The Nation Newspaper

Category: Oyinkan Medubi

Funny Food Business
Don’t eat what you can’t spell, or translate to good plain Nigerian English

Cultural fusion in this global village is enlarging my food vocabulary, as newspapers try to open my eyes to the merits of different dishes from every part of the world. But, frankly speaking unless a dictionary is published alongside such dishes, there is very little communication between me and those pages.

      What am I, for instance, to understand by ‘Scalloped Potatoes’? To me, scalloping is what my tailor does to increase her fees, make my dress look as if the scales of a fish have been stuck on it and make me look like a near-strangulated mermaid in it. ‘Shrimp Scamp’ is what I called my children in their growing years when they perpetually got between people’s legs! And I would be grateful for a few potatoes, but ‘Potato au gratin’? I really don’t know. When I come across ‘Mackerel Quiche’, I want to say, quick, give me a Japanese geisha, tinned or not; ‘Chili Concarne’, I think, sounds like chili pepper wrapped in a few leaves of hemp; and I have no idea what ‘Ratatouille’ could possibly stand for: rat fried in olive oil, do you think? After reading those pages, I have many times thrown my hands up in frustration and wondered aloud: What is wrong with good ol’ Amala?

     My children say – and frankly speaking, I don’t believe a word of it – that whenever I sit down to a dish of Amala, I become something else. You know what Amala is, don’t you? It is that dark, sticky substance that looks like moulded black tar but tastes heavenly. When I’m eating it, my children say that my ears automatically close and I can’t hear a word from them again; every pore in my body becomes a spring from which sweat pours like the Niagara Falls; and I eat in deep concentration, all the while quivering while the food lasts.

      Now, I ask you, how can anyone positively believe all that? I love Amala, that’s true; I don’t like to be interrupted when I’m eating it, that’s true; Amala does tend to open the pores, making one sweat like mad, that’s also true; besides, I need to keep my eyes on my food because those watching me just might throw it out since it is not salad. But sir, I do not quiver: the cocaine content of Amala is not as high as that of coffee!

    I have grown very distrustful of anyone who would prefer a bowl of salad to a bowl of Amala. I think someone should sit such people down and ask them what their problem is. I have done that to my family several times but I have to confess that they leave me baffled. But I am not giving up; the gospel of Amala is too strong to keep under. Just ask Mr. Alaani Aderibigbe, who makes and sells the stuff for a living as reported by New Age a little while back. His story is so heartening for me in my crusade of getting proper respect for Amala that I have dubbed him the brave heart. Anyone who marches where angels do not even tread must have some confidence.

        Anyway, even Mr. Alani must grant that Amala does have a superior in Pounded Yam, which appears to have found its own incontestable niche in the people’s consciousness as the Nigerian food. You know what Pounded Yam is, don’t you? It is that white, gooey substance made from yams that have been pounded to death, and to which many sweats and other substances have been added in the process of pounding, but who cares! Many Nigerians swear by it, as their devotion is fast approaching a religion. Someone related how he had been so surprised to find a university professor, who had just returned to the country from abroad, at one of the road-side food centres eating pounded yam. When he asked why he had not gone to a restaurant, the returnee was said to have replied that a restaurant was not the right place to eat pounded yam because he would not enjoy it there. Besides, it is only at a road-side food centre that you can get the original pounded yam, mixed with sweat and a lot of women talking over it to give it the right flavour.

    Many food centres or ‘bukaterias’ that offer PY run timetables that keep the food and temper requirements of each patron in mind, for they know that if the food is not ready at a stipulated time, Mama Put will get more queries than the most disobedient civil servant. And when the patrons begin to stream in, many are donning white shirt, tie and jacket; the last two being promptly discarded while the shirt sleeve is rolled up. Don’t be deceived, for at normal times, those patrons parade as academics or managers or workmen of all descriptions. No sooner is everyone served than hands begin to travel up and down from plate to mouth, backs bent uncomfortably over rather low tables, neck ties rolled aside, noses streaming, eyes glazed, throats clearing intermittently, and jaws snapping powerfully. But don’t be alarmed; you’re only watching ‘Jaws 4: The Odyssey of the Poundo’.

    We are lucky in this part of the world though; restaurant and ‘bukateria’ menus are in English. In some parts of the English speaking world, it is all you can do to read the menu and you wonder if the kitchen is not manned by people from mars; the menu is often not in any language. This accounts for non-English phrases like ‘scalloped potatoes’, ‘shrimp scamps’, and ‘onion tarts’. Shame on those onions! Our menus here are often recited by waiters from memory as, other than the two powerful Nigerian dishes, no other foods command any mention, because by the time one runs the whole gamut of Nigerian dishes anyway, one comes across a wall of paucity and predictability.

      Sometimes, I wonder if the food editors who are trying to increase our choices ever try the recipes they bring forward on themselves before attempting to tempt my throat with them. Believe me, I tried one recipe once but the results did not even faintly resemble the perfect picture displayed on the page. It was a kind of bread and I believed I followed the steps to the letter, despite my two left hands in such matters. What came out of the oven felt like a cross between rubber slippers and dried cow’s hide to the taste! However, everyone in the house was compelled to eat it so that when next I declare that I want to repeat the performance, I am sure to be paid not to do it. The only one who wanted to dodge my bread was instantly reproved by the head of the house: ‘What makes you think you’re so special that you can’t eat this bread? You will suffer through it like the rest of us!’ It’s a little like the boy who told his father that he did not want to go to church anymore because church was boring. His father replied: ‘Yes, that is the reason everyone goes; so you will go to church and be bored like everyone else’.

   I came away from my experiment with one or two lessons. Don’t eat what you can’t spell, or translate to good plain Nigerian English. Secondly, if a dish requires too many steps and measurements in its preparation, don’t try it. Trust me; one step is likely to have been skipped over by the writer: and that is, how to make it look as perfect as its picture! Both of these lessons confirm to me why Amala and Pounded Yam remain so attractive for Nigerians: they are already translated (even Amala, honest!), they are easy to spell, they do not require too many steps, and they also taste better than rat fried in olive oil. Happy World Foods Day.
- Today, October 16, is World Foods Day; so I have updated this article, first written in 2006, on the subject.
October 18, 2015
WTD: wisdom is … empowerment through self-development

Teachers must empower themselves by behaving professionally and seeking to be better each day in the impact they make on their learners

For the fun of it, dear reader, I typed into the internet search engine ‘world’s wisest man’. It brought up King Solomon (belonging to the past) and a certain engineer Hobbs (belonging to the present). Among other things that qualify him was his recommendation that sex offenders be sent to Afghanistan as a distraction in order to get American soldiers out of there! Now, how’s that for wisdom?!

Fayose in Ekiti State is nearly writing his way into another kind of Solomonic wisdom. The news gave it that he gave cars to teachers deemed outstanding in their performances. He also created the posts of headmasters-general and tutors-general, whatever those might mean. I don’t know, but you know Mr. Fayose is full of all kinds of wisdom. Of course, the recipients of those cars went home wreathed in smiles while teachers’ salaries and other emoluments remained unpaid.

