Category: Oyinkan Medubi

Now, the reality is on ground, the country is borrowing to eat, and we cannot find a name for it, just suicide

Dear reader, we will take off this week with a really sad story I read sometime last week in a Nigerian newspaper. The story chronicled one of the effects of the unpaid salary saga going on in many states in the federation, particularly on one family in Osun State. According to the writer, a civil servant in the state had attempted to ‘end it all’ by imbibing poison in the form of Gramoxone, said to be an herbicide. Reason: he could no longer afford to feed his family after being owed salary for six months.

I really sympathise. I really, really do because he represents the tragedy of misgovernance. But I can’t help feeling that rather than solve his problem, as he thought to do, Mr. O. Owolabi (for that is his name) has undoubtedly added to it. Now, the family has to look for money to offset his hospital bills, and what he will eat in the hospital, and transportation for the family to and from the hospital, and…., not to mention the fact that he might have compromised his digestive system for life. In short, it’s a whole new set of problems he has unwittingly landed himself in. Strong argument against suicide, should you ever be minded to, don’t you think?

How this sad state of unpaid salaries came about is anyone’s guess. Words of course have been traded and sold and borrowed on the matter. The governors of those states affected have thrown the blame at Abuja, particularly at Okwonjo-Iweala, who people now call NOI. Wonderful the way people throw names and acronyms at others, isn’t it? I have since learnt that Jonathan is GEJ, Buhari is GMB, and I am … oh dear, just OM. I must look for a third initial soonest. O yes, I do have, it’s… wouldn’t you just like to know it?! Anyway, Abuja has retaliated by throwing the blames back to the states. I guess this ping-pong would have gone on with our heads yo-yoing back and forth if Buhari had not waded into the matter and asked on whose table the last ball fell. Abuja decidedly made it clear that it was owing no man. Then the governors kept silent, while still owing everyman in their states.

Then that gave some of us an idea of what really might have been happening. Yep, people, we are living with the effects of the shortfall in the oil revenue accruing to the nation and, by extension, the states. If that were the only problem, I guess people would be less inclined to commit suicide. I think the bigger problem is that neither Abuja nor the governors is really telling us everything they have done with the nation’s money. Mr. Owolabi and the rest of us can see the governors, ministers, special advisers, godfathers, contractors, etc., first dipping their hands into states’ allocations as they were wont, just as if there was no shortfall, to live lifestyles that just boggle the mind. Then, whatever remains of the allocation will now have to do for state business. And usually, that does not do at all for state business.

Sadly, Nigerians have developed and imbibed the culture of vanity which is so very expensive to run and leads into debt and does no good at the end. Just take the number of private jets in Nigeria. Five out of six of those planes belong to state governors who had no two pennies to rub together before becoming governors. This means that while your back and my back were turned for a moment, these unconscionable individuals purchased the monsters for their comfort only. I remember reading and reporting here once that one of the world’s richest men, Buffett I think, said it clearly that anyone who claims he needs a jet to make his work easier and better is lying. Anyone who buys the monstrosity, he said, does so for his vanity; because even as a rich man, he flies public airlines. Now, you and I have to pay for that vanity.

   But there is more. For a while now, there have been appearing in the air some kind of disenchantment with the way the economy has been run. Well, the thing is, if there is no problem, even the worst system that works is good. But when there is a problem, even the best system will be hung by the people’s jury. I don’t know if that is what is happening now, but I do know that when things go wrong, someone’s got to hang. And as they say, the one who stays too long on the excreta should not complain that flies are buzzing around his head.

 Truth is NOI, as the finance minister is called now, has stayed so long on the job you don’t know whether she has hurt the economy or the economy has hurt her. One thing is sure. If she came in with a pristine record, she’s going out now with a sullied one. And it began when she paid out about six billion dollars of Nigeria’s money to the world economic purse. I hear even a world body has condemned that as ‘taking milk from a hungry baby’ and giving it to the grown adult. It was needless, uncalled for and begging too many questions and answers. For the life of me, I can never understand that move, explain it as you will; not because I am no economist but because it goes against my native logic. It just does not make sense.

