By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Jazz is music but in some spheres jazz is juju.
Jazz music with its African roots has the power of magic bordering on the occult that can turn normal human beings into jazzed up spirits.
Its the convulsive power of jazz that helps one to understand the house of power in Nigeria and its ill-assorted occupants.
Time was when Dodan Barracks in Lagos rocked with all that jazz as the seat of Nigerian power.
It took one bloody abortive coup in Dodan Barracks, Lagos for the planned marathon move to Aso Rock, Abuja to turn into a very fast 100-metre dash, complete with performance-enhancing drugs!
Touch wood, the diabolical dash from Lagos to Abuja has given birth to a deadly citadel of power.
In my book, the source of the plenteous troubles of Nigeria is Aso Rock or Villa or whatever.
It never ceases to amuse me when all makes of characters fight to the death in the struggle to live in Aso Villa.
The trouble with Aso Villa started from the very beginning.
Nigerias one and only Military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida did not pack into the place under normal circumstances.
As they say, it is not with ordinary eyes that harassed mortals run into the embrace of the born-again Jehovah Sharp-Sharp churches where occult magic is the miracle!
The Evil Genius ran to the Villa following the hot pursuit of Major Gideon Orkar and his insurgent comrades who smoked him out of his bedroom in Dodan Barracks, Lagos during the April 22, 1990 coup.
It was only split seconds that saved the utterly frightened self-advertised Master of Violence from sure death following the pursuit of the coup lion-hearts.
And the Evil Genius fled from Lagos to Abuja!
Ever since Babangida made Aso Villa Nigerias presidential abode, the country has known no headway whatsoever.
Ask Babangida or Shonekan or Abacha or Abdulsalami or Obasanjo or YarAdua or Jonathan or Buhari, or Tinubu – or their wives!
In the light of building institutions that last forever, there was the Biblical injunction on Peter the Apostle thusly: Upon this rock I will build my church.
This way, the Evil Genius turned to Aso Rock and said: Upon this rock I will build my evil empire!
When Chief Moshood Abiola sought to succeed his bosom friend Babangida via the June 12, 1993 presidential election he was promptly made to understand that Aso Villa was not made for him through the instant annulment of the election!
Even when so much heat was put on Babangida to quit power, its remarkable that he told all willing to listen that he was merely stepping aside.
Chief Ernest Shonekan, as interim leader, could not get a hang on the spiritual and sundry grigri underpinnings of Aso Villa until he was shabbily kicked out by Abacha.
The goggled Abacha had to stay holed up in good old Dodan Barracks, Lagos for quite some time for Aso Villa to be detoxified of all that jazz for his occupation!
See what I mean; even the extraordinarily rugged Abacha did not want to dash in where angels feared to tread!
Abacha tried mightily to make the ornate palace his permanent home by reportedly ferrying in a million blind mice from Niger Republic into Aso Villa to keep all Nigerians eternally blind to his antics at self-perpetuation in power!
Even so, Abacha did not reckon with the terminal depths of Indian apples!
And thus the man expired, giving place to General Abdulsalami Abubakar who took just nine fast months to rock and rule and run from the deathtrap of Aso Villa.
General Olusegun Obasanjo, even with all his bluster as a military leader back in Dodan Barracks, Lagos was turned into something else after eight long years in Aso Villa.
Who out there is still arguing with me that there is not something in that Aso Villa?
Any wonder then that the celebrated Otta farmer lost his darling Stella to tummy-tuck and fell like Humpty-Dumpty with his Third Term calamity.
And see what became of ex-President Umaru Musa YarAdua!
Luckless Umoru, are you dead? was not sufficiently cooked in an African pot to occupy that cabalistic enclave.
He was grossly unprotected against the relentless onslaught of supernatural Scud missiles and preternatural Molotov cocktails directed acutely at his soft heart laden with Pericarditis!
Actually, it is only death-wish that would make any man agree to occupy a house reluctantly vacated by that traditionally brewed and boiled Owu man who propounded the immortal theory that Apartheid in South Africa could only be defeated by juju!
Anybody who thinks that the protracted death of YarAdua was ordinary should have his head examined and his brain unscrambled.
Not even the name Goodluck could save the ill-fated Jonathan of Otuoke from Aso Villa damnation.
The Goodluck mans irrepressible wife, Patience, even gave testimony of waking up from death!
Need we talk about the travails of President Muhammadu Buhari and First Lady Aisha during the change tenure?
Lets not forget that Buhari who somehow survived the many obituary announcements of his many enemies ominously warned that Nigerians would start missing him only when he has left!
Now its Emilokan Snatch-Grab-and-Run time.
The fire of patriotism burning in me makes me to understand that mouthing renewed hope in Nigeria translates to escaping the throes of the Villa to live renewed life in France.
All that jazz in the house of power is no romantic music for tender hearts now that the naira is dead and the fuel of life is gone.
A tear for renewed propaganda!
Juju or jazz, lets pray to Pope Leo XIV for deliverance!
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is the author of God of Poetry.
