Tigrine is the name of a rocky downhill village located in a cheerless valley. Tigrine is ruled by King Tiger, aka Oba Ika, who sits resplendent on the ancient throne of the Wiked Kingdom. Though the aborigines of Tigrine village are humans, they call themselves tigers because they disembowel without swords, using ‘a pa ni ma yoda’ technique. They also tear off the skin without blades, circumcising without razors. Tigrine village brims with prey, victims and spoils.

One afternoon, the sun burned down on Tigrine village so fiercely that the fish in the river sweated. The air was thick. Breathing became difficult. And in that suffocating, heavy hour, the king felt an urge; he craved the sight of fresh, bright blood, gushing in the sunlight, from the head.

So, he summoned his strongest slave, a man whose chest is sculpted like Olumo Rock. “D-o-n-g-a-r-i!” the king called out. The slave tumbled into the courtyard like a falling palm tree. “Yes, my lord,” Dongari mumbles, lying flat, his chin on the floor.

“My spirit is down, Dongari. I need you to cheer me up. I want to watch you somersault from the courtyard to the farm, to and fro, nonstop. That should cheer me up. Call out the drummers,” the king ordered. “Somersault nonstop!”

Dongari looked up; the sun blazed without mercy. He looked down; the rocky ground frowned. Between the sun and the earth, he saw the fangs of death.

“Kabiyesi,” Dongari said, shivering, careful not to run his mouth into a bigger trouble, “The sun is fierce, and the ground is hard. My lord, the village babalawo said it would rain later today; please, let the rains fall and soften the earth, then I will somersault nonstop for you. Kabiyes, a thud on this hard ground will eclipse my name on earth. A fall will open a grave and entomb me.”

The king of Wikedland did not hear the plea for caution. He heard defiance. “How dare you!?” Oba Ika fumed, “I command, you disobey!? I order a slave to somersault, and you open your filthy mouth to say the ground is hard? Do I care if you somersault and crack open your skull? Do I care if you die? Do I!? Do I!?”

In that peak of bestiality, the rocky earth was not the hardest matter in Tigrine village, nor was the sun the hottest element; it was heartlessness and abuse of power. Thus, my self-invented myth of Tigrine village finds expression in the proverb, “Wọ́n ní kí ẹrú ó tàkìtì, ó ní ilẹ̀ le, ṣé àtayè ni wọ́n kó ta ni, àbí à ta rọ̀run?” Translation: A slave was told to embark on fatal somersaults, but he said the ground is hard. Tell me, who wants him to survive the somersaults?”

Life and living in Tigrine village typifies existence in Nigeria amid the ongoing war against terror. To King Tiger of Wikedland, the life of the best worker does not matter; he must work and work until he drops dead, provided the ego of Ass-o-Rock continues to be massaged. King Tiger represents Nigeria’s somersaulting leadership since the days of President Goodluck Jonathan, when 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped in Chibok, Borno State, to the days of the worst President Nigeria ever had, Muhammadu Buhari, when hundreds of schoolchildren were taken into captivity, to the days of incumbent President Bola Tinubu, when terror bullets are increasingly flying southwards from the north.

The aborigines of Tigrine, who proudly refer to themselves as tigers, are Nigeria’s ‘jẹgúdújẹrá’, chop-and-quench political class. This class has class; they slice through public treasuries without using a knife.

Dongari, the slave, represents the hapless citizenry, among whom are Nigerian soldiers on the battlefield fighting terror, facing death without fear and firearms, losing limbs and lives, yet condemned to silence or court-martialed. Like Dongari, Nigerian soldiers in trenches battling insurgents are a demotivated and dehumanised warfront species, continually grumbling against shoddy treatment, measly remuneration packages, inadequate arms and ammunition, outworn armament, and low morale when their attention should be on the terror war.

Though they are smouldering inside far-flung trenches in the desert north, fighting terror, the internet takes to them news of budgetary allocations, wages, severance allowances, constituency projects and emoluments of elected political office holders, while soldiers live in penury.

A Nigerian soldier, Rotimi Olamilekan, aka Soja Boi, who fought at the forefront of the terror war in Maiduguri, first ruffled some feathers in February 2016 when he made startling revelations about the disturbing situation at the warfront of terror. Talk and be damned. Olamilekan, a lance corporal, has been dismissed for what military authorities described as persistent acts of indiscipline, including violations of the Armed Forces Social Media Policy, and unauthorised media appearances.