Worse, over the years, the true state of the economy has tended to become an object to play the games of prevarication, doublespeak, and double entendre with all at once. We are broke: we need to prepare. No, we are not broke: we need not panic. Two opposing things simultaneously emanated from the finance minister over the nation’s economy. Now, the reality is on ground, the country is borrowing to eat, and we cannot find a name for it, just suicide.

Personally, I have only one grouch against her: I believe she has stayed on for so long at that post she is almost long in the tooth. ­Going by the unpopularity of that payout, she ought not to have stayed in government beyond the Obasanjo years. One, she does not have the repository of national economic wisdom. Two, there are plenty more economists in the land. Three, there have been signs that her brand of economics was not working for Nigeria. She should have quit while she was a head; now she’s several heads. Unless. There have been sniggers that she probably was on errand in Nigeria: to do as much irreparable damage as she could. I don’t know about this but what I do know is that she had a name to protect, and she should have done more to do that, particularly during the years of the locusts.

I think the big task before the new government is not so much how to diversify the economy as how to remove the talons and claws of the federal government from nearly everything in this country and allow the private sector to grow by itself. The economy of a country is not grown by the government sitting tight over the breakfast and lunch and dinner of every citizen. That smacks too much of paranoia. The economy grows when there is an atmosphere where everyone has the freedom to pursue his goals as dictated by his talent and ability.

The job of the government is to provide the enabling atmosphere so that should anyone decide to build a new town, he can tap into existing resources and then return the resources in multiple folds for others to do likewise. For too long, the government has been doing what it should not have done and has left undone what it should have. Therein lies the tragedy of misgovernance.

The school system in Nigeria is itself not a reflection of the national aspirations but of the decrepit state of the society. I believe that no system can be better than its society

Dear reader, I came across a piece of news some days ago that began with the following: ‘A think tank established by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to study critical areas of the economy and make recommendations to guide the incoming government on a smooth take off Thursday submitted its report to president elect, General Mohammadu Buhari…’ First, Obasanjo commissions a group to conduct a study. The report of that study is presented directly to Buhari not to Obasanjo who commissioned it; and Buhari accepted it! Wonderful! As Sherlock Holmes would say, something does not quite sit right there, Watson!

Anyway, that was just an aside. Today, we want to talk about something that is not sitting right with the nation right now: education, and well, fishing. Fishing is one activity that I love, from a distance. I don’t fish and can’t fish. But, I admire fishermen. They are schooled to have an infinite amount of patience in order to be able to tackle the equally endless but elusive schools of fish parading the ocean, lake and pond floors. I have seen people camp overnight to catch one fish. Arhh! That is so much beyond me. I am in that school that believes that when I call once and the fish don’t bite, then we should amicably go our separate ways.

By now, I think everyone acknowledges that the educational sector of this country is in dire straits. While everyone sees that the system has gone awry, the populace does not seem agreed on the possible causes or even the possible cures. The situation is a little like the patient who seeks a first, second, third and fourth opinions on his ailment. Now, tell me, what does he expect to hear? One day, he will wake up on an examination table to find all four of them congregated and looking down on him. Clearly, he knows the news can’t be good for his health.

I am of the school that believes that the woes of the educational system in this country can be traced to the neglect of our public primary schools. I think I have said this before. Those of us who grew up in the sixties, seventies and eighties would remember going through school systems that were responsive to the needs of the pupils and the society. The schools led the environment wherever they were located, not to talk of the reverence given the headmaster.

The schools’ environments called many a toddler to desire schooling, even before reaching the age of pulling the other ear. Usually, in the village or any environment, the schools had the best lawns (ever green), the best flowers and solid good buildings (both very colourful). When I was growing up, there was no end of admiration for the head who presided over this establishment in his ramrod straight posture, agility of movement in his fine shorts and rolled stockings, and readiness for action as he supervised the growing of plants and pupils. If you misbehaved then, that figure would become even straighter.

Then also, schools’ populations did not try the limits of the teachers. Today, however, the country has on its hands exploded school populations, decayed infrastructures and a social structure that is much frayed and torn on its moral edges and body polity. Let us take them one after the other.

