The Nation Newspaper

Category: Oyinkan Medubi

What befuddling tomfoolery is this now?!

If the FIRS would pay such people a visit, find out their businesses, slap them with a tax so befitting no earthly tailor could match it, then we probably would become less befuddled or even be cured of our tomfoolery

Tomfoolery, says my encyclopaedia, is silly behaviour; and befuddling, goes the same authority, means causing someone to be confused. To be honest, I am so confused by the silliness of Nigeria’s wise rulers and business class that I think it is time to bring out my bag of hows. How come that, according to news reports, some of Nigeria’s rulers and business men, have been able to donate more than N6 billion towards the building of a deanery for the president’s homeland church?! How possible was it for the president of my country to be looking on while those figures (money that is, not the people) were being thrown around and he was not in consternation as I am now?! Just how large can that deanery be that it would require that much money? And just how on earth am I going to explain this to my grandchildren, eh?!

Truth is, anyone can do what they like with their money; it is after all, their money. When someone decides to put his/her money under his bed rather than take it to the bank, he is exercising his full rights over it. When s/he decides to give out every penny of the billions he owns, he is still exercising his full rights. Some businessman somewhere in the world was said to have one day become very sick of having so much money and seeing so many people with nothing to eat that he decided he had had enough. I would have liked to tell you that he then had the poor swept off the streets so that he would no longer have to look at them, but that would be my own story, not our man’s. Our man decided to wind up his business, he gave large chunks of his fortune away and used the remaining to start a food kitchen where the poor could come and eat and where he himself served.

When an individual decides to write his/her birthday party invitation on the nation’s bank notes, s/he is exercising rights that are stolen, cause, as any idiot can tell you, the notes belong to the central bank while the rights to use it legally belong to the holder. I think I’ve reported once that some party girl somewhere in our south-west here once did just that. She decided to send out invitations for her twenty-first birthday on the nation’s highest currency then of fifty naira. Luckily for us all, the police quietly stepped in. We never did find out what happened to those notes. So, anyone who decides to give the president’s deanery any sou, s/he is freely using his/her rights to do so. But we object seriously because that right infringes on our collective sense of what is full and empty. It is not right that while two-thirds of the country is empty in stomach, money should be thrown over our heads by the full in stomach as if we don’t exist. It’s not right.

Someone said the monies donated have been used to serve God. Truly, I cannot comment on this because it is only God who knows who is serving Him. I do know, however, that if the almighty had a say in the matter, he would ask that the president should just take what he needs for his deanery and send the remaining to others still struggling to erect their own church walls, like err, mine. But then, who is the almighty to say anything in matters like this? So, back to breaking our backs, folks, as we struggle on to raise the walls of our worship tents.

One thing is clear. Those stupendous monies have come from people who have gained immensely from the president’s office. Don’t praise me. Saying this does not particularly make me a genius; I am only repeating what others have said because I am rather good at that. But seriously, I don’t care about anyone gaining from the office of the president. What gets my goat is this public show of gratitude. Why must these people show us so blatantly that they have got the president’s ear and we have not? Why must they rub it in that because we don’t have billions to dole out for any cause at all, we don’t get our photos taken with the president? Oh, how I hate these show-offs!

Anyone who has studied the business clime of Nigeria knows for sure that, for good or bad, the federal government has managed to tie every venture in Nigeria around itself and itself around every venture. So, no one can breathe now without the government knowing about it. This of course translates to the fact that the government allows those that it loves to take in more gulps of air than others so that those ones will know how to be grateful in times of contribution so that they can be allowed to take in more gulps of air so that they can be eternally grateful so that … Get my drift? Then you’re doing better than me. I guess what I am trying to say is that launching times are often gratitude times; something you and I can never understand because it is too much like watching the ping-pong of table tennis. Your head is swivelling so much following the ball that you soon lose any idea of who is winning; you just know that if you stand there watching for too long, you will be the one losing.

The trouble in all this, and this is where I suspect the people’s umbrage derives its strength, is that these gratitude times are ultimately tied to the people’s fortunes. What wealth the government doles out to the privileged few does not belong to it but The People who have given it to the government to hold in trust for it (the people that is, not the government). So, when large figures are flying around national news organs, The People’s heads threaten to burst and indignant exclamation marks escape from their mouths: ‘Whar a heck!; why were we not invited to this event?!’ The people know that even though they have not been partakers in the ping-pong of business and money, ultimately, they and their children will have to pay for it. They know that they are the ones losing because all the figures flying around are really theirs, and they have no idea where they are going (the figures, not the people).

