Anthills of the Savannah - Chinua Achebe [2]
“Soldiers are plain and blunt,” he says defiantly. “When we turn affairs of state back to you and return to barracks that will be the time to resume your civilian tricks. Have a little patience.”
At this point he is boldly interrupted by the Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General and then by everybody else with an assortment of protests. Actually it is His Excellency’s well-chosen words that signalled the brave interruption, for despite the vigour in his voice the words themselves had sounded the All Clear and told us it was all right now to commence our protestations. So we began to crawl out into the open again. In his precise manner the Attorney-General says: “Your Excellency, let us not flaunt the wishes of the people.”
“Flout, you mean,” I said.
“The people?” asked His Excellency, ignoring my piece of pedantry.
“Yes, Your Excellency,” replied the Attorney-General boldly. “The people have spoken. Their desire is manifest. You are condemned to serve them for life.” Loud applause and shouts of “Hear! Hear!” Many voices in contest for the floor.
“I am no lawyer,” says His Excellency, his slightly raised tone breaking up a hand to hand tussle among the voices, “only a simple soldier. But a soldier must keep his word.”
“But you, I beg pardon, I mean Your Excellency, cannot break a word you never even said. The nonsense about one hundred per cent was only the machination of a newspaper editor who in my judgement is a self-seeking saboteur.”
“No obligation, Your Excellency, to keep faith with heretics,” boomed the Reverend Professor Okong’s voice.
“On point of order, Your Excellency.” He glares at me now, and then nods to the Attorney-General, who had been interrupted by Okong and myself, to continue.
“Your Excellency, three provinces out of four is a majority anywhere.” More applause.
“Your Excellency I wish to dissociate myself from the Attorney-General’s reference to a saboteur and to appeal to my colleagues not to make such statements against public servants who are not present to defend themselves.” I liked the look of terror on my colleagues’ faces when I used the word dissociate and the relaxation that followed when they realized that I was not saying what they feared I was saying. Even His Excellency was thrown off his poise momentarily. But, unlike the rest, knowing that he has been teased does not amuse him or offer him relief; rather it fills him with anger. He swings his head sharply to his right where the Chief Secretary sits on the edge of his chair.
“Any other business?” The way he says it this time it no longer is an idle formula. It had the ring of a rebuke: something like How many times do you want me to ask this question?
This unexpected convergence of the crisis on his person threw the Chief Secretary into utter confusion and inelegance of speech.
“Oh no sir. Nothing at all, sir. Your Excellency.” And then he looks across the table and our eyes meet. I don’t like to take credit for this kind of thing but I think that the derisive smile on my face at that moment may have turned the bureaucrat right about. Perhaps he saw in my face a foreshadowing of peer taunts and ridicule lying in ambush for him beyond the massive doors of this citadel. He is very sensitive about accusations of boot-licking especially when they come from me because I think he has a lot of respect for me. And in a way I don’t dislike him, either. He is after all, unlike the rest of us, a career civil servant who would have served a civilian president… or indeed the British raj… as well as he now serves His present Excellency. But whatever it was that did it he now shows totally untypical spirit that for him almost borders on recklessness. He picks up his fallen words again: “But Your Excellency, if I may—erm—crave your indulgence—erm—Your Excellency’s indulgence—and—erm—put in a word for the Honourable Commissioner.”
“Which Honourable Commissioner? There are twelve of them, you know.” This