In spite of things like that, the teacher is expected to be full of all kinds of wisdom. You know him/her, don’t you? I once provided a cartoon depiction of (her) on this page that I had borrowed from the internet so I will not be repeating that here. It’s enough to know that s/he is that individual who is expected to impart knowledge into his/her wards by writing on the board and at the same time seeing everything the class is up to with the eyes situated at the back of her head. Uhn hun, s/he is that knowledgeable.

Sometime ago, I listened in on a conversation that did not really concern me. (I can’t help it if my ears insist on picking things up). A child made a sentence in English that was a little off in its grammatical status and promptly, an adult asked, ‘what are they teaching you in that school paa pa?’ A little later, the same child was asked where Australia was, and he said Africa. Again came the retort, ‘what do they teach you in that school?’ I believe if I had stayed long enough, I would have heard that refrain used more times in the day if the child talked while eating, slept too well, did not sleep well, had fever, did not have fever, played too hard, did not play hard enough… In short, the school would have been blamed for whatever wisdom (or lack of it) the child displayed.

No doubt, we are in the era of the one-stop school system; you know, like a one-stop store where you get everything from a cow to a car. This means that this country has now bred parents who expect the school system to cater for all the child’s developmental and intellectual needs. It’s a kind of cure-all, like food. You know how our grandmothers always believed that food was at the root of all our problems. If a child was too quiet, shove a slice of yam in his hand. If a child was running fever, give him a slice of bread. Even fainting fits could be fought with soaked gari. And if the child had nose-bleed, why, the boy does not have enough cereal in his system; make him a bowl of akamu. Seriously, those were the days when children were well fed.

The proverb that says if hunters have learnt to shoot without missing, birds will learn without perching remains one of my favourite marching philosophies. It teaches me to raise my expectations of myself and also my goals at the same time, such as being able to fly without perching.. If the country has come to believe that the classroom should be a one-stop shop for the learner, then it is up to the teacher to go to his drawing board and see what s/he can do. The teacher must see behind that attitude that Nigeria is asking him/her to do more.

I believe that there are two things s/he can do. One, s/he can agree that indeed, the classroom can be the child’s superstore of knowledge and stock up the blessed shelves. Then s/he must device ways of helping the child load up on his trolleys from every shelf on every level until the child cries ‘enough!’ I say blessed is that teacher who is able to do this: his pate will soon be bald, his muscles wasted and we will soon be looking for him on the scales.

Alternatively, and I believe this is more reasonable, s/he can sit at the drawing board and share out the tasks between him/herself and the parent of the ward, no matter how literate or illiterate. If anyone can send a child to school, they should also be prepared to point out Australia to him/her on the map. The teacher must increase parental involvement in the education of the child. Parents must be made to have occasions to visit their children’s school: on days of bad behaviour, school plays, craft days, project showing days, family days, children’s lazy days … This is a way of keeping a child’s score card public and at every turn, the parent knows exactly what his child knows, should know or should not know. I think we have reached that point where parents should be given homework, no matter the level of their literacy.

But, I despair of this ever happening, for several reasons. To start with, many teachers, headmasters and principals are afraid of the parents of their wards. After all, a child is as powerful as a parent who can get one fired from one’s job or beat one up or get one a better job. The teacher knows this; unfortunately the children also know this. So, badly behaved, unmotivated children soon become landlords in the classroom and the controlling cane changes hands invisibly. This unauthorised control gets worse if the teacher is having dishonourable intentions towards the child.

Worse, our classrooms are so filled now that I hear many teachers don’t even give homework. Indeed, I hear many teachers don’t even bother to teach. They show up in school, spend the time chatting with other teachers, then go home. Naturally, the children get themselves other teachers: they are called peers, internet or gangs. Excellent teachers, those; incomparable – their lessons are endless, their methods brutal, and few are the children who do not learn fast under their tutelage.

The one reason that scares me most is the fact that this country does not even see teaching as a respectable profession; consequently teachers do not see themselves as professionals. Professionalism begins with self-worth, self-valuation and self-esteem, all of which confer on the individual self-pride in what one does. In these days of unemployment, many young graduates who are teaching always never say they are teachers. They always say ‘they are managing somewhere until something comes up’.

The teacher brings a great deal of impact on the personhood of a child by being his/her role model. Scant are the individuals who can beat their chest and cry like Tarzan that one teacher or the other did not have a hand in the making of him or her, one way or another. Those individuals never passed through a school. I remember all my teachers and I think I have paid homage to them on these pages a few times. Truth is, I will not be with you today if my teachers did not inspire me, conventionally or unconventionally, to learn.

This year, the WTD theme is ‘Empowering teachers, building sustainable societies’ and I think this could not be more apt. Teachers must empower themselves first by taking pride in what they do. To do that, they must seek self-development. Self-development leads to self-respect. They must seek to behave professionally and be better each day in the impact they make on their learners. That, to me, is true wisdom.

October 11, 2015
Happy birthday, dear ol’ girl!
In all fairness, some of us have wept for you; some have cried out in your defence; some have even shed their blood on your behalf. But it just appears that those who have given up next to nothing for you are the ones bent on taking everything you have to give.

Happy birthday, Nigeria.

I am sending this birthday card to you a little late, but you know what they say, better late than never. Besides, I say that the best ones come last, e.g. wine at a party. I would have sent it earlier anyways, but I have been a little stumped on what exactly to write to cheer you up. What with all your dismal and chequered stories of wasted opportunities, generations and even until recently, lives, it’s all we can do to hang on to our seats in this cinema of horror passing horror! The years do add up, though don’t they, ol’ girl? Just look at you, all grown up at fifty-five! What, still growing? Well, it is a matter of perspective, isn’t it, to determine who is grown and who is growing. But, if you say you are still growing, then so be it. I mean, when a dog barks, who is to argue with him on what he means by it exactly?

Look at me now, at your age, I considered myself all grown. How I knew? Well, by the time you begin to notice that when you look in the mirror, you see some smooth areas of your skin surrounded by many variegated lines of wrinkles; or when you walk with your eyes on the ground so that you don’t fall cause if you do, they are going to need a crane to pick you up; or when you bend down, you have to hold your waist as you rise cause it’s all gone, baby gone; or when you keep telling people not to block your view by standing in front of the TV until someone tells you that there’s no one there, it’s your eyes that have gone rheumy; I say when these things begin to happen, you know you are going somewhere. Trust me, I know; at that age, there is no more ‘up’ to grow to, it’s only ‘down’ baby, down.

You see, girl, fifty-five is the age when people tell you a lot of lies, and because you are so vulnerable, you believe them. People actually tell you that you are still looking good. Don’t be fooled, looks don’t mean a thing. Ask Marilyn Monroe, ask Jackie Kennedy, ask me. Did you say I don’t belong in that group? Come now, is this the time for splitting hairs?

Anyway, people will also tell you, how strong you are! Again, don’t be fooled; you know what support cast you have to walk with. It is just you and your doctor who both know how many pills you have to pop in a day: a blue one for your rheumatic joints, a white one for diabetes, a red one for hypertension and a green one to help you remember your spouse’s name each morning.

