two shovels and two machetes, and pulling along two dogs, two goats and two cocks. When they arrived at the main gate, the goats, the dogs and the cocks were slaughtered over the VC and the Reg who were lying across the gate as instructed by the elephant men. Some of the blood was collected in a clay pot, mixed with herbs contained in the other, and given to the VC and the Reg to drink and to say their wishes as they drank. “We want the cam-no-gos to leave us alone. We want them to leave our land,” they screamed in unison. The elephant men quoted a proverb which warns the calabash never to have anything to do with a stone, for any contact between the two is likely to hurt the calabash only.
The VC and the Reg each angrily voiced instances when they had suffered the fate of the calabash, and beat their chests triumphantly for instances when they had been the stone. A common bitter disappointment to both of them was the recent rejection of their applications for promotion to associate professorship, by the National Universities Promotions Council chaired by a cam-no-go who had the audacity to record in the minutes: “These two applicants do not qualify to be even the senior lecturers that they currently are. Neither has published a scientific paper in the past ten years, nor has taught a course. For twenty years, their intellects have proved most underequipped for any serious scientific exploit. To promote them therefore, would be a further disservice to an institution that is already choking from their ill-advised appointment to its helm.” For this reason the VC, a Clinical Psychologist with an Msc to show for it, had missed becoming associate professor, and had sworn to make mince meat of all cam-no-go who dared to cross her path. She had felt so embittered that she would have done something rash and desperate, had her sister not taken her to discover a women only club in nearby Sawang – run by a certain Helena Paradise, ‘the ultimate in women’s liberation’ – specialising in turning stress into pleasure, where she was told: ‘after this, you’ll never want a man again’. As for Simba Spineless the Reg, a PhD in Geography and Volcanology had threatened to erupt in war “against the ingrates that suck our native soil dry with greed like leeches.”
After incantation upon incantation, the elephant men then proceeded to dig a big grave in which the slaughtered goats, dogs and cocks were buried alongside an exercise book and a ball point pen.
According to Bobinga Iroko, the students who witnessed this ritual were at the offices of The Talking Drum first thing in the morning. They narrated what they had seen and heard, and were ready to sign the story themselves as proof of its authenticity.
The elephant men reassured the VC and the Reg that what they had buried “will numb every student and member of staff who thinks evil of you.” Before leaving the scene, the elephant men promised to intensify their magical powers to ensure that “our daughter and our son, and all those who mean them well, are protected by our native soil from all cam-no-gos.”
“What are cam-no-gos?” Lilly Loveless asked.
“These are a skin rash that itches like mad,” Bobinga Iroko laughed. “You scratch and scratch and scratch, but the itches go nowhere.”
“So the VC and Reg have been attacked by this skin rash?” Lilly Loveless was baffled.
“Yes, and it disturbs them like hell,” he continued to laugh.
“Really?” Now Lilly Loveless knew that Bobinga Iroko was in his joking mode.
“Yes, and embarrassing too. At parties and official functions the cam-no-gos do not allow the VC and Reg to do their jobs. They attack, and the VC and Reg would scratch and scratch to no avail. They can’t even take their fingers from their skins to take a drink or something to eat. It is terrible, because the cam-no-gos make them feel like going naked, and grating themselves against a rough surface till they find satisfaction.”
Lilly Loveless finally understood the metaphor. “So people have borrowed from this skin rash to refer to others they don’t like?” she asked.
“That’s right. Cam-no-gos are people whom the sons and daughters of the native soil consider a pain in the arse.”
“You mean ethnic-others?”
“Yes, ethnic-, regional-, and whatever others… Anyone not perceived to belong really.”
“Isn’t that rather parochial and dangerous?”
“That is the way those who run this country have fought to ensure that we remain forever divided. They’re out to mar, not to make.”
“It’s like racing where angels fear to tread.”
“Exactly, this is whywe say, Mimboland na Mimboland.”
Bobinga Iroko told Lilly Loveless that the story was front page news in The Talking Drum. Unfortunately, there were no photos to clinch the case.
“It would have been great,” he said, “to capture the VC and Reg lying naked across the main entrance of the university, dripping with ritual blood!”
This guy loves sensation, Lilly Loveless thought.
“If they feel so strongly about their land, can they be that wrong? There must be something to the fact that the VC and Reg would go to these lengths,” she challenged.
Bobinga Iroko smiled, superiorly, and said: “You don’t know the extent to which some would go just to hate. It is always in someone’s interest to promote enemies, real or imagined.”
Lilly Loveless didn’t know what to say in response, and she couldn’t understand why the VC and Reg should hate the very staff and students that made the university and their jobs as administrators possible. “Mimboland na Mimboland”, was all she found in her to say, which in turn gave her a satisfying feeling of penetrating her community of study.
Nodding, Bobinga Iroko added: “Hopefully, we will be luckier next time. We’ve decided to arm key students with digital cameras and camcorders, just in case. We mean business. These people have got to be exposed as the phoneys that they are, for the world to see…”
“I think you’re doing a great job at The Talking Drum,” Lilly Loveless complimented. “What’s your editorial policy, by the way?”
“What a question! Don’t you read our motto on the top right hand corner of the front page of the paper?”
“I do, but declared intentions are known to vary from practice like night and day.”
“We are as solid as the African bobinga and iroko and as constant as your northern star. Why do you think I am called Bobinga Iroko?”
“You tell me.”
“It means crushing resilience, steadfastness and commitment to the truth even in the face of crippling adversities. I’m proud to be associated with The Talking Drum, the finest in African journalism.”
“So what do you really stand for?”
“Simple: Everything that is clear is bent, everything that is bent is clear.”
“What?”
“We have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies. We are tireless seekers after truth.”
“I see,” said Lilly Loveless, contemplatively. “So in many ways you are like us, social scientists?”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know we journalists love
