Category: Oyinkan Medubi

• The Nigerian seems to have one credo. Make some noise and people know you are there. Then, what happens? Oh, before you know it, you become the governor of a state.

The more I write these few lines for you each week, dear reader, the more I have found that the popularity ratings of the column has grown. Not because the lines are good (if you say so, I don’t mind though) but because they are insistent on being heard. I thank you indeed for tolerating me the way you tolerate a mosquito. If you pretend long enough that it isn’t there, it might actually go away. So I find that many read me to get me out of their way and promptly settle down to ignore me. That is how the column has earned its popularity.

Notoriety though I find comes mostly through politics. No, I don’t hate politics. I just don’t consider myself as being very politically conscious, more like a political somnambulant. Half of the time, I have no idea how many states in Nigeria have governors. Heck, half of the time I have no idea who indeed is the governor of which state. The other day, I heard that someone called Gov. Something had been removed as governor of a state in Nigeria by a tribunal. Who, I asked, is that? Which State is he governing? Someone said he is/was a governor. Yes, I read that, I replied, but who the heck is he? Everyone looked at me like I had lost it. The economy has finally got to her; they were thinking; a governor is someone everyone should know. And I went away thinking, how do they know all these governors when they seem to change every minute?

The problem, I reasoned, is that many of my fellow citizens do not set out in life to be anything more than notorious. The Nigerian seems to have one credo. Make some noise and people know you are there. Then, what happens? Oh, before you know it, you become the governor of a state, a Representative, a Senator, a principal, a…. On what platform? The platform of noisemaking! But what has he achieved?

So, there you are, I do not know politics, just like I do not know maths. Why, the other day, someone gave me a poser that sounded like one of those Satan uses to determine those bound to go to hell with him if they pass it. The test asked if someone were to offer to buy a goat for the sum of N2, 000.00 and the seller agrees to the price and the buyer brings out the money to pay for the goat, but the goat leaps up and snatches the money and eats it, then how much has the goat become? For reply, I made only one gesture: Cuckoo! Why should I give him the privilege to know I did not know maths, I reasoned?!

So, you can imagine my horror when I heard yesterday that a senator had been taken to another court. I was really horrified. Please, I begged, don’t tell me I did not know that the senator was in one court in the first place. The fellow looked at me like I had mutated to some unrecognisable being. This is his second court and who knows how many more courts before he is through with us, I was told. I sat down in great mystery, wondering: where had I been all my life?

Seriously, reader, you can’t blame me. I have been too busy tracking where all of Nigeria’s money had got to. First, I was reading that some two point something billion dollars had been shared among a few Nigerians who happened to belong to a political party. Naturally, my head had been swimming round those figures with me wiping my face many times a day to make sure I was not dreaming. Then I began to hear through confessions how the money was disbursed to various agents of the party; and the offers some of them made to return it, either through coercion or remorse. Naturally, I wiped my face some more trying to imagine which bank would contain enough storage space to receive these vast sums when they are converted to our very worthy Naira.

That was when I began to hear stories of how a few top people in one of the armed forces had somehow contrived to convert hundreds of billions of Naira, meant for the upkeep of their own arm of the armed forces, to their own personal use. As I was told, they went as far as constructing an underground pit or latrine or soak-away (the story is not very straight around this corner) in the house of one to keep some of the monies while some nestled comfortably in the accounts of the wife of another. As these revelations were coming out, you can imagine that my face wiping had grown alarmingly to reach some worrisome proportions. I found I had begun to wash my face to be sure I was not dreaming, and also to be sure I wasn’t Pilate. I also wanted to see if the water would tell me why my fellow citizens would persist in settling only for notoriety when they could go for renown.

Then I read about one DJ Obi, really known as Obi Ajuonuma, who had set out to etch his name in the Guinness Book of Records by ‘djing’ for a record two hundred and forty hours straight out. I wiped my face once more to be sure I was not dreaming. Could it be that there really is a Nigerian interested in actually making something of himself that did not put money first? Could it be that such an unnatural element who considers achievement over unnatural enrichment exists? Could someone be actually more interested in renown over popularity and notoriety? I say, I saw the picture, so I believed. I became encouraged.

You see, it appears that most Nigerians are only interested in scrambling for loots. We all therefore seem to have forgotten that loots do not make a man. They make a man a common thief, less than the soil underneath an honest labourer’s slippers. We have said it again and again on this column that what makes a man is not the number of houses he owns (whether honestly acquired or not), or the number of private jets he owns (acquired properly or not), or the number of women or men they are able to sleep with.