Fifty-five is clearly also the age when you need a little help from your first child to remember the names of his/her siblings. Those ones don’t usually want anything to do with your fossilised self anyway. It is also the age when your friends have to gather and eat your cake for you not because you like to see them around you (truth is you would rather not) but because you cannot eat any of that cake yourself if your doctor has his way. Girl, at fifty-five, you have a lot to be thankful for; you get by with the help of your friends.

Oh dear, you say you have not been very lucky with your own set of friends, associates, citizens, or well wishers, and there doesn’t appear to be much you can do about them? Yeah, I know, your friends appear to be killing you right now. I forget now which nineteenth century writer said he’d rather be killed by his friends (they love him) than his enemies (that would be adding insult to injury). So, consider yourself lucky. In all fairness, some of us have wept for you; some have cried out in your defence; some have even shed their blood on your behalf. But it just appears that those who have given up next to nothing for you are the ones bent on taking everything you have to give, not caring whether they destroy you in the process. They just don’t seem to like you.

I know, I know, you have been given so much in trust for us. Look at the extremely vast areas of very, very arable land you have in your keeping; look at the very vast amounts of solid and liquid minerals you are holding for our collective benefits; look at the vast amounts of human resources you have placed at our disposal. Yet, we have all but ruined you for our selfish and parochial interests.

You have certainly seen it all, haven’t you? You have been ruled by vagabonds and killers; you have accommodated innocent mass-assisted suicide hysterics-cum-citizens who have turned killers; you have also tolerated the inactive ones who are neither killers in government nor are in citizens’ bombing squads but have done nothing to help you. You have regarded everything and everyone with your bemused, sad and lonely gaze with admirable equanimity. Yet, I know you’re bleeding for yourself and for us even if we cannot see your bleeding heart. Because we are so blind and blinkered, no one has lifted a hand in your favour. So now, you have no one to call your own. There are people in Nigeria, but no Nigerians!

Many of the things we do appear to pitch us on your side. See how much religiosity there is in the land. The churches are all but filled with converts gyrating endlessly in ecstasy while the mosques are pelting out calls for prayers at all hours, both waking day and sleeping night. Yet, not one of us shows that we even know the Almighty in any remote sense. Our psyches have been collectively and unidirectionally tuned towards taking, taking, taking out of the national cake, even killing for it while giving nothing to you in return. We are all, to a man, on no one’s side but our own; and you are all alone.

Actually, you are to blame, partially. You have given us this much really, without adding the necessary and commensurate intelligence that would enable us use all these effectively for the greater good. Look at so many other lands with no resources whatsoever; whether liquid or solid – just see how they are able to manage the only resource nature has given them, their brains. Why did you not cut us a large size of the stuff too, brains I mean? I am seeing that in the Nigerian, it would appear that the black man is really short on the stuff. This is why avowed killers are in government and people help themselves to government funds in amounts that rival the national budgets of some countries. Still wonder that a people can be so blessed and still be so stupid?! It is all your fault.

In spite of all these though, ol’ girl, I don’t despair; you still have a fan club rooting for you. I believe your bones will still rise from the ashes to gloriousness. The path might be long, rough and stony but the light at the tunnel will continue to be a strong pull for you. On this your birthday, dear girl, here’s my glass raised in a toast to you: may your story be long, your tail be short and your ending wear a hat. Happy birthday ol’ girl!
- This article was first published in 2012 and it is still as relevant today as it was then.
October 4, 2015
This season of unpaid wages is a little worrisome, no?

Until there is a social security scheme in place, the government must carry its bloated burden and carry it well.

There are so many things happening all at once that my pen, sorry, my fingers just cannot fly fast enough over the computer keys. What things? Have you been a stranger in these parts that you do not know these things? Are you like that man who was asked by a traveller how to get to a certain part of the city and he replied that he did not know since he was a stranger in the land and had only lived there for fifteen years or so? Or, are you like me (and I am sure there are legions of us) who hear these things as they whiz past our ears from the men folks as they talk to each other over our heads? Then, you can hear us go, our legion that is, ‘Ehn, so, who is facing charges now?’ ‘They say it’s Saraki.’ Ehn, so, who is Saraki?’ ‘The senate president.’ ‘Ehn, so, where is that senate? Hey, where is that child I sent to go and get me some pepper? Hen, can you believe the price of pepper in the market now…?’ Different strokes for different folks, they say.

        Well, folks, that is how I got to hear that the senate president is involved in some kind of tangle with the Code of Conduct Bureau and I said, good luck to them all. Me, I am involved in my own tangle with the dog. The blessed thing will just not behave. Someone said he probably does not even know he is a dog. I think I will take him to a psychiatrist.

         I also heard that President Buhari had not yet released his ministerial list, what with the promised month of September hurtling to its close; and I thought, what is he trying to do, draw out every breath from our lungs as we hold it in expectation? I heard too that as many as twenty states are still owing their workers many months of back wages even as we speak, and I thought, now, that is worrisome. Out of all these things I am hearing, the fact that people are not being paid is the one that worries me most.

       Let me state right out that I do not know the politics of this salary thing, because it appears to have come along with many considerations or even, I suspect, ideologies. There are rumours that playing helpless was the only way the states could force the federal government to share some money it had insisted on keeping hidden for a rainy day. Obviously, the states were not interested in rainy days; they preferred the raining day of the Naira. Some other rumours have it that the states felt that too much of their subventions were going into their monthly wage bills and were getting tired, and many other rumours. Like I said, I don’t know, but let us share a few things related to this problem.

       To start with, money is in short supply now in Nigeria. It is also true that Nigeria’s civil service is unnecessarily bloated but again, this is owing to the fact that she does not run any other social service scheme by which the government can reach a good number of her people with the country’s resources. So, as it is now, there are very few families in the land which do not have one relative or the other in government employ. Many will also not rest until they do. Until there is a social security scheme in place, the government must carry its bloated burden and carry it well.

        Following on the heels of that burden is the fact that the government by its own short-sightedness has nigh killed the private sector. Many have pointed out, including this column, that the greatest employer of labour in any healthy land should be the private sector made up of the large-, small- and medium-scale enterprises. In the absence of a good and independent economic market, most people have been schooled to believe that government employ is the ultimate. Naturally, under such a large and unnatural weight, the government, both state and federal, appears to be buckling under.

       It is this system that has also given rise to and encouraged all the corruption that we are currently battling in the country. The reason is clear I think. Anyone who can manipulate that system, since it has not been built on profit-making or national benefit, simply does so for ethno-religious benefit.

       Unfortunately too, about the time that the international price of oil dipped at the close of the Jonathan administration, the then minister of finance pronounced that the first casualty of that shortfall was likely to be civil servants’ wages. Many of us were rather bewildered that staff salaries should be the first target. Now that the state has kept its promise to target staff salaries, we still are.