To me, the real culprit in all this is the tax office, or the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). In a good country, where there is adequate reverence for law and order, there would be some officers of FIRS who do not sleep but are perpetually on the lookout for anyone who wants to play the fool with the nation’s money. Their beady eyes would immediately alight on such a figure, note his/her name, place of abode, and times of playing the fool and to what tune. Then those fine gentlemen and women would pay such a one a visit, politely ask what line of business s/he was in to accrue such an amount and then literally slap him/her with a tax so befitting no earthly tailor could match it, no matter how close the person was to anyone. Honestly, that is how we can become less befuddled or even be cured of our tomfoolery in this country. In the absence of that, all the president’s beneficiaries continue to exercise their rights to be grateful citizens, even if at the expense of us all. They also continue to rake up enough goodwill to warrant greater cause for future gratitude world without end, Amen.

March 24, 2013
Between amnesty and state pardon…

I hope I will not soon be telling any FRSC man who stops me, the government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic?

I hope I will not soon be telling any FRSC man who stops me, the government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic?

Not long ago, I wrote that the Maina saga of N195 billion had got to be the limit my shock absorbing system can take, cause I thought how much else was there? Plenty more, it seems. Since then, my system has reverberated from the shock of many more high voltages. For instance, I found that you can cook an entire cow in the microwave; you can walk to Timbuctoo without the aid of a camel; a deaf and dumb can sing on Broadway, my dog can stand on his hind legs and dance to music, and yes, yes, yes, the government can grant pardons to state plunderers. Anything after that, as they say, is cheesecake. I mean, when you think you’ve heard it all, something bigger comes along, yet, we keep on swallowing our tea, sandwiches and roll-ups of amala. Life goes on, eh?

First came a request from the north that the country grant Boko Haram members amnesty and, like everyone else, the shock of it reverberated right across my teeth. But then, as usual, I recovered in time to think ‘Ah ha, Ah ha! Now, we have arrived at exactly where we were headed from the start.’ It has been obvious to many observers that the northern elites had wanted a replication of the Niger Delta amnesty programme for their own youths in the north for quite a while. However, in creating that organisation, the elites forgot to give the manual of behaviour: do not throw families into needless grief, and do not begin to go after your own. But, here we are, after the group has thrown many families into grief and mourning across the country, they are looking for amnesty, the kind granted in the Niger Delta.

No one needs any crystal glass to see that the activities of the two groups are as different from each other as the north is from the south, but that is not our focus now. Our focus is the use of the word ‘amnesty’ itself. No, do not fear, I am not about to give you an English lesson, just to point out that the granting of an amnesty to the ND militants in the first place was misplaced. Clearly, when you take to arms, it is because something is wrong and that is the only way you can point it out, not unless of course you are so taken by consternation as I once was at the sight of a fire that all I could do was gawk like a fish and point at the sight while trying and failing to mouth ‘F-f-f-f-f…’ So, the government should have reasoned that if there was a problem somewhere, there was the likelihood that there was a problem elsewhere. In other words, it was wrong for the government to have trained its binoculars on just the problem volcano, forgetting that other dormant volcanoes might just be waiting for the right time to explode.

More importantly, the contents of the amnesty programme itself leave many of us scratching our heads. Why should the government sponsor youths to go abroad to study courses that are available in the country? It amounts to a complete separation of state when one section is given too many handouts, even if that section produces a great deal of the country’s resources. It would have been better to translate such awards to social amenities such as schools, effective rail and electricity systems. This would let every section of the country be treated fairly and equally when everyone is given equal access to these privileges. That is good governance.

Bad governance is giving the ND youths monetary gifts, much of which is squandered on licentious living, instead of training them to live worthy lives of work and great achievements. Bad governance is also keeping the ND area underdeveloped and in perpetual darkness while claiming that the area is too difficult a terrain to govern. Yet, the rest of the country enjoys electricity powered by gas from the region. If everyone were to enjoy the commodity equally, no one would feel compelled to cut off the supply since he knows he will also be affected. Therefore, paying off the restless youths of the ND and failing to develop the region is tantamount to giving sweets to crying children just to keep them quiet. In a while, the sweets will melt off and the crying will resume. It is better to point the child to the kind of behaviour that can earn him or her as much sweets as he or she can take independently.

Back to the Boko Haram request. I think we are all inclined to say that the north started the Boko Haram problem, so let them fix it. The truth is that in so many ways, their activities have affected the rest of the country. Many among us can no longer take as much as forty winks of a night; imagine, many are now reduced to taking only thirty-eight or so. Many churches cannot even now pray with their eyes closed but must perpetually watch their gates or place policemen there so that no unwanted visitor comes driving up the wall. Haba, that is just so sacrilegious. So, we cannot wash our hands off them, but a firm answer should be that first and foremost, every drop of innocent blood that has been shed must be accounted for.

