The Nation Newspaper

Category: Oyinkan Medubi

  • Actually, we the oldies are to blame for the ‘laziness’ of Nigerian youths

    During this last week, a statement purportedly credited to President Buhari about Nigerian youths drew the surprise, and I dare say ire, of many people, presumably youths. The statement said something to the effect that Nigerian youths are lazy and prefer to do nothing but live on the government’s largesse. And, considering that Nigeria is an oil producing country, there is no reason why this largesse should not err… be large indeed.

    I bet you … pardon me… I don’t bet. I am not a good gambler. I am the kind that would lose all my cards within two minutes of play. So, I do believe that one of the strongest backings for the president’s statement may be found in a post I received quite a while back. I think it probably originated from some old one among us. It cited several prominent Nigerians who came into their own at very early ages. Among those named were Gowon (who became Head of State at 30), Obasanjo (who became Head of State at 35 or thereabouts,), Murtala, etc. The post then recited that many youths were still depending on their ‘popsies’ and ‘momsies’ for allowances at age thirty.

    I also believe, as this column has reported many times, that further support for the statement may have come from the habit in many parts of the country, north and south, where many youths have not been properly integrated into the culture of work by their parents or guardians. In Europe, this begins at age twelve with paper deliveries at 5 a.m. even in freezing temperatures. In comparison, many Nigerian youths are nurtured into a culture of expectation even in adulthood. In other words, they are made to believe that their parents, neighbours, friends, teachers and country all collectively owe them a life, and they don’t see why those ones cannot make it a good one while they are at it.

    Perhaps again, the oldies have noticed that most youths are really not ready to prepare themselves for leadership. Please notice my construction. To prepare oneself for any task, there must be a state of readiness. One of the marks of readiness is a willingness to accept discipline. There are few of our youths who are ready to subject their bodies and spirits to rigorous discipline and deprivation in order to attain the goal of assuming leadership. A good leader is a well-read man/woman. Ask the nearest youth to you what book he/she is reading. I beg you, please don’t be too surprised if they tell you ‘Twitter’.

    The result is that most of our youths now are good at noise making and rabble rousing, but are intellectually vacant and ideologically vacuous. Occasionally, you may strike an oasis when you meet a youth who is ready to take a stand on a political issue. You may even strike oil in a youth who is ready to defend that stand. These are however few and far between. Most of them are more interested in their social media image.

    I have also read many reactions to the president’s statement, and of course, reactions to the reactions. Many youths have appeared on the social media to deny that they are lazy. Say they, there are too many youths in Nigeria proving their worth in different endeavours – business, science, art, music, movies, etc. Heck, there are many youths in different countries making breakthroughs for the benefit of mankind. Then, they threw a challenge: let the president improve electricity in Nigeria and then he would see what the youths could do. Their logic is simple. The youths and others making waves outside the country, particularly in the advanced countries, are working under ideal conditions, which is not a given in Nigeria.

    Like I said, the most notable reaction to these reactions has come from the presidency. The president’s men have declared that when the president spoke, he certainly did not mean to imply that all Nigerian youths are lazy, only a subset. They even went into the semantics of some and all to drive home the point that they thought that whoever thought the president meant all youths, then he/she needs to go back to school, assuming they have been already.

    The problem, as I perceive it, is the question of who among the youths belongs in the subset of those addressed by the president. This is the point, I think, that we explain the behaviour of subsets. Unfortunately, I am no mathematician so I cannot avail you of the characteristics of how subsets mark off memberships. Until we get a mathematician on this column, we will have to make do with the president’s explanation.

    You know, the Nigerian situation is very unfortunate. The country is growing up so wrong that practically nothing is right within it; only the oldies are happy, and that should tell you something. As of now, practically everyone is his/her own waterworks engineer, electricity company, road repairman, security operative, importer and exporter, general repairer, anything and everything. Heck, Nigerians are even now becoming their own priests! In a country where no proper social engineering has been attempted and so nothing seems to work, it is difficult to know who is lazy or who is not.

    You know the proverb, all lizards crawl around on their bellies, so it is difficult to know which one has belly ache? Well, it applies beautifully in this situation. The chaotic state of the utilities in the country has robbed everyone of speech, well, except the president obviously. Even those who are working have little results to show for their efforts on account of the unhappy state of the land. So, this has not allowed us to know who is truly contributing to the development of the land from those who are just living off it. We would easily pick out a louse if the whole head were clean.

    Many people have advanced reasons why this confusion persists, including this column, but we would not go into all that today. Let it just suffice to say that if there is a subset that can be genuinely identified, after all is said and done, facilities are put in place, instruments of work are given every Nigerian, and we are able to identify some who would not put their backs to it or bend their backs on the job, then we can come to some just and fairly valid conclusion. Again, this is the point where we talk about logical conclusions, right? Unfortunately, I am no board-certified philosopher, just an amateur, so, until we can get one on this column…

    One thing I have noticed about this country though is the fact that the same set of people have been governing it from the early days. Yet, up till now, they have not got the art of governance. They have not put in place any sense of cohesion among Nigerians but have rather emphasised those things that divide us. They have put in place measures for exploitation of the land but have not added anything of societal value. There are no binding social structures to speak of from this subset. Yet, they have refused to ‘step aside’ and allow the younger ones have a go.

    I always say though that whatever state these younger ones are in today has its foundation in the 1960s when the oldies laid down policies that did not enforce the free circulation of intellectual and/or reading materials. The minds that we are reaping today in these youths are the minds we planted many decades ago when the country destroyed the free search for knowledge, i.e., our educational system. To get our youths properly on the track of innovation, we must review our book reading policies.

  • When life deals you a lemon … quick, reject it

    In those days, when I still had fond dreams of being able to see my weight move in the direction of ‘slim’ or ‘will hopefully be slim in the nearest future’ (actual points on my scales), I planted a lemon tree. I had heard that its fruit, the revered lemon, was capable of causing weight reduction by some magic. Soon though, I found that its very sour taste was quickly giving me a dour look on life: rose bushes were full of thorns, no one could do anything right around me, and even the dog walking on its hind legs was very annoying. After much research, I also found that there was no magic in lemon that could help me lose weight. Rather, all that the blessed fruit could do was give me lemonade, fill me with vitamin C and, hopefully, cure me of scurvy should I be marooned on a ship for months on end, far from friends, relatives and sanity. Clearly, the lemon tree had to go.

    I am sure we all know the adage that says when life deals you a lemon, make lemonade. I am equally sure you know the antidote to even that, the lemonade that is, not the lemon. My religious compatriots do. At the mere mention of any undesired curse such as ‘May your days be filled with lemon’, up and around the head would go the middle finger and thumb, concluding in a snap, and then followed by a furious, hearty and immediate rejection verbalised in an religiously appropriate language, ‘I reject it in …’. Someone feeling feverish may refuse to take anti-malarial drugs but would heartily reject it. There is no devil on earth that can withstand such a furious rebuttal, unless he has been naturalised as a Nigerian. My fear is that most devils appear to be carrying Nigerian passports and are strutting around now parading themselves as Nigerians. Because of that, the blighter devils don’t respect our rejections, sometimes even riding on them to one’s front door. Sacrilege!