       However, we are wondering why the atrociously high tastes of political leaders for instance have not been targeted. It is on record that Nigeria is paying nearly the highest wages to its legislature. A lot has been said about that already; I guess more will come another day. Today, however, we must reiterate what many, including this column, have said concerning the rapacious appetites of our elected state executives. We have said before that many of them, with few exceptions, have gone to their states not to build but to acquire things like private jets (I am told many are still on the queue to own one) and London houses. In bewilderment, we have watched our state executives’ acquisitive tastes go straight from sub-normal to abnormal without passing through Route Normal.

        Seriously, this must be telling us something. First, I believe that our state executives, and indeed, our political leaders must stop behaving like class bullies and hold themselves accountable to the people for their actions. They should please stop swinging their agbadas in our faces and curb their acquisitive appetites. Why should a state executive insist on owning a jet when people are hungry?

         A worker controls only the few thousands of Naira s/he is given as his/her wage. With this, he/she feeds his/her family, maintains his/her car/motorcycle/bicycle/feet (yes, everything needs to be oiled, even feet), pays school bills, maintains elderly relatives, pays health bills, builds a house (neither the state not bank will help), clothes him/herself, etc. When the few thousands do not come, everything suffers.

         State executives, on the other hand, control billions of Naira each month, heck some each week. With this, they are expected to take care of their states’ needs, pay wages and uplift their environment. From our general knowledge and experiences though, many of them have been content paying wages and upping their tastes; and when there has been a contest between paying wages and massaging their palates, why, many right thinking executives have upheld their private jets. This behaviour closely resembles that of class bullies who beat up the weak ones just because they can.

         The fathers of American democracy opted for it because they believed that truth can only be established from many mouths. Many Nigerians are presently not contributing their mouths to its growth in Nigeria because of hunger and ignorance. By not paying salaries as and at when due, our governors appear to be more interested in perpetrating that silence. This is what worries me.

         Too much is rotten in the state of Nigeria, and I believe the slowness and silence of the president have been due to this realisation. When the dust is cleared, I pray the president to please enable the private sector once again, not only to provide more credible labour opportunities but to encourage production for export earnings as well. Then we can call the soul of this country our own.

September 27, 2015
Holding our lawmakers accountable

…We may call them also to book a tour of the national assembly structures… not to see where our money is going (we’ll never see that) but to at least see where our lawmakers plant their behinds when they are debating those bills we know nothing about

Last week, dear reader, we lamented the fate of one Mrs. Egede who fell in the hands of a brute; and we went to town on how the collective leadership of this country, executive and legislative, had contributed to her death. Sometime in the week, I then chanced on a newspaper report about a United States Congresswoman who gave us a lesson in Nigeria on how and why we must hold our lawmakers accountable. Oh yes, she also lamented that the said lawmakers had not done much, if anything, to help our Chibok girls come back home.

Truly, I have found it rather baffling that it is taking this long to find these blessed saints of God. What, I ask myself, are our more than fifty million men in this country doing if they cannot find these girls? What are they all going to do at work in their newspaper offices, police posts, army cantonments, corporate offices, fire stations, mechanics’ workshops, university classrooms, national assembly, etc., when they cannot find a number of missing girls? Why, let supper be late a few minutes, the men begin to holler across the hall, ‘what is going on in that kitchen? Why is supper so late? What have you been doing all day?’ Um hun; now, our girls are missing and our men are hiding behind their newspapers. Oh, no more newspapers these days, eh, only cell phones? Prima.

I will not report the theories I have been hearing over these ‘missing girls’ story. They are so many. Suffice it to say that they are not palatable in any way. Of greater concern to us today is this matter of how we can make our assemblymen and women begin to hear us when we holler across to them on any matter. For instance, when I look down my palm and my housekeeping money has disappeared into the market (no, not into my wardrobe), I should be able to holler to my councilman, state assemblyman, Federal Representative or Senator, and they must hear me and also do something. They must all scurry to my aid. Ha!, in Nigeria you say? That’ll be the day!

I tell you, I have always said Nigerians are biting more than they can chew on this democracy thing. For starters, please if you understand the democratic system we are running and the way it is supposed to work, please raise up your hand. Let’s see, one….one…one… What, only my hand is up? I was using it to count. Seriously, the level of democratic literacy in this country is too low.

Do you remember that at the beginning of this republic, every elected official found his way to the U.S. ostensibly to ‘study the democratic system’ and how it works at state expense? The idea was that they would come back and put their knowledge into good practice for the benefit of the Nigerian mankind. Unfortunately, they came back with close to zero knowledge on democratic education but with a great deal of knowledge on something they call ‘lobbying’. In Nigerian parlance, it means sharing office. Now, occupying those offices, our lawmakers have become our masters.

Anyway, my point is that they failed to take the electorate along on those trips so that we could also learn how to have expectations in this democracy thing. Since that did not happen, we the electorate have somehow got on in the best way we can. Thus, our expectations have been directed not at statecraft or state development but self-development. Now, what we expect from those lawmakers that come from our families hinges mostly on favours regarding what to eat, admission for our children, raising the marks of our children, adding to our housing funds, changing stubborn wives, changing useless husbands, buying new cell phones, new shoes, new cars, etc. Yep, they are useful after all, I mean the lawmakers. The only problem is that they escape with most of the funds that are supposed to be used to provide water, electricity, good One Reader’s Digest article I read on the subject was very detailed on the five or so things that we are expected to call our lawmakers on and for. It says that we are expected to call them to ‘express our opinion’, particularly on bills. I add that we can also tell them what we think of them. I would advise that you be at least ten thousand miles away when you do the latter one. Anyways, to do the first one, you must know what bills are being debated in the house in the first place. Since most of us are more occupied with what we will eat, however, what goes on in the assembly really does not feature much on the menu.

The article further stated that we should call our lawmakers more often because they can help us get our passports faster, particularly when we need to travel urgently. Well, since most of us don’t travel any farther than our villages to hunt game for holidays, we don’t carry passports. The animals don’t ask for passports before allowing us to shoot them. When they begin to ask, then we’ll know what to do. However, this does not mean we should not call our lawmakers when we have emergencies; we should. Please call them when food runs out in the house, your husband is late coming home, your wife refuses to cook dinner… Perhaps, calling them frequently will reduce the number of people desperate to become lawmakers.

We are also advised to call them when we need help getting our benefits such as social security (we don’t have that here) or veterans (they literally take care of themselves) or pensions. Now, you’re talking. We need all the help we can get on how we can quickly collect our pensions or even health benefits. As a matter of fact, I foresee a situation where if our lawmakers cannot help us access those things quickly, they themselves can quickly become our health or pensions benefits.

Then the article says we can call our beloved lawmakers to obtain funds for projects. Take me for instance; I’m always on one project or the other. Right now, I am trying to get my flower to grow into a tree. So sorry, I shouldn’t joke too much with this serious topic. Yes, there are so many projects that can do with some help from our lawmakers – e.g. how to make the government ban okada from taking pregnant women or nursing mothers as fares. In other words, there should be no more picking children on okada. The article says lawmakers usually know about federal grants for projects. Well, with the rapacious appetite of our lawmakers for the nation’s money since 1999, all I can say is that if you know about such grants, it is best not to let your lawmaker know.