Primary schools and school children are no longer what they used to be. No more do you get the well constructed block housing two or three classrooms in which neat rows of desks are arranged. I hear it on good authority that classrooms now contain triple their capacities. When you have six or seven arms, each containing seventy and above pupils, you are bound to have a situation where they only meet when they queue to collect their testimonials, maybe on graduation day.

I have driven through many towns and villages across this country and I have observed that school blocks appear to be the most dismal things in many towns and villages. The walls are peeled and worn down to the very mud, sands and cement used to construct them. Many have spaces for windows but no window panes; spaces for doors but no such wooden things grace their entrances; and many do not even have blackboards. I have been in a classroom where I could not get a seat to sit on. There were seats all right but they were in various advanced stages of decomposition. Unfortunately, secondary schools are no better: too many pupils, not enough schools.

The situation is compounded by the fact that the teachers who are expected to handle these crowds are not paid their remunerations regularly. I think between the federal, state and local governments, the monthly dues of teachers have been allowed to dwindle and slide into the land of ghosts. Gradually, teachers have been made to look like beggars after performing their statutory functions.

However, there is the fact that somehow, the system of recruiting teachers has been clogged down by the malicious Nigerian factor which says it is whom, not what, you know that determines recruitment or promotions. I hear that there are primary school teachers who can hardly read or write but cannot be sacked; those who can read and write are poorly motivated; and so on. Remember the problem the Edo State Governor had when he tried to bring the state’s teachers up to par in terms of quality and how the NUT stood in his way thinking he was trying to sack its members? Well, that’s the kind of thinking we are talking about. No one is ready to bring in Mother Quality.

Yet, Mother Quality must be brought in if we are to get anywhere in the educational system. The tender years of primary school are the years in which children’s cognitive systems can be properly tuned towards brilliant performance in adulthood. It is the period when facts are imaginatively presented and children’s fancies are allowed to roam. They learn about becoming part of a system bigger than themselves and also how to put back into the system they draw from. Without the teacher’s sound knowledge of educational methods to rely on, these years end up draining away and the child is left to gather what he/she can through peers, internet and on the streets. In most cases, it’s the streets that win and the society loses, as it is doing now.

We should also note that the school system in Nigeria is itself not a reflection of the national aspirations but of the decrepit state of the society. I believe that no system can be better than its society. Indeed, every system within a country is a microcosm of the larger social system. So, the school system cannot miraculously be cleaner, more moral or more efficient than the society. What we are witnessing is that it has just yielded to the general decay in the society. We run a society where corruption is standing boldly in the way of funds allocated to repair and build classroom blocks, pay and train teachers, furnish and bring up to international standards the insides of classrooms at the primary and secondary levels. Yet, we expect good results. Seriously?!

     Right now, every concentration is on the university system (and it is poor enough at that) to the detriment of the primary level. In order to get the desired goals in the school system, we have to go fishing. We have to plunge in at the deep end of the river with our fishing hook and net and roil out the dirt and sediments that constitute problems in the system. Then we can begin to build on what is left.

People are sick, hungry, poor, deprived, and they are all looking to the government to keep them from dying. The government is not expected to look the other way and live in obscene opulence, which is exactly what PDP did; “just shearing monies”. Indeed, by election time, the party had finished dealing with the Naira and had started on the dollar.

Anyone will tell you that farming is a very tedious but rewarding activity. Whenever I have bitten into a slice of bread, I have often given a thought to the farmer who started the whole process of how bread gets to my table. First, I imagine him putting his back to the soil to grow the wheat. Then he prays that the rain or snow would put their backs to their jobs and fall. Then, he applies all kinds of measures to make sure the new plant is not done in by any of those innumerable species of pests or, worse still, innumerable kinds of weeds.

After watching the tantrums on TV of the erstwhile respected ex-Minister and PDP member, Elder Godsday Orubebe, at the recently concluded presidential elections in Nigeria, I leaned back in my chair and immediately thought, ‘Well, there goes my well worn definition of a baby’. You know a baby is that special breed of newly born two-legged creatures which has no sense or care of its whereabouts but has a keen sense of its wants. I was not surprised a few days later to find some unkind commentators on the social media had given him new names, including ‘Orubaby’. I had to readjust my definition of baby to read ‘… a special breed of two-legged creatures that may not necessarily be newborn.’