    Just this last week, our Central Bank governor was said to have suggested that the national expenditure on the civil, legislative and executive services be reduced by cutting those jobs in half. His reason is that the country is carrying around on its head a very bloated expenditure that it is having difficulties sustaining. So, it cannot move forward. I say blame it on the devils pretending to be Nigerians. I know they are the ones causing all the heavy expenditures. They are the brains behind all the corruption we have heard so much about, embezzling funds, fixing large amounts for themselves as emoluments, swelling the work force with ghost workers, cornering all the contracts to themselves even though they are part of the awarding bodies … just what have they not done? Real devils, the lot!

    I am sure, however, that even the governor himself knows that it is not very realistic to reduce the country’s expenditure simply by reducing the work force because it is not easy to get rid of devils; believe me, I’ve tried. There is a devil that enters my pot of soup and simply makes it disappear whenever all kinds of condiments and tantalising enhancements like beef, chicken, fish, etc., enter into it. Against that saucy devil, I am helpless, as I find myself making more. There is another one that persists in increasing my workload so that no matter how fast or hard I work, I just don’t seem to see the bottom of the barrel. Real busy devil, that one. Then, there is one that just causes things to disappear when I need them most, particularly the ones I have hidden away to guard against their being lost. Right now, I just can’t seem to find my only piece of jewellery. I tell you, these mischievous devils are getting on my nerves, and obviously, on the CBN governor’s too. He can’t find the country’s money; but at least he knows the direction it seems to have gone to and a fair idea of how to recall it.

    If we are to do what he asks us to do, however, we would be in a bit of a fix. What, for instance, will we do with our investments in Aso Rock? I mean, if we implement the fifty per cent cut in jobs, we would, in the spirit of fairness, have to start the reduction from Aso Rock by cutting the President’s or the Vice-President’s job. Now, that will cause real wahala. It’s one thing for a president to lose an election and not be returned, but it’s a different kettle of fish for a president to be laid off. ‘Owing to cuts in public service expenditure, we regret to inform you that your job has been …’ I am sure the occupant of Aso Rock rejects it in …

    Anyway, should we succeed in Aso Rock, then we can move on to the legislative houses with confidence and take the census of a normal day’s session. Whoever is present retains his/her job; the absent ones will be deemed to have resigned. That should give us less than a third of them to pay any salary to. It is only then we can turn to the civil service.

    Now, everyone knows that the civil service is bloated, and for good reasons too, the principal of which is that the Federal Government boxed itself into that corner. This column has long and oft maintained that industries are being strangulated by the government. The perpetual habit of enacting national policies which favour only the cronies of the government in the name of close to one hundred and fifty million people can only lead to trouble. Countries are better when the wealth created is private sector-driven rather than government-given. Truth is, too many times, the government has made an ass of the law, and it is now getting close to pay-back time. The devil of vengeance is always just around the corner.

    Once, I was told, someone wanted to establish an industry in a city in Nigeria, so he procured a large acreage, got everything he needed ready including the machines and approached the federal government for a licence, explaining how it would provide labour, tax and other incentives to the country. Some government functionary then tipped his friend on the development who also got up and applied for a licence for the same product. His licence was not to produce however, but to import the product in order to get a better, faster and higher yield. The sad thing is that the importer soon tired of importing but not before a very original dream had been killed by the devilish dream killers.

    The result is that the Nigerian economy is not driven by the private sector but by public service; not even public utilities, just the service commission. So, the federal government is the only worthy employer of labour. This is why everyone wants in; and it also means that close to fifty people may be pushing a single file where a single computer button would do the job better. But, the country needs to keep the illusion of keeping us all engaged because it has not allowed private industries to grow. Everywhere else in the world, it is the private sector that employs more.

    So, rather than cut jobs, the eggheads in charge of our finances must find ways of making the little we earn do much by getting rid of the devils in the system. We must make something better than lemonade from our lemons.

  • A State warring against itself …

    Too many times, I have found myself giving overtly political commentaries on this column where I have meant to give only subliminal parochial mirth. I have since found out that this descent to base politicization happens whenever I have been overwhelmed by the philistinism exhibited by my fellow Nigerians. So, if ever you hear me say the phrase ‘Fellow Nigerians…’, you can be sure I do not include these people who exhibit less than noble character. Certainly too, when I pray for my countrymen, I give them a clear miss.

    I refuse to pray for anyone who can stow the country’s billions in a soak-away, overhead tank, cemetery dug-out or even mattress. A housewife can put her money in a mattress because she cannot trust the bank, with good reason. I would prefer the mattress myself but my employer may not share my sense of humour. Which number, they would ask me, are they to use to represent the mattress?

    Anyway, as the days have gone by, I have been alarmed by the number of people I am not praying for. There was a list released recently on social media of the people alleged to have been caught with billions illegally acquired by them, and how much of it they had returned so far. As I read the list, I mentally added them to those not to pray for. I find though that the blessed list is still growing.

    As someone said, the list contains the names of those in the old ruling party who plundered the land and it has conveniently left out those in the current ruling party who are probably still plundering. I think when another party comes, the current ruling party will become the old ruling party and their list will bring out the names of those in the old ruling party and leave out the names of those in its own current ruling party. Heck, I hope you can make better sense of that than I can.

    Just this morning, I read that the former South Korean leader, Park Geun-hye, was given a 24-year jail term for alleged corruption involving a sum of $20m. The point that strikes me is that someone is said to have taken a sum amounting to billions of Naira from the Nigerian state by stealth and all we can do is cunningly find ways of getting back the money or some of it from him. He is then allowed to still enjoy his home-cooked amala. That is not fair to Mrs. Geun-hye.

    There are also those who have taken millions of Naira from the country for contracts and have failed to execute such contracts. Yet, nothing has happened to them. Driving on the Oyo-Ogbomoso road (and many other such roads) is worse than a camel driving through the eye of a needle because of unexecuted contracts. Yet, no one is hollering blue murder!

    Taking such huge amounts from the public as shown on that social media list of corruptly amassed funds by stealth or in unexecuted contracts is more or less declaring war against the state. The fact that it is happening in such a huge number too amounts to the unbelievable fact that the citizens have declared war on their own country. The state is warring against itself!

    The south Korean leader was not even alleged to have taken from her state; she was said to have merely used her position, which amounted to an abuse, hence, corruption. Yet, her state is not having any of it because it realizes too well the implication of an individual declaring that kind of war against the country. That is why the report said that even the president before her was also on trial, in addition to many other leaders the country had put on trial for corruption.

