The Nation Newspaper

Category: Oyinkan Medubi

  • ‘They say helicopters even drop food for them…!’

    To all those who fight for peace…

    Reader, I am guessing you are as miffed by this boko haram thing as I am; so is everyone else for that matter, except the principal actors – I mean the bombers, slayers, gunners and hell-raisers, as well as their sponsors. Now, you and I know that every disagreement has three sides. There is the side that proposes the argument. ‘You this woman, you have started again today. What do you mean by asking me for your Ankara money this early Monday morning when I have not even been to work?’ Then there is the opposing side that responds violently. ‘If you had given me on Sunday night, I would not have asked you on Monday morning. Now, where is my money?’

    Then there is the third party. S/He is the one who is interested in the content and quality of the put-downs, repartees, knock-outs flying around from both sides. He or she goes ‘Ah, what he is really saying is that you are stupid and unintelligent’ to one side and ‘Ah, what she’s really saying is that you are wicked, stubborn and untrustworthy. Are you going to stand for that?’ to the other side. Before you know it, there is a fantastic conflagration consuming the domicile of the dundees, organized and cleverly orchestrated by the interested third party because the others are too stupid to know better.

    My knowledge of third party is honestly limited to the insurance I subscribe to in the interest of peace on the road; for me, that is, not the other speed-crazed maniacs flavouring our roads now. Anyway, my Third Party insurance is nothing but a document that says ‘Police, please let me pass; I left a pot of soup on the stove at home’. I have always thought that the insurance exists because; one, the police is invariably one to block one’s road; two, I am toooooo poor to pay the full insurance sum; and three, have you seen what a full insurance sum is lately? Phew, they are enough to make you cough. Worse still, you could finish paying the full sum for the blessed car, then the full sum of the insurance, only to hear the car begin to literally cough! Oh no, swearing at it cannot help you at that point. You just slowly must find your way to the mechanic while your insurance man zooms past you in his new car bought with … you guessed it.

    The existence of third parties reminds me of a quizzical line in one of Achebe’s poems in Girls at War: ‘if something stands, something else must stand by it’. If you don’t believe me, just look at our governors in Nigeria. Can you point to one of them who is able to stand without his godfather standing beside him? Many of us have asked the presidency to reveal to us the sponsors of boko haram so that some of us brave ones can march right up to them and poke our digits in their cataract-filled eyes. But Mr. President will not. I think he is more afraid of my eye-poking abilities. Seriously though, anyone can see that those boko haram boys are nothing but rudderless ships living on the fringes of society and looking for someone to direct and feed them on account of having so little state intervention in their lives. So, along comes the third party who sweetly convinces your fringe-liver that killing other people in order to qualify for food is healthy living. That is your unconscionable third party.

    From what we know, it is this third party, i.e., the feeders and sponsors, who put guns, bombs, devices, cars, 4-wheel drive vehicles, SUVs, etc., into the calloused, unschooled, unsociable, hungry hands of the fringe-livers. Indeed, we hear the sponsorship is so well organized that helicopters even drop food for them in their camps in the bushes! Whether this is a fact or a rumour, we cannot say but coincidences have ways of suggesting things to one’s head. How come these people are better fed in the bushes than those of us at home? Eh? So, from initially fighting with nothing but their adamantine will power, the boko haram has now graduated to fighting with sophisticated armoury that is procured and paid for by someone so lacking in self-love and so filled with self-hate. Anyone who loves anything about himself will appreciate others a bit. So, instead of giving these poor things living on the fringes of society bread, we are allowing the third party to give them snakes to play with by concealing their identity. This is where we need to direct our search: we need to know who they are.

    After getting no response from Oga-on-top, I directed my footsteps to the internet from where I got many theories. The first theory says that the boko haram is being sponsored by some ex-military leaders from the north for their own personal or religious reasons. Perhaps so, perhaps not, we cannot tell; but, you will agree there have been too many rumours regarding this fact. Once, we heard that some boko haram members had been arrested in connection with a blast but orders came from ‘above’ that they be released. I ask you, I ask you!

    Here you are, filled with indignation that someone could sit down somewhere and plan the destruction of someone else, and is caught for same after a great deal of evidence and pursuit, only for ‘orders’ to null all that work. Talk of corruption indeed. Why then do we bother to even search for culprits after each episode? I guess we should just fold our arms and sigh each time a bomb goes off since somewhere along the path of investigations, someone can come and say ‘Nay, I see no fault in this man’.

    I next read of another theory that gave a very long and twisted account of how a superpower is orchestrating the whole thing from outside Nigeria in order to unbalance and destabilize the country, out of jealousy. Citing the internet site that is known for revealing internet mails, the account further told of how that country had gone to great lengths to recruit, train and fund members of the boko haram to cause mayhem everywhere. It also told of how that country does not want this country to reach its super power destiny. I honestly did not know whether to laugh or cry at that story but I did one thing. I immediately went into my super-prayer mode. I spat out that any force or person or power who says Nigeria will not fulfill her destiny will be consigned to the hottest hell fire, Amen! Thank you ever so kindly for echoing that with me. Imagine the nonsense!

    There is yet a third account which says that boko haram members obtain their own sponsorship by blackmailing the big guns in the north to part with their hard-stolen cash. They also get some money by raiding neighbouring villages and towns. Hmm! What are we to make of this but that the falcon can no longer hear the falconer? If the little ‘uns now command the big ‘uns, I tell you things have fallen apart indeed up there.

    How the centre is still managing to hold is beyond me. A quotation that made the rounds in the eighties says, ‘if you can still manage to keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, then maybe you don’t understand the situation’. Nay, I think the presidency understands that all of this is leading to a cataclysmic chaos if peace is not pursued quickly, whatever the source of their sponsorship. I think one way out is to reveal the identity of those sponsors. Believe me, the insect eating the leaf is really on the leaf.

  • The Kalabalge effect

    As with electricity and water, so it is now with security: the people have taken to looking out for themselves. This signifies a gradual descent to anarchy

    Leader, these days, events appear to be tumbling over each other to be the first to break out. So, we heard about the soldiers who mutinied and shot at their commanding officer because that one somehow stood in the way of the soldiers’ remunerations for putting their lives literally on the firing line in defense of their country against the boko haram. Ha! As if we did not see that coming. Then, if you are a philistine like me, you’ll love the hearty news that came to break the clouds of despair and torpidity over our inability to bring back home the Chibok girls kidnapped about four weeks ago by the same ideologically vacuous boko haram. The village of Kalabalge dared to hold out against that gun-toting group because it was determined not to go down fighting. Forewarned of an impending attack by the boko haram, the villagers gathered all the weapons of war they could muster, such as sticks, and resisted the insurgents, killing many among them. That really brought home the meaning of the phrase ‘to be forewarned is to be forearmed’.

