wayfarer is lost in his familiar terrain and a problem solver has become a problem to be solved.

I am shocked that there has been no uproar from Nigerians over this. I am troubled that no one can see what I am seeing. Do you know the implications and consequences of these?  Someone can make an Identity Card with your details and my details and use that with your clone numbers to commit crime. Who will believe it is not you?

That is the Àgbákò that has come. When the scenarios I painted here begin to happen then you know what Ajalu is - an ancient forest in olden days between Igede-Ekiti and Aramoko-Ekiti where voices could be heard day and night and strange lights seen but without anyone in sight. May Ajalu not happen to you.

Has there been any response from government or its agencies since this news broke out? Of course, their usual shibboleths and rhetorics of nonsense: - "we are on top of the situation", "we will leave no stone unturned to get to the root of this"... That is where it will end. If ever a government is irresponsible and useless, tardy and hopelessly unfaithful and dishonest it is a Nigerian government.

In 1984 Professor Adegboye told me in Ilorin during a conversation that "Nigeria is a jungle." I didn't understand what this Offa - born Professor of Statistics was saying. Now I understand what he meant. Forty years after, it is still so and even worse. In a jungle you kill or get killed; you eat or get eaten. An agency of what we supposed to be a government requested for our personal information and details and now that information is now compromised. Of all the tragedies that has befallen Nigerians under the APC administration this is the worst in my opinion.

How did we get here? How did a great shining light become a long distant glimmer in the dark? That is what I want to cover as I bring this essay to a close. When a child falls he looks forward but when an elder trips he looks backwards to see what caused him to stumble.

I am an elder and have paid my due to Nigeria. I am a stakeholder in the  Nigerian Project. I am not accusing anyone neither do I exonerate anyone. But there are clues in the past from where possibly this error might have originated.

I said in my critical review of Femi Adesina's book that APC is a lie. It doesn't just tell lies, it is a lie itself. It is an amalgam of different and disparate interests and characters from different backgrounds - career politicians, profiteers, jobbers, bank embezzlers, labour activists, failed politicians, disgraced army officers, islamists, jihadists, aggrieved candidates of other parties, financially- insolvent journalists, pastors and a sprinkling of few scholars all wedded together with one singular aim: the hatred of Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP and an unquenchable, idolatrous love for power - power by all means. They were not forged together by love of nation or for the common good, or for people or by any ideology or welfarist programme for National salvation but just to capture power. Thus from 2015 we saw as even agents of the same government began to disagree and even fight each other publicly and how for the first 4 years we saw a government at war with itself. Thus the  possibility of self-sabotage was present abinitio.

Secondly, we saw how a man with questionable antecedents was chosen to head the very sensitive agency overseeing NIMC where the entire data base of a nation was housed. Isa Pantami's antecedents gave no one rest of mind. Here was a man who once organized prayers and showed sympathies for the Talibans (the same people his boss, Buhari gave $1 million), a man who instigated and presided over the trial and murder through fatwas of another Nigerian for alleged blasphemy, a man who was accused by other Muslims of running a terrorist network in his state. This was the very person that Muhammadu Buhari - the idol of Femi Adesina's heart - found among millions of Nigeria to head that sensitive agency under which NIMC is. I am not saying that Pantami is responsible for the data leak and I am not saying he is not. I am just laying the facts bare to refresh our memories.

Here is another clue. There was a terrorist incident in Kaduna and students from a Baptist College were kidnapped. During the negotiations with the parents through the untouchable Abubakar Gumi a very disturbing fact came to light: the terrorists knew how much the parents had and the balances in their bank accounts.

Have you forgotten? I didn't forget and won't forget.

Where and how did the terrorists get hold of this sensitive information since banks do not disclose personal details to third parties? Who gave them the information?

Buhari did incalculable harm to this nation, grievous harm.

So as you can see this problem didn't start today. Someone is endangering us. Some people are after domination and enthronement of their religious hegemony and control over everyone. They are laying the foundation for the Beast but they will be the first to be consumed by the evil they are sowing.

There are enough moles, enough double agents, fifth columnists, enemy agents and subversives in APC who are aggrieved with this government and with Southerners in control of government that enemy actions are now plausible possibilities.

In the meantime we are now in God's Hands. The evil has been done and cannot be undone. We are left now with prayers and God's Grace.

I commit you, dear reader, to the safe keeping of the Righteous Judge and for His constant watchfulness so that agbákò will not become ajalu.