Since the PDP lost the presidential election in March and especially lately, there has been a great deal of tear shedding, hair tearing and blame trading in public. The party obviously has taken to heart Shakespeare’s famous line, ‘The fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ But in ourselves …’; so, it has taken to some kind of house cleaning. This means that there has been a rather large pile of mud being slung in different directions of PDP membership. In one corner is your unquiet A. Fayose and co vociferously accusing, and in another corner pants the beleaguered chairman of the party, Muazu, stoutly defending. While we are none the clearer for all these talk, talk, talk, all we are seeing are rather muddy faces. Dear reader, if you and I don’t talk now, some of that mud pie may reach yours and my corners because pies are notorious for splashing every which way.

 I think that rather than sling these mud pies in all directions, this party should borrow King Arthur’s Round Table, sheath their swords and get them some strong weed killers. That table is particularly useful because it usually has no head or tail, right way or wrong way, right person or wrong person. Everyone comes to it with an equal share of the blame, guilt, falsehood, truth, justice and blamelessness.

 Methinks the first thing these gladiators need to do is to be honest on who to apply the weed killers on; that is, if it is possible for them to be honest, because one of the stereotypes of politicians anywhere is that, like lawyers, it is difficult to get any amount of truth from them. Please note that I did not say it is impossible because I have some lawyer friends and family whose truths I am at the moment digesting.

Anyway, I believe it is difficult to say exactly what the PDP did wrong to have lost that presidential election. Perhaps, it is one single factor – e.g. underrating the power of the card reader; perhaps it is a combination of factors – e.g. underrating the power of the card reader and the near-suffocating suffering of the Nigerian public while PDP members and families smiled to the banks and overseas, I don’t know. What is clear is that the victory of the APC candidate in the presidential election did not happen because of luck.

Let us see some more of the things PDP needs to apply its weed killers on. I think the party members might examine carefully again their public image, especially their advertisements in the media. There is nowhere in the world where any advert or party slogan that includes ‘PDP … Power!’ will not read like a page in the Book of Insults to any people. It not only smacks of arrogance (even more arrogant than someone declaring that PDP will rule for 60 years, until God told them in March, ‘Really?’), it clearly tells the people that all they are interested in is getting power, being in control, ruling and reigning without a purpose. It lacks that necessary pretentiousness to humility. It lacks, you know, that ‘let us pretend that the real power belongs to the people and kowtow to them’ kind of attitude. In politics, as in religion, it is absolutely essential that you acknowledge yourself most unworthy.

Then, prior to and during the elections, there just was too much frothing at the mouth from too many of PDP’s ‘young Turks’ who thought they were waging a psychological warfare without ever having seen a war. It got so bad at one point I thought, surely PDP is stricken with epilepsy and it does not even know it. From the mouth of young (surprisingly!) party members streamed forth bad, foul, irreverent, indecent, barbaric, and untoward language most unexpected in this age. Worse, they came mostly from the lips of front-line public figures: governors, ministers, senator hopefuls, and even the wife of the president, finally culminating in the public gabbling of our man mentioned above.

The little I know about language is that even if you had no respect for your subject of discourse, you would at least consider the sensibility of your hearer, which will compel you to use a more decorous language. Believe me, it is very possible to insult someone in such elegant prose that even the victim of the abuse would be very pleased with you and give you a handshake. It is necessary for the PDP (and other parties too) to vet who interacts with the public on their behalf and learn to quickly distance themselves from the mouths of reckless speakers before that one drowns him/herself and the party. Failure to do this will only signal to the public that the run-amok individual is speaking for himself and his party, and that the party hopes to win its election by adopting the ideology of abuse.

 From what I know, it appears that the PDP adopted an ideology of winning ‘by hook or crook’, ‘at all costs’, or ‘whatever it takes.’ These are no decent ideologies but gangsters’ style of operation. For instance, APC is commonly associated with the progressive ideology. This is why I do not understand why they are allowing just anyone to decamp and join them. On the other hand, I am hard put to say exactly what PDP stands for. This is why its members can decamp so easily to anywhere power seems to swing to.