    Honestly, I learnt a few lessons from that Kalabalge story. First, it taught me that in any engagement, it is not the sophistication of my armoury that matters but the sophistication of my will power over the situation. This means essentially that I should cease to despair henceforth when there is a coincidental emptiness in my pot and purse. With a great deal of will power, I can command a surprising effect greater than that of Kalabalge: I can get fish from my neighbour’s fishpond to jump into my pot by hook, crook or persuasion.

    Have you ever tried to fish? Apart from the fact that you can sit for an entire day and catch nothing or a tiny thing, think about the cramps to your ol’ legs. Think about the time wasted. Think about the time you sit there with all kinds of thoughts chasing each other around your head like little monsters on legs called children; think about all the deadlines you are failing to meet because you are on a fishing expedition, all the appointments you are failing to keep, the people you are failing to see as you sit there all alone… Ah, you realise, that is the life!

    Let me tell you the story of one fish that failed to swallow the hook, line and sinker thing. One kind neighbor once brought me some big fish. As soon as the fish was being transferred to another container, it leapt out and found escape from the basket, slam dunk on the kitchen floor! To get the fish back became a life and life struggle between man and fish. The man attempted a trillion times to retrieve the slithery thing while bending down but the fish found it easier to slide off everywhere across the wet kitchen floor. The crook! Eventually, the thirty-minute dance ended when it occurred to the man to cover the fish with a big cloth. Blinded, the poor thing stopped all struggles. It was downright lucky for my kitchen floor that he had his brain with him; the man that is, not the fish; and, on its part, when it was blindfolded, the fish was willing to be persuaded.

    Secondly, the Kalabalge story taught me that you don’t have to grin and bear it, especially pain. Now look here, these boko haram fellows have been on a war path with the rest of the country over… nothing! Seriously! Worse, innocent people in the region are being killed while the warmongers are figuring out a good reason for killing them, and that’s just so unfair. Like someone said, if he is going to die, there must be a good reason: cancer is one powerful reason; diabetes is perhaps another very powerful reason if one is a little careless; so is hypertension, etc. What is definitely not a good reason to die is boko haram, for the entire lot does not make good sense. So, there is no more sitting, grinning and bearing it, according to these Kalabalge people. Good for them, I say. If only that philosophy could be taught to the entire region as it has been taught to me. Now, no more will I grin and bear this constant cut in electricity. I will no longer moan and sit in sadness. I have decided to whip out my own weapon of mass resistance in the shape of a thick, avenging stick of candle.

    You would think here are the Kalabalge people and many others fighting for their lives, and there is my unholy self making jokes over their plight. No, not so. This is an attempt to celebrate what these people have done and hope others can do the same. However, we must sound a note of caution. Have you noticed the rate at which people are taking to self-help now? Whew, the thing is a wild fire now. Across different cities including mine, people are being lynched on suspicion of being kidnappers. All it takes is one cry of ‘Help, kidnapper’ and people’s anger foams and froths out quicker than you can say ‘Police’. It does not matter if the victim is a creditor come to collect his debt. Before you know it, the victim is down, beaten to a pulp before being set ablaze by everyone in general and no one in particular. This is called self-help, and what a dangerous thing.

    There has always been an antithetical relationship between self-help and the law. Where one works, the other cannot. Self-help derives its powers from exigencies whereas the law derives its powers from laid down procedures. Self-help considers the interest of the holding party only whereas the law takes the interest of every party into consideration. Whereas the motive of the law is supposed to be justice for everyone, the motive of self-help is vengeance. The outcome of self-help is often chaos and anarchy, that of the law is a disciplined society.

    Unfortunately, due to various failures across the board, Nigeria is moving into the uncertain sphere of self-help. When people began to forage around for their own electricity using all kinds of contraptions that spelt doom for the hearing of their neighbours and the breath in their own nostrils, the government kept mum and left them alone. Ditto for water. I bet you that seismologists cannot give Nigeria a clean bill of health now on account of the uncountable wells and boreholes that have been sunk irreverently across the land to provide water for the self. Yep, thanks to you and I, the ground under Nigeria is well and truly prepared for all kinds of quakes and tremors. As with electricity and water, so it is now with security. The people have taken to looking out for themselves, and the government should really be worried because it signifies a gradual descent to anarchy.

    Anarchy is when there is a total loss of grip on governance. Then anything goes. I tell you, disorder is when the Kalabalge people can kill their attackers but the police dares not even approach the place to arrest them for murder. In the first place, those poor youths should not have had to soil their hands with such a heinous deed if the police or army did their work. In the second place, even the army is now helpless in that enclave for many reasons.

    We should note two things. The Kalabalge people might need to vacate their village for a while for fear of a retaliatory attack by the blood-thirsty nihilists. The government also needs to bring things back under control before self-help takes over the streets or else no one will be able to predict where that might lead.

  • This theatrical mix of the absurd is sick making, what?

    I think all this theatrical mix of absurdities will make this country’s past national elder statesmen turn in their graves

    Honestly, dear reader, this last week has had my senses swinging wildly from left to right and back again. Events that I can hardly still believe have happened. All week, my emotions have swung from the serious pathos exerted by the sight and sound of mothers in agony over their missing daughters to the serious hilarity occasioned by the presidency over the same missing girls. I have tried but I honestly have found it difficult to get past the televised sniffles of the first lady.

    Seriously, as I watched the now-gone-viral video of the encounter between the first lady and the government functionaries she invited to Abuja, I really did wonder and also made a few wishes, mostly wishes. First, I wondered why now after nearly three weeks. Then I wished that after the girls had been found, the first lady would do one more weeping: over Nigeria and what she has become. I wish she would weep for this giant of a country that had so much potential but which has now been brought to its knees by corruption and inept leadership. Then maybe the heavens would hear her sniffles once again and come to our aid, you know, like that book titled Cry the Beloved Country. We digress.

    Today, I want to mention that absolutely nothing prepared me for our presidency’s retort to the western powers last week. It seemed to have just come out of the blues. It’s not every day you hear the president tell another president to ‘give me the equipment’ and I’ll take care of boko haram. This, as I read in a news report last week, was in answer to the demand of the presidents of the major world countries to Nigeria to free the Chibok girls reportedly captured by boko haram and end the entire occupation crisis.

    Now, many facts immediately come to mind in that retort. It is well known that Nigeria earns millions of dollars a day from petroleum alone, only a part of which is used to execute the national budget. It is also well known that the largest chunk of that budget goes to defence, quite apart from the many other spendings approved for the same purpose. Yet, the soldiers facing the insurgents are forever complaining of being under-equipped and ill-motivated; and no one has explained to this country why this is so. Yet I believe that it is possible to dress and equip twice the size of the Nigerian army in the most modern form and the latest gadgets if the will can just be found somewhere beneath the rubbles of corruption and stashing aways. I guess that is the real problem – the corruption.