By all means, we need to call our lawmakers. We need to put them on their toes. We need to let them know that we are around and kicking mad at the fact that they don’t seem to want to know we are around. If for nothing else, we may call them also, as the article says, to book a tour of the national assembly structures. We may want to go to the assembly not to see where our money is going (we’ll never see that) but to at least see where our lawmakers plant their behinds when they are debating those bills we know nothing about. Call yours now. I will call mine just as soon as I know who exactly my councilman is… Yes sir, I have to start from somewhere.

September 13, 2015
For want of N1,500, this widow got raped to death over a long night

Just think of the horrors this woman endured for an entire night in the hands of this excuse of a man because of this amount. It makes me so ashamed that the litany of failures of my country led to and enabled this kind of behaviour.

Let me paint the scenario for you once again, dear reader. Recently, there was a story in the newspapers that a widow was allegedly raped to death over the night by a man somewhere in Ebonyi State. If this story is true, it means, dear reader, Mrs. Ogodo Egede, 34, of Egwudunagu village in Amachi community literally spent her most horrendous, longest and last night in the hands of a senseless, low-level, hideous and heartless male assailant who brutalised her mercilessly throughout the night. What was her offence? She owed him 1,500 Naira and could not pay.

Since the story broke, unfortunately, not many Nigerians have been able to keep their level of indignation high enough. Rather, all of the nation’s indignation has gone into upbraiding Buhari for appointing mostly northerners to fill national offices. Only the police have been left to sigh, heave up and haul the brutish philistine to join his kith and ilk in custody.

I cannot get over the shock though. I cannot get over the shock that something, anything that pretends to go in the shape of a human being can take another something, anything that goes in the same name and subject it/him/her to such a long and horrendous violation. Worse, I cannot get over the shock that Nigerians are not screaming blue murder and demanding the swiftest judgment over that reprobate. I am in shock that we all who go by the name Nigerians have failed this soul and are going about our normal business castigating the president as usual.

Oh yes, we all failed her. To start with, while this woman was going through this atrocious and horrific experience in the hands of her appalling assaulter, most of us were…. asleep, while some were… making money… yeah well, making something anyway. So we’ve got her on our collective conscience as a nation and as individuals, though some more than others. The question we should be asking ourselves is what could have brought a widow to the point that she could not offset a debt of N1,500 and had to pay with her life? This is more pathetic when you consider that this is a country where leaders use champagne to brush their teeth and wash down yesterday’s beer and then sniff all kinds of costly things with the money that could have kept this woman alive.

We could start with the fact that she is a widow which means that her husband failed her by dying. That can’t be helped; as they say, when you gotta go, you gotta go. In saner climes, that fact alone normally invites sympathy and offers of help, but not to our assailant. In place of sympathy, he offered brutality. The woman’s own father was also said not to have helped much. As the story went, the woman’s daughter fled to her grandfather that night and told him what was going on in their house but the man did not raise hell or rouse the village to help his daughter. He has his reasons, but let’s move on.

What about her councilman and LGA chairman? Oh yes, they also failed her. Can you imagine the colossal amount of money that have been released into each LGA in this country but which have not been used to make life a little more comfortable for the people? Perhaps, if those monies had been judiciously used, factories could by now be dotting the landscapes of Nigeria, rural and all, and Mrs. Egede could by now be holding down a job of a sort that would at least pay enough to keep her out of the claws of heartless monsters.

Now, add to that list her State Assemblyman, Federal Representative and Senator, all of who have been too busy fighting to be put on one juicy committee or the other to know what is going on in their constituencies. True, they cannot be expected to know all those who ‘voted’ them in. They can at least know and intervene in the plights of vulnerable groups such as widows or children or battered wives or unemployed youths, etc., in their jurisdictions. It is their job and duty so to do.

Our assemblymen should not just limit their sights on the high and mighty offices they are aspiring to. After all, we grant that they are humans still seeking the maturity that will enable them know that all pursuits in this life still end in grand futility, making all our stabbings at life one big grandstanding. Camus said it; Becket said it, to mention a few. For now, let us pretend our assemblymen have not heard it said. Until then, they are entitled to their pursuits. However, they should occasionally lower their sights on the lesser mortals whose problems they are expected to help solve.

The list is not ended, reader. The governors of her state, past and present, and the presidents of the country, past and present, have failed this woman. In their various failures to address the developmental problems of their areas, they assist in throwing the delicate and vulnerable into the waiting hands of the roughnecks and philistines in our midst. When there are no jobs and people have to eke out their living literally with their fingers from a reluctant earth, more vulnerability creeps in and human dignity flies out the window.

Women and children are the most vulnerable groups in any society; but as of now, very few laws have been put in place to protect them. Regularly, widows are battered by kith, kin and others of brutish ilk, and few come to their rescue. But for the gallant youths of this Amachi village who arose as one man and fished out this callous monster for the police, he would have continued to gad gaily about in his father’s compound where he was captured, all on account of state failure.

Please don’t get me wrong. All over the world, people’s wrong choices and bad turns of luck unwittingly place them in the hands of loan sharks, money lenders, blackmailers, pimps, etc., but it is not often that people get this kind of attack for owing N1,500, an amount that is less than $10. So yes, people are being killed daily in the world even for owing less. Yet, just think of the horrors this woman endured for an entire night in the hands of this excuse of a man because of this amount. It makes me so ashamed that the litany of failures of my country led to and enabled this kind of behaviour. These state failures must be addressed because they are killing the citizens.

There are too many examples in Nigerian leadership that are telling the citizens that it is all right Jack; you can take the law into your hands. Just look at your political office holders. It is generally believed that many of them rigged their ways into office and are still using the same mago-mago and wayo-wayo ways to get fixed up into juicy positions. These behaviour patterns kind of tell the general citizens that the means justifies the end and any behaviour that produces desired results is aye o.k.

With that mindset, the country clearly is endangered. We are not preaching morality here. We are rooting for good governance where leaders should know that they are directly and indirectly responsible for the long-term actions of their citizens because they provide the examples to follow. When they fail in their duties, the state fails and the people fall. Mrs. Egede fell because of the failure of her leaders; May her soul rest in peace.

September 6, 2015
How not to be a gentleman and other (un)social etiquettes!

…The fine print of a larger law says gentlemen do not abuse the accounts of their offices or the other privileges of those offices. The finer print of that law says that abusers are liable to be called Common Thieves.

I have many observations on the male race in Nigeria, mostly because I am not a member. My most profound discovery about them is that nearly every member of that group does not have a single idea what it means to be a gentleman. Just check out the traffic. Many men, even men-in-black, can be seen struggling for the right-of-way with every other road user, lady or ruffian. I have searched in vain for those I can call knights-in-shinny-armour to redeem the race. All I see around me are men in burnished armour. Nearly all of them appear to be versed in the veritable art of how not to be a gentleman. You are offended? Wait then till I ask you this: how many of our men, not counting your fashionistas, know how to sew a button on their most beloved shirt? Most Nigerian men cannot tell one end of the needle from the other. Yet, the book of etiquette says ‘a gentleman knows how to sew on a button’.

