The Nation Newspaper

Category: Oyinkan Medubi

  • That the children may live…

    This soulless nation has governors who take champagne for breakfast, lunch and supper. Yet, there are children with holes in their hearts who have to beg good hearted people for hand-outs

    To celebrate this year’s Children’s Day Anniversary, dear reader, we focus on the question ‘What do our children mean to us as a nation?’ The answer will determine how much we are ready to ‘Stop Violence Against Children’, which I think is one of the themes this year. All I can come up with is ‘Nothing!’ Hey, listen a bit, will you; just let me lay out my reasons for this. I suspect though that there be some among us trying to swallow me up with their yawn because the subject holds no magic for them. I forgive them.

    To start with, violence surrounds the little tots in this country from birth. Facts, figures and indexical studies have shown that Nigeria has one of the highest maternal/child mortality rates in the world. Indeed, it is so bad I am told that for every other breath I take, a poor mother somewhere is losing either her child or her life through labour. Now, if I can just hold that breath … Any hows, the world knows that the situation is indeed grave, and so does Nigeria, but what has the country done about it? Again, Nothing! Nigerian hospitals continue to snuff the life out of people because of broken down or non-existent vital machines, God Almighty continues to take labour deliveries while doctors and midwives continue to throw up their hands in despair crying, ‘Whatever happened to the Pied Piper of Hamelin?’

    Now, let’s move on. The world knows, and so does Nigeria, that Nigerian children are regularly used for cheap, and I mean very cheap, labour in this country, and what does the country do about it? Nothing! Each day, a little boy of no more than ten years passes in front of my house hawking his ware at the top of his voice. On bare foot. Indeed, he has become such a master of his trade that he has turned his hawking calls into song. Each morning, therefore, he goes ‘Com-m-m-me a-a-a-a-a-and bu-u-u-u-u-uy ma-a-a-a-a- pa-a-a-a-a-p!’ That sure takes me to only one conclusion: he should be in my choir because he sings tenor. Seriously though, children are killed, maimed, sold or kidnapped in this country because they are sent hawking each day by their mothers and fathers who are too indifferent to get up and fend for them. That is the kind of violence that has made many among us to take a very drastic action: we look the other way.

    Sometimes, though, looking the other way is not so easy because you soon find yourself suffering from neck cramps. We then do the next best thing, and that is to cringe before the situation. ‘My child, why are you hawking so early this morning instead of going to school?’ ‘I will go to school when I have finished selling this’, he replies. ‘But why must you be selling this so early?’ ‘My mother asked me to.’ Naturally, that silences those of us who are excessively greedy for information.

    I think though that the period of silence should be over right about … now. Listen to this tale. A monk joined a monastery of two where speech was forbidden because he wanted to devote himself to God completely. For a year, no one said a word in the monastery. At the end of that year, one of the monks spoke. ‘What month is this?, he asked. After another year, the other monk said, ‘November.’ Yet another year passed before the monk who spoke first said, ‘Pea in shoe is pinching. Worn it for three years.’ At that, the new monk packed his bags. ‘I’m going’, he said, ‘You two talk too much.’

    I think we have talked too much already on the status of children in this country, and none of it has brought any relief for my early morning pap crooner. He is still compelled to hawk wares (of no more than one thousand Naira) before he can go to school. Now, after crawling through the neighbourhood all morning, what do you think he’ll go and do in school? Sleep in class, like everyone else, that’s what. So, no thanks, no more talk. Now, it’s action.

    Let’s begin with the child’s education. It is time we enacted a law that makes school truancy a punishable offence to both parent and child. A young boy of about twelve that I know can neither read nor write because his parents need him more on the farm than in school. His father is too sick to farm, but he eats manageably well, thank you for asking. That law would not only compel every child to go to school but also stay in school. Every child must be given a chance to have meaningfulness in his life and hope in a future.

    While we are at it, let us also enact a law that says no child below the age of fourteen, including babies on their mothers’ backs, will be allowed to ride on commercial motorcycles (popularly called Okadas) or in the front passenger’s seat in a car while in traffic. If the country cannot enact laws to protect the child’s safety in traffic, however, at least let the IG give me the right to arrest such erring parents. I promise to use it carefully though I have one or two parents in mind.

    We would thank you very much indeed, dear government, if STREET HAWKING BY CHILDREN CAN BE BANNED BY LAW. Hawking on the streets is decidedly going out to meet violence. God alone knows the number of children who have gone missing from that exercise alone. Nothing justifies asking a little child to put a little tray of wares on his head and move from one neighbourhood to another hawking those things before he/she can have breakfast. That law would remind us all, literate and illiterate alike, that a child is entitled to reasonable food, shelter, education and clothing from his parents up to a certain age. Those are his rights. That law would also remind us all that having children is a great privilege. So you see, violence seems to surround our little tots everywhere in this nation.

    Yet, we have not mentioned domestic violence. We are lucky in these parts though; our communal living style effectively guards against the maniacal tendencies of psychopathic and sociopathic men and women masquerading as parents. For as long as that communal living is in place, the tendencies can stay in check. Now you see how useful the endless uncles and aunties are. Make room for them, will you, in that little bungalow of yours. Ah hem!

    The country appears to be waking up from its slumber though. Now, it has enacted laws against child labour and child slavery. The only thing is that now, it finds itself dealing with baby factories. The ingenuity of Nigerians appears inexhaustible, right?

    Pardon me, but what laws have been put in place to protect children who are handicapped, sick or with special needs? What laws are in place for children whose parents cannot meet the health bills of such children? There is no greater violence against these children than when we merely push a wheelchair in their direction and leave them to fend for themselves. The state needs to wake up to them.

    This soulless nation has governors who take champagne for breakfast, lunch and supper. Yet, there are children with holes in their hearts who have to beg good hearted people for hand-outs in the media. It is time to really mean it when we say the children are our future. We must work now, while there is time, to build the Nigerian child. It is time we gave our children life.