Above all, there is just no substitute for good governance. People are sick, hungry, poor, deprived, and they are all looking to the government to keep them from dying. The government is not expected to look the other way and live in obscene opulence, which is exactly what PDP did; “just shearing monies”. Indeed, by election time, the party had finished dealing with the Naira and had started on the dollar.

Governance is about bringing out policies that would guarantee the people’s comfortable present and bright future. A credible government needs a good opposition to keep it on its toes. This country still needs the PDP, so the party needs to apply its weed killers now, because come election time, the people are entitled to their choice.

To consider the comforts of only the politicians … is as good as saying that the larger populace in the country works to keep the very few (politicians) in their cups and comforts. We will do well to remember that it was situations like those that bred (and buttered) French, Russian, etc., revolutions in Europe

When I heard about the Three and a half billion Naira severance pay that this nation’s foremost executive members had awarded themselves – president, vice-president, etc., — I literally did a flip. Now if you know me, I do not know how to do a flip, plus I consider that I am greatly disadvantaged by age and weight factors. So, you can imagine that what will make me do a flip must be a very serious thing indeed. This one was. Listen now while I tell you how it was.

Two days ago or so, I was in another city in Nigeria. Not being very familiar with the terrains of the place, I had to do most of my commuting by public transport. You remember what one wise man said: those who do much travelling are not given to sainthood. I’m sure I have muddled it up but never mind. If you want to retain your sweet temper about life, stay in your house. That reminds me of something else someone said: the only one not stepping on anyone’s toes is standing still.

Anyway, there I was walking down the road when, right in front of me, was this old woman. Normally, on their days out, old women carry little faded handbags, flat sandals, and shawls flung loosely around their shoulders as they wander around visiting those family members who insist on forgetting they are still alive. On the way, they could stop to admire the traffic in consternation as it whizzes past them and make comments about how you couldn’t get such things in their days and also wonder whether these things are as dangerous as they look. They might also offer pieces of advice to passersby who care enough for them, the advice that is, not the old women.

You are right; I am talking about how I would like to see the average old woman in Nigeria. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. The reality is rather like the one I saw that day. She was old, bent, thin, raggedly clothed and had on her head a tray of yams which she was hawking from door to door, street to street, and nothing to comfort her poor feet. I felt bad for my country. Now, we all know good yams are heavy; and I felt whatever had this woman at her age hawking these miserable things around (a dissipated youth, her care-free children, a childless condition) was not half as bad as what her country was doing to her.

Yes, she was at her job, plying her trade, but in no less way than Jonathan was doing. So what made her to qualify for less than what Jonathan got as president and now as out-going president? You could tell me she had no brains or brawns or even opportunities. I could very well tell you that most of us are probably not half as intelligent and definitely not as strong as that woman was. What you and I are enjoying wherever we find ourselves are opportunities dropped on our laps by Lady Providence, and you know how blind she is. Now, my problem is, how is it that we forget this as soon as we find ourselves occupying these somewhat exalted positions? Not only do we fail to do what we are expected to do there, we forget the core ethos that supports the spirit of the society: there is only one way to do a job – the right way. This is what makes the other credo meaningful: to do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. However, after providence has visited us in Nigeria, most of us prefer to do a day’s work for a decade’s pay.

Our cities are unfortunately filled with (old) women and men earning their livings in ways that do not pay compliments to our sanity. The situation represents our national shame and horror story when you contrast it with the incredibly humongous pay earned by our politicians because they know how to be elected and lie down by their swimming pools. And, oh yes, because they know how to do the midnight meetings thing too, when all human beings are asleep.

How on earth are we expected to improve our work ethos in this country when each day brings in more shocking revelations about what the leaders at the top are doing with the nation’s money? The labourer is worthy of his hire, not more. Yet, we all are not equitably remunerated according to the day’s work. The national assemblymen who have awarded and obviously continue to award themselves unimaginably huge pays in spite of all the national and international cries against them are really showing us how not to work.

Last week, on the 1st of May, we celebrated all workers; and that means celebrating us all, since we are all workers, from Jonathan down to the old woman. But we cannot celebrate our work attitude. People have repeatedly noted how this country is going under mostly because people are not doing their work. People are going around chasing things that they have no business chasing because those responsible are not doing their work; mostly because, I don’t know, flabby brawns?