    For that matter, how many of our men know that a gentleman should always walk behind a lady, except of course when there is danger? There you are, none of you! Most men have no idea that they are supposed to walk in such a way that they shield their lady from all dangers, oncoming or from behind. Alas, your Nigerian men appear to need the shelter that women provide; that’s why they make women walk behind them. Yet again, the book says a gentleman always walks behind a lady.

    There is a rule in the book of social etiquettes that says men ought always to give their lady friends flowers to mark a variety of occasions: Christmas, birthday, baby bearing, apologies, weekend get-away, valentine, request-to-be-mine, apologies, valentine… Now, all those men who gave their ladies flowers this last valentine should please stand up. That’s what I thought: two men out of one hundred and something million (or whatever you think the population of the country is). Haba! Did you say something about giving flowers not being in our culture? Mmm! I always wondered why the Almighty caused the silly things to grow around here, seeing they are really not part of the culture of Nigerians. You know the way one would hold a baby’s heavily soiled nappy when it’s full of the stuff? That’s how a Nigerian male holds flowers when he is giving them to a lady. He thinks it’s more than his reputation can withstand to be seen doing that. The only time I received a flower in my house was the year I made a lot of noise about it. Since then, there has been a flowery silence.

       From this book of social etiquettes for men, I also see that gentlemen are not expected to leave dirty crockery around. Ha! That is the one I love most. I wait for the day when Nigerian gentlemen will finish their dinner and promptly see that there is no dirty crockery lying around, not just by instructing the little ones to deal with it but by rolling up their sleeves and plunging their hands into the soapsuds. In the meantime, we must continue to watch as Baba Wande finishes his dinner and slides off the table end of the conversation, in person, particularly when he ignores the thin voice of the woman wailing about ‘who will wash these plates’. Well, sometimes, the cuckoo waltzes home and daddy decides of his own freewill to clean up. Such days are rarer than finding ruby on the beach; that is why there usually is a song and dance about it when it happens. Even the neighbourhood knows there is something different in the air because the voice of the turtle is heard clearly in the land.

       Once, I came upon a woman who, unprompted, quickly explained that the father of the house was cooking dinner that evening. I never asked her. I rather think that she needed to explain why she was in the sitting room that dinner preparation hour, rather than in the kitchen. I have not been able to decide whether that was occasioned by guilt or a need to fill the time, that she had normally used for pottering around the kitchen, with words.

      By far the most profound of the How to be a gentleman’s rules is that gentlemen are expected to laugh and talk quietly. Actually, I think that is where we all fail, both men and women. This abuse of noise is something that is very Nigerian. From waking time to sleeping time in this country, there is no abating the noises buzzing and belching out of every religion-linked loudspeaker, record dealer, transport canvasser, beer parlour adherent, irate husbands, termagants, and all else. To a man (and woman), Nigerians are just mindless noisemakers. One day, we really should talk about why we have not all become The Walking Deaf in this country.

     Most importantly, my book revealed that real gentlemen do not abuse expense accounts while on business trips. This is the fine print of a larger law that says gentlemen do not abuse the accounts of their offices or the other privileges of those offices. The finer print of that law says that abusers are liable to be called Common Thieves. I don’t think this rule was written with Nigerians in mind exactly. If it was, then it has fallen flat on its face. Nearly every facet of Nigerian life is peopled with men who do not only abuse their expense accounts, they actually insult them. That exactly is the bane of public life in this country: the fact that Nigerians do not really know the meaning of the epithet Common Thief. Actually, being called common is an abuse that real gentlemen dread for it implicates plainly that one has no sense of refinement, is a black soul, or that one is worth less than the grass he walks on.

     Unfortunately for us all, Nigeria is not a class-minded society. Perhaps, once upon a time in its history, it used to be. At that time, there were behavioural expectations for every segment of the tribe. What qualified one for membership within that segment was no more than conformity to the rules. Aberrations were not only frowned at, they qualified one for exclusion from the segment. That was class behaviour. It did not depend on money; it depended on a certain mental tuning and keying in to a particular degree expected of one.

      Now, the diffusion that came through the modern life-style has restructured the society to the Haves and the Have-nots. The Haves are those who can rub two kobo together, say the magic words and bring out millions of Naira, while the Have-nots are those who do not know the magic words. Unfortunately, either by coincidence or luck, the magic words are known only to the nation’s leaders, the Haves who use them to abuse expense accounts, insult charge accounts, assault subventions, batter budgetary allocations and clubber the country. Now, those are the common thieves who cannot be called gentlemen. Does it then follow that the Have-nots are gentlemen? I honestly don’t know; do you?

      By the above accounts, therefore, a gentleman is someone who seeks to maintain class behaviour that hinges on responsibility. To say that Nigeria needs gentlemen in its public offices (and private ones too) is an understatement. Responsibility allows one to choose that action which can be called the thing to do, you know, the gentlemanly thing. That is what makes a society successful, when it can count on its public citizens to be real gentlemen.

August 30, 2015
Of private universities and private individuals

Too many private individuals who would be richer making shoes or condiments are given private university licences … but they should note that it is not a profit making venture

University education is just beautiful, and if I had my way, I would want everyone to go through it. Apart from the fact that one learns a lot there (in and out of the classroom), there’s just this way it has of influencing your perception of life and everything. I am of course talking about the ones who truly go there to learn, not the ones who regard the place as their hideout from their parents while they go about their normal businesses. Please don’t ask me what that is; ask your ward.

Anyhow, I believe that most of us are fed a lot of stuff in our primary and secondary schools which we dared not question, or WAEC would miraculously move away from our planet. You were just told to accept that the world is round and forever (till you get out of there anyhow) hold your peace. I guess not many teachers would like a student who goes ‘how do you know the world is round? Prove it to me.’ I think a stick would do a lot of proving on that ‘silly student’.

University education, however, allows you to seek knowledge to your satisfaction. Not only is the stick forbidden, you also have this vast space called lecturers who are supposed to open your mind and allow you to ask intelligent questions such as ‘why does man bleed when cut by glass?’ or ‘why can we not test how hot an iron is with our finger or tongue?’ Such deep questions and others that fly around in the intellectual sphere can be asked, you guessed it, in the university. After all, no one can bring out any stick of correction.

There is also the vaster space called the university library which, if a student ensconces himself sufficiently in, can teach him just about anything he is interested in. I assure you that every tool we use in the world today is a product of that intellectual sphere of teachers who entertained deep questions and libraries that entertained the researcher who mostly slept, and sometimes read, in her hallowed rooms.

I have read of someone who set out to know just at what point an egg boils. After reading through and sleeping over many books, he headed to his laboratory where many eggs suffered an indescribable fate in his hands (or pot). I authoritatively report here that he had many eggs to eat of course. I also authoritatively report here that not many people could move near him for days afterwards. Why? Well, reader, he seemed to give off this odour of superior intelligence from somewhere around his behind. Today though, thanks to that young man’s brave and superior education, we now know that egg boils at 33/5 minutes or thereabouts. More researches are needed on that anyhow.