  • That the children may live…

    That the children may live…

    This soulless nation has governors who take champagne for breakfast, lunch and supper. Yet, there are children with holes in their hearts who have to beg good hearted people for hand-outs

     

    To celebrate this year’s Children’s Day Anniversary, dear reader, we focus on the question ‘What do our children mean to us as a nation?’ The answer will determine how much we are ready to ‘Stop Violence Against Children’, which I think is one of the themes this year. All I can come up with is ‘Nothing!’ Hey, listen a bit, will you; just let me lay out my reasons for this. I suspect though that there be some among us trying to swallow me up with their yawn because the subject holds no magic for them. I forgive them.

    To start with, violence surrounds the little tots in this country from birth. Facts, figures and indexical studies have shown that Nigeria has one of the highest maternal/child mortality rates in the world. Indeed, it is so bad I am told that for every other breath I take, a poor mother somewhere is losing either her child or her life through labour. Now, if I can just hold that breath … Any hows, the world knows that the situation is indeed grave, and so does Nigeria, but what has the country done about it? Again, Nothing! Nigerian hospitals continue to snuff the life out of people because of broken down or non-existent vital machines, God Almighty continues to take labour deliveries while doctors and midwives continue to throw up their hands in despair crying, ‘Whatever happened to the Pied Piper of Hamelin?’

    Now, let’s move on. The world knows, and so does Nigeria, that Nigerian children are regularly used for cheap, and I mean very cheap, labour in this country, and what does the country do about it? Nothing! Each day, a little boy of no more than ten years passes in front of my house hawking his ware at the top of his voice. On bare foot. Indeed, he has become such a master of his trade that he has turned his hawking calls into song. Each morning, therefore, he goes ‘Com-m-m-me a-a-a-a-a-and bu-u-u-u-u-uy ma-a-a-a-a- pa-a-a-a-a-p!’ That sure takes me to only one conclusion: he should be in my choir because he sings tenor. Seriously though, children are killed, maimed, sold or kidnapped in this country because they are sent hawking each day by their mothers and fathers who are too indifferent to get up and fend for them. That is the kind of violence that has made many among us to take a very drastic action: we look the other way.

    Sometimes, though, looking the other way is not so easy because you soon find yourself suffering from neck cramps. We then do the next best thing, and that is to cringe before the situation. ‘My child, why are you hawking so early this morning instead of going to school?’ ‘I will go to school when I have finished selling this’, he replies. ‘But why must you be selling this so early?’ ‘My mother asked me to.’ Naturally, that silences those of us who are excessively greedy for information.

    I think though that the period of silence should be over right about … now. Listen to this tale. A monk joined a monastery of two where speech was forbidden because he wanted to devote himself to God completely. For a year, no one said a word in the monastery. At the end of that year, one of the monks spoke. ‘What month is this?, he asked. After another year, the other monk said, ‘November.’ Yet another year passed before the monk who spoke first said, ‘Pea in shoe is pinching. Worn it for three years.’ At that, the new monk packed his bags. ‘I’m going’, he said, ‘You two talk too much.’

    I think we have talked too much already on the status of children in this country, and none of it has brought any relief for my early morning pap crooner. He is still compelled to hawk wares (of no more than one thousand Naira) before he can go to school. Now, after crawling through the neighbourhood all morning, what do you think he’ll go and do in school? Sleep in class, like everyone else, that’s what. So, no thanks, no more talk. Now, it’s action.

    Let’s begin with the child’s education. It is time we enacted a law that makes school truancy a punishable offence to both parent and child. A young boy of about twelve that I know can neither read nor write because his parents need him more on the farm than in school. His father is too sick to farm, but he eats manageably well, thank you for asking. That law would not only compel every child to go to school but also stay in school. Every child must be given a chance to have meaningfulness in his life and hope in a future.

    While we are at it, let us also enact a law that says no child below the age of fourteen, including babies on their mothers’ backs, will be allowed to ride on commercial motorcycles (popularly called Okadas) or in the front passenger’s seat in a car while in traffic. If the country cannot enact laws to protect the child’s safety in traffic, however, at least let the IG give me the right to arrest such erring parents. I promise to use it carefully though I have one or two parents in mind.

    We would thank you very much indeed, dear government, if STREET HAWKING BY CHILDREN CAN BE BANNED BY LAW. Hawking on the streets is decidedly going out to meet violence. God alone knows the number of children who have gone missing from that exercise alone. Nothing justifies asking a little child to put a little tray of wares on his head and move from one neighbourhood to another hawking those things before he/she can have breakfast. That law would remind us all, literate and illiterate alike, that a child is entitled to reasonable food, shelter, education and clothing from his parents up to a certain age. Those are his rights. That law would also remind us all that having children is a great privilege. So you see, violence seems to surround our little tots everywhere in this nation.

    Yet, we have not mentioned domestic violence. We are lucky in these parts though; our communal living style effectively guards against the maniacal tendencies of psychopathic and sociopathic men and women masquerading as parents. For as long as that communal living is in place, the tendencies can stay in check. Now you see how useful the endless uncles and aunties are. Make room for them, will you, in that little bungalow of yours. Ah hem!

    The country appears to be waking up from its slumber though. Now, it has enacted laws against child labour and child slavery. The only thing is that now, it finds itself dealing with baby factories. The ingenuity of Nigerians appears inexhaustible, right?

    Pardon me, but what laws have been put in place to protect children who are handicapped, sick or with special needs? What laws are in place for children whose parents cannot meet the health bills of such children? There is no greater violence against these children than when we merely push a wheelchair in their direction and leave them to fend for themselves. The state needs to wake up to them.

    This soulless nation has governors who take champagne for breakfast, lunch and supper. Yet, there are children with holes in their hearts who have to beg good hearted people for hand-outs in the media. It is time to really mean it when we say the children are our future. We must work now, while there is time, to build the Nigerian child. It is time we gave our children life.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Family Day

    Lack of convergence time for the family is allowing people to go their separate ways, often ending in prison cells, rehabilitation, the psychiatrist’s chair or the electric chair

    I consider myself privileged to have grown up in a large family whose habits knotted ties around us all that mercifully still binds us together today. It also keeps our sanity intact. The most distinct for me is not the talking time; oh no, it was the early Sunday morning ritual of kettle tea and bongos coffee. Oooooh, believe me, that sure was a binding tie. There was first the task of filling and placing the only pot large enough to take all our yawning mouths on the tripod-balanced fire, a duty us littler ones were only too delighted to carry out. As a matter of fact, that was the only duty we delighted in.

