A Man of the People Read Free Page B

was not until the Minister rose to his feet that the laughter stopped. The story had it that many years ago when Mr Nwege was a poor, hungry elementary school teacher---that is before he built his own grammar school and became rich but apparently still hungry---he had an old rickety bicycle of the kind the villagers gave the onomatopoeic name of anikilija. Needless to say the brakes were very faulty. One day as he was cascading down a steep slope that led to a narrow bridge at the bottom of the hill he saw a lorry---an unusual phenomenon in those days---coming down the opposite slope. It looked like a head-on meeting on the bridge. In his extremity Mr Nwege had raised his voice and cried to passing pedestrians: 'In the name of God push me down!' Apparently nobody did, and so he added an inducement: 'Push me down and my three pence is yours!' From that day 'Push me down and take my three pence' became a popular Anata joke. The Minister's speech sounded spontaneous and was most effective. There was no election at hand, he said, amid laughter. He had not come to beg for their votes; it was just 'a family reunion---pure and simple'. He would have preferred not to speak to his own kinsmen in English which was after all a foreign language, but he had learnt from experience that speeches made in vernacular were liable to be distorted and misquoted in the press. Also there were some strangers in that audience who did not speak our own tongue and he did not wish to exclude them. They were all citizens of our great country whether they came from the highlands or the lowlands, etc. etc. The stranger he had in mind I think was Mrs Eleanor John, an influential party woman from the coast who had come in the Minister's party. She was heavily painted and perfumed and although no longer young seemed more than able to hold her own, if it came to that. She sat on the Minister's left, smoking and fanning herself. Next to her sat the beautiful young girl I have talked about. I didn't catch the two of them exchanging any words or even looks. I wondered what such a girl was doing in that tough crowd; it looked as though they had stopped by some convent on their way and offered to give her a lift to the next one. At the end of his speech the Minister and his party were invited to the Proprietor's Lodge---as Mr Nwege called his square, cement-block house. Outside, the dancers had all come alive again and the hunters---their last powder gone---were tamely waiting for the promised palm-wine. The Minister danced a few dignified steps to the music of each group and stuck red pound notes on the perspiring faces of the best dancers. To one group alone he gave away five pounds. The same man who had drawn our attention to the Minister's humility was now pointing out yet another quality. I looked at him closely for the first time and noticed that he had one bad eye---what we call a cowrie- shell eye. 'You see how e de do as if to say money be san-san,' he was saying. 'People wey de jealous the money gorment de pay Minister no sabi say no be him one de chop am. Na so so troway.' Later on in the Proprietor's Lodge I said to the Minister: 'You must have spent a fortune today.' He smiled at the glass of cold beer in his hand and said: 'You call this spend? You never see some thing, my brother. I no de keep anini for myself, na so so troway. If some person come to you and say "I wan' make you Minister" make you run like blazes comot. Na true word I tell you. To God who made me.' He showed the tip of his tongue to the sky to confirm the oath. 'Minister de sweet for eye but too much katakata de for inside. Believe me yours sincerely.' 'Big man, big palaver,' said the one-eyed man. It was left to Josiah, owner of a nearby shop-and-bar to sound a discordant, if jovial, note. 'Me one,' he said, 'I no kuku mind the katakata wey de for inside. Make you put Minister money for my hand and all the wahala on top. I no mind at all.' Everyone laughed. Then Mrs John said: 'No be