However, the government needs to watch out. Soon, the western part of the country will also want the benefits of amnesty, and then the east, and then the middle belt, and then the middle-middle belt, and then the south-south east, and then the south-south-south west, and then the south-south-south east … Look, it was wrong for the government to have started the programme in the ND without considering that someday, some others like me would get up and demand their own share. There must be ways of getting off this train though before it crashes. Oh, I forget, it is already crashing. Just look at how Alamieyeseigha was granted state pardon. And that’s the second kettle of fish.

The government just loves fishing in troubled waters, does it not, considering the way it moves from one boiling pot to another? If it is not renaming universities with long standing names, it is granting state pardons to people with whom the country has had long standing grudges. I believe that anyone can be pardoned; I have always believed in second and third and fourth and more chances but please, there is a time for everything. And this is not the most auspicious time for this kind of pardon. Things are too dicey, corruption is irritating everyone’s nose and daring all of us to hell, and state functionaries are behaving as if they exist on a different plane and jetting around the world like sparrows. So yes, everyone is sore right now and the atmosphere is as thick and dry as a tinderbox, ready to explode. All it just wants now is for someone to strike a match…

As I said before, my shock absorbing system, and that of the country, appears on the surface to be insensate but I suspect that beneath that thin veneer of invulnerability is a system that can scream, shout and throw tantrums and someday will say enough is enough! I hope I will not have to retort to the next Road Safety man who accosts me for answering the phone in traffic: the federal government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic? But I won’t be alone; I know many of my fellow countrymen will join me.

March 17, 2013
The joy of the birds, bees and flowers (2)

When social, political and domestic violence congregate to batter the woman, the strength of the nation is weakened and severely compromised.

Last week, dear reader, we tried to draw attention to the fact that women too are entitled to a life well lived. This means not only that women should become free of the abnormal burden of carrying the home, children, husband and societies’ responsibilities, but that they should even be helped to see so much joy in existence they will refrain from having headaches. Did the men take any notice of this whining? No sir, not so much as a grunt. Nevertheless, we must plod on, for just last Friday, March 8, the world celebrated this year’s International Women’s Day. Ah ha!

According to the website page on the celebration, it is a day to honour the work of suffragettes, celebrate women’s successes and remind us of what inequalities to redress. This year, the theme is ‘Time for action to end Violence against Women.’ And I thought, how very appropriate, this. For, sometimes, it does appear to me that the world has taken violence against women so much for granted it has become part of the (ab)normal run of things.

Take the streets for instance. Just check: close to seventy per cent of the population of beggars in Nigeria are women who are often dragging along their children. Those toddlers make up close to half of the remaining percentage. Of course, on the streets, the women are open to all kinds of abuses – from men, sun, rain, stars, and all. The men rape them; the sun beats down on them; the rain drenches them; and the stars … Oh yes, the stars can contribute to their plight too. Just try moving around by the light of the stars.

On the more serious note, the violence that women suffer during war times is a shameful slap against the faces of men. Indeed, this war weapon is so dreadful that I believe it sinks the war leader who sanctions it below the mud that is beneath his soldiers’ boots. But that is not all. The society that throws its women into the teeth of war is done, all done.

Then, there is the all-time great, domestic violence. This is such a constant in so many women’s lives that it just does not bear mentioning. To begin with, one great violence against womanhood is managing the home on little or no funds at all. But, don’t get me wrong. In many cases, the fault is with the men who probably do not realise that depriving the home of sufficient funds is some kind of violence. I blame them because with such men, their cars, motorcycles and bicycles are more important.

In many other cases, there are men who do try their best and give as much as they can. They have little and they give little. No problem there as long as they give it in love, peace and harmony. Truly, they are not to blame. Rather, in such cases, I poke my stubby little digits in the eyes of the government leaders who are not creating the enabling environment for people to do honest work for honest pay. I have always said that if the focus of any governance is not directed at the betterment of the average home which does not consist of little greedy mouths and fingers, then that government is lost. If governance does not begin the day’s business with the price list of the country’s foodstuff perpetually behind its decisions, then I make bold to say that that is not governance, to use the famous cliché. So, yes, insufficient funds in the home can be serious violence against women.

Ah, yes, there is also physical abuse. Now, that is a difficult one to track, for physical violence against anyone or thing is simply the loss of governance of the central controls of one’s corporate being. Seriously, raising one’s hands against anyone or anything should be a serious call for help, not by the victim but by the assailant. It is the assailant who is really crying, ‘Help me, I can no longer govern my senses. I deserve to be put on the funny farm.’ Unfortunately, the level at which this kind of abuse goes on in this country (oh yes, and the world too) is incredibly high, and sadly, with no governmental interference around here. This is why women are getting beheaded (as happened recently somewhere in a south western state over an argument) or simply killed. Yeah, well, what’s the difference?!