    Listen as I tell you, we eagerly forced that pot of water to its boiling point, either by sitting with and chattering to it, or by the divine will of God; we never knew the difference. Then the minute our mothers poured out the sachets of kettle tea or bongos coffee, we were lost in the wafts of aromas that just drew out the craziness in our heads. Hums of songs began to escape out of our thin little mouths, dance steps uncontrollably took over our tiny feet as we shuffled ungainly in tea-induced happiness, and finally, stories of the week’s schooling experiences buried under hopes of future glory found their ways to the surface. In short, our spirits found renewal in that blessed pot.

    Till this day, I have associated my family with that tea experience. I have even grown to associate the word ‘family’ with a particular odour, aroma or scent. Children grow up with it, and it congeals into tissues of memories that impact and influence their adulthood actions. If it is an odour, it scars them for life; if an aroma, it keeps them permanently hungry for mama’s food; and if a scent … Ha, Ha, Ha, if a scent, then my friend, you need to be careful. One little boy told his mother that her scent reminded him of the one that was used on his grandma as she lay in the coffin. Once, my son walked in and declared that the house had this… this… this… intangible aroma of fresh baking cake. Thank God, I sighed; better cake than coffin.

    Anyway, the Encarta defines family as a group related to each other by birth, marriage or adoption. I’m sure you can see all kinds of faults with this definition. One, it does not quite include all the strays that African families tend to gather onto themselves: ‘don’t you remember, she is my great-great-great uncle’s wife’s sister’s grand-daughter-in-law’. Now, did you catch that, because I sure didn’t? Did you say that’s still family? Well then, so is my dog. Indeed, these days, I think I get more family out of my dog. For instance, he recognises me on the street by jumping all over me with muddy paws and all, while my great-great-great uncle’s wife’s sister’s grand-daughter-in-law just nods to me when we accidentally meet on the road. I think it’s so that, presumably, people will not be tempted to associate her with me. Well, she’s young, and I’m old; she’s hip, and I’m all hip; she’s with it (trendy), and I’m without it (good sense).

    Then two, it does not include all the sense of family that all blacks seem to share in this troubled world but which makes them all sisters and brothers, a quite political family. My brother, it’s no small joke o. With all this colour persecution mixed with economic strangulation, it’s all we can do to stay together. Family is the key.

    Three, it certainly does not include the number of people in your neighbourhood who have given it unto themselves to intrude into your world and even take your personal decisions for you. ‘YOU WANT TO BUY A FORD CAR?! ARE YOU MAD?! Let me tell you, you and me, we’re practically brothers even if we are only neighbours in this house, so I can tell you the truth. A Ford will take all your salary.’

    For ease of reference, let’s just put it this way. A family is that group of people who lives in your home and has your best interests at heart. You are lucky if they are also the same people that you make provisions for from your monthly wages. Many times, they don’t coincide; but, like I said, you’re lucky if they do. For instance, you may find yourself using your provisions for people who go by the name of family but who may just wake up one day to tell you that actually, you are not related to them; so you can’t control their lives. Clearly, the family is no longer what it used to be.

    Someone once said that a family is obliged to feed you, even if in Christian charity or because they share ancestry with you, whether you are mad or rich. Truth is that the family is now no longer obliged to own anybody because it does not have the time of day for anybody. Previously, morning time marked the day’s departure point: parents went off to work or farm, children to school and the dog stayed at home. Evening time was for convergence when everyone would meet on the family hearth with stories of how ‘everybody out there is mad!’ Now, parents still go to work but do overtime from evening to morning, children still go to school but do lessons till supper time, while the dog, bored from staying home all day, wanders off into the sunset at sunset. No more convergence time. This is why it has sort of allowed people to go their separate ways; and these ways somehow seem to end in prison cells, rehabilitation, the psychiatrist’s chair or the electric chair. Occasionally, the ways end in the CEO’s chair.

    Actually, I have put it rather mildly. Truth is, the family is now an endangered species. It is dying. Right now, it is suffering from the assault and battery of new definitions (such as ‘partnerships’ of two men or two women living together and raising children, or ménages-a-trois). It is also suffering from modern economic programmes that have left ninety per cent of families in the third world impoverished, forcing mothers to work just to ‘keep things together’. This means that the most important contact for a child is no longer there at the right time: the mother. It is incredible that the world is ready to do anything, give anything, to save an endangered species of animal, like a particular kind of snake, yet would not move a finger to save the most important specie in the world: the family!

    Worse still, in many families, there is a great deal of substitution going on. Many a father has cleverly substituted himself with money; many a mother has done the same with gadgets, and love is now measured in weights. A gift such as a sponsored foreign education for a child equals a good deal of love; a gift of a house is a lot of love; a car gift is some love. Anything below that is just love, thanks. This is why many parents do their utmost to please their little ‘uns: they dip their hands in the nation’s till to show their children a good deal of love. They call it family maintenance.

    Listen. Family Day is the day when we are all asked to take our families out of the cupboard for an airing, and to ask ourselves some questions: What have we made of ours and our duties? What truths and values have we imparted to our family? So, dear reader, when is your family day?

     

  • Of books, bookworms and illiteracy

    Congratulations government; you are now presiding over one of the brightest illiterate societies in the world

     

    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; and 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… and 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 ticks (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 doorstep. And he lives in Nigeria. 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 so 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 healthcare 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 will be done.

