The Agony and the Glory of Muted Silence

By Dumo Kaizer J Oruobu

The Agony And The Glory Of Muted Silence is the last novel that I had completed the day before his second visit to my place of abode and is, therefore, dedicated to Abraham Oki for all the things that we both have been through from 1974 to present time. And it is also for the time that I have pinned to specific moments and, in particular, for the things that he said about me that I myself did not know before he spoke them nor would have not known if he did not. But he had decided instead to tow the path of the agony or the glory of muted silence with my poor gratitude to him and prayer to God for his continued favors in his life.

The novel is, finally, as usual and as always, dedicated to God Almighty for making me the way that Abraham Oki says that I am. It’s with my adoration, thanks, and love for him forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546298830

Dumo Kaizer J Oruobu

DUMO KAIZER JOHNNY ORUOBU was born in Ogurama in Degema District of Nigeria’s Rivers State of Th e Niger Delta Region to Christie and Chief Kaizer John Oruobu on September 22 in 1952. He studied at Baptist Day School, Old Bakana, Zixton Grammar School, Ozubulu, Government Comprehensive Secondary School, Borikiri, County Grammar School, Ikwerre-Etche and Baptist High School, Port Harcourt between 1959 and 1973; and in 1975 went on to study English Language and Literature at Nigeria’s Prestige University Of Ibadan, graduating in November, 1978. He is an accomplished Singer, Poet, Inspirational Speaker and Preacher of Th e Word of God. He is a Prize Writer in all the genres, an accomplished Print, Radio and Television Journalist and is fi rmly rooted in Entertainment, Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations. He has written well over eighty Novels out of which sixteen have been published between 2016 and 2018. He is a Fellow of Nigeria’s Institute Of Corporate Administration and is a Member Of Th e Nigerian Institute Of Public Relations. He holds two Traditional Chieftaincy Titles – Anyawo XI Of Ogurama and Amaibi Dokibo Se Erena XII Of Kalabari. He loves Travels, People and Makes friends very easily.

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© 2018 Dumo Kaizer J Oruobu. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/29/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9853-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9883-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Publications

Appreciation

No Quotation Marks My Deliberate Style

Dedication

Chapter One The Grave Of Preferred Silence

Chapter Two Not This Kind Of Silence

Chapter Three One Huge Place For Circuses

Chapter Four Accountability On This Side Of Our Divide

Chapter Five Blood-chilling Innuendoes

Chapter Six Veracity And Currency Of Time

Chapter Seven No Pleasant Way To Punish Failure

Chapter Eight Invasion Of World Leaders

Chapter Nine Enough Is Enough

Chapter Ten Taking A Bow

Chapter Eleven The Imperative Of Justice Done Speedily

Chapter Twelve Education And Orientation As One And The Same Thing

Chapter Thirteen Return Of The Days Of Youthful Exuberance

Chapter Fourteen Inexplicable Mysteries Of The World

Chapter Fifteen A Joint Transformation Blue Print

Chapter Sixteen A New Re-Engineering In Motion

Telephone Contacts And Email Address:

Email: [e-mail]

[phone], [phone], [phone], [phone],

[phone], [phone], [phone], [phone],

[phone], [phone], [phone], [phone],

[phone], [phone], [phone], [phone],

[phone], [phone], [phone], [phone],

[phone], [phone], [phone], [phone],

[phone], [phone], [phone], [phone],

[phone], [phone].

PUBLICATIONS

Dumo Oruobu has to his credit thirty seven music albums in the Highlife Tradition and the publication of nine Books between June 30, 2016 and January 15, 2018, including –

1. Silence of Breaking Day

2. Tears of The Guilty

3. Keinba

4. Loveache

5. Invisible Tears

6. The Eleven Brothers of Joseph

7. Phones At War

8. The Penguin And His Love,

and

9. JJC.

APPRECIATION

I am grateful to Godswill Udeme Ikpe and Rose Amenjiba Robert Ibani for the work they did for me in typing my hand-written script to produce the Original Manuscript that facilitated the publication of this Novel.