    As I said before, it irks something bad whenever I have had to make these political comments, like now. The reason is there are too many things happening that cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, most of the things happening in the country can be traced to this seemingly intractable problem of corruption.

    Listen, it is now becoming very clear that most people have found that no one gets punished in Nigeria for taking huge sums from public funds. No one even gets punished for wrong doing, unless they are not ‘big men’. Only ‘small men’ get punished for stealing a loaf of bread. ‘Big men’ who steal billions and billions get patted on the back and join political parties. News media have reported that there are many former governors in the national assembly who are still drawing remunerations and entitlements from their states equivalent to that of the sitting governor, and nothing has been done. This a most depraved act of corruption for which, I think, they should be deported to south Korea.

    The people who steal public funds use them to live larger-than-life lifestyles that beggars all description and also begs the question: what does anyone need so much money for? To grow another skeleton? Most of them use the money to flaunt themselves in the face of the world, to the envy of the rest of us. And, honestly, I would be envious if I wasn’t so scandalized. The unfortunate thing, however, is that unemployed youths and adults like me watch such obscene displays of wealth and get some unholy ideas. So, corruption begets corruption.

    Just last week, five banks were said to have been raided in Offa, Kwara State, during which at least twelve people were said to have been killed. The raiders were said to have numbered between 30 and 50, accounts vary; but they were some very angry youths, no doubt. When the state declares war against itself, things like that are bound to happen. They point to some deep-level failures all around.

    Some weeks ago, a woman was said to have recognized a man while she was in the bank who had been among those who had abducted her earlier. When the matter was further probed, he was found to have close to one hundred million naira in his bank account. He worked only as a tailor fulltime and a kidnapper part-time. Another woman who was caught in the process of collecting a ransom money said she wanted to set up a business, that was why she abducted her sister’s child.

    In the comment given by the Archbishop Okogie, Nigeria is in danger from its political class and its military class. I do agree. We obviously have a leadership class that cannot check its appetite and greed for amassing ill-gotten wealth. In other words, it cannot check itself, and most of the problems in the country can be traced to their actions (and inactions). Sadly, they are infecting the rest of the country. For instance, we still do not know what transpired in the matter of the Dapchi girls. Truth, however, has a way of coming out eventually. We only need to wait.

    The Nigerian state is at war with itself because our leaders have opened the door to unbridled and unchecked brigandage. They have also planted themselves at the gate, so corruption cannot go out, progress cannot come in. They are worse than highway men, yet they hold the direction the state goes in their hand.

    I think it is time that we the real people raised our voices together and insist that no one declares war on the state anymore. We must vociferously and shrilly demand that Nigeria be no longer treated like a conquered territory by its leaders. Only in our collective voice will sanity return. That, I will pray for.

  • And a happy Easter to you again…

    I know, I know, you wish me a happy Easter, right? Believe me, I would wish you a happier one but for these very unhappy times we are living in. Before you can recover from one piece of bad news, another one has taken its place, and before you can recover from even that, a worse one is already unfolding so much so people’s heads are turning of their own accord in every direction preening for where next the fly will enter the ointment from: north, south, east or west.

    Seriously, what bothers me about these happenings is the fact that we Nigerians are getting more and more used to living with killings or kidnapping or embezzling or bad governance all around the place so much so that life is beginning not to mean anything again. That means we are getting desensitised to what exactly we call badness because we are not given enough time to recover from the last one and raise up our defences. Too many bad things are happening too rapidly, and nearly all are man-made. This is why a notion is going around that badness belongs to the black man. Now, where on earth could that idea have come have from?

    The other day, someone was telling me how he longed to have a conversation with God. He said if he got the chance, he would ask the almighty only one question: what does He have against the black race? Why cannot a black nation, any at all, manage its own affairs successfully? When I asked why, he looked at me and answered me with another question, you know, the way you do when you are asking your brain to think, and all it is doing is jiggling around on a spot like a key hooked in its lock. It won’t unlock the door as you want it to, and it won’t come out of the blessed lock.

    So, he asked me why I, of all people, was asking him that question. I asked him in return how many black nations he knew could not get their affairs right? I think the questions were going too frequently to and fro, so someone had to end it. None, he said. I informed him that there are many other nations in the world run by white people which had bad governments too. He challenged me to name one black country in the world running a good government right now, and don’t bother to name South Africa, he told me; we all know why there is some modicum of organisation there. Finally for answer, I did not answer.

    Seriously, the question needs to be asked, is there something wrong with the brain of the black man that makes him so incapable of thinking things through? Why does it appear as if the black man has given over the efforts of thinking, and has thrown all his efforts behind taking as much money as possible out of any position he gets into, without bothering about the future of that place? Why, eh, why? Why can’t he, for instance, even think of may be getting someone to sweep the room or clean the chair he sits on for a change? Worse still, much of what is stolen from our impoverished black countries end up in the pockets of white people’s banks which use them to develop their own countries so that black people can continue to hanker after the comforts provided by those white people’s countries so that they (the blacks, not the whites) can steal more of their countries’ funds and continue to pour them down the pockets of those (the white people’s) banks so that … and on and on and on. Wow, that was quite tiring.

    Listen, I am at my wit’s end trying to understand this problem. Whenever I have heard that someone had, well, helped himself to a lot more than his salary allowed from the funds entrusted into his/her care and stowed it away somewhere in the Cayman Islands or Swiss banks or American banks where the supposed investigative moths of the government cannot reach, I have often wondered what it is all about.

    Soon, you see, that bad news would invariably be followed by another piece that says that the said stower or stowee has been struck down by one illness or gun or bomb or the other, which cannot be undone for all the money in the Cayman Islands. Worse, these monies have a nasty habit of never coming back home, meaning that those in the Cayman Islands and co. get to live the good life on our money while we the deprived get to bite our nails. Really! Can a people hate their own country so much?

    This is where we can draw many lessons from this Easter celebration. First we should remember that our Lord Jesus Christ never ran any bank account, whether in Israel or in the Cayman Islands, and yet, he never lacked. Indeed, he is said to have lived the most fulfilled, successful and triumphant life known to man. His main focus was not acquiring wealth, but in living for others and doing the will of the one that sent him. Above all, rather than profit from the misfortunes of others, Christ is known to have sacrificed his life for mankind. In choosing to lose his life then, he gained much more. This is the person we are celebrating today.

    We too can live very successful lives if we will just let our focus shift a little bit from contemplating ourselves in the mirror every morning and asking: mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest, greatest, sharpest highway man of all time, and concentrate rather on making the next person’s life a little bit more tolerable for him/her. Then we would have lifted our names from the Honour’s Roll of Common Brigands to the greater and more genuine roll: of those who have lived successfully, for others.