There are still so many questions regarding the condition of man that need to be answered and for which we need no end of researchers, believe me. For instance, we need to know if it is possible to bend over backwards and touch one’s toes. I have bent over backwards for my dog but I have not been able to touch my toes. We need to know how to make people sense that the water on the stove is boiling no matter where they are, in or out of the house. Most importantly (and my favourite one), we really need to know how to spend money and not make it run out, ever – no matter how little one has. For all of these and more, we need researchers and inventors, which universities produce.

True, I believe that Nigerian universities are working round the clock to ensure they mint them intelligentsia. As of now, records show that there are close to one hundred federal and state owned universities in Nigeria. Finding that these alone could not cater for the close to one hundred and fifty million Nigerians desiring university education for themselves, children, wards, neighbours or foes (there’s always the vain hope they might stop being foes when they get some university education), the National Universities Commission opened the floodgates to private university enterprise. Now, I understand there are more than sixty of them in Nigeria. Yet, there are cries that even these are not enough. I agree.

However, I don’t know about you but I am just a wee bit concerned about the rather long jump in the number of the private universities for many reasons. To start with, the very word ‘private’ conjures up many senses, the most noticeable being the fact that these universities are ‘personally owned’, ‘not publicly owned’. So, there is just this much you can ask of them. For example, it is difficult to begin to ask them why they are charging this much and that much amount for school fees. From sources, fees in private schools range from roughly N.2m to N1.7m annually.

In times past in the old west, private schools were owned by former teachers. Now, every prospector who has made a kobo somewhere comes to plough it into university owning mostly as an investment that will yield some day, hence the fees. The payers of these huge fees are denied many of the things they have paid for; and sometimes the staff are not paid regularly, according to information, to make the kobo stretch. There are many universities without requisite staff; some offer courses taken by only one student; and many whose students do not graduate in good time because of accreditation problems. Yet, they all seem to have a penchant for producing first class graduates.

I observe that many of these private universities have not quite keyed into the philosophy of university education. Many of the schools have their administering eye trained on the Naira and kobo coming and going, mostly from the students. One school is said to have announced a change of fees mid-semester! I do not know what the registration requirements are but I think that this focus on what should come into the pocket of the school appears to be averse to the focus of university education which is more on what should go out into the society. This is why it has been oft said that tertiary education is essentially social service. To truly be one, it requires that every kobo gained be ploughed right back in because it is never enough. So the project is not only capital intensive, it is constantly yawning for more. A situation where profit on investment is the focus translates to business savyness, not social service.

Focus is not the only thing that needs seeing to in this matter. I understand that there are private universities around here whose students are not free to move around the campus. They are rather herded around in lines from one classroom to another and have lights out time. I know; perhaps it is to curtail wayward behaviour, but it also curtails the student’s freedom of choice. University education should breed thinkers. It should teach individuals to reason and choose to do what is right at any time; that is when the results will not vary at any time in the individual’s life when his conditions change. Education should help the student to see the bigger picture and gain a greater perspective.

Too many private individuals who would be richer making shoes or condiments are running private universities. I do not begrudge anyone for wanting to own one; the country needs more thinkers and researchers to answer its myriad of questions. I only ask that owners and potential owners should note that it should not be a profit making venture but should produce innovative thinkers. Those are the ones who will propel the country into the sunrise of self-actualisation.

August 23, 2015
Arms and the Men

I welcome our new service chiefs to this broiling situation and pray they will be able to make better sense of it and translate it to the rest of us in the English we understand so that all things can add up. I’m thinking the kind of English that says ‘the war is over’

I am sure I join many wary Nigerians in congratulating and welcoming the new service chiefs to their new posts. When I saw them being decorated by the president and their individual wives last night on television, they looked such a picture of strength and purpose I positively shed a few tears. No, I wasn’t crying because of envy this time; I was crying because I wasn’t there to … you know… just hug them and wish them great good luck before they go into battle! Three months to defeat boko haram is a strong and, to many of us, tall order, but you never can tell. I have decided that if I can’t go to the battle front myself (a little busy, you know), I will not let my doubts stand in their way.

Honestly though, when I saw them last night on TV, they just reminded me of that brave group of fighters called the Three Musketeers who constituted the British Medieval king’s last bastion of defence. They later became four I think; at least many editions later made them four (they knew three were not enough to defeat the enemy) as they were joined by a ruddy youth who quite took everyone’s breath away with his looks and fighting skills. So we do have an appropriate number here. Anyway, The Musketeers were supposed to be men whose oaths to defend the king and state included a readiness to lay down their lives and all. That meant only the bravest, boldest and most noble of fellows could be members of that most elite of elite forces; that was why they were so few.

To be honest, I never looked long enough at our past servicemen to know if they had those qualities or not. By the time they came, I had been infected by the indifference virus many Nigerians suffered from BB (Before Buhari). So like the rest of my countrymen, I just concluded that the government had simply changed the group of the CC (Come Choppers) and refused to expect anything from them. I do not believe I am in a position to assess them except to say that the war they met on their watch is still on our hands, many months after they took the baton. Reasons for this sad state are not mine to excavate although I have heard someone say that that insurgency was not so serious that even our MB (Mobile Police) unit could not put down under three months if the country was serious. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion; that’s what I say.

In our new servicemen, I thought I heard soldiers who swore to lay down all they had in the service of the president and country, mostly because the president himself is prepared to do likewise. This means they had come not as soldiers of fortune but of some seriousness. I think they had seen something of the seriousness on our president’s face and that he was not smiling when he invited them to come and serve with him. The guy never smiles anyway. Anyways, they had not come to be chocolate cream soldiers. Those are Bernard Shaw’s soldiers who hide in ladies’ wardrobes eating chocolates while a war is going on. Actually that’s where we got our title today.

So, I am sure our new service chiefs know they are coming at a rather delicate time in the country’s history when everyone is just about fed up with the country constantly paying out trillions of Naira prosecuting a war it is not winning against some armed banditry. Rather than the war going away, we have all been compelled to watch in horror as our Naira has been going away to never-never land. Honestly, I do believe that if it were not for the fact that we now have Buhari for president, we would not even have known that all that Naira has gone to never-never land; we would all have continued to labour under the heavy tolls of that war believing it was being fought. Actually, I was coming to the conclusion that the war was fast becoming the most expensive in history going by the ratio and strength of the enemy to the country.

Thanks, I say, to Buhari who is not into any of our nonsense, we now have the luxury of hearing strange tunes from the now retired service chiefs. For instance, we have just been told again that Nigerian soldiers were fighting that war with antiquated war gear while the enemy was fighting with modern war gear. (We first heard it from the soldiers who refused to fight the war with, well, bare hands.) And I thought, someone was doing the arming. But, did that someone get confused as to who the enemy really was? Was the wrong side being armed out in human error? Seriously, it could happen; well, this is Nigeria, man!

Nevertheless, I consider it rather striking that after such a long time and lots of money, the army is now telling us this unfortunate tale of insufficiency. As the story goes, the U.S. refused to sell arms to the country on account of some breach of some human rights laws. No one in the U.S. will come out clearly on whether it is the breach of the Leahy law or gays’ rights law. Yet militants north and south are somehow able to lay their own illegal hands on the arms they require. How come? These things are just not adding up for me. But then, things never seem to add up for me anyway since my mathematics is near to non-existent.