True, you have heard many people preach again and again that you cannot take it with you. Well, I’m here to tell you something different. You can take it with you. The only thing is that what you have here gets converted to a different currency when you die. The man who has worked only at stealing from the country may get to enjoy his loot here, but when he dies, the loot gets converted into his name which will become synonymous with notoriety. The man who actually works at achieving something may or may not enjoy his proceeds on earth; but when he dies, his name gets converted also into something akin to renown.

What matters most in this world is what we do for a living, how well we do it and what we are able to achieve through it, no matter how little or how big. Achieving something through one’s efforts is a greater success than any amount of money that one can steal. It not only brings out the truly noble thing in one’s character, it enables a man to touch the lower tip of the universe. That man is able to reach beyond himself; that man is also the man who has been able to conquer his lowest instincts. Here’s to rooting for DJ Obi; hope he’s able to win his renown.

• No state… has the right to introduce by force, cajolement or stealth, any ideological or objectification of faith into any part of its public institution, including school system, civil service, or other services. Public institutions must be assisted by the nation’s leaders to maintain their secular neutrality.

I know from experience that tragedy produces its own comedy. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at Nigeria. It is a living proof of a tragic country. Nothing works. Yet from deep within its tragic bowels are coming out incredible acts of mirth that leave your body wracking helplessly in laughter. I tell you, they tempt you to go wake Shakespeare up and rail at him, ‘what do you mean by coming out with this watery stuff you call King Lear or Richard II? Come to Osun State; come to Kogi State; come to Ondo State; come to Kwara State; come to Yobe State; come to Zamfara State for the real thing called tragedy… I’m telling you if you hear the things going on in these Nigerian states, William, you will be sorry for your theatre. Pooh’.

Take Osun State for instance. It is on record that the state is about the most known for its inability to pay its workers their earned wages. Rather than address that, however, it went about seeking how to go wake up a dog that could not really be said to be sleeping as that it was non-existent. The state government stealthily introduced religion into the school system via the dressing mode. And it has become one national question that will not go away.

There are other questions that will just not go away, no matter how you shoo them off: Nigeria’s language problem, housing problem, and why it is that every cup of water I drink persists in adding to my weight are examples. But let’s leave those very serious questions for now and face something more comical, Osun State’s Comedy of the Uniforms.

Now, you and I know one thing about religion. It is emotive. It is hysterical. It is also unreasonable. This was why many nation states that had some serious business of growing to do clipped its wings before sitting down to breakfast. I’m not saying they were right or wrong, but the old communist bloc did it very successfully. Indeed, Stalin was said to have been so successful he made himself a substitute item of worship. True, the people were not happy, but it kept them quiet throughout his tenure. People like that understood the true character of religion and men; men need something to worship (religion) and would usually allow it to run away with them until they forget the propelling motive in the first place (God).

Perhaps, the Osun state government needed to distract the people for a while from the hunger in their stomach, I don’t know. The result of what it did has been a veritable tableau of the incredible consorting with the unbelievable. First, it was incredible that the government would introduce religion (either through governmental fiat, bill or the courts, no matter), knowing how divisive a matter it is, into the innocent school children’s lives. Secondly, it was unbelievable that the people would respond to the matter the way they have done.

Honestly, the picture that has been given to the world of the state of things in Osun is that of a state in dire economic straits, and of a governor who insists on holding on to his private jet, like his favourite toy. We all understood that workers were being owed salaries of up to or more than eight months. We understood that the economic situation had become so desperate that one report said an unpaid worker opted to ingest a chemical in a gesture of suicide. So, I sort of imagined everyone walking around the state stooped, frothing anger in the mouth and grumbling emptiness in the stomach.

However, when the matter of religion was introduced into the state’s public schools, it seemed everyone quickly started to walk erect again, the grumblings in the stomachs forgotten. Now, the people are still frothing in the mouth though but from a different kind of anger. So, we have a situation where the governor denies having issued any order as to what children should wear or not wear as uniform, the main religions in the state still dress up their wards as their faiths dictate, and chaos shakes hands with confusion in a gentlemanly agreement. Satan rules, ok.

I ask, in all of these, where has learning been relegated to? I ask this because I want to imagine that with so much interfaith conferencing and uniform comparisons going on, not much learning can be taking place, only tragic laughter is being produced. Everyone should be thoroughly distracted by the various colours being displayed in this mirthless comedy.