    Right now, the guns and bombs and kidnappings and killings are going off every which way in the country, people are being killed or widowed, homes are being wrecked, children are being orphaned … its chaos all the way, and no one is sorry. Yet, someone or some ones are behind these killings: sponsoring, procuring, planning, urging, recruiting, training, etc., and all for money or politics, because I don’t believe for one moment that the boko haram or Fulani herdsmen for instance have any religious or altruistic reasons for their mayhem. I just keep wondering: what will these people do when they do get their wish? Help themselves to more money? Talk of blood money!

    This Easter season, let us contemplate on our deeds and misdeeds and align them with the acceptable ideals that can help to lift not just the society but individuals around us to more altruistic heights of development. An individual who misuses the funds in his charge for his own personal use cannot be enriched but is really poor indeed. Someone once said that the man who seeks to make only him/herself rich cannot be, because the poor surrounding him or her will soon see to that wealth. A truly happy and successful person is the altruistic one. From this Easter, aim to be that person.

     

  • Why Dapchi should never have happened

    Like everyone else, I have been following the events of the last few days fairly closely, particularly the one concerning the abduction and release of another big number of secondary school girls from Dapchi in Yobe State. I’m sure your reaction to that news was as good as mine — ‘Not again!’ Here we are, still grieving and finding it difficult to get over the disappearance of the Chibok girls, many of whom have not yet come home, only to wake up to a repeat of the same thing again, in the same way! Believe it or not, that is history repeating itself. Honestly, it sounded like a baaaad TV show being repeated for the sake of the doubly blind, and just makes you think, ‘is there no one doing any thinking in this television house?’

    Seriously, no good thing ever comes from history repeating itself. For one thing, it is better for experiences to be fresh. Like someone said, let me be surprised. For quite another, it is better to put bad experiences behind you, pick yourself up, brush the dirt off you, and hope that tomorrow will bring that nice surprise. To go repeating history is to not let sleeping dogs lie by poking it. God help you if you go poking the wrong dog.

    Anyway, the Dapchi occurrence brought back a slice of Nigeria’s history, one I’m sure she would really love to forget. We don’t quite know how it happened. Some, like the PDP, are saying it was probably stage-managed. Some are saying it is because the boko haram that we claim is defeated wants to assure us it is safe and sound, like a boxer nearly out for the count lifting a finger up to indicate it is not surrendering yet. And yet some are saying that it is but a publicity stunt by the APC for President Buhari.

    Unfortunately, while the story was unfolding, there was the president himself telling a bewildered nation that they should note the difference between his reaction and the reaction of his predecessor when the Chibok story broke. Indeed, he patted himself in the back for promptly swinging into action. Now, I ask you, how is that possible?

    It is difficult enough to reach behind one and wash one’s own back. You practically have to do all kinds of twisting and turning, bending down and straightening up, and turning around like a dog chasing its own tail, just to reach your body’s back wall on your back-washing days. So definitely, back-patting oneself is one unpleasant feat. I guess this is why they told me, growing up, not to pat myself on the back or I would end up twisting my arm. Yet, the president managed to pat himself on the Dapchi case.

    True, there are many things we do not understand about this case. There are reports that the military was warned shortly before it happened that the boko haram was planning another raid, yet the military did nothing. I hear investigations are still on-going on that one. More curious though is the manner in which the girls were said to have been returned. It beggars all belief, as the bard himself would say. I hear all the protocols of a visiting president were observed in the town for the boko haram people. The question I kept asking myself, as I went round and round the house that day, was why the boko haram people who returned the girls were not arrested. Why, I asked myself, were they given a red, no, blue-carpet drive-in instead? Seriously, right now, I have more questions than answers I tell you.

    I honestly do not know what to think on this matter. As usual, I am thoughtless, zilch, no thoughts. I’m just wondering though about the publicity stunt theory. Why would anyone want to publicise someone by inflicting on the nation another sore while the previous one is yet to heal? Why would anyone want to publicise anyone else by inflicting pain on yet more families while the tears of some other families have not yet dried? Man, I really have no thoughts on this.

    I am thinking that if we want to make President Buhari into a hero, all we have to do is look at the revolution in rice mills taking place in the country right now. From all accounts, there are now some Nigerian rice mills taking huge bites out of rice importation. Seriously, I love that. True, Nigerian rice tends to not be fully sifted of stones and other debris, but the fact that we have been making efforts from the time of the previous Minister of Agriculture to institute a policy of home growing and developing of rice is well pleasing to me. Thankfully too, I hear that the present minister is building on that foundation. Soon, we should be rice-independent, if all plans go well, I hear.

    Should anyone want to give President Buhari a cape on that rice story, I will second it and more. In fact, I would suggest a good-sounding, well-deserved name like ‘Captain Nigeria’ or better still ‘General Nigeria’. I would even volunteer to sew the cape using Nigeria’s colours, and add a few trimmings here and there. I would definitely teach him to fly and zoom around in it too.

    I cannot however consort to assist in making anyone a hero in the Dapchi case, because there are just too many edges in the story that won’t sew up and or make a good cape, try what I would. So, I am too angry with everyone right now; in fact, so angry, I can sulk.

    Clearly, we don’t need a hero now; what we need is good governance. What with all the cattle colony palaver, on-going herdsmen’s killings, the eternally present corruption and everything else, we are all looking for signs that someone somewhere is building this nation. Right now, there are no such signs.

    Dapchi should never have happened, not for a million reasons on earth. There is enough military presence in that part of the world, there are claims that the central nerve of boko haram has been struck, and yet, here we are, with another shameful sob story. Don’t despair though, the worst is yet to come.

    The worst part for me is the admittance by the government that it did not even rescue the girls by itself. It needed the help of other international bodies to get the girls out. And I ask myself, for how long are we going to go on like this? What do we need to do to be self-reliant? It is true that no man is an island, and sooner or later we all require a helping hand. Can’t we learn from what someone said a long time ago to his daughter and I think I’ve mentioned it on this column once or twice: if you need a helping hand, there is one at the end of your arm?

    Sooner or later, we will have to face the stark reality about self-governance. Self-governance denotes and connotes that we get to know our arm and the hand at the end of it and how to use both for the benefit of the citizens. It also means that we have to learn to collate our resources and find how to equitably distribute them for the benefit of the entire country, not one’s region or one’s group or one’s town. That is the only way to ensure that Chibok or Dapchi never happens again. If we did this from the beginning, they would not have happened in the first place. It’s a shame that Dapchi had to happen again.

  • Wanted most urgently: A centre for Cancer treatment in Nigeria

    Is this health week? I don’t know. If it is, then we are in order. If it is not, can somebody please declare this a health week so that we can make some demands? For my part, I have only one demand, and it is that the Federal Ministry of Health should urgently set up a cancer centre in this country. That it has not done so, so far, is extremely egregious to me, and speaks somewhat of the rather preoccupied air of our leaders.