May God Almighty continue to bless them very richly and bestow His favours on them without cease. On me too!

Amen!

Dumo Kaizer J Oruobu

September 20, 2018, Port Harcourt, NIGERIA

NO QUOTATION MARKS

MY DELIBERATE STYLE

The absence of quotation marks here to indicate the occurrence of Dialogues, Polylogues, Monologues and other Logues or forms of direct speech between the Characters in the story is very deliberate – deliberate on my part as my own style which I am bringing to Fiction as a genre in the wide Ocean of Literature.

I do hope, dear Reader, that this notwithstanding, you will be able to find your way in the maze of the drama as it unfolds.

DEDICATION

I have known Abraham Oki from 1974 to the present, and have had nothing but fond memories about the circumstances of our meeting on the day that we met – nothing but fond memories about the path that we have trodden from that time past to time present; but throughout those fairly long years, none of us visited the other person where we lived, until the first week of July, 2017, when he stopped by at my place of abode for the very first time and for the second time in the second week of the same month in the same year 2017, the events and consequences of which visits, brief as they were on each of the two occasions, are both the fuel and the fire for what I am recounting and projecting here.

He confessed to coming to the conclusion that I have five distinct persona which I display at different locales of his interface with me, all of which he summed up as a grand design on my own part to deceive every person who comes into close contact with me at each of the five idiosyncrasies that I exhibit.

He was quick to add the caveat in a preemptive self defence, and in trying to mitigate the hurt which he suspected he had caused by what he had said about me earlier, which he said was not designed to paint me in any bad light; and went on to add his discovery of the sixth persona that he said that he saw in me in my place of abode which privilege to visit, he expressed great gratitude to God for granting him, as it immediately disabused his mind of all previous conceptions and misconceptions that he had had about me as a person who he had known for as long as he had – his impression of me as someone much greater than he or anyone else who had not seen me in the nakedness of my place of abode would ever imagine that I am.

I was not speechless to hear that from him. I have also been very much graciously privileged to hear quite a number of different men and different women say many different things about me in the realm of what I would describe as the sublime in my march through life from my Primary School age to the age that I had attained as at the day on which he last spoke about me directly to me and indirectly to me about me directly to the only witness that we had around us in that space – fortunately coincidentally on each of those two occasions – a witness who also knew the six years difference subsisting between us to his advantage.

And those who spoke about me include Prophets, Priests, Political Heads of Ministries, Administrators at the highest levels of the nomenclature, tried and tested Arms Bearers at all levels of the Armed Forces, my coevals and others who should know me much more intimately than anyone else because of their closeness to me.

I am writing what I am writing here because, not since I became aware of the power and the effects of the veracity of the spoken word, have I felt as completely taken in and off my feet as I felt over Abraham Oki’s off-handed remarks about me.

THE AGONY AND THE GLORY OF MUTED SILENCE – the last Novel which I had completed the day before his second visit to my place of abode, is, therefore, dedicated to Abraham Oki for all the things that we both have been through from 1974 to time present at the time that I have pinned to specific moments, and, in particular, for the things that he said about me which I myself I did not know before he spoke them, nor would have known if he did not but, had decided, instead, to tow the path of the agony or the glory of muted silence, with my poor gratitude to him, and prayer to God for His continued favours in his life.

The Novel is, finally, and, as usual – as always, Dedicated to God Almighty for making me the way that Abraham Oki says that I am, with my adoration, Thanks and love for Him and forever.

CHAPTER ONE

The Grave Of Preferred Silence

I want you to bring to bear all the gains and advantages that you have gathered over time and over many other colleagues or peers of yours where you are at this point in time, as a result of all the education and training that you have given to yourself, to open your eyes very wide to see beyond your today in this Corporation, and do everything that you need to do to stand yourself in very good stead in your environment of birth after your service here is over – spent.