    Then came the performance to oust all performances from the… err… first lady. With the press awash on the fact that the presidency had done nothing for over three weeks to help the abducted girls; that the presidency did not care because none of their own daughters were involved; I guess the president’s wife felt it was up to her to save the day. And save the day she tried to do. In a mixture of emotions ranging from incredulity that the principal of the Chibok girls’ school had come to a bidded meeting in Abuja without her retinue of workers (Na you alone waka come?); to a triumph nearly equal to the triumphal entry (She always achieves results when she is involved in a matter); to breaking down in tears (The lady wept!), the president’s wife showed her stuff. In her eagerness to salvage the situation, the first lady forgot a few things. The first lady forgot the little fact that she did not quite have the power to send for any governmental functionary because she is not their boss. She also forgot that she was not voted into power, only her husband was. Above all, she forgot that she is the woman and her husband is the man. A little mistake there, but then it can happen to anybody. In my house, I sometimes forget I am not the man of the house and do some table-lifting – big mistake.

    Certainly, the presidency could have handled this abduction saga a little better. An earlier and more sensitive approach would have guaranteed greater results instead of this absurd theatrical mix long after the trail has gone cold and the criminals have forgotten their crime. By now, those girls may have been compromised. This is not good enough. It does not bespeak sufficient seriousness on the part of those in charge of the affairs of this country. This is why other governments more serious than us in this country now have the onerous duty of flying in to save us from ourselves.

    That’s right; it gets me indeed that the American troop has had to come into this country to rescue Nigerian girls captured in Nigeria by Nigerians. You know why? It is because in every sphere of human existence in this country, I believe that Nigeria has some of the best trained officers in the world. Just think about the army, police, academia, anything, Nigeria has got it. What the people of this country need is the chance to prove themselves when the circumstances are equal, such as in a good system. American troops are able to fly into any rescue operation anywhere in the world because they are properly kitted out and the funds meant for them find their ways to them as at and when due.

    But, imagine this. We are here unable to hold our country together in any way: no good transportation, inconstant power supply, sputtering water supply, very bad roads and no road networks, etc. Instead of working at these things, leaders are busy stashing things away. In the meantime, we have even gone and created a problem we cannot take care of by ourselves. I really do wonder for how long we are going to remain a baby that needs to be wiped and have her nappy changed by the bigger powers.

    Let’s look at this American troop thing. Can you imagine what their presence here says about us to the rest of the known world? It says a great deal actually. First, it says loudly that we are incapable of any good thing. When it comes to corruption index, we are top of the cards. When it comes to human rights index, we are top of the table. When it comes to maternal mortality, we are top in the labour room. However, when it comes to good governance, the country disappears off the radar.

    All of us are very interested in just getting the girls back, and may that be so. Any means will do, nationally or internationally contrived. The problem the country will grapple with afterwards, however, is that that rescue will constitute a compromise of the nation’s political power and will. The sanctity of the country’s sovereignty will now be compromised. There is an adage that says when one accepts a gift from someone else, the receiver becomes the slave of the giver. That is so true. Whence can this country hold its head high again if and when the foreign troop brings the girls home? How will I now be looking at you?

    Lastly, I think all this theatrical mix of absurdities will make this country’s national elder statesmen turn in their graves. If they were to wake up today, they would look around them and at each other before voicing the only question running through their collective minds: ‘Is this the independence we fought for, or there is another to come?’ I can take only one lesson home from all this: there is indeed another independence to be fought for, and well may we win that.

  • It is not only those girls who are lost, the entire country is lost!

    The political option that we thought would save us as a country is turning around to not only batter us but is threatening to drown us. Mmmn! Now where shall we run to, the hills?

    To say that the nation is grieving is a large slice of understatement. The nation’s heart is broken. Actually, I am one of those who believe that its spine was broken right at birth. In other words, when the country was founded on the tripartite foundation of unsteady wobbliness, ungainly clumsiness and deceitful falsities in order to favour one group over another, the country had little or no fighting chance. You could say it came out fresh from the delivery room practically dead on arrival. The result of all that was planted in those early times is what we are all witnessing today – social exclusion of extremely large groups of people. In turn, this unfortunate but deliberate exclusion has bred varied levels of national malcontent, social fractures, senseless insurgencies, and one great, monumental chaos all of which have made this nation one giant mental institution floating in outer space. That’s right, folks, you and I have our abode in The Lost Country.

    The sad thing is that the country is one huge success as far as those who planned this chaos are concerned. You see, this country was never meant to do well; so in the very fabrics of its failures resides its success. Yep, we are children of the doomed… nation. Indeed, that it is still standing, albeit rocking on its heels like one drunken ancient mariner tottering on the edge of his famous breakdown, is one of the miracles of the modern world. Science is a wonderfully astounding thing and it has been known to do things and reach places even you and I have no inkling of, but I do believe that the science that can save this nation is perhaps still on the drawing board. You see, it would have to include an antivirus that is capable of not only wiping out this strange strain of madness besetting us all but inoculate even the yet unborn in the country.

    Just imagine, two hundred school girls were abducted all at once from a north-eastern town in Nigeria; presumably, where we have law enforcement agencies. Without any interference from any of these agencies, those children were being put into trucks and this did not take place in a few minutes! Worse, they passed through streets and roads filled with people. No one saw them, no one interrupted them. And there has been no inkling as to where they are, many days after! This is the extent to which we really have lost it in this country. It is not only the girls that are lost, the entire country is obviously lost! Now, who is going to find us?

    For ages, right thinking elites and news commentators tried to articulate the impunities and ills bothering this nation, and it’s been no trifling act for them; for both the mild pens and the more ponderous ones have wrought and oozed weighty prose in the attempt or failed trying. In spite of these clanging of caution screaming horror, beware the horror, the ills kept piling up because the impunities kept growing. Now, we have come to the point where locations are no longer just bombed in daylight, people are not just killed in daylight, hundreds of school children are abducted in broad daylight! Ebino! That’s just the way we are! And the nation is helpless because, in truth, it has existed on series and litanies of impunities. Let us see now.

    When a nation’s laws are perpetually set aside for selfish and self-serving reasons, it’s the beginning of the dance macabre manifesting as the death wriggle. Just look at every facet of national life: the military never had any respect for the nation’s laws; this is why it was and still is possible for every general to have his own outriders and siren and also dictate for the country. Now, the presidency has inherited that lack of respect for laid down laws and kicks them around anyhow. Blatant and outright disobedience of the law is perpetually displayed to the nation from the presidency daily: check out the case of governors’ forum election (illegal as it is), the Justice Salami case and so on. And have you seen the police drive around in traffic? I assure you, you will whistle through your teeth. Equally bad are drivers of vehicles bearing government plate numbers: they make everyone want to pick up their feet and run. The beginning of tragedy is when leaders lead the entire country down a rut, and the followers follow in the footsteps of the leaders. And well they should. So, when impunity greets impunity, there is nothing else to do but self-destruct. As we are doing now.