    (Some minutes later) Reader, I have just found out that the World Health Day is April 7th; so, I am out of order, I guess. But, no matter. My call is too important to wait till April. If by that date this all-important call has not been heeded, you can be sure I will repeat it. I’m sure you’ve found out by now that I love repeating myself.

    I feel a little right now like the tortoise. I think I’ve told you his story before. I know, I know; he has so many of them you don’t know which one. I’m talking about the one where he got stuck in a pit latrine for thirteen years. Well, there he was in that place, and the day he was being rescued, what does he do but to shout intermittently: ‘quick, quick, I can’t stand the stench of this place much longer.’ I told you I just love repeat….

    Anyway, you would have noticed that I have capitalised the first letter of every word in our topic today. That is because I want everything to emphasise the importance of this call. It is possible that the Federal Ministry of Health is already thinking of doing something, I don’t know, but the situation is too urgent to allow for too much thinking. It’s the kind that calls for shooting first and asking questions later. This means acting first and fine-tuning later.

    So sorry, reader, to be so late in introducing my subject matter today. Trouble is, my mind’s all in sixes. I’ve just read this newspaper column that says as many as 40 women and 26 men die daily in Nigeria from cancer (alone). That is unacceptably high. Let’s do a little calculation here. 40 multiplied by 365 days of the year is 14,600 for women and 9,490 for men. If we remove this combined number each year from the population (I’m not sure how many we are adding to that population through births, naturalisation, etc.), we find that the figure is dismal indeed. Can we really afford to throw these people off the grid just like that each year? This is exactly what our governments have been doing.

    The columnist went on to add that 100,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, and worse, we can even expect a 75 per cent increase in the number of cases in the next decade. I am greatly troubled by this, and I expect President Buhari to be as well. The surprise is that the man still manages to sleep in the middle of all these figures. My own sleep is right now hitting a brick wall. It, these figures that is, not my sleep, calls for a solemn, sober assembly of all of us. I’ll be glad if you can also convoke a sober solemn assembly on my sleep, people, cause honestly I’ve lost it, especially since I took my calculations further.

    My calculations show that 1 in every 8,ooo+ Nigerians can be expected to be affected by this thing, going by the 180m figure people are suddenly bandying about. So, with that fact, do you seriously expect me to sleep? I am worried; you should be too even if our leaders are not. Indeed, I find it horrifying that our leaders are not worried. I think it is mostly because most of them believe they have amassed enough resources from the state to be able to jet out of the country in search of help at the least sign of trouble. Unfortunately, the thing does not really care where it strikes and will as soon hit the king as the pauper.

    So, I find this insouciance by our leaders gross and unbelievable. My dictionary defines gross as ‘disgusting, nasty, coarse, rude, vulgar, obscene, unrefined, shameful’ when used in its slang form. It however captures my sentiments right now. Believe me, I am exerting a lot of effort not to add the word vacuous, which my dictionary defines as ‘showing lack of thought or intelligence’. I believe though our leaders have not acted heretofore because we the followers have not made our feelings known.

    Well, I am hereby putting it on notice that we the followers need and want a centre dedicated to the diagnosis, research, and treatment of cancer in Nigeria, preferably yesterday so that we can learn what to do to avoid having it. Thank you very much. Maybe then, we would come close to finding the cause, course and cure for it, and the afflicted can get some solace and relief.

    In the past, this column threw many hints and clues the way of the government regarding this issue. We mentioned before that there were too many cancer-afflicted people begging on the streets with no one to care for them except relatives, neighbours and passers-by who are often helpless in the face of the disease and the exorbitant costs of care. And the government has just looked on impassively as different swollen parts of the body are paraded around streets in order to raise pittances.

    Unfortunately, the scene painted above does not speak of any kind of governance in the land. It rather speaks of the law of the jungle where everyman is for himself. The facts known about the dreaded disease make its pronouncement strike fear into people. This means that when the doctor makes the pronouncement, it is taken as a death sentence in Nigeria. The fact that those afflicted have nowhere to go for help makes it worse.

    Most hospitals in Nigeria are hardly equipped to take care of anything more than basic problems, if that. Special problems like cancer hardly fall within their budgets. As a matter of urgency, the Federal Ministry of Health needs to actualise the setting up of a centre devoted to research on and treatment of cancer or the conversion of an existing structure into such. That centre would be dedicated to the management of that big C in terms of staff, machines and drugs.

    More importantly, the government needs to work out a financial programme for the care of sufferers who may stand in need of the services of the Guardian of the Poor or the almoner. Invariably, most sufferers would. Every hospital needs one of these almoners, but those with terminal diseases need them more. The government’s Health Insurance programme is really not on target because it reaches only a small portion of the populace, and it’s too little. For instance, it is known that it can only take care of health problems that cost less than the price of a recharge card. In effect, the programme is succeeding in making a few people very, very rich and leaving many people very, very sick, but these are on their own when major illnesses strike.

    It is indeed shameful that the government appears to need convincing to do this right thing. A cancer centre and programme will help relieve people of a serious burden, and possibly reduce the frightening number of deaths from the disease. The government must take the idea very, very seriously.

  • The New World of Women

    This new world is a world where women are seeming not to be too interested in just sitting, grinning and bearing it. Since the regular world says women are the weaker sex but is not prepared to worship that weakness, women are now working to change that hostile system

    Have you ever been in the world of women? You’ll probably tell me that your wife or your sister or your mother is or was a woman. So, you’re familiar with all the lipsticks and tampons and catfights. That unfortunately does not give you knowledge of the world of women. What gives this knowledge is not even being sympathetic to the cause of women; it is watching women who have endured.

    For a long time, I had asked myself why would the world dedicate a special day in the year to draw attention to women? Isn’t it somewhat patronising? Is it not like saying, hey there, women, let’s all humour you today – what would you like to do – we get you breakfast, take you to the cinema or simply dry you out in the sun to get you away from the heat of the kitchen for a while?

    Pardon me, I am no women’s lib agitator. I don’t even understand what that means. To me, though, the conception of the International Women’s day is anchored on a number of premises. The first premise blatantly says that the world we’re living in is a man’s world. Most of the work space in the world is occupied by men. Take any country; you’ll find that the policy makers are mostly men. Even where there are women at the political forefront, the men are occupying the driver’s seat, literally and literarily. Behind every successful woman is a set of more powerful men. I don’t think the world really trusts women enough to hand them a country to govern.

    The second premise is not far from the first, and it is that women have no choice but to accept the little they get from the men: be it housekeeping allowance, family dedicated time or even a day declared to dry them out in the sun. Men call the shots. I was mortified to read the other day that it was a man who invented the toilet paper. Even the kitchen wipe was also invented by the men.