Nigeria on paper and in practice is a secular state. No state, no matter how sectarian it might be, has the right to introduce by force, cajolement or stealth, any ideological or objectification of faith into any part of its public system, including school, civil service, or other institutions. Public institutions must be assisted by the nation’s leaders to maintain their neutrality for the sake of now and posterity. Their failure to do this will surely make this secular cookie crumble.

One thing that is making me froth in the mouth, though is another question that will just not go away. It is this question of politicians in the assemblies asking to be given a pension and impunity. Did I just write impunity? I thought they were enjoying that already. Oh, they said immunity, eh, but it sounded more like impunity to me; I’m not deaf, thanks. I only wish our politicians knew just how much work there is to do.

Each day, driving through Nigerian streets, one is accosted by an army of beggars of literally every hue and description, some being assisted by their employees or employers, you never can tell. Many of them are clearly materials for state intervention that is not forthcoming. They are usually cases of obvious cancers that are being taken through the streets because the patients and their relatives do not know what else to do. Yet, the government is quiet. The assemblies are quiet.

I look forward to the time when we will have a truly mature national assembly that will not be fighting for impunity, immunity, pension or posts for itself. Instead, it would actually think about the people; it would fight to have a bill mandating the country, either through the state or directly, to take over cancer cases once the doctors establish its presence in an individual. This bill would make the state or country help the hospital to take over the management of that patient. I tell you, this would not only reduce the suffering of the people, it would actually make the people thaw a bit towards the assembly. As it is now, the people’s hearts are just one step away from being frozen over towards them forever.

Besides, if pensions are doled out to politicians, who exactly would it go to and how many? A politician whose assembly tenure is interrupted once or twice qualifies for how many pensions? The other day, I heard that a local government chairman was wondering aloud why LG chairmen should not be given a pension. I wondered too.

Most importantly, we have said it on this column repeatedly that the 1999 assembly attracted a lot of grief from the people owing to the emoluments it fixed for itself. Even though that assembly provided the excuse that it had included pension and other things, no one was impressed. So, writing in pensions for elected politicians now into the constitution still sounds like a sleight of hand thing to do. It is just another mirthless comedy.

• Devolving power from the centre to the states would simply be moving the poor masses from the gripping arms of one drunk to another brute. There would be too many emergency dictators

The days are coming on me something thick now they make me feel like one beleaguered nation, and I am thinking this is not fair. When the IBEDC-enforced darkness is not enveloping me in one cold, dark embrace, the government is conspiring to assassinate me by sending the sniffles through the weather. So, everyone I know is going around now sniffling and coughing and sneezing into one handkerchief or the other. Luckily, the government has not got me yet.

To add to my embarrassment, I find that the price of the dollar is now rising like some bread dough filled with yeast so that I can no longer buy a bunch of plantain for the old expensive price. More, the price of fuel is taking a climbing hike into the mountains until I am almost using my mouth to suck the last drop out of the pump to get value for my puny money.

More worrisome though, I find that everyone I know is no longer also going around complaining about the country. And that’s a bad sign. Previously, where two or three were gathered together, the country’s deeds and misdeeds were sure to be in their midst. Now, it is either that people are past talking about the country or they don’t know where the talk should begin. Now, I find that when they do talk they always start from this angle: ‘We know that Buhari did not cause the problem we’re all in now, the PDP ate the country dry; but we wish he would hurry up and do something about it. People are dying.’ Humn.

I cannot speak for Buhari. I am sure the man has a whole lot of people employed just to do that. Under the circumstances, though, it is difficult to cut anyone any slack when news reports keep telling us things like ‘people are now stealing pots of amala off stoves’, ‘families are stealing pots of amala only to eat it with palm oil’, ‘people are stealing bags of semovita off other people’s stalls to feed their families with,’ ‘families are now going three days without getting a single meal to eat’…

I think we all know the poor man inherited a very ungainly country tottering on its unstable legs and undulating like a drunken cow. Our failure to do something about this clumsy giant of a country before now is what has brought us to this sorry pass.

I have always been a firm believer in the axiom that what a people wants, a people gets. The citizens of this country have not been fair to themselves and the rest of the world in not making up their minds early enough just what to do with the strange baby the colonial power handed over to them. Should they smother it quickly before it embarrassed itself and the rest of the world like you would like to do to some of your relatives? Or, should they adjust and settle down to negotiate for more space from the world? They did neither. They, instead, waited and watched to see how it would grow or die a natural death. Unfortunately, it has done neither too; it has just been running round and round in circles, like a dog chasing its own tail.