    Nigerian leaders laid down the precedence for what happened last week many decades ago by their failure to show the people what to do, how to keep the law, build their houses, conduct their businesses, use the roads, have access to the public utilities, and how to have everybody equal before the state, etc. And by failing to have one law for all, the leaders tacitly gave everyone of us the go-ahead to evolve the law as we saw fit: mostly to act with impunity. This is what happened in the South-south when the president’s own relative was kidnapped; now it is happening in the North-east. Many other things happened to give rise to these but we cannot go into them here. What is the use crying foul when the referee is already peddling out of the pitch on his escape bicycle? Who knows if perhaps the culmination of all this is yet to come? I tell you, Chaos rules, ok? Ok!

    Let us now scrape around for solutions because we really need to scratch the ground to find anything in this quagmire of gooey problems. Listen, this country needs to do some serious social engineering to give everyone a stake in the place. This socio-economic distancing of people within their own fatherland needs to be checked. The worst part is that this group, already excluded from the society, are now seeking to exclude even more of their own kin and generation and coming ones who are seeking to end their own exclusion through education. This wickedness needs to be put a stop to.

    Everyone knows now that the political content of this insurgency is very high. This means that the political arrangement that we thought would save us as a country is turning around to not only batter us but is threatening to drown us. Mmmn! That is food for thought. Now where shall we run to, the hills? Those children were said to have been taken into the forests where the insurgents have their camps, presumably, to be wives to the outlaws. Now, is it possible for two neighbouring countries not to be on talking terms that they cannot cooperate to look at every blade of grass between their two countries in search of those girls?

    In my opinion, I think the first thing that the government ought to do is take a good look at itself and stop declaring that it is fine. It is not fine. Indeed, something is very wrong if we all allow the insurgency to continue to grow because of the government’s reluctance to bring out the facts surrounding the problem. And, obviously, there are facts. It will be sad to continue to allow the nation to get more lost because of this reluctance. As it is now, each day, people are getting more confused because they have more questions than answers. I think the answers should begin to come about… now!

  • So sad that it’s Black all the way again!

    Corruption not only allows people to live above their means to the chagrin and envy of their neighbours, it also allows people to be able to afford to arm and pay insurgents

    Obviously, there are things at stake in this country that are not too obvious to us ordinary Nigerians. We can only guess. We can guess that there are people disgruntled enough to fund and arm, from ill-gotten monies, mercenaries to come into the country and decimate entire villages and pillage roads. We can guess that there are people desperate enough to want to force the presidents’ arm on some tawdry issue. Honestly, I have no interest in who stays or who goes because there is really no difference between black and dark black, which is what all our politicians are. It is not fair though that innocent people should be used as fodders for political ends. I tell you, the God of the innocent will not be silent.

    What happened at the Nyanya bus stop last week remains one of the most horrific tales told so far in the confrontation between the Boko Haram sect and the country. Indeed, the story is past telling. And while we were still attempting to tell it, the bizarre tale of the abduction of about two hundred girls from a secondary school broke. Honestly, even that story is still rankling because of the senselessness of it.

    True, the president’s initial response action and his party’s utterances have not been very encouraging. There are those who believe he should not have gone celebrating in Kano; there are those who say why not. There are those who think it is all politics gone bad; and there are those who say not. Yet, there are those who think it’s the beginning of the end. To be honest, I’m neither here nor there, for I think we are all missing the point.

    As a matter of fact, I am more alarmed that there are those being housed within the four walls of this country who have no compunction about lopping off a large number of people just to make a political statement. To me, it is a real tragedy because it would seem that such hearts are no longer pumping blood around the owners’ bodies but something else, say poison. That is what worries me.

    At the moment, everyone in the country has been left to play detective, undertaker or wonderer, mostly wonderer. We are wondering just what it is that would make a group of people: funders, planners, procurers, and executors come together over such a horrendous thing as this. It is amazing that these all did not come together to form a farm cooperative; they came together to prise the bodies of human beings apart, piece by piece. What on earth could they have been thinking?

    Point is, what’s to be done now? Sometime in the week, when the story of the Nyanya bombing broke, many commentators offered some solutions. Some said the president should resign because they were convinced that all the pillage and destruction were aimed at getting the president to resign. I laughed. I mean, if the president were to resign because he can no longer cope with the job, I would understand. If he were to resign because he cannot guarantee constant electricity to my house, I honestly would understand. If he were to resign because he cannot guarantee my security, that will be something. To ask him to resign because some people have chosen to make political statements using the blood of innocent people I find rather strange. I mean, what happens if the person who succeeds the president cannot work as fast to curtail the problem, he should also resign?

    Some people offered a more startling solution. Let there be more decisive actions against the Boko Haram or whoever might be behind the attack. Surely, force has been applied systematically all along, and look where it’s got us. That’s right, nowhere. Those who are funding and arming them are making sure they are better armed than the JTF, perhaps because they are familiar with the limitations of the military.

    I think the major problem is the government itself. After so many operations and destructions, I quite believe that it is not conceivable that it does not know those funding and arming the Boko Haram from within or without. Up till now, security agents have only picked up insurgents, but not the payers. It is not possible for there not to be a trail from the insurgents to the funders. The question is, why has the country not been given some names? In my opinion, the funders are more to be blamed than the executors.

    The more fundamental problem is the fact that too many people have helped themselves too freely to money from government coffers for private use. This column, as well as many others, has consistently drawn attention to the problems surrounding this phenomenon commonly called corruption. The fact is that too many people can afford to sponsor and keep private armies to be used against the state. That is the height of irony, isn’t it? People who have been asked to build and protect the state take the same state’s resources to procure weapons to fight against it. Marvellous.

    To show that it is serious in this war, this country must mop up on corruption. Many people believe it is the primary problem. Corruption not only allows people to live above their means to the chagrin and envy of their neighbours, it also allows people to be able to afford to arm and pay insurgents.

    Secondly, the government’s crisis management style is beginning to be questionable. It does not inspire confidence when a gargantuan event such as last week’s occurs and the president still insists on keeping his appointments with his jolly political fellows. Haba! A little sensitivity might have helped matters just a wee bit.