     

  • Nigerian Athletics: tucked somewhere between Achilles’ heel and Athlete’s foot

    Nigerian Athletics: tucked somewhere between Achilles’ heel and Athlete’s foot

    I have always loved the mythical story of Achilles. You know what myths are, don’t you? They are generally those tales told by a people to convince themselves that they did not suddenly descend from the planet of apes and moronic monkeys, but have something closely resembling human beings in their ancestry by telling tall tales of heroes past. Imagine being imbued with the kind of supernatural powers Achilles is said to have been endowed with: invulnerability, heroism and extreme good looks. Now, what would I not do with some good looks? Make the men swoon and fall flat before my very feet and the women green with envy, get abducted and fought for by very handsome men like Helen of Troy was, and very easily dispense good will to all men and women like confetti at a wedding. I would be able to afford it; after all, I would have all these good looks. Now, there is something to wish for.

    You probably thought I would pick heroism? Pshaw! Don’t you know, haven’t you heard that heroism is not very profitable in Nigeria, what with the succession of uncaring governments at all levels that we have had? If we had not been having caring governments, someone, somewhere would have intermittently apologised to and greeted Nigerians for heroically bearing up all these decades with decaying infrastructure; without regular electricity, potable water, and adequate security; and with decaying sanity. So, no thanks, I cannot pick Achilles’ heroism; it makes you suffer for nothing. Just ask the nation’s athletes like Mary Onyali, Falilat Ogunkoya, and so on.

    I have many times come to the conclusion that the nation’s human resources are concentrated on the streets, in the mass of individuals who fleet with debonair carelessness between and among equally fleeting vehicular traffic, doing nothing but trading. And I have thought, ha!, there go perishing on our streets our farmers, students, intelligentsia, Platos, Aristotles, athletes, Jacks the Ripper, Houdinis, and all other materials that make a nation great while the country looks on. So, I was not too surprised to read an interview recently granted by Onyali, one of this nation’s former athletes, where she expressed the notion that indeed, we are losing our best athletic materials to street trading. Meanwhile, the athletic population of the country is drying out.

    What exactly then is the problem? Mammoth, and it begins with the government. Over the ages, our governments have had the primitive and stone age-inspired urge to always appoint people who have no inkling whatsoever into positions that require not just knowledge but a specialised kind of knowledge. What kind of aberration on earth should inspire the government to keep appointing non-sport related politicians to head the sports ministry is still a mystery. What do we expect him or her to do there but play politics of money and chess?

    I have recounted the story before but I will tell it again mostly because I love laughing at my own stories, even if no one else does. A Nigerian sports contingent once went to attend a sports related conference taking place in a neighbouring country. By the time the contingent arrived it was led by the minister himself, had held up the opening ceremony by four or so hours, and it was fifty men or so too large! I agree, I may have exaggerated the number a little, but you must pardon me, I was not there, and my fellow Nigerians’ unreasonable penchant for leaving their desks and following ministers around does get my goat. Anyway, I was told that all that the contingent did after the opening ceremony was take photographs before departing for home, to the consternation of the other countries’ contingents. Very expensive pictures, you’ll agree. That attitude just describes our Achilles’ heel to the point.

    Achilles’ heel, which is said to have been the most tender and vulnerable part of his body, is the part that is said not to have entered the River Styx into which Achilles had been dipped as a child to give him his supernatural power and make him invulnerable to the enemy’s arrows. So, that is the point of weakness in the supernatural body of our hero. Naturally, I have my own theory. I think that his heel, like any other soldier’s at the time, was the one part not covered by the whole armour which all soldiers were compelled to put on, much like every Nigerian household is now compelled to obtain a power generator set because of, you guessed it, the unserious attitude of our fellow Nigerians to work. Hmm, that Achilles’ heel again!

    This serious problem of attitude has incapacitated and cancelled the nation’s long-standing tradition of fishing out talents from street games, schools’ games and any other games to fill slots for competitions and bring glory to our motherland. Now, I hear our brainy sports officials are thinking of going to Jamaica, not to import Jamaican rum, but to import Jamaican athletes! That’s even better. In many instances, I heard that officials would even rather field their clueless relatives in those serious competitions so that the allowances could come ‘to the house’. Oh yes, how else do you think Rome was built if not on that kind of patronage? So, the nation’s athletics programmes continue to suffer want for lack of athletes and brains and right minds.

    As a result of this sobering fact, the nation has succeeded in courting a severe case of athlete’s foot, the fungal infection that affects the foot, especially that of an athlete. No, the encyclopaedia did not say that last bit; I added it. Now, I am told, sports grounds all over the country have been taken over by politicians who prefer to build their tasteless and excessively large houses on them. School children’s games have no sponsors, so many of them run their competitive races barefoot in the hot, hot African sun. Can there be a surer way of getting athlete’s foot? I ask you! I ask you!

    This country needs a more vigorous sports programme. It should begin by the thorough education of the populace on the beneficial role of sports, exercise and recreation in the life of the individual. Most of the people adjudicating on sports matters in Nigeria today, sad to say, do not even know the meaning of the word and what it entails. I have also told this story before, but I will repeat it for the sake of the stone deaf. Once, my friend and I were on our usual early morning’s four-kilometre walk when one of her colleagues at work spotted us on the road and waved at us. Later on, the colleague accosted my friend and, in a spirit of camaraderie, jocularly patted her on the back for trying to cut down on fuel costs by hiking to work, our sports wears notwithstanding. That, my friend, is all the sports education most of us have around here. Now, imagine what happens if that knowing one were to become a sports minister!

    On this world athletics day, I urge you to put on your hiking boots and your thinking cap. You need your boots to help you discover or rediscover what it feels like to liberate your body from the tight grip of laziness, inactivity, a sedentary lifestyle and insouciance to health matters and allow your body to come alive under the helpful hands of exercise. Go out and run. Your thinking cap will then fit you; and, like electric jolts passing into a death row convict, wisdom will pass into you like lightning bolts and you will join me to beg the government to take the matter of sports a little more seriously. Our very lives depend on it.

     

  • Why does strike have to be the labourer’s staff of office?

