HOW TO DEVELOP A MUMUCRACY

HOW TO DEVELOP A MUMUCRACY

My friend in Nigeria said she is starting poultry.

She said she would just buy a couple of hens, feed them, and daily she would collect eggs from them and eat them.

“Impossible,” I said. “The hens would attack you and poke out your eyes.”

“No,” she said. “These are not the type of hens that you guys had in the fifties and sixties. Those were woke hens. They would kill you if you touched their eggs or their chicks. I wasn’t born then. From what we are told, they even flew high up and chased off any kite that tried to touch their chicks.”

“Those are the hens I grew up with,” I confessed. “Tough mother hens that drew blood if you even looked at their chicken twice while feeding them agbado or oka baba.”

“That was in those old Awolowo and Enahoro days,” she said. “Nowadays things are different. These hens that we have now are the Aso Rock chicken.”

“What?”

“Yes,” she responded. “They have been mumufied by the Kyari boyz.”

“How?” My jaw dropped. “Hens that won’t even defend their own eggs and chicken?”

“Yes o,” she said.

“Tell me more,” I responded. Then the line went blank.

My phone rang after a couple of minutes. She was back. “I ran out of credit. I just reloaded.”

“You reloaded?”

“Mchew,” she hissed. “I hate talking with you these ‘away’ people. You don’t understand anything.”

“Okay, okay,” I agreed. “Just continue with our topic. You were telling me about The Aso Rock and Kyari hens.”

“They have become mumu hens,” she continued. “They lay mumu eggs. And you can collect them or their eggs anytime without expecting any trouble from them.”

“How come?” I asked in my Nigerian accent. I may be an “away” man, I still understand Nigerian English.

“Nigeria has invented a political and sociological system from which the whole world could learn: it is called a Mumucracy,” she said.

“What?” I responded.

“To start with, kidnap 200 girls from a secondary school,” she informed me.

“No you can’t do that,” I protested. “Nobody would let you do that.”

“The whole world would be shocked at first,” she said. “Even Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton would carry placards and take selfies with “FREE OUR GIRLS” hashtags.”

“Tell me more,” I said.

“But just smile,” she said.

“Smile?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Yes,” she continued. “Impregnate the girls. Kill some. You may release one or two to go home and spread the news that you are now starting a mumucracy.”

“That’s impossible,” I retorted. “The entire nation would drop whatever they are doing and come after you.”

“No, not in a mumucracy, they wont,” she said. “Then go and collect more girls, and this time, add boys, and abduct them too.”

At this point, I could no longer say anything.

“Repeat these actions several times,” she said. “Start collecting ransom in millions of naira. Nothing will happen. This is Nigerian mumucracy. Everybody would behave as if nothing is happening.”

“Come on, you’re lying,” I said.

“True. In a mumucracy, people just keep quiet. It’s like you are taking kids from a goat.”

“Even a goat would bite you if you don’t….”

“Not in a mumucracy. I have run out of credit,” she said. “Let me go and reload….”