So, one way or the other, Nigeria is embarrassing itself. What do you mean ‘how’? Well, first, there was corruption, then there was the Niger Delta (ND) problem, then there was Boko Haram, and then there was corruption again, then the ND militants again, then unpaid salaries, then father-son politician-thieves, then ever shrinking housekeeping funds, then corruption…! Me, I have taken a look at all these, thrown up my hands and have exclaimed, I’m getting off this country as soon as I finish my dinner. Who needs all these aggravations? Not so other people; they are thinking something can still be done. I would envy them if they weren’t such optimists.

And what are they thinking? Some are thinking restructuring. They say, and we all know and have said, that the centre is too strong, inept, inefficient and ineffective. Actually, one is enough to kill it, but we need all four adjectives. So, they also say that because of the powerful centre, assets end up being unfairly distributed. The ND region, they say, is a veritable source of weeping and gnashing of teeth for its awfulness. Naturally, that kind of neglect and others leave the others aggrieved and discontented. This discontent, they say, is what erupts mostly into militancy.

Restructuring, people say, would involve redefining the way this country is run. Mostly, running everything from the centre does not pay, just like crime. It does not allow individual components to grow at their own pace. Incredible amounts of talents are allowed to go to waste because of the present clumsy arrangement. States are financially hampered and not allowed to do so many things, including their own police or even sing, and that is why many of them are nigh comatose now.

Well, that sort of leaves me wondering, how come then that so many of them are able to purchase private jets? In fact, someone told me that in the heydays of the Jonathan era, a subvention collection time of the month was also a private jet convention time as state governors flaunted and compared notes on their private flying toys in Abuja. So, if they were that hampered, how did they manage to purchase those toys?

Don’t get me wrong; I am for restructuring if this entity is not to be dissolved altogether since it is clear we cannot go on reeling left and right forever. However, devolving power from the centre to the states would simply be moving the poor masses from the gripping arms of one drunk to another brute. There would be too many emergency dictators.

This I guess is why some people feel that the problem of the country has been poor leadership. The country has been rather unlucky in her choice of leaders, rather like one being unlucky in love. Since her birth, she has been blessed mostly with a succession of the poorest materials as head, with the exception perhaps of the present company and one or two others. For this rudderlessness, lawlessness has been allowed to reign, sacred cows have been allowed to roam and you and I have to sleep with two eyes open now.

In a fair world, many of the people Nigeria parades as former heads should never have smelt power. I would list them now, but for the fact that they have not struck any deals with me yet, unlike the federal government’s never-coming list of alleged looters. When we talk, I assure you, you will hear.

So, in a fair world, the head of the country will always be a man of vision who will know that the ND region, like others, needs development, not palliatives like amnesty. As someone said, negotiate with so-called Avengers today and tomorrow, another group will come up. In a fair world, I tell you, I would be the Queen of the richest country on earth, and a small dispensable item like a handkerchief would not have twelve letters while the all indispensable dress would have five letters only. It’s not a fair world, though, I’m telling you.

Clearly, restructuring is the answer. Much of what the federal government is holding onto now like a baby to its toy should rather go to regional governments. An efficient region is a lot more effective governmentally than an efficient state. It would keep these mini dictators in check. It would also be a way of bringing the centre closer to the people and the country can stop chasing her own tail.

• Unless we end this new culture of indulgent parenthood, parents will be unwittingly signing their own extinction warrant

Early this month, the world marked the international day of parents. I guess the world was trying to tell us something; such as it’s not easy to raise a Cassius Clay and bend, twist and tumble him into a Mohammed Ali. It was saying that it is not easy to bring an Albert Einstein into the world, watch him tumble and squirm through all his early exams and then bring out the theory of relativity out of him. It is definitely saying that all those people out there still trying to bring the Einstein out of their little thugs should not despair; there is hope. Einstein almost didn’t get it, but he did, finally.

There is a saying that children will be the death of those who have them and also the death of those who do not have them. It took me a while to understand that; you know how famously slow I am. When I did come to understand it though, of course I disagreed. As far as I am concerned, parents are quite capable of killing themselves. In fact they have started to do just that, but guess where – in their children.

Naturally, it can be daunting to find oneself the only thing standing between this wee bundle and the deep floors of River Granges. I tell you, you need nerves of steel to prevent yourself from panicking, calling 911 and immediately tendering your resignation.