    I don’t know about you but any time I have watched the Senate President march in sedately behind the mace, I must admit that an emotion closely resembling envy always seems to pass through me. Seeing how big, strong and well-made the mace appears to be, I find myself wondering how well it can adapt to being used to pound yam for me on a Sunday, seeing as my pestle is no longer what it used to be. You thought I would be after the senate president’s seat? You! You! No thanks – you know, too hot and all that. Besides, I don’t think I like problems as such.

    I don’t think the country would like it very much if I were to solve senate problems with the mace, you know, like, sort of, using it to knock some sense into people’s heads during sessions. No, the country would definitely not like that and that would give me all kinds of problems, — (the country not liking it, that is, not the knocking bit). Anyway, I think we have all come to associate the mace with the amount of authority the leader has over the floor. It is his staff of office. So, every senate leader tries as much as possible to make sure it is the last thing he sees before going to sleep at night and when he wakes up in the morning. Just ask Okadigbo if you don’t believe me.

    So, every one of us needs one staff of office or the other. Have you noticed that teachers get handed chalk, duster (modernised now as marker and dust cloth) and a loud voice; and most of us think that nurses are born holding syringes, needles, and a sneering attitude, eh, have you? Your mechanic would tell you to bring the bolts and nuts (the kind that fits into your car, mind, not the kind that fits into Aro) and he would supply the spanner.

    Have you ever seen a new bride-to-be excitedly prepare herself for her nuptials? Phew! As a tribe, they make me want to whistle between my teeth. You see a bride go flitting in and out ordering and commissioning, purchasing and buying, comparing and judging, arranging and gathering and generally making sure that even if all else is forgotten or left behind in her parent’s house, the spoon and blender are not left behind. Then she clenches her teeth on those tools because they will be needed when the honeymoon is over and more importantly, they are, you guessed it, her staff of office. Me, I think I have bigger problems: how to find the words to tell her that she would need a great deal more than the spoon and blender to get the right mix of happiness.

    Anyway, I think that labourers seem to have been handed only one staff of office: no, not the shovel, anyone can handle that. It’s the strike. In the hands of labour, the strike is not only a work tool, it is also a work-to-rule tool. It is used to oil labour matters and also disrupt it. All things considered, strike is held in such esteem in labour relations that it appears to be the labourer’s only recognised staff of office. Just listen. Most men do not know the value of the food they eat at their tables until labour relations break down at home. Once, a man and his wife had a misunderstanding that resulted in the woman deciding not to cook again. In short, she declared a strike. Sounds familiar? Well, not particularly versed in the culinary art, our man was left stranded food wise. After unsuccessfully performing experiments with salt, spices and so on, and being forced to swallow the rather unsavoury results of those experiments, he quickly sued for peace, ‘for the sake of the children’, he said, but his friends contended that. Another friend once said he grew used to eating garri and dried fish whenever his mother declared her strike, which she often did.

    The causes and costs of strikes are best left to the industrial labour specialist to calculate, but let’s hazard a few guesses here. I have found that whenever my dog has been given a particular kind of food, he has declared an eating strike which has often been met with a counter strike: if he does not finish that food, he does not get anything else’. When strike meets strike, it’s quite a battle. A little like the government declaring that if workers do not return to work, they do not get paid. So, the dog lets the food rot, and the owner, not willing to allow the dog die for love or conscience, gives in, feeds the dog and all is well again.

    Is strike a simple matter of will versus will? I don’t think so, even if it appears to be a matter of who blinks first. Too often though, the government (the largest employer of labour in most third world countries such as Nigeria) thinks that a striking body of workers simply wants to test its (the government’s, that is, not the strikers’) resolve and responds with more will – leading to zero tolerance. ‘They are not returning to work? Then sack them!’ This simply causes more digging in.

    Can strike also be a matter of testing out who really holds the power in a labour relationship? That would be a little like the dog trying to find out how much he can make everyone in the house dance around just to please him. My dog tried to do that once. He rejected every kind of food placed before him for no reason and that had us worried. But when the vet gave him a quick run over and declared there was nothing wrong with him, everyone hissed and left him alone. Chagrined, he went back to eating again. The burgher.

    Often, money and conditions of service are at the heart of most strike actions. I have not yet met any employee who would claim that he is paid enough for what he does or is fully satisfied with his/her work conditions. Indeed, most employees believe, I think, that there is no reason why their employer cannot daily double the wages they are paid, and then triple it the next day. While most employees know that this is not feasible, nevertheless, I believe what most of them want really is a little respect. I think they would like to be acknowledged, not threatened.

    As we celebrate another May Day, I prefer to think that strike declaration should continue to be a sort of last resort tool. True, many labour conditions world over are simply deplorable, and most people are barely coping. It is even more annoying when you look at the Nigerian situation where the people of affluence are the unqualified who have gained unmerited access to governmental coffers and have proceeded to flaunt their privileges in the face of everyone. It indeed boggles the mind and stuns the heart into inaction. Nevertheless, considering that those who suffer from strikes are very often the innocent and those meant to be served and protected, there is a need to continue to use it minimally, cautiously and humanely. On the other hand, the welfare of Nigerian workers should not be an annoying interruption of the government’s jollification programme. It should be taken seriously so that strike will really be a rarely used implement of war.

  • The Thatcherian Spirit

    The Thatcherian Spirit

    I have always thought that the best job is one that involves travelling all over the world and reporting all you see for the media. Just imagine: you are paid to feed your eyes with the most beautiful sights, indulge your palate with the most delicious dishes, relax your body with the most sensuous experiences, and still have your salary waiting for you. Is that the life or what?!

    Don’t know much about her but the life and political times of the former British Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher who died earlier this month, have always fascinated me. So we are going over to Britain today to see what lessons we can learn from her, hoping that someone will cover my expenses.

    I believe Mrs. Margaret Thatcher provides a good example for us in Nigeria of what to do or not do with public office. She is said to have started early in politics, from the 1950s, yet, she never allowed herself to be cast in any political frame other than that of a reformer. Till she left office, she never stopped seeking how to change people’s perceptions, carve a comfort zone where people and the government could meet, and to forge a higher level of Statecraft.

