BOUATE: SALUTE TO THE HEROES WHO PAID THEIR DUES

The street urchins common with streets in Lagos use to have a peculiar way of saluting those they hold in high esteem. They raise two hands up in their air and shout ‘Touale’. You hear ‘owo meji fun eeyan Kan, touale baba’...meaning, ‘two hands for one person, touale old man’. This trend got into the student community and ‘touale’ quickly became the mode of salutation even in the learned environment. Along came this Yoruba actor, renowned for his usual invention of new street slangs, they call him ‘Ose Ose Omo Banke’, wherever he got that from. He re-modelled the street salute and invented ‘bouate’. He said, “no more touale, now bouate”. Whatever that means, I say my own ‘bouate’ to ‘Ose Ose Omo Banke’ for his street charisma (I don’t know if that is positive).
So, if I were to be a senior colleague of yours, what do you do when you see me coming? You raise your two hands in the air and shout ‘BOUATE’. Toh, President Goodluck Jonathan, ‘Bouate’: Rauf Aregbesola, ‘Bouate’: Abiodun Akinwale, ‘Bouate’. Those are the people running the affairs of the governments that directly concern me (Do not make the mistake of thinking I like all of them).
Why do we salute people with our two hands in the air? It is because they are superior in some sense, or they are respectable in another sense, or they are people of honour in some other sense: ‘Bouate’ once again. However, there are people who are not only superior, but they have laid the solid foundation for the betterment of our own lives. Some laid down their lives, some other spent the better parts of their lives in prison, some watered the trees of liberty with their sweat while some prayed fervently in the confines of exile for the future wherein we now live. To this people, it is not only just to respect them, ‘bouate’ at the top of our voices is the least honour we can do them. So, let us salute the heroes who paid their dues....BOUATE!
Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Obafemi Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikwe, Herbert Macauley, MKO Abiola, Abraham Adesanya, Murtala Muhammed, Ajibola Ige, Shehu Musa Yaradua, Chinua Achebe, Dele Giwa, Tunde Idiagbon, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ladi Kwali, Margaret Ekpo, Samuel Okwaraji, Odumegwu Ojukwu, Adekunle Fajuyi, Gani Fawehinmi, Umar Musa Yaradua, Fela Anikulapo, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Olusola Saraki, Lamidi Adedibu and all other dead heroes of ours....TRIPLE BOUATE! God rest your souls.
Shehu Shagari, Ernest Shonekan, Nelson Mandela, Olusegun Obasanjo, Abdulsalam Abubakar, Alex Ekwueme, Emeka Anyaoku, Oladipo Diya, Femi Falana, Austin Jay Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Samson Siasia, Onyeka Onwenu, Sunday Adegeye – Sunny Ade, Ibrahim Babangida and all those still alive...DOUBLE BOUATE! Long life in good health.
To those of you reading this article who feels a great need to salute these people and many more like them who paid huge prices for the freedom that I and you enjoy today, I salute you...BOUATE!
Let us salute these people again, because the tree of liberty survived because of their non-stop supply of sweat to water it, they paid prices just so me and you may be alive and well in the future most of them never tasted, they worked for their children, for me, for you and for the good of the world.....Raise your hands in the air and let me hear your reverberating BOUATE!
The soldiers who lost their lives while chasing insurgents, those that died in peace-keeping missions across Africa, those police officers who lost their lives in active service, those servicemen who died so the rest of us can sleep with our two eyes closed...the least we can do to salute their courage is a loud shout of BOUATE....Two hands in the air for you people!
Those journalists who died while compiling news so me and you can sit in front of our television sets and watch the news, those researchers who accidentally died in finding cures to different ailments, those footballers who slumped and died....we owe them a very loud salutation, with our two hands in the air...BOUATE!
To those hands still paddling the boats of our society, the political leaders, the Obas, the Obis, the Etsus, the Emirs, the Chiefs, the Civil Servants, the teachers, the servicemen, the road sweepers, the gatemen, the vigilantes, the nurses and midwives and their doctors, the artisans...even the leaders of tomorrow who are going to take us to the future....two hands in the air, at the top of our voices....BOUATE!
BOUATE!!! Salute to those who paid their dues and those who are stillpaying!

ODERINU ADEDAYO
08067361945/08079077040
Odeday2000@yahoo.co.uk