One woman in America was said to have been so lacking in these nerves of steel she took one look at the world, another one at her five children and decided that if they lived on the floor of the river in her town, the world could not reach them with all its drugs, failures, murders, politics and … and badness. So, she drowned them. Another one slit the throat of her four children, also because she was so afraid the world would ruin their angelic looks and character. Naturally, these women were jailed, but the children were safe.

Honestly, it’s got so bad many parents do not know what to do with their children anymore. If they, the parents, killed the children in their childhood, they would go to jail. If they let these children grow up, it does not favour the parents. To start with, the girl child soon discovers boys, and her voice. That’s when she discovers that her parents are unreasonable and belong to the old school whose candlelight went out long ago. This stage has led many parents to commit murder. Un hun.

On the other hand, the boy child soon discovers friends, guns and drugs, in that order. His voice comes later to give a million reasons why he should be allowed his freedom to play with all three as he pleases. That is also when he discovers that the very house that gave him shelter from sun, rain and armed robbers has become restrictive and he needs his freedom. This stage has also led many parents to commit disownment. Un hun.

Please believe me when I tell you that once, the oldest woman in the world was asked if she still had any worries at her age and she replied, ‘not since my youngest child entered the old people’s home.’ Oh, I’ve told you this before? Good, I was afraid I was repeating myself. Obviously, the job of a parent is to have children and worry sick over them.

‘Have children; will do things’ has become the credo of many a parent around here though. As an alternative to calling 911 and tendering his/her parenthood resignation or drowning the troublesome tykes in River Granges, many Nigerian parents have found ways to… err, raise the little buggers. First, they tolerate them for around a year till they can totter around on their little trotters, and then they, wait for it, enrol them in lessons, in order to give them an advantageous start in life!

Clearly, we have finally arrived at the age when parents are ready to do anything for their children. This means that children, not the parents, are wearing the pants in the house now. There was only one pair of pants in my house, and you could immediately see who was wearing them by the size (much bigger than all of us), by the colour (definitely not in our hues) and by the shape (it uses a belt). Now, fashion has come round and round and parents and children are struggling for the same pair of skin-tight pants, and guess who’s winning – the children. How do I know this? Wait.

In the not too distant past, examinations were a way to measure a child’s abilities in many things. If he passed, he was applauded all round. If he failed, he was excommunicated from the comity of nations in the family – no food, no new clothes and no new smiles from all. Now, examinations have taken on a new character. They are a way to measure the parents’ attention deficit disorders. Many parents, not having time to spend with their children in order to bring them up properly, over-compensate by lavishing on them such things as money, material items, admissions bought from the stores and new ways to cheat in examinations just to be sure they passed.

Imagine the horror of this nation when the news reported sometime last year that a set of parents impersonated their children in an examination! Before then, all we heard was how parents would organise to have their children register in examination centres that were well below the radar so that they could pass. We knew how parents in a community would come together to take very good care of invigilators sent into their midst, being after all, strangers. But to actually sit for an exam in the place of a child beats my imagination hollow because I have been wondering honestly: what did they do for uniforms? How did they manage not to let their wrinkles stand in the way? I would really like to know because I have a few lines on my face I want to get rid of for reasons slightly related to theirs. I would like to go back to school to read the course of my dreams: Loxodontology, the study of elephants. I want to know how to make them dance the waltz, on one leg, on the beach, while I am lying on the sand, counting the palm leaves…

Thanks to parents now, examination malpractice has gone way past the manageable level. I wrote here sometime ago that there are few things wrong with our educational system that curing the parents would not cure. I nearly got roasted, alive! But for the grace of God, I tell you, I would have been singed to my eyebrows. Really, parents have unfortunately forgotten their primary duties.

The primary duties of parents to their children are clear. Instead of teaching their children to cheat, parents should be teaching RESPONSIBILITY. Instead of plying their children with earthly materials and rousing their appetites for the moon, parents should be teaching PROBITY. Instead of teaching self-indulgence, parents should be teaching SELF-KNOWLEDGE. Armed with these, a child would better appreciate the true issues of life. Then, more theories of relativity will ensue. Unfortunately, they cannot be picked up by the wayside; they must be taught by parents.

Unless we end this new culture of indulgent parenthood, parents will be unwittingly signing their own extinction warrant. Putting power into the hands of children, the weak heads that they are already, is a most dangerous thing. Take warning for I am telling you that very soon, children may decide that they no longer want or need your parenthood; they can parent themselves. Perhaps then, the children will do a much better job at parenting their parents even.