    Lastly, information management demands that we all be on our toes. Like it or not, a war has been declared against the nation. I think it is time to stop playing peekaboo with the opponent. These are no children. The government is not a nanny. More importantly, it needs the help of everyone in the country to win this war. Everyone needs to be involved as lookouts, or people to make the coffee for the SSS men while they sort through materials, or even as people to hold up tired, flagging arms while the war rages. Meanwhile this column joins others to pray that the remaining abducted girls will be found reasonably quickly.

  • Of books, bookworms and illiteracy

    I read of someone saying during the week that if the poor in Nigeria benefit from a Nigerian government’s policy, it is completely accidental, or something to that effect. I’m sure you and I agree with that statement, if you know what it means. On my part, I interpret it to mean first and foremost that Nigerians (both government and people) have ways of conceiving ideas that benefit only a small number of people, say the government’s men (and women too). So, in this country, the uniform of, say the police or traffic wardens, is changed for some government relative’s sake. Even the president’s diet is changed so that someone close enough can make the supplies.

    Don’t let us take this interpretation thing further, or else I might begin to think the statement may also mean that the roads you and I have been travelling on have not been meant for us but since we are such good thieves that the government cannot get rid of… Worse, even the education you and I have received so far have not really been aimed at us but we somehow stood in the way. Really, government’s policies have never been directed at improving the lot of the poor; everything it has done has been for itself. Talk of anyone being self-serving.

    You know of course that the converse will also hold true: that everything the government has failed to do has also been for its own benefit. Take the failure to revive and develop the railways, for instance. That is one colossal failure for which the government needs to cover its face in deep and great shame. The wonderful thing is that I can never for the life of me fathom out the benefit it is deriving from that failure when many nations in the world are being sustained by such social services. All I know is that one of the greatest benefits of modern living is still the train, and it is being denied us the poor in this country. But we are not here to repeat ourselves today; let’s leave that for a rainy day.

    Oh yes, I remember, the rainy days are here again. How do I know? Oh, because I can see various governments scampering around trying to fix leaky potholes and blocked drainages. You thought I would say because I can hear the rains falling down, down this way? No, I can’t say that because most times when it’s raining, I am too busy wading through flooded roads. When I’m not on the road, however, I pick something up and read. That is how I have come to read so many things: newspapers, comics, drug literatures, books, dog’s teaks (sorry, that’s counting), stars… I would willingly have read the dog’s liver (just to know the signs of the times) but the dog refused to oblige me. Yeah, that’s what bookworms do: read anything that comes to hand. That’s why the dog now runs away when he sees my hands coming.

    Bookworms, goes my Encarta, are enthusiastic readers; people who love reading. The good news is that I am not alone. Indeed, I pale into insignificance when I consider a friend of mine who says he can out-read a reader. Now, that is something. Just mention any title in the classics, he’s at home. Even bestseller lists do not go past his door step. And he lives in Nigeria. And he is an engineer. Once, I teased him that I quite believed if he lived in Britain, he would have been one of those who would camp all night in front of some bookshop just to be able to get a copy of a Harry Potter book. He said he got someone to do that for him. I rested my case, but not before I was struck by two things.

    One, I reflected on the rise and rise of Harry Potter and why it has not happened here. To begin with, the book publishing industry in Nigeria is suffering from a grave disease inflicted on it by the government. All over the world, it has been known that revolutions in literacy and information can be accelerated only through making books and newspapers cheap and affordable. I remember being sent to buy newspapers for three pence when I was young. That was some big money then, but I believe that it made news and information to be within the reach of more people than it is now at a whopping one hundred and fifty Naira – daily feeding money for many people now.

    Somewhere in the seventies, the trend of information affordability failed and I believe it was entirely the government’s fault: first it introduced SAP, and then it raised importation duties on printing materials. Book and news industries practically crumbled under the weight of the government’s wickedness. So, dear reader, even though Harry Potter is possible here, it will not come in a long while because publishing houses are more interested in fighting for survival than in aesthetics or altruism. Now they work very closely with schools’ curricula.

    Unfortunately, those among us who can really afford to finance publishing houses that would not be too desperate for survival are not ready to do so. They are the people who have had easy access to the government’s money. Those are more inclined to quickly take that loot abroad where they hope it cannot be traced rather than invest it in something as trite as making the economy grow. After all, it is not their responsibility to help people improve in their reading and thinking habits; let other people do that. Truly, only a foolish rich ‘un will keep his stolen money lying around long enough for detectives to find or for banks to give as soft loans to publishers.

    The second thing that struck me was that the government might have deliberately been trying to keep the literacy level down, much the same way you would keep the noise level down in the house. If I didn’t know the government better then, I would have said it was trying to stifle the people from seeking knowledge, wisdom, information and understanding. Perhaps it was; and well has it succeeded. Congratulations government; you are now presiding over one of the brightest illiterate societies in the world, and you did it all by yourself.

    That Nigerians are bright and intelligent, there is no doubt. Just look at the array of their activities: ‘419’ scams, intractable Boko Haram and Niger Delta insurgencies, ‘Yahoo Boys’’ scams, kidnapping businesses, and yes, more 419 scams. These are the efforts of brains put to work. True, these organs are now run by graduates and undergraduates but they were not started by graduates. You see, a dysfunctional society like ours where everything is upside down would sooner than later cause a malfunction of the brain even in the strong breeds.

    The present low level of literacy in Nigeria is causing havoc in every way. People are dying every day because they really do not know the difference between uniforms in health care institutions. I hear that general hospital attendants have been known to divert patients to their own home dispensaries because the patients do not know any better. Believe me, a nation’s economic and political survival has everything to do with the amount of knowledge and literacy its citizens have between them. If you don’t believe me, just look at the farming business in Nigeria today: how many mechanised farms can you count? Well, there’s mine, and mine, and mine; that’s all.

    Seriously, there is a strong connection between the government’s ‘Vision 2020202020’ or whatever name it goes by, the development of books and reducing the level of illiteracy in the country. That connection is political will. If the government wants a literate Nigeria by 2020, it’s will be done.

  • God will help us!

    Do you now wonder why God is so busy? He has to keep tag of the things we forbid, reject, bind, loose, claim, accept, and decree, even our non-military decrees. God Will Help Us!

    Most countries I know are guided by one philosophy or the other. You know what that is, don’t you? It is that field of study which opens unto you other fields of study without providing any definite answer to those fields of study, get my drift? What I love about it is that it is the only subject where you are permitted to ask more questions than you can give answers to, especially in examination scripts. It asks questions like, how do you know that you know what you know? Beautiful. The only other people who ask questions like that are my children, especially when they were very young. I frequently would go like, ‘I know one of you poured this water on the floor’. And they frequently would go like, ‘How do you know? You were not even there.’ And they would turn to each other: ‘How come she knows everything we do?’ I tell you, we were real philosophers back then.