    Funny thing. I have lost count of the number of times I have been referred to as ‘Thatcher!’ for being a little forceful. But that’s nothing. For ages now, any woman who so much as gives an order in the slightest of peremptory tones is also instantly branded ‘Thatcher!’ Make no mistake, that is not meant to be approbatory; it is actually a complaint. Obviously, only a male is allowed to give orders; so I say, let’s see how much male order can make a pot of soup.

    To the people in Britain, the former Prime Minister stands for many things, most of them controversial mainly because she undertook policies that put the interests of Britain on top of a few of the people’s comforts. She took Britain on for Britain’s good. Need I draw the contrast to our country for you? Aren’t we surrounded by a president’s office, state governors’ offices, local government chairmen’s offices and all kinds of offices preferring to sit atop state funds instead of really being on top of situations? Ha!

    There are so many lessons to learn from this Thatcherian spirit, the iron lady’s no nonsense approach to governance. To begin with there was her unalloyed, unparallel and unquestionable allegiance to everything Britain. Her patriotism not only gave her momentum, it was her enablement, her strength, her push. Leaving Britain better than she found it was her goal.

    In the course of that, she did make some mistakes. For instance, she was said to have admitted that the public uproar that followed her stopping free milk in a section of public schools was not worth the political cost. So yes, she was human, but a realistic human. She stated: ‘… It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also help to look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.’

    Naturally. People anywhere are more interested in what they can obtain from the government. While most people have an eye to lifting up their country through patriotic actions though, any blind man can see that Nigerians, au contraire, jostle for ‘positions of power’ to be able to embezzle and don’t care a fig if the place dries up after them. This is why practically all our public institutions and infrastructures have collapsed.

    Then there is the matter of her famed frugality. Oh boy, this is certainly not for Nigerians. According to reports, she is said to have even paid for her ironing board while in government. Once, when a governor in my state had to leave the government house on account of expiry of term, he not only went with everything in the blessed house, even his towns’ people came to his assistance by literally sweeping the place dry on his behalf. Their rationale? ‘Government house belongs to everybody. This is our time to eat. We don’t know when it will be our turn again, so let us pack as much as we can now o.’ Oh well, who can beat that kind of logic?

    Then there’s Mrs. Thatcher’s resoluteness to make a difference. Her history shows that since going into politics, she has been the author of so many policies. True, many of these policies have not gone down well with her peers and country men and women; she nevertheless, has made her mark in education, politics, economy, European Common market, and other social concerns. Obviously, she was single minded in any and everything she did. This we really could learn. Just look at us in Nigeria. We not only sit on top of national funds, many of us in politics have no idea what we are there for. To most Nigerians, being in government is an invitation to ‘come and eat’, so now we are busy eating the state dry. Most of us think that governance is all about acquiring all the women (if we are men), or all the diamonds (if we are women), or all the houses (if we are both) there are in this world.

    Listen people, I remember reporting here once what one of the richest men in the world said. When asked how many houses he owned, he replied, ‘just one’. Then he explained that it was a lot easier to pay hotel bills for one or two nights in cities here and there when he travelled than to look after two houses. What does one need two houses for? Yeah, what on earth do Nigerians have to go hankering after one hundred houses for? The spirit of competition? A decidedly destructive one that surely is!

    Let me tell you what unhealthy competition does. Once, two men found themselves in a fierce tussle for the obaship of their little town. One was already the Oba and the other wished to unseat him because everyone agreed the Oba was very wicked and no one liked him. However, no one could do anything about their dislike except this man. The Oba hopeful then consulted the best, oldest and wisest medicine man he could find to make for him a magic powder or concoction that would unseat his rival. But the wily Oba loved his seat and watched it carefully. He had every powder to counter any his rival could bring. Obviously, the medicine man’s powder did not work.

    Quite desperate now, the hopeful had to do some thinking, and to do that, he consulted an old wizened man to help him. One fine morning, the Oba woke up and found a mound of human waste in front of his palace. Since he knew he did not do it, it had to be from his enemy. So, they want to try me eh, he thought as he stormed back inside to fetch his most potent retaliatory powder. This he proceeded to sprinkle on the mound in great malevolence to ensure that whoever produced it would not live to see the next day. Looking up, he saw his only enemy smiling in front of him, and that one made only two statements as he turned away, ‘The waste is yours. I followed you into the bush to bring it back’.

    So, folks, that is what competition does: No one wins, neither the victor who finds his soul stooping to conquer nor the loser who may be made to descend into the earth. Rather than compete to amass mounds of unneeded state funds, let us adopt the Thatcherian spirit. It stands for patriotism, frugality, resoluteness and great achievements. It will help us learn to put the country first and ensure we live through posterity.

  • Waging peace and forging wars

    Waging peace and forging wars

    Let us not wage peace, just because Boko Haram is forging wars.

    It is a truism indeed that if one stares at the earth long and hard enough, it will yield its stories. It will tell the stories of all the good feet that trod it going to and fro. It will even tell of the not so good feet that stamped it frothing to and fro like the devil’s nostrils. More importantly, it will recount the tales of the incredibly brave and stupendously stupid acts of men (and women) who marched on it with wanton gusto, shed blood and sweat, routed friends and enemies alike and generally carried on as if the world was their oyster. It will tell of feet that traipsed and skipped in the purity of joyous men (and women) made happy. These are the tales that the earth tells when one patiently stares long and hard at it.

    The earth in Nigeria is right now recording for posterity unprintable tales of purposelessly and wilfully destroyed lives and properties. It is recording into its cracks now how people have been widowed and orphaned for reasons no one can comprehend, least of all the victims. Even though the nation is not at war, the earth is recording how a group has decided to wring one out nevertheless. It is silently recording how a war is being forged right before everyone’s eyes.

    The situation resembles a story I read about a long time ago. It concerns a war general who was said to have been a very good bungler. Indeed, it was said of him that he could be relied upon to wring out a problem from the most peaceful situation. Once, while at a war front, he was said to have been so close to victory he could practically taste it if he aimed for a frontal attack. That was when he developed the brainwave to ask his men to aim for surprise attack instead by going around the enemy, thus ensuring their spectacular defeat. Another general was said to have commented wryly on the situation thus: ‘You can always rely on General X to wring a spectacular defeat from the tight jaws of victory!’