    The third premise is that men do not need any day to be celebrated. Their royal musculatures are celebrated all through the year. I mean, have you ever heard of an International Men’s day? Every day is International Men’s day, except March 8, of course. It is only on that day that men do not get asked, what do you want to eat? Rather, they get to ask, where do you want to go for dinner? Or at least, they are supposed to ask. Ok, show of hands: how many men in the house asked that question on March 8?

    Women have their own world too, in fact many worlds, and I think that the people behind the International Women’s day are mindful of that. I don’t know, but I am suspecting that the motion might have come from a man who persistently forgot his marriage anniversary, his wife’s birthday, or was fond of forgetting himself at work, and really needed to calm his wife’s nerves. So, you see, in the world of women, dates and facts matter.

    I think though that the people who moved the motion of the International Women’s day had a lot more than dates in mind. They might have been thinking of the very many women across the entire world who have to cope with raising the family with or without a man. Let’s face it; it is so much easier for a man to just up and walk away from the family because they do not want to be saddled with too many responsibilities in the form of a wife and child. I know most men do not do that; I’m just saying it’s a lot easier; and not many women can do that.

    I think that the women who do walk away have something like ink coursing through their veins, not blood. I was listening to a story a few hours ago about how easily someone’s dad walked away. Imagine, he was packing his suitcase as he was talking to his son, giving him promises that he did not intend to keep. That’s not a woman’s world. She’s likely to tell her son to go fetch the sandwich she had prepared for him in the kitchen while she snuck away.

    I think the people behind this International Women’s day might also be thinking of the women across the globe who inhabit a world where they have to cope with dwindling family resources and rising costs of living. I tell you, we are legion in that category. There is no woman you meet now who is not ready to share her tale of how resources are no longer meeting needs and needs are now outsourcing resources. Mouths to feed are increasing yet what to pour down those yawning lanes are dwindling, courtesy of this thing called the world economic system that makes sense only to men. I’m guessing that the organisers recognise the fact that women are more likely to be victims of the men’s world social engineering system. The only social engineering system that enters the world of women is that children should have enough sandwiches to eat.

    Worse, there are women who are bearing up with the cruelty of many men’s maleness across the world. March 8, I guess, is a salute to their fights for survival. There are women who are sex slaves even to their own husbands because those ones do not recognise the personhood of their wives. There are those who have been sold as sex slaves. There are those who have to put up with their spouses’ physical, economic or even psychological aggression. There are those whose nights are spent in such horrifying terror in the hands of their partners that no cinema reel can capture.

    I know for a fact that women are creating for themselves a new world by fighting back against this world of terror. Oh no, they are not picking up arms. They can’t. They are just trying to use their God-given brains, that’s all. There is virtually no profession you cannot find women now all over the world. In Nigeria, I know for a fact that there are now female Okada riders who pick up fares and are members of the association of riders across many states. I don’t think they are doing it for the love of the road. There are women manning machines that men used to hog to themselves. I also hear that among Dangote Group of Drivers, there are now females… Man, what is this new world of women coming to exactly?

    This new world is a world where women are seeming not to be too interested in just sitting, grinning and bearing it. Since the regular world says women are the weaker sex but is not prepared to worship that weakness, women are now working to change that hostile system. There is a saying that you can’t put a woman on a pedestal and still expect her to sweep under it. Women are now taking themselves off that pedestal because no one is sweeping under it. In the process, a new world is birthed, imbued with the spirit of can-do.

    Women’s International day is a splendid idea, whether for the wrong or right reasons. However, women need more than an International Women’s day. They need encouragement across the many spheres of their lives. While everyone should respect their new fight for survival, each community must also assist women to press for the progress that they so desperately need in their new world of less pain.

  • For our mirth to return…

    For our mirth to return…

    I think it is in our character to make every system that is simple to the rest of the world complex in Nigeria because we are melodramatic by nature. We are also stupid.

    Lately, my brows have become so contracted I’m in a permanent scowl on account of the goings-on in the country. If we were not distracted by the economy, then it was the Fulani herdsmen running amok and killing people; or it was cattle colonies; or it was the matter of the president running for a second term and whether or not I want to support him; or the matter of the country having a Coalition Assembly frighteningly called The Third Force. All so distracting I have hardly had any sufficient time to eat my breakfast of a morning. Thank God for Amala that has sustained me in those dark times I’ve not been able to eat.

    I tell you, the times have become so urgent we have quite forgotten the purpose of this column, which was originally to make you laugh, dearest reader. In the beginning, we used to take national discourses and turn them into factories for gentle mirth that occasionally broke into hooting laughter to some people’s distaste, I know. The memory quite dims on the last time we made you, our real friends, laugh and our fake ones annoyed.

    Now, its grim, grim, grim news all the way these days and I’m tempted to go in search of the Brothers Grimm to teach me how to writes tales of grimness. The reason is that rather than bringing out the mirth, we have lately found ourselves wielding the big stick at first the government, then President Buhari, then the government over so many matters, including the ones listed above. Someone needs to write down these grim tales.

    Most importantly though, I have often wondered what it is with this country that it just loves turning simple comic plots to tragic circumstances. I say this because most of the problems bedevilling this country are so easily solved in other places. However, all of us, the government worst of all, prefer to take the high road of complexity and tragedy. And it does not take anyone with a crystal ball to see why: we prefer to put personal gain over national benefit. I tell you, I am quite flummoxed by it all!

    For instance, for every other country on earth, electricity is a simple matter to generate and distribute. Many methods so easily present themselves to everyone all over the world. Not so for Nigeria. We are blind to these methods and other means of systematically providing electricity for the entire country. Right now, some countries are even considering changing their method of generating electricity on account of the fact that it is not ensuring a clean enough environment!

    In Nigeria, we have made the electricity matter so convoluted and complex that even the government no longer understands where electricity comes from: dams, wind, solar, two lovers or the bottom of my pot. I tell you, when two lovers meet, sparks fly. Only trouble is, no one has tried to collect those sparks for use in factories. And yes, my pot also generates electricity, especially when I am intrepid enough to mix stuff like oil and water in questionable quantities.

    Again, take housing and urban planning – a simple matter. Just get the best brains to sit down and design how every Nigerian can have access to decent housing, no matter how small. Add to that the designing of a city-synchronised pathway for water inlet and outlet. Oh no, that’s too simple for the Nigerian. Instead, we have contrived for ourselves a system that is so difficult and complex by which people own houses and design each city. It is called ‘no system’, and it allows everyone to build where they like – on sewers, waters and even on the air, using money taken from our pocket, our neighbour’s pocket or even the government’s pocket. What matters it where the money comes from?