My worry is this: if the army had all these facts about weaponry, why were the soldiers who were put on trial for desertion given the death sentence without considering the extenuating circumstances of the case? Like I always say, I am not a soldier; I am just an observer with a desire to set things right. From my observatory therefore, I can see and therefore say that that sentence is a little harsh and untoward. True, the punishment for the crime of desertion should always harsh. But the soldiers did not hide in ladies’ cupboards; they just did not have the right arms they said. So, when the punishment is too harsh, it is no longer punishment; it becomes sadism. In the name of the humanity under which we all groan, I hope the new chiefs will review that sentence.

So, once again, I welcome our new service chiefs to this broiling situation and pray they will be able to make better sense of it and translate it to the rest of us in the English we understand so that all things can add up. I’m thinking the kind of English that says ‘the war is over’. That is easy enough to understand. I hope that they will use the time they have been given to prosecute the boko haram war to truly bring this sickening situation to an end. They should remember that just as their predecessors now have the opportunity to explain their commands to the nation, they will also have theirs at the end of their own service lines. For their sake, the nation hopes they will be able to employ their opportunities to give explanations of triumph rather than apologies.

August 16, 2015
The words we live by

I have heard the following words used more often: contracts, scrambling, jets, remunerations, dollars, bonds, exchange rates, loans, meetings, factions, tribunal, subsidy, oil, vandalism, corruption, death toll, boko haram, Niger Delta, militants, allocations, diversify, sharing formula, amnesty, resource control …

Dear reader, I don’t know about you but I am beginning to think that many words are getting obsolete in Nigeria. Take the word kindness for instance. Once upon a time, kindness meant coming upon a scene of accident while driving, stopping your car and suspending your journey until you ensured that the victims of that accident were safely deposited on a hospital bed with transfusion fluids flowing into them. Then you could resume your own journey. That was then. Now, people tiptoe or turn off their engines and roll their cars past accident scenes. Shshsh, let the FRSC deal with it; it’s their job!

These days, I think kindness has come to mean someone coming into your house and announcing himself as a hired assassin who had been sent to kill you but since you wear this rather soft and harmless face, he would not do so provided you can give him a certain amount of money. In short, kindness is being allowed to ransom your own life in your own house. Mmmn.

Take the story I heard some time ago. Yes, dear reader, I have just the right ears for these stories. Someone was driving home from a hard day’s work when he was stopped by an armed gang. The gang had him drive them to a spot and told him to get down and run. But, if he wanted to see his car again, he was to bring a certain amount of money to a place mentioned to him. The money amounted to approximately half of what he bought the car for.

Well, I wish I could report that he thanked them for finally taking the blessed thing off his hands. No sir; he rather got the money together and took it to the announced rendezvous. On getting there, he found very many cars waiting to be ransomed and some tough looking young men guarding the said cars. After paying and being allowed to go, out of kindness, he was warned not to breathe a word of what had transpired. I tell you, kindness used to be when you took a stranger home; now kindness is not taking a stranger home.

Another word well on its way out is patience. My apologies to all those named Patience out there, but seriously, the way Nigerians barrage their ways, you would think that patience has not only been outlawed; it has become a sin. My Encarta defines patience as the ‘the ability to endure waiting, delay or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset…’ Now, you just watch your average Nigerian, beginning with me, react to the announcement that s/he has to wait for five minutes. Oh no, sir, he doesn’t calmly say thank you, sit and pick up a book to read. Rather, he goes berserk. All arms begin to flail out, mouth is open, eyes bulge out, heart beats wildly, hands grope at the dry throat, and nostrils flare out looking for more air. In short, for a five minute delay, your typical Nigerian is near collapse. If you want to kill him, ask him to wait for a day or two.

Once, while in charge of registering some students for a particular programme at university, I asked them all to form a queue. The parent of one student would have none of that. Why? It would take at least two hours to get through them all. What was wrong with that? He could not wait that long, he said. So I said, leave the young man, go about your own business, and come back later. Oh no, he said, he could not leave the baby of the house in the care of strangers. Oh dear, I said, we do have a problem because I was not going to let these young ones know that it was o.k. to shunt queues just because someone came with their parent. Should the parentless ones go and rent parents? Reader, in less than forty minutes, we were done with that registration and both father and baby were on their way.

The word that has gone completely out of the dictionary of Nigerians is strangely enough the one that most qualifies to be there, and that is patriotism. Indeed, the word is so rarely spoken that I have hardly heard it used by this present crop of politicians, excepting the president on occasion, or we the followers. According to my Encarta, a patriot is one who is a proud supporter or defender of one’s own country and its way of life. I don’t know, but I have used Sherlock Holmes’ magnifying glass on our leaders’ and followers’ words and I can’t seem to find anything relating to ‘supporter of the country’. Instead, I have heard the following used more frequently: juicy committees, contracts, scrambling, party caucus, oversight functions, jets, jetting out, remunerations, Naira, dollars, bonds, exchange rates, loans, salaries, meetings, factions, elections, deadlock, tribunal, subsidy, oil, vandalism, corruption, death toll, boko haram, militants, allocations, opponents, petitions, diversify, sharing formula, amnesty, EFCC, arrests, resource control, central bank … Correct me if I am wrong or add to the list if you wish.

Any palm reader such as I (yep; when the need arises, I rise to that occasion, particular if I want to read my housekeeping allowance on a certain palm) can read Nigeria’s palm from the words. I think it would go something like this: Nigeria, all you can think about is money; you are too money-minded. Go and grow up.

Let’s see. Until Buhari came, it was said that most of our politicians – governors, assemblymen, etc., — liked to take their remunerations in dollars for the comfort of their families, friends and neighbours. Indeed, it got so bad at a point a minister of state for finance once had to cry out that whenever allocations were paid out, there was an unusual activity and demand on the dollar. It turned out that, soon after the allocations, our federal and state executive members were in the habit of jetting out and the fruits were not long in coming.

This political dispensation has seen more private jets than at any other time. As of now, it is said that there are between seventy and one hundred and fifty of them in the country, most of which were bought directly or indirectly with government money. This means that the concern of most of those in leadership has not been how to build the country and make it sit more comfortably instead of tottering around like a drunken blind man. No sir, they have been more concerned with how to make their rear ends sit more comfortably.

Today’s title is an adaptation of G. Lakoff’s The Metaphors We Live By which is the title of a text detailing how metaphors portray the thought processes of a people. In the same way, the words Nigerians live by tend to portray the narrow-mindedness of both the leaders and the followers in this country. The more frequently used words tell us clearly that the economy and all its related issues has been put ahead of cultivating the most important virtues such as patriotism, hard work and integrity. I think that putting these dying words first will ensure a better economic and political future.

This is not to reduce the importance of economy. It is rather to say that without these virtues, there can only be chaos in a nation’s entire system. Indeed, the absence of ‘patriotism’ on that list is a sad statement on just how much we have missed it as a nation. I think we really need to dust up our dictionary. A nation is known by the words it lives by.

August 9, 2015