In Agila tradition, a clean home environment was the first order in nature. We battled environmental filth quite early in life. Women and girls swept the family compound twice daily – morning and evening. Boys swept the market square on market days. We hated fallen leaves piling up. We hated grass encroaching on family compounds and public areas. We hated piles of rubbish anywhere in our environment. We knew the importance of environmental sanitation long, long, before General Muhammadu Buhari introduced his war against indiscipline in 1984. No, it had nothing to do with the fear of snakes and other dangerous predators but I think it helped too.
Our weapon was the broom, a common equipment, if that, made from matured palm fronds. The broom was our bazooka. No weapon fashioned against it by environmental filth ever prospered. Men and boys put the broomsticks together in sufficient quantity and quality to form a whole broom called broom head. This then became the most potent weapon for the environmental warfare. A good head broom sported a good handle. By the age of five or six, the average Agila boy had become an expert in making brooms.
I earned my first penny from making brooms. By the age of six or seven, I had established a fairly good reputation as a broom maker. My particular expertise was the intricate broom handle that women loved. I sold a good broom, the women called it full broom, for one penny; its weak cousin fetched me half a penny. I am sure if I had kept at it, I would now be a revered broom maker, with my pockets permanently swept clean by the broom. The broom business could not have made me a millionaire. Let us face it: how many full brooms would I sell, at the princely sum of one penny each, to have the audacity to dream of becoming a millionaire as a broom merchant? Luckily, we knew nothing about millionaires and what it took to become one. I could not, therefore, dream of becoming one.
As I look back to my brief broom merchant days, I can now recall what escaped me about the broom. It did not occur to me then, but it does now, that my community saw the broom beyond its utilitarian value for sweeping and keeping the environment clean. Our people used the wisdom of the broom to teach young people the imperatives of family and communal unity. Here is the important lesson: You can break one broomstick but you cannot break many broomsticks tied together. In other words, if you stand alone, you are weak and vulnerable but if you unite with others, you are strong and invulnerable. Next time you pick up a broom, know that you are holding an inanimate King Solomon in your hands.
Did the wisdom of the broom influence its choice, first by ACN and now by APC, as their party symbol? What does the broom say to us about the philosophy of the party and what it stands for? Does it symbolize its commitment to a strong, united Nigeria or is it just a party symbol underpinned neither by moral content nor the philosophy of good governance? I have not heard a philosophical disquisition on the broom as a party symbol from the APC party leaders and intellectuals. Perhaps the jury is out.
The fortune of the broom has suddenly changed. It has acquired importance much greater than its being used to sweep family compounds and the market square. It has become a good weapon of political warfare. If I had kept faith with the broom, all APC leaders and members throughout the country would be beating the path to my door now – and leaving neat bundles of Naira notes behind.
APC pressed the broom into political service in Kano last year a day after President Goodluck Jonathan engaged in his famous dance at the Kano stadium when the nation was in shock over the abduction of the Chibok girls and the deadly Nyanya bombing. The governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, led his commissioners and other top government officials, all armed with brooms, and properly attired in Kwankwasiya outfit, to sweep the stadium clean of PDP.
It was nothing more than a symbolic action. Nevertheless, given the performance of APC in the March 28 and April 11 elections, the broom now hangs over the country like a dark cloud with an attitude.
My early acquaintance with the umbrella was not as productive as that of the broom. My father was one of the few people in our community who owned one. As children, we were fascinated by the magic of the mechanical means of opening and closing the umbrella. Given my pronounced clumsiness with the umbrella, I still manage to get wet even when I have one over my head to protect me from the rain.
I think the PDP chose the umbrella as its party symbol advisedly. Its message is unmistakable. The umbrella is our shelter from the elements – the rain and the sun. As a party symbol, it is intended to assure us of its protective capacity. Its function is more assumed than real or practical. Still, we found its basic philosophy attractive enough to make us flock to the umbrella in the loose belief that the PDP would be as fair as its party symbol, the umbrella.
Alas, it did not work out that way. The umbrella is weak because it is passive. The broom is a more active instrument of political warfare. You can use it to sweep away the feet of your political opponents from your turf. Still, the umbrella has at least one good thing going for it. It is non-discriminatory. It protects the good, the bad and the ugly. Ah, trust life. It is full of ironies. The capacity of the umbrella to protect all comers is its black spot as a party symbol. For 16 years, the umbrella gathered PDP pikins unto itself. Not many of them are men and women you would love to share your dinner with. For now, we can say the broom came, it saw and it swept off the umbrella.