The other day, someone reported that he had spent the entire morning of a day he was sure he would never get back staying at home to supervise the people who had come to sink a well for him in his house. The reason was simple. Water had never as much as spluttered into his pipes since he built the house. Some people on his street have water from the public mains all right; it was just that the water works decided to stop the supply at a certain point, just as public works department distributes amenities to only ‘big men’. Someone somewhere did not do his work.

I have always believed that national remunerations should be in full consideration of the comforts of both the least earning power and the highest grossing power to keep the economy balanced. To consider the comforts of only the politicians (because they have the ability to hold midnight meetings) to the detriment of the larger economy is grossly unfair. It is as good as saying that the larger populace in the country works to keep the very few (politicians) in their cups and comforts. We will do well to remember that it was situations like those that bred (and buttered) French, Russian, etc., revolutions in Europe. If it happened before, believe me, it can happen again.

Yes, that’s true, it happened on March 28th; but that was a revolution of the ballot box. We can have worse ones like the revolution of the gun. We pray it will not come to that. You and I both know that prayer is not enough. The country must find ways of helping the people at the top realise that their needs are no more special than those of the old woman in our story just because they have access to the tap controlling public funds and she doesn’t.

The way they think at the moment (the politicians at the top that is) gives me the impression that there are too many crooked brains in our midst. So, there we are, floating between crooked brains and flabby brawns without a leg to stand on. I think our main job now, with Buhari fully on board and all, is to find how we can make all them crooked brains straight and flabby brawns strong. Let’s get down to business. Happy Workers’ Day.

I think the world is trying to tell us to open the blessed books and find all the secrets of the world tucked between the pages

Like the great unwashed, unbrushed and unshoed, there is just so much you can do with the great unread. They not only do not believe that you mean well by telling them to take a bath, brush their teeth, lace up their shoes or read a book, they actually believe they have a right to be left alone to enjoy their states of nature. Take the great unwashed as an example. They hate getting into water whereas the rest of the world enjoys the various temperatures of water cascading over them to wash the filth and grime of yesteryears off. Oh yes, dear reader; some grime can stick to that lovely skin of yours for years. If you don’t believe me, take a real good bath and scrub yourself real hard. Then towel yourself down. After that, just rub up and down any square area of your leg or part of your choice, and what comes off on your finger? That’s right; last year’s grime; and if you look closely, you’ll probably be able to tell where you collected the idiot dust responsible.

The great unread are quite another kettle of fish. A mixed crowd you have there to be sure. There are first those who are unread because they cannot read. They are unable, unschooled and untutored. These are the ones the mass literacy programmes should be intensified for.

Then there are those who can read, but who for their lives or money, would not deign to pick up any intellectual material to read and educate their minds. These are the ones who deserve our sympathy, exasperation and a shake of their shoulder: WHY ARE YOU NOT USING YOUR GOD-GIVEN BRAINS?

Then, there is a third group. You know, just as you can have Limited Liability Companies (Ltd.), so also you can have those with Limited Reading Deeds (Lrd.). These ones read all right, but usually when they have no choice in the matter. They are the ones who only read the blurbs of literary texts to pass examinations. Then there is yet a tiny set of people who are hardly talked about. They read voraciously and, wonder of wonders, they even write. But then, who gives this group the time of day? Not you!

So, these are your groups of readers and non-readers. Is it any wonder then that Nigeria is said to constitute one giant mass of the great unread?! And you know what they say about the unread, don’t you? They neither know nor seek to know. Yes, indeed, there is a stereotypic joke flying around about you: they say that if you want to hide any secret from a Nigerian, write it and put it between the pages of a book. How did we get to this point?

I don’t know but I think the world had Nigerians in mind when they set a day aside in the year to pay attention to books, copyrights and intellectual properties. Dear reader, please don’t mind me for yoking together these fine birds of the same feather because they have come on each other’s heels. I think the world is trying to tell us to open the blessed books and find all the secrets of the world tucked between the pages.