    This belief system also has its compensations of course, not to mention drawbacks. Whenever steam threatens to blow out of my ears because the mate’s action or inaction has lit a fire of rage inside of me, I treat myself with a simple mental massage: the action never really happened; I just imagined it. Better still: he does not really exist; I have been imagining him all along. The drawback in this law however surfaces when it is time to collect the monthly housekeeping allowance. When the fancy takes him, he may decide that my dainty outstretched palm does not really exist; he is only imagining it.

    This yo-yo system of questioning does not happen often in the sciences, for there, you cannot afford too many questions. Imagine what would happen if scientists monitoring the landing of a space craft, which they have just sent to space, begin to ask themselves such questions as ‘But how do we know that the craft we have sent really exists? What if we have merely imagined it?’ Were that to happen, I assure you there’ll be nothing to land in but hot soup.

    So, as I was saying, a nation’s philosophy defines the actions of its citizens directed at achieving some national goals. In most countries, these goals are purposed and designed for the common good such that even the littlest person, e.g. the president’s little old lady, is given an identity within the confines of that philosophy. Call that philosophy an ideology if you like, and you will come up with different practices in different parts of the world that sound very much like what I am talking about. And so, you may come across the Welfarist hues of the West which means essentially that even the president may benefit from social welfare, no matter how badly he governs. The Socialist hues of the East practically guarantees that a president is obliged to share his palace with the people for the common good, never mind that no good is ever common. In the South, the philosophy often disseminated is called ‘God Will Help Us’. Naturally. It means essentially that we, the people, do not get the opportunity to lift a finger to do anything for ourselves. When someone sermonized not too long ago that we should Ask Nothing of God, we all listened. Honest. But we promptly went back on our knees to do what we know best, Ask Everything of God. Why? Why not! Because He is about the only person we know who can make the oil to flow under our parcel of earth, provide buyers for the crude and then provide those who sell the refined stuff back to us; he makes the pineapple to pop out of the ground like browned toast in its due season; he brings policemen to kill the snakes in my compound, and yes, he even brings game right round to my backyard.

    The other day, I watched in fascination as a large alligator lizard, the edible kind, climbed over my wall and into my compound, and I was alone in the house. The dog barked its senses out. Me, I just did my thing: I shut all the doors and screamed. God will help us.

    This ‘God Will Help Us’ philosophy presents rather more strongly than we know. It is used often and in nearly every conversation across the continent of Africa but nowhere more persistently than in Nigeria. A deeply religious and prayerful people, Nigerians, from the north to the south, punctuate their very breathes with comforting words of religious wisdom. Even our goats know how to pray, I tell you; they bleat off the ‘Amen’ faster than some of our husbands across whose paths the church dares to pass once in the year – at New Year’s Eve.

    Hence, while traversing the land, you are bound to be assaulted by evidence of religiosity. When you call a price that the market woman does not want to hear, she tells you, ‘God forbid it’; when you accuse an artisan of cheating on the materials he has used on your work, he swears without any thought to the repercussions that ‘God is his witness’ if he has done any such thing; and when a Nigerian asks you to rub his palm with a certain sum, he swears that but for the fact that he fears God, he should not do for you what he is about to do even if it is his job to do it. Do you now wonder why God is so busy? He has to keep tag of the things we forbid, reject, bind, loose, claim, accept, and decree, even our non-military decrees. God Will Help Us!

    So, it has become quite natural that God sits in on all our national transactions, individual and collective. It is therefore also natural to expect Him to mediate in certain matters. The other day, someone parked his car right in the middle of the turning to my house. Why? Just to enable him purchase an item from a nearby kiosk. This meant of course that no car could enter the street via that turning. A conversation then ensued among the very indignant occupants of my own car to wit: Nigerians are very selfish and inconsiderate; everyone thinks of himself only in every matter particular; no one has any respect for the law; yet Nigerians perform quite well in other climes. I only half-listened to all these, for I was more hungry than interested after a long day’s work. After proselytizing endlessly on the matter, the dialogue ended with no proffered solutions, so someone heaved a deep sigh, exhaled deeply and said pontifically, God Will Help Us. He said it with such authority I had a mind to ask if he had God’s word on the matter, just to be sure, like, so I could stop worrying about the whole thing.

    At yet another conversation, I listened and this time participated as the nation’s woes were dissected to wit: our president listens to no man but follows only his own counsel; everyone carries on national affairs without any thought for the children unborn; the fact that stealing is reducing the country to shreds without any intervention; and the fact that everyone knows the truth about this country but no one is willing to say it because those in powerful places just do not want to know. Then we sighed and exhaled: God Will Help Us. This time, I did ask if anyone had God’s assurances on the matter. No one answered me.

    •This article was first published on a different platform in 2005, but since that time, nothing has happened to compromise its relevance.

  • Oh, to be king just for one day!

    In the spirit of continuity, I want to share with you two text messages I received during the week over last week’s entry. As usual, I have taken the liberty to remove abbreviations.

    After all the rigmarole, you hit the nail on the head. This is because when in our situation the government becomes the entity that corners all the resources to itself at the expense of the society, the unfortunate incident and nightmare of 15.03.2014 is definitely waiting to happen again. To avoid a repeat of this disgrace and embarrassment on itself, the government should without further delay let go its stranglehold on our resources! Until they do this, it is their duty to create jobs for the unemployed citizens. 2348036732277.

    Madam, please there’re issues that we shouldn’t trivialise. Government has enormous resources to create wealth especially in a primitive society like ours. Where’s your private sector in Nigeria? Public organizations are mismanaged and taken over by the same gang and you call it private sector. Enough of this weekly jesting please. 2348037058775.

    Now, all those in favour of our continuing the weekly jesting on this column say ‘aye’; and those not in favour say ‘nay’. There you are, sir, the ‘ayes’ have it. The weekly jesting continues. Remember that around here, we do not count votes, we weigh them. That is why your vote and my vote don’t count. They never have.

    Funny that these gentlemen (I assume) should come up with these very words around this period when we are approaching April Fool’s day. You know that day, don’t you? That is when someone wakes you up to tell you that you’ve won a lottery of ten million Naira and you jump up and down on your bed for ten minutes before you sit down and recollect that you did not buy any lottery ticket. Long ago, I read of how some poor folks watching a video were told that they could pluck spaghetti strings off trees and they all requested to know where they could get that tree. It is also the day that we remember jesters, clowns, comedians and all those involved in the art of lifting up our spirits and helping us to see that we have not quite succeeded in wrecking this world beyond repairs. There are still some funny people in it to make it bearable with laughter, humour or jesting.