    Nigerians are experiencing a situation where the clenched jaws of peace are being obviously and tearfully prised open to release a war which nobody wants, likes, or even understands. Oh yes, there is some peace in the land, the kind of peace which allows you to go out in the morning and come back in the evening and thank God that you were not hit by government drivers driving government vehicles at breakneck speed or youngsters barely out of diapers zooming crazily in and out of traffic. Yea, you also thank God that at least your salary can still buy a pot of soup that lasts a few days and the peace allows you to spend the remaining days of the month in a compulsory period of fasting and prayers. Yea, the peace also allows you to watch Abuja women and men glitter in diamonds and gold and dresses that you know can only have come from Alladin’s cave. Then you are allowed to go and dream about all that glitter in peace. Yes o!

    Now, Boko Haram is rudely waking us from our blissful dreams of the Abuja glitter. Imagine that! Nobody is allowed to tamper with my dreams of women wearing diamonds so costly and heavy they practically droop through the ears of the wearer, causing it to threaten to fall (the eras, that is, not the earrings). Nobody, just nobody is allowed to wake me up when I am dreaming of people wearing gold wristwatches so costly they can ransom a state’s budget (nation I mean, not a Nigerian state). Don’t let us mention their shoes. Anyway, Boko Haram is forging a war that only it understands out of the tight jaws of our blissful dreams of what can or might be.

    Now comes the tricky part. First, the government declares unequivocally that whoever has fallen victim to the antics of the war forgers should not look onto the government for compensation. Translation: should you be stupid enough to be bombed or gunned, you are on your own. Now, isn’t that just so unfair, you think, as you shrug, dust yourself, try to grin and try to bear it, thinking someday, you’ll be the one throwing the bomb too.

    So, you hope someone will wake up and start making calls that the victims of these incomprehensible acts be taken care of by the country through compensation, if it’s not too much to ask, thank you. You just sort of hope that someone will understand the horrors of having a life uprooted in such a mercilessly violent way and cry ‘Foul! Foul! Alas!’, and that the government should not turn a cold shoulder to the plight of such a victim.

    No, sir, the country instead is recording shrilly cries of amnesty to the ones who handle the guns that turn the innocent lives upside down and make wretches of orphans. It is so strange, don’t you think, that rather than find a better solution, all that our northern leaders can think of demanding is amnesty. Obviously, as I mentioned before, that must have been the grand plan all along. If the government can grant amnesty to the Niger Delta boys for picking up arms to ask for an end to the desecration of their land, why should the government not be able to grant amnesty to a group whose agenda have shifted as many times as their feet have shuffled. Oh please!

    Leaders calling for amnesty should first realise what now goes for Boko Haram is not as coherent as when it started. There are now as many splinters of the group as there are ideologies to fit the yearnings of any group willing to be handed freely procured guns. What we are saying is that the guns are first given out, and then the reasons for killing follow. So, granting amnesty will probably not solve the problem because too many issues have been confused together in this phenomenon. These issues must first be taken apart and tackled one after the other or else it would amount to waging peace on the nation, a case of the more you see, the less you actually understand.

    More importantly, the country still does not know who the members of boko haram are. Are they Nigerians or Nigeriens or Martians in human form? Well, if the last, it would explain a lot. It would explain their complete desensitisation to the feelings plaguing human beings. It would explain why they do not know the meaning of their actions. It would also explain why we cannot understand the meaning of their actions either.

    I have a take on this. Let us not wage peace, just because Boko Haram is forging wars. Leaders calling for amnesty are only waging peace, not forging it. Let us all sit down and talk about this country so that we can stop stabbing around in the dark like the six blind men grabbing at the elephant and not knowing what they were touching. Should anyone be thinking of giving amnesty, however, they should also think about giving compensation for the victims of Boko Haram antics. What’s good for the goose is good for all, and posterity will have better things to record about us for the future to read.

  • Whoever believes in Nigeria should please stand up!

    Whoever believes in Nigeria should please stand up!

    Today, reader, I am not talking about anything in particular; I am just going to ramble on and on about a topic dear to my heart: why no one seems to believe in Nigeria. Indeed, everyone appears to be filled with doubt about the survivability of the country and then do everything they can to make sure it does not survive. Get me, I hope so, because sometimes, I can hardly catch up with my own thoughts. Sometimes, they seem to run away with me, sometimes they just seem to fly from me.

    Anyway, doubt, like a yawn, is contagious. For example, whenever there is a couple to be joined together in holy matrimony, just watch the face sitting next to yours as it goes all wrinkly in doubt as the owner is obviously thinking: will these ones make it past their second year? They are hardly even talking to each other at the altar! You also take a second look at the front and find that only the pastor is smiling; the couple is all frowns and wondering why the pastor is smiling. But that doubt is nothing compared to this one: let your kitchen plumbing go all kaput and let your man pick up the hammer and wrench. A mighty but wisely unspoken doubt seizes you as you watch him knock the sense out of the pipes, wrench the life out of the pumps and drain all the blood out of your own veins as you hope there will still be a kitchen to use after he is through. That is still nothing yet compared to this. Now, should there be a knock on your door at midnight and a voice asks you to open the door for you are about to be robbed and the head of the house marches forward in great indignation holding nothing but a cudgel, I think the mother of all doubts will seize you at that scene. The prospect of anyone successfully confronting guns with a cudgel is nothing but hilariously doubtful, I think.

    Truly, doubts tend to creep up on us whether we want them to or not. In a well-known and widely circulated joke, a jury was once said to be confronted by the strong arguments of a defence counsel who vehemently denied that his client was responsible for a murder. In just one minute, he confidently told the jury, the dead man would walk in. The jury expectantly looked towards the door. There, triumphantly cooed the counsel, you looked because you doubted.

