IT is another time to relive the consequences of ‘the writing on the wall’ that our former leader, Muhammadu Buhari did not bother to read when the oracle drew his attention to it on Sunday February 16, 2020. The then President didn’t like anyone raising any alarms around him, even if they were of national security dimension.
Anyway, there are records that the Daura strong man didn’t end well as the bogeyman of the Buhari era is still here with us. The writing has appeared again for Buhari’s organic successor. It is believed that he can’t afford to ignore the writing in today’s wall as the consequences can be more devastating.
As I was saying, for the purpose of clarity and clarification as the late Maitama Sule would have noted, the expression ‘the writing is on the wall’ is used whenever an inevitable result or imminent danger has become apparent. What’s the origin of the phrase ‘The writing is on the wall’? The classical expression is also sometimes expressed as ‘the handwriting is on the wall’ or as ‘mene mene’. The first of those variations is an obvious synonym but what does ‘mene mene’ mean? This is a shortening of ‘mene mene tekel upharsin’, which is of Aramaic origin. If your Aramaic isn’t strong enough, you can get some guidance from the ancient word, Daniel 5, in the story of Belshazzar’s feast.
To cut the ancient story short, Belshazzar was indulging in a drunken revelry and debasing sacred temple vessels by using them as wine goblets when a disembodied hand wrote ‘mene mene tekel upharsin’ on the palace wall.
On the face of it, and using a literal translation, this appeared meaningless. The expression seemed to mean ‘two minas, a shekel and two parts’ or alternatively ‘numbered, weighed, divided’. None of this meant much to Belshazzar, who decided that he needed further interpretation and sent for the Jewish exile Daniel. It then became clear that the phrase was an elaborate wordplay, relying on the fact that each word can denote a different coin, and the third word can be interpreted as ‘Persia’. Daniel’s interpretation, as recorded in the first easily understood English version of the Bible, the King James Version.
English Phrases And Sayings That Derive From The Bible – Meaning & Origi…
Bible Phrases – everyday phrases that come from the Bible, with their origins and meanings 1611, was:
And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing:
MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
The point of the moral tale was that Belshazzar couldn’t see the warning that was apparent to others because he was engrossed with his sinning ways.
The subtlety of the biblical wordplay is now somewhat lost on those of us who don’t speak ancient Aramaic.
Thus, ‘Writing on the wall’ began to be used figuratively, that is providing warnings where no actual writing or walls are involved, from the early 18th century; for example, Jonathan Swift’s Miscellaneous works, 1720:
A baited Banker thus desponds,
From his own Hand foresees his Fall;
They have his Soul who have his Bonds;
‘Tis like the Writing on the Wall.
This is not about the interpretation of the ancient and clairvoyant Daniel. It is perhaps why Michael Ben Zehabe in The Meaning of Hebrew Letters…noted:
“If this letter system works, it should be reproducible and consistent. If this letter system works, it should be demonstrated in biblical narrative—with consistency. It has. It does. It will. For instance: Daniel interpreted the handwriting on the Babylonian wall. (Dan 5:1-31) The question has always been, “What method would produce the same interpretation?”
If you will pull out your Strong’s Concordance and translate those same four words, you won’t get the same results that Daniel got. Was Daniel using a different method than modern Christians? Yes, obviously.”
However, in his autobiography, Mahatma Ghandi issues this caveat:
“It is also a warning. It is a warning that, if nobody reads the writing on the wall, man will be reduced to the state of the beast, whom he is shaming by his manners.”
Erik Pevernagie reinforces this in his own seminal work on this expression ‘writing on the wall:
“In the rough-and-tumble play of politics, dog-whistle messages are copiously dispatched over the heads of the grassroots people that cannot see the writing on the wall and have to remain in the cold, like dumb puppets on a string”.
Shahenshah Hafeez Khan kills it when he concludes the whole matter that:
“When the writing is on the wall, closing & hiding the book will have very little impact on the outcome, neither will be walking away or shrugging the responsibility that the message is directed to others, it always takes efforts and determination to clean the wall.”
This is just to tell our leader that there is indeed a ‘writing on the wall’ he should read at this perilous time when the dogs that have always warmed up to his arrival, wagging tails even in his state are beginning to bark – to welcome him. Our elders have warned that when the dogs begin to act like that we should be careful in that vicinity in that the dog can even bite. I noted earlier that our leaders hardly read warning signals. This time, he should swallow political pride and read the current ‘writing on the wall’: that it is not well with the country people elected him to run at this time. Even in his region, the ‘ebi-n-pawa’ (we-are-hungry) message is louder every day. And it is ominous even in Western Nigeria!