    The problem with humour is that it does not really care where it lands. Sir, if you are familiar with the antics of jesters, you will notice that they lift base things and people to sublime heights and bring kings and other sublime things to the base level with the gentle art of humour. Indeed, so adept are jesters at their trade that the kings who keep them know that the true worth of their Highnesses as sovereign lieges lies in the tongues of their jesters. Back then, that was a very important responsibility. The power of the jester’s glib was expected to be employed in criticising their masters, other nobles and everyone else by bringing out the truth. It is reported that Queen Elizabeth I had to rebuke her own jester for being ‘insufficiently severe with her’. She knew the truth: that many a truth laid in jest.

    Truth hurts, and absolute truth hurts absolutely. Jesting manages however to mitigate many offensive and malodorous contents of many truths while not reducing their worth. With humour, you can ridicule and heal. To concentrate on ridiculing alone reduces the art of humour to base laughter, which will not do. That is purposeless and tasteless. When humour is used to heal, however, the object of laughter is reborn as s/he sees himself or herself as a spirit renewed. Someone once said that the man who does not appreciate humour has never looked in a mirror because the greatest piece of evidence of nature’s mirth is there.

    You have two choices in your response to nature. First, you can berate it for sculpting you with that big, flat nose (which makes you oh, so African!), flat forehead that resembles Africa’s flat tableland, or thick lips (again so African!), not to talk of your black, black skin. I wonder, have you ever asked where nature got that from? Or, you can react by laughing with nature. I chose a long time ago to laugh with nature at my persistently woolly hair seeming to defy all the known American relaxers; my big, fat lips; and Jonathan’s political somersaults. That way, I keep my sanity and my head of hair. Did I mention that many times, jesters lost their heads because they said the wrong truths to the wrong persons? Too true.

    Very importantly now, when the gift of the gab is bestowed on you, man, you do not stop to ask questions. It just seizes you something terrible and you hardly know when you are wanting to make people who have been going around with perpetual frowns from dawn to dusk have something to smile about. I hasten to add, however, that I am no jester; I do not believe I am sufficiently qualified to be one. My art, a mere rigmarole as it is, is not honed enough to be compared to a jester’s or an April Fooler. My clothes are not even that colourful.

    However, I am not unmindful of the pain expressed by our two respondents. I feel the anger caused by having governments that think their only duty is to squander the nation’s resources in Europe while not providing jobs for its citizens. It even exacts taxes off its citizens by making them provide their own amenities – water, energy, oil, rain. For this year’s April fool’s day, I could tell you that the government said if you want fuel in your tank, feel free to dig your garden for oil but I won’t. I could tell you that if you want rain on your crops, sink a well or borehole, and hold up the sprinkler over your head, but I won’t. You know why? It is largely because we are doing those things already. When we were sinking a well in my house, I kept the soil sample for a geologist to check just to be sure the silt did not resemble the kind found in oil-rich areas. So now, I have taken to inspecting new wells just to be sure.

    Anyway, my main worry is this: why is every Nigerian you meet now just waiting to get into government so that s/he can corner some resources for their personal use in Europe and the other barracuda islands? This bizarre mindset that is so essentially Nigerian is where you and I should direct our anger. One of the stories concerning how April fool’s day began was that a king in Europe allowed his court jester to rule the kingdom for one day. The poor thing, the only thing he was said to have done was to institute the April Fool’s day to celebrate jesting, clowning or generally just fooling around.

    So, I ask you, if you were king of this unstable kingdom for one day, what would you do? Would you take all the country’s resources to Europe like our leaders because they believe the ship is sinking; or would you command food for everyone; or would you simply lie by Jonathan’s pool all day and forget you have problems? Just what would you do? Me, I would look for the wisest one in the kingdom, and contract out the job to him. Then I would sit down to plan how to continue to rigmarole and jest in honour of the smile, and April fool’s day. Thank you for asking.

  • On wealth creation and distribution

    The over one hundred universities in the country are bringing out graduates each year faster than anyone can track. If the government is not prepared for how they will be gainfully employed, the results will be catastrophic in a few years’ time

    Someone who read my piece last week on this column averred that I had become the voice of the turtle heard in the land. To him/her, I had become a prophet just because I had talked about poverty, unemployment, and what may happen if graduates somehow found themselves in some desperate situations such as being shoeless. Well, since I was not able to foresee that it would happen during the NIS examination which occurred the day after that piece had been submitted, I am returning the money I collected from those who came into my tent to consult my crystal ball.

    That was a very unfortunate day, considering the number of people who died as a result of that NIS examination. I really feel for their families and loved ones. I decline to agree, however, that I have prophetic powers. If I did, my dog would not have had indigestion from chewing pieces off my plastic bowl (I would have foreseen it), I would not have gone out on the day an errant knave of an okada rider removed the back fender of my car (I would not have gone out that day), and I certainly would not have attempted to clean inside my electric kettle while it was plugged. I would have foreseen that no good could come from that.

    Even though the government is the largest employer of labour in our land at the moment, we all know that that is a very unnatural situation. It has happened because the government has bitten off much. Just check. Wherever you find in the world that the government is the largest employer, there is bound to be trouble. The reasons are quite clear. Where private entrepreneurs can close their eyes and ears to the cries of their families and friends, the government cannot. Where businesses are only interested in figures and balance sheets and more figures, the government’s eyes are on poll figures, voters, cronies, touts and, yes, more cronies.

    I have grown to be suspicious of the call or argument that the government should create wealth by citing industries, sponsoring projects, backing research products, etc. Forgive my ignorance but I don’t think any government exists in the world that can do all these. As a matter of fact, I do not think it is its business to do them. From the little I know about the rise of the nations, the government has largely been in the background, holding a cane to beat everyone in line. As far as I am concerned, governments exist to regulate socio-economic and political behaviour. I do not agree that governments are to make jobs available for everyone. I make bold to say that the problems we are witnessing in Nigeria began as far back as the sixties and seventies when the government forgot its own limitations and began to attempt to create wealth. That was when its problems began and the nation began to fail, like a train that is filled beyond its capacity.

    I am willing to be corrected on this but I believe that even the rail transport system of the western countries began as private efforts. The rails were built by private entrepreneurs before being nationalised by the state and converted to the social services sector; and according to my informant, that was when they began to lose money. However, this was due to the fact that the governments could not decide whether to run them as businesses or as social services. I think they are finding ways round the problem now. That’s just an example.

    Listen, I am an unapologetic crier that the government owes us everything. It does. But you see, it is because it has unwisely put its own head in the noose by bringing everything in the state under its watch. The oil money may have had a hand in that, but the point is that it has largely not done what it should have done, and done those things it shouldn’t, to use the biblical parlance. To prove this point, just look at the telecommunications industry. While it was solely under the control of the government, it was completely under the weather and the wires were forever tangled. I still have in my head a seventies cartoon showing a telecoms worker right up a ladder at a telegraph pole trying to untangle thousands of wires that had gone, yep, tangled. Today, you and I can talk from anywhere to anywhere, and you my reader can berate me by text messages on any of my write-ups. We owe all these developments to the dogged pursuits of scientists and inventors who partnered with private entrepreneurs, and wise governments which only created enabling atmospheres.