    One of the major things occupying the mind of every thief, I guess, is to ensure that their crime scenes are wiped clean. One man was so incensed at his son for stealing jam that he called him to reprove him. Son, he said, I am not mad with you for stealing the jam. But why on earth would you leave your fingerprints at the scene of the crime? Create reasonable doubt, he admonished!

    The British architects of what we regard today as ancient and modern Nigeria (oh yes, there is an ancient one) deliberately planted reasonable doubt as to the possibility of the new nation surviving by forcefully fusing three completely parallel nations together and choosing doubtful leaders. Monumental doubts seized then them, and have continued to trail all leaders ever since. Since independence, successive leaders have adopted an attitude towards nation building that only a one-eyed giant can have: keep one eye on the eventuality that the contraption may collapse. This means there has been no eye to keep on the development road since then. Like Moshe Dayan, who wore an eye-patch said, with one eye on the road, which eye can I now keep on the speedometer? So, for want of a good second eye, our leaders have not worked since independence. Most have been too preoccupied with saving for that rainy day of eventuality, when they expect Nigeria to break up.

    This is why I believe that Nigeria has the highest number of plunderers of any country on earth. And no nation that has such a vast number of people more interested in taking than in giving has been able to survive. Nigerians have indeed turned themselves into worms eating out the core of the national apple (or national cake as we love to call the metaphor) that my fear is that sooner than later, all the core will be gone and we will be eating each other. Perhaps then, we can sigh and begin again. Indeed, the fact that Nigeria continues to survive today amazingly defies logic, my logic, that is. You see, in my logic, no nation governed by half-literates can survive; no nation ruled by self-absorbed neonates more interested in owning the best shoes and handbags can do a thing about its future; no nation standing on its head, with the best visionaries hidden at the bottom of the heap and the little men who cannot muster half a cow’s brain between them standing at the top, should survive. But then, that’s just my own logic.

    So, here we are, all logic is thrown to the wind, and the country only just plodding on because everyone is too distracted to do the right thing. Governance, right now, is comparable to chewing a piece of rock with one’s teeth. In that set-up, no one is comfortable; neither the teeth, nor the rock. Neither the government nor the governed can claim to be comfortable in this hot-bed called Nigeria. And there is only one reason for this: Nigerians do not believe in Nigeria.

    The various levels of unbelief are too apparent to even the blind. It is in the fraudulent voting system, the corrupt civil service system, the ineffective federal, state and local governance system, the fallen educational system, and even the rural system. Did I tell you that even the village chiefs have now perfected their own system of exacting tax from the wealthy surviving relatives of deceased members of the village? Oh ho, you will not believe it, but you better pray that you don’t lose any member of your family (as I also pray) so we don’t fall into the hands of the village mafias.

    On the other hand, it is not too difficult to know a believer. Just look around you at your typical religious pundits, which we are not going to do here. Anyone who believes in Project Nigeria can easily be known. First, let’s shop around among our leaders for a good example. Err… err… Ok, let’s not shop among our leaders; let’s go into the civil service for a good example. Err… err… Ok, let’s not go into the civil service; let’s go into our religious institutions. Err… err… Ok, let’s not go there; let’s go into our tertiary institutions. Err… err… Oh dear, where then shall we go for a true believer?

    Reader, Nigeria is in dire straits because we all to a man and woman, who should be strenuously working at nation building, are more interested in pocket building. The fact that Nigeria has not collapsed in spite of all these shenanigans may be telling us something: it is time to get serious because we’re going nowhere. Let’s get serious with the transportation system; let’s get serious with energy production; let’s get serious with leadership and begin to hold everyone accountable. Above all, let’s get serious about changing our attitude and begin to think that the country may not disintegrate after all and we may end up passing it to our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. Oh, please!

  • And a happy Easter to you too…

    And a happy Easter to you too…

    Really! Can a people hate their own country so much?

    I know, I know, you wish me a happy Easter, right? Believe me, I would wish you a happier one but for these very unhappy times we are living in. Before you can recover from one piece of bad news, another one has taken its place, and before you can recover from even that, a worse one is already unfolding so much so people’s heads are turning of their own accord in every direction preening for where next the fly will enter the ointment from: north, south, east or west. Seriously, what bothers me about these happenings is the fact that we Nigerians are getting more and more used to living with death or kidnapping or embezzling or bad governance all around the place so much so that life is beginning not to mean anything again. That means we are getting desensitised to what exactly we call badness because we are not given enough time to recover from the last one and raise up our defences. Too many bad things are happening too rapidly, and nearly all are man-made. This is why a notion is going around that badness belongs to the black man. Now, where on earth could that idea have come have from?

    The other day, someone was telling me how he longed to have a conversation with God. He said if he got the chance, he would ask the almighty only one question: what does He have against the black race? Why cannot a black nation, any at all, manage its own affairs successfully? When I asked why, he looked at me and answered me with another question, you know, the way you do when you are asking your brain to think, and all it is doing is jiggling around on a spot like a key hooked in its lock. It won’t unlock the door as you want it to, and it won’t come out of the blessed lock. So, he asked me why I, of all people, was asking him that question. I asked him in return how many black nations he knew could not get their affairs right? I think the questions were going too frequently to and fro, so someone had to end it. None, he said. I informed him that there are many other nations in the world run by white people which had bad governments too. He challenged me to name one black country in the world running a good government right now, and don’t bother naming South Africa, he told me; we all know why there is some modicum of organisation there. Finally for answer, I did not answer.

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

    Listen, I am at my wit’s end trying to understand this problem. Whenever I have heard that someone had, well, helped himself to a lot more than his salary allowed from the funds entrusted into his/her care and stowed it away somewhere in the Cayman Islands or Swiss banks or American banks where the supposed investigative moths of the government cannot reach, I have often wondered what it is all about. Soon, you see, that bad news would invariably be followed by another piece that says that the said stower or stowee has been struck down by one illness or gun or bomb or the other, which cannot be undone for all the money in the Cayman Islands. Worse, these monies have a nasty habit of never coming back home, meaning that those in the Cayman Islands and co. get to live the good life on our money while we the deprived get to bite our nails. Really! Can a people hate their own country so much?

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

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

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

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