    Or take the little matter of census figures. All over the world, it is always a matter of just keeping statistics of the number of people living within a set of borders. Not in Nigeria. I have watched in alarm as Nigeria’s population figures have risen ominously according to who is writing. As recently as 2010, Nigeria’s population was put at one hundred million. Two years later, it had climbed to one hundred and twenty million. Steadily, the figures have risen every two years by about twenty million. Now, people are talking of one hundred and eighty million. This is most alarming. All of this guesswork is happening because we have somehow complexified the simple matter of counting heads to get the true figure. We have refused to allow only humans to be counted.

    This same complexity is visited on every aspect of national life. Take fuel importation and distribution as an example. As recently as November last year, what used to make me happy was getting money to buy fuel with. Now, I’m delirious when I get the fuel to fill my tank half-way. Check out our other systems: economic, salary, schooling, governing, employment, policing, soldiery, religious, sleeping, eating, just name it. What can be simpler than sending your child to school in the world? In Nigeria, others turn it into tragedy for you by kidnapping him/her for money (in Lagos) or by boko haram (in the north). You know what I think? I think it is in our character to make every system that is simple to the rest of the world complex in Nigeria because we are melodramatic by nature. We are also stupid. Our systems are not only costly; they achieve nothing but retrogression in the long run.

    Anyway, this week, we were greatly tempted to go sounding off again on why our herdsmen should embrace education and ranching (owing to some reactions I received on the subject some weeks back) but I thought we needed a serious bout of laughter to relieve us of this tedious stream of ‘grimies’. No sooner did I settle down to generate these bubblies than I read about school girls being abducted in Yobe State (again!) and people being killed in Borno State by boko haram (yet again!). Then I sighed and thought: what is this world coming to, that one cannot even eat one’s cow-less Amala in peace but it must be accompanied by bad news?

    Someone once said, and I think I believe him, that Nigeria has some of the best trained forces in the world: army, police, etc., and this is why Nigerian officers excel exceedingly above their peers from other climes wherever they go. So, I’m thinking, why then is Sambisa Forest proving stubborn to Nigeria’s army? Why is boko haram appearing to be so dogged to Nigeria’s army? I tell you, these are questions disturbing my sleep now.

    On this column, we sympathise fully and wholly with the families of the bereaved and the missing in the north. It is our prayer that our national ethos will find its equilibrium soon so that all these tales of bloodshed and social disconnect will yield way for genuine development to take place. Without this mental stability, no one can give his or her best in any situation. This is why I keep lifting up my big stick at the federal government headed by President Buhari.

    With such news as these coming out of the country, one cannot seem to remember the mirthful days anymore; they almost seem so distant. Yet we must remember them for the sake of our sanity. For our mirth to return, the army must stop these killings and bring those missing girls home. We cannot afford to sing another ‘#Bringbackourothergirls’ dirge.

  • Give women their own bank now

    True, there are women everywhere who seem to live life without a sufficient amount of motivation even to take the day’s bath; but you will also get a good number who have the motivation, strength and zeal to seize the world if given half a chance

    Some years ago, this column called on this nation to seriously consider starting a bank exclusively dedicated to serving women, both rural and urban. The government pretended not to have listened. But I am used to harping on a topic. This year’s theme for the international women’s day on March 8 is Press for Progress, and it gives me the opportunity to sound like a broken record again. This is why I want to repeat my prayer that the Nigerian government should please, as a matter of urgency, consider starting a bank exclusively devoted to serving rural women engaged in agricultural activities and city women engaged in entrepreneurial activities.

    I know women need this bank, the same way I know for a fact that cocks do not crow at midnight unless scared awake by a sudden noise, say from a prowling fox. Who does not fear death? I also know that parrots cannot be trusted with secrets; they have a penchant for speaking out of turns; and I know that you can always trust a dog to point out to you the place of its birth, which is more than I can say for myself. See, I know things. So listen to me as I tell you this: women need their own bank!

    There are countless reasons why a women’s bank, put in the right economically sound hands and completely devoid of politics, can alleviate the sufferings of women, particularly in the rural areas. Let me however tell you one story. It is about a woman in a city who wanted to do something to enable her feed her family. There she was, with many mouths yawning at her and threatening to swallow her up of many mornings, and she not having a farthing to help them with.

    The woman looked left and right and there was none to help her – no husband, no relative, just those yawning mouths. But she did look around her and noticed that her children’s penchant for gulping bread was contagious. All the children in her neighbourhood liked to gulp bread. So, she decided to target their taste and approached a neighbour, who happened to head a community bank, for a loan. He it was who pitied her and gave her a loan of five thousand Naira. Now, why on earth are you laughing?

    Anyway, before long, she had sold the lot of bread she bought for five thousand naira and returned the principal for another loan. Gingered, her creditor extended the loan again and even increased it to a higher amount. Till today, dear reader, that woman regularly takes and returns loans as high as ten thousand Naira each week. Yes, sir, her market enterprise is still bread. And, yes sir, her children are no longer yawning uselessly.

    You might think that story would defeat my own argument. No way; that woman was very lucky that she had someone close by that she could call on. Now think of the millions of women in the rural areas who do not have this kind of luck. Do you want every woman to have to wait to be lucky? If there was a more women-friendly, women-dedicated and women-focused bank that any woman can walk into and take that kind of soft loan, many lives would be made better, particularly those of children who yawn endlessly. More importantly, they even do not have to know anyone in order to get help. That is what we call a good society.

    For some reason or the other, many women are now sole breadwinners in their domains, even without the capital. The society knows this and the government also knows this but would not lift a hand to help many of these women who cannot help themselves. The story is told of a limbless woman – no hands, no legs – who had to paint with her teeth just to feed her family. One in a million, yes, but just go to the rural areas and see; come to the cities and see more of such needs. True, you will get many women everywhere who seem to live life without a sufficient amount of motivation even to take the day’s bath; but you will also get a good number who have the motivation, strength and zeal to seize the world if given half a chance. That chance must be given.

    More importantly, women are much more serious with government’s money and so are not likely to take loans and promptly go and marry more husbands with them. For one thing, the society will not let them. For quite another, their children will not hear of it. Have you seen how ferociously protective children are of their mothers? Phew! I know this from experience. So, new husbands are definitely out.

    The government can be sure that any soft loan given will be used by the women for the women and their children. Believe it or not, there are some children who resume school in their tertiary institutions with two thousand Naira for the semester, while some government functionaries’ children resume in the same school with two hundred Thousand Naira as monthly allowance. (You will notice I have capitalised that t out of respect).

    There is a saying that the strength of a place is really no more than the strength of its weakest member. By analogy, the strength of a country is really no more than the strength of its women. Most of the time, women take care of the children and the disabled. As it is now, women have themselves been disabled by the society. Indeed, women are so disabled they are said to be victims of many preventable deaths: maternal, mal-nutritional, domestic, etc. A woman got very badly burnt once from escaped gas while trying to reheat her husband’s food in the night when he returned from his drinking binge and demanded to be fed.