    That’s right; what we all expect from the government is for it to create an enabling environment where everyone might be able to work or create something that would ensure their upkeep, that’s all. There are ways to do this. First, it should provide a collation centre for collating all activities related to inventions in the land. Don’t scoff; you will be surprised how little the government regards statistics and how non-existent that kind of information is. I believe that all the youths and young adults seeking employment can easily fall into one or other of these activities. They may not so easily get jobs, but they may easily be encouraged to become entrepreneurs if there is a collation centre that oversees such activities. Then, it should really encourage banks to give soft loans and not to be so greedy.

    Secondly, just as it has unbundled the electricity company into private hands, the government should also turn to the rail system of transportation and put it back on track. It still remains the cheapest means of intra and inter-city movement which not only makes life easier for people, but also makes money for its investors. As a matter of fact, everyone in the land can be encouraged to invest in it while they go back to plying their original trades. It would be a way of making everybody work for everybody. More importantly, it would reduce the volume of tankers, lorries, trailers and other accidents waiting to happen on our roads.

    Listen now. The over one hundred universities in the country are bringing out graduates each year faster than anyone can track. If the government is not prepared for how they will be gainfully employed, the results will be catastrophic in a few years’ time. Obviously, the government never for one day tried to calculate just how many graduates would have been produced by what year before granting licences for private universities. It did not even try to find out how many were required before opening the portals of more universities. The result of this unpreparedness is what we all saw last week at the NIS examination. Clearly, the government cannot provide labour for them all, no matter how much it prunes up its own civil service; it must do it by proxy.

    Wealth creation is hardly in the purview of the state; wealth distribution is though. The state distributes and redistributes wealth when it creates an industry-friendly atmosphere to ensure that everyone has a fighting chance to access the most basic things. Such an enabling environment will prevent a single individual from illegally and selfishly appropriating all the state resources to him/herself at the expense of the rest of the society. These resources do not even have to be cash only. However, when the government becomes the entity that corners all the resources to itself at the expense of the society, then we have a serious problem indeed.

  • You want to inspire women for change? Give them their own bank! Ah, ah!!

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

    This time two years ago, this column called on this nation to seriously consider starting a bank exclusively dedicated to serving women, both rural and urban. The government pretended not to have listened. But I am used to harping on a topic. This year’s theme for the international women’s day marked on March 8, which is Inspiring Change, has just given me the opportunity to sound like a broken record again. This is why I want to repeat my prayer that the Nigerian government should please, as a matter of urgency, consider starting a bank exclusively devoted to serving rural women engaged in agricultural activities and city women engaged in entrepreneurial activities. I know women need this bank, the same way I know for a fact that cocks do not crow at midnight unless scared awake by a sudden noise, say from a prowling fox. Who does not fear death? I also know that parrots cannot be trusted with secrets; they have a penchant for speaking out of turns; and I know that you can always trust a dog to point out to you the place of its birth, which is more than I can say for myself. See, I know things. So listen to me as I tell you this: women need their own bank!

    There are countless reasons a women’s bank, put in the right economically sound hands and completely devoid of politics, can alleviate the sufferings of women, particularly in the rural areas. Let me however tell you one story. It is about a woman in a city who wanted to do something to enable her feed her family. There she was, with many mouths yawning at her and threatening to swallow her up of many mornings, and she not having a farthing to help them with. She looked left and right and there was none to help her – no husband, no relative, just those yawning mouths. But she did look around her and noticed that her children’s penchant for gulping bread was contagious. All the children in her neighbourhood liked to gulp bread. So, she decided to target their taste and approached a neighbour, who happened to head a community bank, for a loan. He it was who pitied her and gave her a loan of five thousand Naira. Now, why on earth are you laughing?

    Anyway, before long, she had sold the lot of bread she bought for five thousand naira and returned the principal for another loan. Gingered, her creditor extended the loan again and even increased it to a higher amount. Till today, dear reader, that woman regularly takes and returns loans as high as ten thousand Naira each week. Yes sir, her market enterprise is still bread. And, yes sir, her children are no longer yawning uselessly. You might think that story would defeat my own argument. No way; that woman was very lucky that she had someone close by that she could call on. Now think of the millions of women in the rural areas who do not have this kind of luck. Do you want every woman to have to wait to be lucky? If there was a more women-friendly, women-dedicated and women-focused bank that any woman can walk into and take that kind of soft loan, many lives would be made better, particularly those of children who yawn endlessly. More importantly, they even do not have to know anyone in order to get help. That is what we call a good society.

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

    More importantly, women are much more serious with government’s money and so are not likely to take loans and promptly go and marry more husbands with them. For one thing, the society will not let them. For quite another, their children will not hear of it. Have you seen how children are more ferociously protective of their mothers? Phew! So, new husbands are definitely out. The government can be sure that such soft loans will be used by the women for the women and their children. Believe it or not, there are some children who resume school in their tertiary institutions with two thousand Naira for the semester, while some government functionaries’ children resume in the same school with two hundred Thousand Naira as monthly allowance. (You will notice I have capitalised that t out of respect).

    There is a saying that the strength of a place is really no more than the strength of its weakest member. By analogy, the strength of a country is really no more than the strength of its women. Most of the time, women take care of the children and the disabled. As it is now, women have themselves been disabled by the society. Indeed, women are so disabled they are said to be victims of many preventable deaths: maternal, mal-nutritional, domestic, etc. A woman got very badly burnt once from escaped gas while trying to reheat her husband’s food in the night when he returned from his drinking binge and demanded to be fed. It is so bad now that greeting a woman has become a dangerous thing; you never know if she will keel over while answering you. In spite of any amount of malnutrition or fragility, God help the woman who goes on strike against any more child birth. Heaven and hell would witness all the efforts to bring her back in line. A more economically active woman would not only be stronger physically but would be more psychologically prepped to withstand social and health-related challenges.

    Seriously, leaving women behind in the pursuit of social development is doing only a half-job. The plight of most Nigerian women, in both the rural and urban areas, must be put squarely in the picture. As a matter of fact, there is no development index worth considering that does not begin with the status of women. Since they are said to constitute the higher per centage of the population and the lower per centage of the labour force in the formal and informal sectors in Nigeria, then the government is doing itself a disservice by not channelling their strengths and advantages towards higher productivity. So, if the government wants to get serious with development, it should not limit the use of women to giving welcome dances to political guests; or filling of rented halls for political programmes. It should open a bank for them. That will not only inspire women for positive changes, it will take care of a good deal of society’s concerns. A happy mother makes for happy children.