There have been ‘writings on the wall’ our leader has been ignoring. He has been advised him several times in the beginning to set up a competent presidential bureaucracy that could have been helping to monitor governance. Specifically, we advised him constructively on this platform to engage experienced and competent cabinet and personal aides. Social commentaries and recent rumbling about resignation and purported leave of absence’ application are beginning to show that some of the key state officials were not properly screened before they were hired to work in the presidency. Goodness in social intelligence alone is not a substitute for competence in public service. Curiously, public affairs commentators beginning to question choice of certain ministers in key an technical positions including Aviation, Sports, Blue Economy, among others.
Specifically, Aviation is the most regulation sector in the world. Sport Development is one of the most celebrated entertainment sectors, which can be a major source of economic and diplomatic gains. Where in the world do leaders just post neophytes who have not been big players in Aviation and Sports Development as Ministers, except in Nigeria? Is Blue Economy also just for a politician. This is not a denigration of the officers posted to these ministries. There are other ministries with incompetent ministers. But talent management is part of leadership and management science, especially at this time of digital technologies.
Many can recall as if it were yesterday, as I was saying here that even the wife of the President then, Aisha Buhari was courageous enough to draw the attention of her husband to some ‘writings on the wall’ inside the presidential household. Perhaps, because she was frustrated that her husband wasn’t reading the writing, she complained to the nation about the influence of a strange cabal on her husband’s presidency. Her last public outing on this was when she reported to the nation about the presence of a powerful member of the cabal and a relation of her husband inside the presidential villa whose daughter once looked her menacingly in the face. She had then disclosed the role of one of the president’s reputation managers who she alleged had been working with the cabal to undermine cohesion in the First Family.
Sadly, her husband failed to read the ‘writing on the wall’ of the presidential villa until the cabal reportedly frustrated her and she beat a tactical retreat to the United Arabs Emirate. The rest is history. But again, some observers are beginning to talk about the Lagos cabal. Some are saying that the new cabal in Abuja are allegedly doubling down on their efforts to harden the heart of the King. What is worse, some are claiming publicly that they are confusing our leader about monetary, fiscal and security policies that are causing our tribulation and in the land. When will the leader read ‘the writing on the wall’ that there is anger nurtured by hunger in the land?
Since 2015, there have been calls every week on the expediency of paying attention to restructuring of the federation. The Guardian (Nigeria) Editorial Board wrote 61 editorials on the same subject, ‘Federalism’ (is the answer, after all). The editorials were compiled into a book publicly presented during the 40th Anniversary Lecture of The Guardian on 28 November last year. The book titled, ‘The Guardian Federalist Papers’ was strategically reviewed by a keynoter, Professor Eghosa Osaghae, the Director General of Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, (NIIA), unarguably one of Nigeria’s best scholars on “Federalism”.
The President was remarkably represented by Mr Bayo Onanuga who endorsed the letter and the spirit of the 61 editorials, which advocated legalising and institutionalising return of federalism as the only way out of the country’s multifaceted and complicated challenges. The President has since ignored that federalism ‘writing on the wall’ along Kofo Abayomi Crescent, Victoria Island, Lagos, last November. Lest we forget, the President’s political party’s (Nasir el-Rufai) panel’s report on the expediency of federalism as an idea whose time has come was submitted to his predecessor in 2018. The 2014 report on the same issue by the Jonathan’s administration was also confined to the archives by the same Buhari who only pretended to be reading ‘the writing on the wall’ on federalism because of the powerful resolve of Western Nigerian leaders and people who were then bent on the Operation Amotekun as the unstoppable weapon of their protection since the Buhari magic failed them.
There is a fresh writing on the wall, which shows clearly the origin of the Arab Spring, wave of pro-democracy protests and uprisings that took place in the Middle East and North Africa beginning in 2010 and 2011, challenging some of the region’s entrenched authoritarian regimes. The wave began when protests in Tunisia and Egypt toppled their regimes in quick succession, inspiring similar attempts in other Arab countries. Not every country saw success in the protest movement, however, and demonstrators expressing their political and economic grievances were often met with violent crackdowns by their countries’ security forces.
The first demonstrations took place in central Tunisia in December 2010, catalysed by the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old street vendor protesting his treatment by local officials. However, protests soon overwhelmed the country’s security forces, compelling PresidentZineal-Abidine Ben Ali to step down and flee the country on January 14, 2011.
The ‘writing on the wall’ should not be ignored. The angry dog is still barking. The leader should read this significant ‘writing on the wall’ this September and ‘beware of the ‘Ides of October’.
- Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sundays. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.