One of the reasons the reading culture went down in this country might be the fact that books went out of the reach of the ordinary man and woman. In other words, books were priced out of the hands of those who needed them most. And I believe, as I have said before, that it started in the seventies, when the cheap paper industry was deliberately killed by you know who: your friends the government, in order to hurt the newspaper industry so that news would not be easily accessible to you and me so that we will be in the dark about things so that the government could continue to do what they liked without you and I being the wiser so that….. Now you know why I hate talking about the government: it makes me too emotional (sniff, sniff).

The ultimate effect has been that the book industry is now suffering because books that should cost nothing more than a fraction of a child’s daily allowance are now costing a good deal more than a half of a father’s monthly emolument. In foreign countries, children have been known to use their allowances to purchase comics and light reading materials in order to improve their cognitive reasoning, reading, and ethical abstractive abilities, not to talk of their written and yes, spoken English. Here, children are preoccupied with worrying about where their daddies will get food to put on the table. I ask you, where, among the family’s catalogue of needs, should ‘reading for leisure’ books be fixed without having to break the bank, steal or borrow?

This year, I understand the theme for the Books and Copyrights day is ‘Read the World’. Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I would have said that the composers of that theme were trying to taunt us to do something about the great unread in our midst, like (whisper) RID THE WORLD OF THEM OR SOMETHING. But, I will be more charitable and pretend I speak English sometimes, like a Nigerian professor of English who was asked in a foreign hospital if she spoke English, and she said ‘sometimes’. In my little English, I will therefore hazard that they are asking the government to do something about the cheap paper (pulp) industry; or read (the lips of) the world and hear what it is saying such as, ‘You pirates, respect our intellectual properties!’

I cannot seem to understand the philosophy of intellectual piracy. When Shakespeare’s Hamlet said ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ (1, 5, 166-7), I thought he was talking about how his friend needed to add more value to his books by learning more of life’s lessons. Here are your intellectual pirates deciding to reduce the value of books by making the author’s efforts worthless in his hands. Is that wickedness or what?

Sometime ago, when I visited a shop, I found copies of my favourite classical pieces at prices that shot through the roof. I bought them anyway and I felt happy that I had appreciated the efforts of some musician somewhere. Those around me thought otherwise. To start with, they looked at me as if I could not possibly be serious about having bought them at those prices. Then they informed me with a turn of their lips that I could more easily have bought these things at only a fraction of those prices from those chaps that ferry them around in wheel-barrows who bring them in from China or Onitsha. Then they forbore to touch them.

Seriously, cheap versions of anything are good, but they must come with the consent, and to the gain, of the artist. Presently, I understand that the Nigerian copyrights commission is at war with intellectual pirates, burning their hauls and all that. I think it is time to go after those who import the pirated copies of other people’s works.

There is an urgent need to make books and other works of art accessible to the public at legally reasonable prices. This not only discourages piracy, but educates the public, reforms characters in many ways, ennobles people’s minds and makes cultured individuals of people. Ultimately, it encourages more creativity, which in turn contributes to societal development; and in this cyclical movement, everyone gains.

How can we have so many engineers in the country and you are having to drive over bridges where one set of your tires are hanging and rolling in space and you are only able to cross because you know how to recite a hundred psalms in two minutes?

The polls have come and gone again, like bells tolling, this time for the governorship and state assembly candidates. I trust that you had a better experience this last weekend than you had two weeks ago. You were not only better prepared, you were wiser: you took your breakfast, lunch and dinner along with you as I warned you to. Oh yes I did; did you not read between the lines? Anyway, once, someone was said to have gone to commit suicide by jumping in the train track; but he took a sandwich with him because he did not want to starve to death while waiting for the trains to come since they were notorious for being late. Voting queues are notoriously long and late in coming in Nigeria, so never be caught out again – always go with your food to keep you alive, your chair to sit on, a mat to sleep on and a TV to watch yourself on.

While we wait for the results, let’s talk about Buhari’s win. The reactions to the APC victory in the last presidential elections have been nothing if not euphoric; mainly because many see the victorious candidate as the harbinger of the longed-for utopian empire. Now, that’s a tall order because my Encarta here says utopia is unviable and impracticable, just like an ectopic pregnancy. Yet, nearly everyone has been going around snapping fingers and consoling themselves with those soothing words: ‘just wait till Buhari gets there!’