The hereafter matters as much as the here and now, that is if it does not matter even more than the present, and if it is not of even greater consequence than the past and the present put together that we already know. Yes, the hereafter.

The hereafter. It is everything to everyone who cares about their life taken together as one whole continuum. It is very important.

Chief Doctor Ibiene Oweitogu stopped talking all of a sudden. Chiege Achese Chiege folded his arms around his chest and leaned backwards at first, and immediately, thereafter, also leaned forward again to maintain his original posture.

He was confused and quite overwhelmed. He did not want to look disrespectful in the way that he sat or moved his physical frame where he was. He knew that he was in the presence of a superman. There was no iota of doubt about that on his mind – that he was in the presence of a very rare breed of a homo sapiens.

He listened and did nothing but listen. He knew that the man in whose presence he was sitting was not done talking yet. He knew that he was going to hear some more effusions of wisdom from the man who had very deservedly been appointed the Chairman of the American Corporation on which staff he had worked for a little longer than two years.

He listened with an even greater desire than he had had before – to learn from what he had heard spoken by the man who he had come to see.

You are a very good listener. Quite a good listener. Chief Ibiene Oweitogu told his Guest when he began to talk again. That too is an asset – a very great asset that you have, which you must also exploit and deploy to your advantage at all times just as you have done here, whenever you find it to be expedient. And make no mistake about it. Let no one make any mistake about it that Silence – yes, that Silence, apart from being golden, as the saying goes, is also always more deadly as a weapon of war, as a weapon of defence and as a weapon of very fierce attack – a weapon that causes more annihilation when very effectively deployed than the loudest noise or sounds of the voice or of guns and of Tanks!

Silence is also more effective as an instrument for bringing about peace and for engineering positive achievements and celebrations than talking is or can be. The Bible itself says so.

The more you listen, the better it is for you; and the less you talk, the more you will get out of life, and the faster you will get out of trouble, and the safer you will be than you will be if you did anything other than maintain a stoic silence. The less you talk and the more you listen, the more you will gain out of life – the better it will be for you than if you should lend your voice to every sound that you hear.

Don’t mind people like me. Our case is slightly different from the rest of you. Talk is everything to us. To people like me talk is everything. We make money by talking. We win friends by talking. We make enemies too by talking – yes, we make enemies, by talking, it is also sadly very true. We make plenty of enemies also by talking about the things that we talk about, and as a result of how we talk about the things that we talk about.

But can we help it? Can we help it? No! We cannot. And maybe we cannot because we simply cannot help it. We just cannot help it. And if truth be told, Society is the better for it than it would be if people like me were to keep silence – if we should keep quiet when it is very apparent and clear to all, that we should speak out. Imagine all the things that I have told you – think about all the things that I have shared with you here through the medium – through the instrumentality of the spoken word. Imagine if all of them were to seethe in the agony or in the glory of muted silence – if they were all to remain hidden and buried in the grave of preferred silence – silence as a better option for me to take than putting them across to you – putting them across to Society! Can you imagine that? Can you imagine what the World would look like in such a situation?

It would be unthinkable. Quite unthinkable.

Ebiowei was stupefied by what he had read from the Novel which he had read many times before without stopping to reflect on any aspect of the literature that he had found in it to his warm delight there. Now after reading what he had isolated to read with greater attention to detail than he did before, he was stupefied and amazed at how true those Golden – yes, those Diamond words which he had read about the use and effectiveness of silence – the consequences of the same silence as well as the advantages and disadvantages of talking about the World that he knew very well were. Yes, how true those words were excited him and fed the fire of his imagination.

Isn’t that a great irony? He asked himself. Isn’t it a great irony that to talk is better for Society than for those who can talk and should talk maintaining silence, whereas silence is not only Golden, not only Diamond, but should also be preferred to talking – should be adopted as a better option than lending one’s voice to any