‘The rock’ on which the church was to build crumbled; a tear for Agbor Tabi

It is not good to celebrate a person’s misfortune. But the press was awash with the story of the collapse of the Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, Prof. Peter Agbor Tabi, during a march against Boko Haram on April 18 in Buea.

Immediately the story broke, it went viral on facebook, tweeter, skype, youtube, viber, whatsapp and the other social media and was all over Cameroon and the world as if everyone was celebrating.

When your choice newspaper carried a rider headline that the Professor was “rushed to the maternity” following his collapse, many commentators thought it was an error. That, maybe, we wanted to write “rushed to the hospital.” Some even pooh-poohed us.

But I like their courage when they had read the story - the whole story - and discovered that it was not an error. They transformed their misgivings into a joke, with some asking what sex was the baby that the Professor was delivered of in the maternity. They asked if it was a “bouncing baby boy” or “bouncing baby girl”, as is usually said.

Some indicated that they were waiting to hear the announcement that “Mother and child are doing fine,” or, in this case, “father-mother and child are doing fine.”

After the Professor recovered from the malaise, he surely grunted: “The downfall of a man is not the end of his life,” or “Let my enemies live long and see what I shall be in future,” and jumped into his car back to Yaounde; against medical advice that he should have some rest.

You know, with Biya, anything can happen at any time (you know what I am talking about).

Maybe his detractors were merely demonstrating what they have been saying under their armpits; that Agbor Tabi thinks that recent tradition would be respected, firstly; as the pendulum of the Prime Ministerial clock swings between the Northwest and the Southwest.

Secondly, as Ephraim Inoni was first made Secretary General at the Presidency before he was appointed Prime Minister; same for Philemon Yang. Therefore, after Yang from the Northwest, the next PM would come from the Southwest, and the logic will follow.

Apparently, after many years in the cold, when President Biya named him Secretary General at the Presidency, Agbor Tabi Peter (Peter meaning rock in the Bible) surely mused that by the token of his appointment, Biya thought: “On this rock, I shall build my church” – sorry – “around this rock, I shall build my new cabinet.”

Probably, that is why family and friends did not want photographs to be taken of him because if the King saw the rock shivering and shifting like quick sand, he might be tempted to ponder; how can I build my Kingdom on such a rock; and might change his mind. However, the Professor might just be lucky that Biya does not tweet, skype or is not on facebook or vibre, youtube or whatsapp and all of that new media craze, for if he were, he would have known by now.

If my memory is not failing me, I think the pracademic Professor of English, Rotcod Gobata, it was who titled his write-up when President Paul Biya appointed a new Government sometime in the 1990s, with many Peters “A Rich Harvest of Peters by Paul.” By calling so many Peters into Government, Biya might have wanted to fortify his royal firmament with rocks, Peters.

So, Peter had to demonstrate that he is a rock by marching at the war front – sorry – at the forefront of the march in support of the valiant forces at the warfront against Boko Haram; because, to be Prime Minister, you have to be as hard as a rock, to be as tough as the central pillar in the ministerial cabinet edifice.

But physiotherapists advise that, after 50, one should be careful with acrobatism or athleticism. One can no longer turn or twist, walk or sprint, talk or shout, they way one did when s/he was between zero and 40.

Sports instructors advise that, if you want to start walking as a sport, start by doing just one kilometre for the first days. You may increase the distance subsequently but gradually.

At a certain age, just taking yourself out of bed has to be systematic. You have to pin your elbows to the bed to enable you raise your torso, then turn slowly on your buttocks to put your feet on the floor and stand up gradually, steady yourself before you take the first step.

And as we have noted before in this column, that contrary to the axiom that everything that goes up must come down; age goes ever up - never comes down. Age is the only thing that goes up and never comes down.

While the speedometer of life is sometimes slowed down by health, the needle in the counter of time and age never moves anticlockwise; the needle of the clock never moves backwards.

Philosophically, a rolling stone gathers no moss. But physically, a rolling stone or, betters still, a rolling rock can be very dangerous.

There is a fable that a naive candidate was asked during a quiz to complete sentences or axioms and when the jury got to; “A rolling stone .....?” The candidate answered or completed “... can kill many people or destroy a lot of things.” Of course, the candidate was, in a sense, right, at least, practically right.

And the Divine designer, the Almighty God has His way, when His silent voice says: “Slow down, slow down Peter,” and is not heeded, He puts a speed-break on your track; it might be in the form of a bout of malaria, running stomach or just any other malaise.

After reading the papers on Prof. Agbor Tabi’s mishap, Dr. Wan Mbulai of Bilingual Grammar School Buea and UB, wondered aloud how the Professor’s brother (yes brother, because in Africa there is no word for cousin), the legendary Dr. Bate Besong, BB, would have reacted if he were alive.

BB, in the nineties, authored an article and literally nailed Dr. Agbor Tabi. In the end, he wrote or challenged: “Peter, come down from that cross.”

And I may ask, what was a Peter, even if it was Simon Peter, doing on Christ’s cross? Peter, according to the Holy Prophecy, was only to accompany Jesus to judgment. Not to take the Saviour’s place on the cross. Of course, we know why people would do anything to show their support for Pharaoh in the “fight against this or that.”

Nevertheless, there is nothing good about Agbor Tabi’s malaise, which was an unfortunate and unenviable happenstance, but for the fact that is serves as a lesson to people of his age and class.

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