Yes; nearly every page I flip in the papers, there are people setting agendas for the poor man. As soon as he gets there, Buhari should see about electricity. As soon as he gets there, Buhari should give us water. As soon as he gets there, Buhari should see about corruption. As soon as he gets there, Buhari should make my dog bark. People are not setting anything for themselves.

Nigeria, we may have a bigger problem to contend with, because I think someone somewhere is not being realistic about this situation. A nation that is corrupt from the tip of its toes to the very top of its hairs – from the palm-wine tapper who dilutes his new minted kegs of palm-wine with pails of water to make unlimited profit, to the assemblymen who award themselves emoluments higher than the entire US treasury – has elected an ascetic man as its leader. That scenario is to me like one sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Something will blow up on our faces, and it won’t be dust. No, think of something worse.

We as Nigerians have to quickly determine how much interference we can tolerate from this man. Do we want him to clean up the entire system and rid it of corruption or just confine himself to cleaning up Aso Rock? Quick, someone should tell the man o, otherwise, before you know it, he’ll be wanting to clean everyone up. He may want to begin with the civil service where nearly every contract is now self-awarded, i.e. the awarder becomes the awardee. After going through the rather frustrating system of the civil service, someone once said what we have is an uncivil service. To me, it is fast becoming a selfie-service: it sees only itself in the mirror.

Next, without any warning, the man may turn to the classroom. Normally, I am sensitive to the plight of teachers because I know how important they are. Nevertheless, I am quick to admit that many among them are not there for the job but for the pay, pittance as that may be. Oh my, wouldn’t he have a lot of cleaning up to do there. To start with, he may want to tell the teachers to go and teach instead of selling Coke and Fanta in their shops. He may tell the administrators to release the money meant for building classrooms but which they have kept locked up in their personal accounts. He may even find himself needing to tell the pupils to go to school and learn instead of hanging around the markets making money or brothels looking for money. Are we sure we want him to do all that, even if it will mean changing our lifestyles? Ok, let’s move on.

Next, he may call together the group of people called engineers and give them a blast of dynamited air. How in the world can they look themselves in the face (via the mirror perhaps) and call themselves engineers when our roads are so terribly constructed? How can we have so many engineers in the country and you are having to drive over bridges where one set of your tyres are hanging and rolling in space and you are only able to cross because you know how to recite a hundred psalms in two minutes?

Next, he may look at our hospitals and turn his nose up at the filth and then scour the place up. He may want to look at the patient treatment by both nurses and doctors, who is and who is not doing an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, what machines are or are not standing in the way of work … Are we really sure we want this man Buhari to come and upset all our carefully laid and horrible national ethos?

The more I think about this election result, the more I understand this present pope’s reaction to the news of his election. The story goes that when the report was brought to him that he had been elected by the House of Bishops, he was said to have, in a gentle, pope-like way, shaken his head and muttered, ‘what have you done?!’ And he added that they had no idea of what they had just done.

In the same way, I do not believe the Nigerian populace has clearly understood what it has just done because it is still holding on to its old ways. The fuel attendant is still undercutting the volume of fuel that enters your tank and billing way above the official price. The road engineer is still looking the other way while only one layer of asphalt is laid on the road instead of the usual nine. The local governments continue to be drain pipes for the nation’s resources while doing little or nothing. Are we sure we can endure any sniffing into all that?

I think we need to do a rethink. We do not need Buhari so much as we need to change our wayward ways. To make his job possible, we need to change our ways of conducting national affairs. This is about the place where we all need to ask not what the country can do for us but what we can do for the country. (That last bit is not original to me but honestly, we need it now). Anyway, Buhari cannot achieve anything if we do not begin to retune our national psyche from believing that we are entitled to the national cake without even putting in any effort towards baking it. No cake ever baked itself.

So, in the long run, it will not be so much what we want Buhari to do for us as what we want to do for the country. In the end, should things continue as they are, someone will get frustrated, and I am guessing it will not be one person. But, I take solace in what someone has said: his thumb is itching to go to the polls again. This time, it may well be for a new electorate.