    It is so bad now that greeting a woman has become a dangerous thing; you never know if she will keel over while answering you. In spite of any amount of malnutrition or fragility, God help the woman who goes on strike against any more child birth. Heaven and hell would witness all the efforts to bring her back in line. A more economically active woman would not only be stronger physically but would be more psychologically prepped to withstand social and health-related challenges.

    Seriously, leaving women behind in the pursuit of social development is doing only a half-job. The plight of most Nigerian women, in both the rural and urban areas, must be put squarely in the picture. As a matter of fact, there is no development index worth considering that does not begin with the status of women. Since they are said to constitute the higher per centage of the population and the lower per centage of the labour force in the formal and informal sectors in Nigeria (and many other places), then the government is doing itself a disservice by not channelling the strengths of women towards higher productivity.

    So, if the government wants to get serious with development, it should not limit the use of women to giving multiple births; or welcome dances to political office holders; or being rented for political programmes. The government should give them their bank for real. This is what will inspire women for progress and ensure a happy home for happy children.

    • This article was first published some years ago, yet little has been heard of the women’s bank proposal announced by the government. Hence the need to renew the call.

  • Love Trumps All

    Someone says his valentine is his dog: it never disappoints him, never empties his pocket and never asks for dates, flowers or divorce. And I say, that cheap dog!

    Its February again, the month of love or as my friend calls it, rrrooooove. This is the season when we once again remember love, sorry, rrrooooove. To show love, we remember flowers (ugh?), chocolates (come again?!), romance (mmmm!), etc., and that most memorable dinner (rapid eye blink, blink, blink!) when the man takes the girl out and spends his hard-earned money to impress the girl of his starry eyes! It is the season for celebrating romantic love, crushes, gushes, and all the flip-flops of our inconstant hearts.

    Do you know that there are some people who have a different valentine every year? Imagine that now; having to take a different girl out to dinner every year or as a girl, being taken to dinner every year by a different man. Some people have no hobby or what?! It sounds like a good way to fight monotony though. It is also a good way to get to know the whole town. Anyway, I am here to wish you a happy valentine period; and also to let you know that I know a very good restaurant…

    It’s not as if valentine has not been there all along. After all, you have the children to show for it; and if you are not a parent yet, why then, you have your good self to show that sometime, somewhere, something closely resembling love pretended to course through the veins of your progenitors. You also have your errant heart to remind you of it.

    Errant heart or not though, this is the season the love bug bites; for normal people that is. It is the season for falling in love, out of love and back in love again with all kinds of people, animals or things. Someone says his valentine is his dog: it never disappoints him, never empties his pocket and never asks for dates, flowers or divorce. And I say, that cheap dog!

    Unfortunately, the country is at the moment filled with abnormal people who love for different reasons. Sometimes, the love can be self-propelled; sometimes, the naira, pound or dollar sign propels it. Like someone said, whether the love is pocket-impelled or stomach-attracted, love is love.

    There are too many examples around us of self-propelled love. Let’s take a few samples from recent newspaper reports. Can you imagine someone being so abnormal that he takes one look at his beloved parent and decides that that parent’s life could be put to better use if he kills him for ritual purposes so that he can bring in more money for him, the child? Unfortunately, if it happened just once or twice in a few years, we would come to the conclusion that the young fella is a psychiatric patient walking abroad. But it is replicated again and again in so many sane individuals whose souls have been taken over by great gain for little labour.

    I attended a church service once where the pastor prayed that the congregation should have the opportunity to come into a lot of money with very little labour attached. Reader, you should have heard the thunderous ‘AMEN’ that answered that prayer from the congregation. I actually believe I was the only one who refused to say amen to that prayer. I asked a friend later who also attended if s/he said amen and that one replied, ‘yes now; who does not want cheap money?’ Scandalous! I believe anyone who says amen to that kind of prayer would readily sell their parent.

    I guess I have bought too much into Tai Solarin’s School of Rough Roads philosophy. This, reader, is why I slave for hours to bring this to your table every Sunday. I think my editor is another member of that elite group of rough roaders.

    Anyway, there are also people so abnormal that they decide that the wee, little bodies of their wards or house helps or even their own children must be riddled with witchcraft or light fingers which can only be treated by hot water or severe searing. These ones are so blinkered they do not see the witchcraft lurking in their own adult bodies that can better take the hot water and severe beatings. No sir; they love themselves too much. Such rrrrooooove!

    Should I continue to talk about our abnormal fellow inmates in this huge prison of ours that we call country? What about the ones who constantly have forced carnal knowledge of wee, little children either for satisfaction or as a ritual in the belief it can help them gain quick access to magical monetary or power kingdoms? Or even the ones who rape unwilling, non-consenting and uncooperative females, eh? Now, how abnormal are those? There is more, but let’s wait a while.

    So, clearly self-love seems to propel a great number of Nigerians. It manifests in so many ways. For instance, I have heard but I have not been able to confirm, that a single individual in the land has enough money to sponsor the country’s budget, yet there aren’t too many records showing either his work or business experience. The guy loves himself so much that everyone else can jolly well perish for his sake.

    By far the stronger love in the eyes of the average Nigerian now is the love of money. Oh my! You should see the glint in people’s eyes. Anything and everything is now money in Nigeria. It’s got so bad now that if you wish some people good morning, it may cost you some money for them to reply. Give someone some water, and you may find yourself parting with some money. Money is definitely not just the root of evil in Nigeria, I believe it is the evil. Why, all you have to do is listen to the mind-boggling revelations coming from the armsgate investigations.

    Listen, it appears we have all forgotten the message of valentine, occasioned by the life of St. Valentine, a Roman priest. I believe I have told the story once but let’s recap the history of that legendary martyr once again. It is said that the poor man had the temerity to secretly marry off soldiers and their sweethearts, which was against the roman laws of his era. For this act, the emperor imprisoned, and later punished, him by caning and executing him.

    The most important thing about St. Valentine is the fact that his heart was in the right place. He loved his charges; he loved people and had great compassion for them. As a leader in the church, he was concerned about spreading Christianity but more importantly, he was concerned about meeting people’s needs. He not only put all he had into his work, he eventually laid down his life for his folks, work and conviction. How many Nigerian leaders can do that?

    In St. Valentine we come across self-abnegation for the common good. Nigerian leaders, as we stated above, believe in live and let die – let others die that they might live. This so easily explains why someone can have billions and billions and billions of the country’s money in their own private pockets, bank accounts and soak-aways without feeling a pinch of guilt while the people go hungry. ‘Self-first’ is the credo. Obviously, St. Valentine, they are not.

    In this season of love, we remember this remarkable legend, if indeed he did live, because he did not care about himself but about showing love to others, if we believe the story. In the process, he did not mind that he had to suffer because he was committed to loving. Let our leaders be as committed to loving the people and they will be remembered by time. Let them persist in defrauding the people and they will be stoned by time.