Really, these gory conclusions are exactly that, conclusions to acts that often begin with what you would tag ‘ordinary beating’. I have heard a woman tell another woman to take heart; all that her husband did to her was just to beat her. In other words, he has not yet killed her. Oh people! Where are the laws against domestic abuse? When can a woman in Nigeria walk up to a police station and report that her husband beat her and the police would not bend down behind the counter and laugh their heads off but would march up indignantly to the said batterer, jab at his chest with some hefty fingers and ask him to try them (the police) for size? When, eh, when? Meanwhile, the women continue to suffer violence, like the kingdom of God.

People, these episodes of sufferance call for definitive action, on everyone’s part. Let us start with the government. When a nation’s focus is forever turned on asking, praying and even craving for even mildly tolerable leadership, no worthwhile achievements can be made. Social structures suffer, the very atmosphere is puddled, and the homes bear the brunt. When we say home, we mean women. The burden of the absence of good governance in Nigeria, I tell you, is being borne by women. It is the women who stand between the children and starvation; between the children and insane activities such as playing with guns and killing each other in the home (as happened recently too somewhere in the southeast) and between God and men. Oh yes, it’s the women preventing God from punishing men for what they have done to this country.

Anyway, the government has got to take governance a little more seriously. Everyone knows that the strength of a nation is in the health of the family. The strength of the family in turn rests in the health of the home and the home is a good woman’s focus. Therefore, the strength of the nation is in the well-being of her women. However, when social, political and domestic violence congregate to batter the woman, the strength of the nation is weakened and severely compromised. Good governance must be ensured by all means to end violence against, and strengthen, the women.

I think the time has come to strengthen the legal actions made against domestic violence. Obviously, women are not made of the same physically stern stuff as the men are, so why kit them out in the same boxing gloves? When a woman is regularly battered, it is natural that she would either grow a thick skin against it or don gloves. I know, you and I have seen women boxers on the screen, but I tell you, they look downright ugly there. Those gloves look most unnatural on them. The women are putting their bodies to unnatural uses and I intend to tell the World Boxing Federation, just as soon as I am done here. Besides, they provide nothing but merriment for the men. In clearer words, they make the men laugh. No, bring sterner laws against domestic violence and you’ll see changes. Headaches will disappear, peace and respect will come in, and the joy of the birds, bees and flowers will follow. Happy Women’s Day once again!

March 10, 2013
The joy of the birds, bees and flowers (1)

Women say Nigerian men are unemotional, uncaring, blind, brusque, brutish, and unromantic; while men say women are nagging, noisy, infuriating, illogical, irrational and weepy.

This week, reader, we will turn our minds to a higher and more edifying subject: the politics of a woman’s indisposition. What, for instance, can we impute to be the exact value of a woman’s headache? True, many things are usually scampering around a woman’s brain. Perhaps that explains why, whenever I have been rummaging around in my handbag for a very important item, I have come across little note-reminders of things to do about and on the house: ‘paint other half of kitchen wall’, ‘restore order in the garden’, ‘bring in last week’s laundry’, ‘please paint other half of kitchen wall’, ‘resume aerobics class’, ‘cut meat with knife, not nail file’, ‘must definitely paint other half of kitchen wall this year’… The other half of the kitchen wall is still not painted, the garden still looks pretty much as if Adam has had to vacate it in a hurry again, the laundry still spends days waiting for the midnight sun, aerobic classes go on without me… But can that account for all the well-timed headaches women have?

Let’s see now. A renowned fictional character lists the things that women are said to be: nagging, noisy, agitated, infuriating, illogical, irrational, weepy, wanting to be sent flowers, and forever straightening their hairs instead of the contents of their heads! But I ask you: is it such a bad thing to be sent flowers rather than bills? And do women really nag? The way I see it, women tend to be repetitive, but I think it is mostly because men tend not to hear them, mainly I think, because women tend to be repetitive and so on; but that’s not enough to cause a headache.

The average woman doesn’t really know what she is about or wants until sometime in her middle ages. That’s when she discovers she has teeth to laugh with. She also discovers sex; or is supposed to. It’s not as if it’s not been there all along. After all, there are the children to show that something must have happened. But what exactly, she will be hard put to explain. Quite often, she has been so pre-occupied with sundry affairs such as indulging her anxieties over children, work and husband that she does not notice the years slide down the hill, pulling her relentlessly along until she is close to collapsing at its foot in a heap! Then she panics and grabs for a bit of self assertion: she ‘invents’ the headache. Ah Ha!! There’s the reason for them infernal things.

Someone once asked me a very confidential question. Saith he: very often, when I want to be alone with my wife in the evening, she says she has a headache; is she telling the truth? Or is she using headache as an excuse just to avoid me? Frankly speaking, the question threw me, for I never imagined that my own headaches could be invested with such political values that would someday be the subject of some kind of parliamentary inquiry. I get headaches from many things: our African sun; my full sink; my empty purse; PU deadlines that bear down on me like meteorites every week… just name it. I guess no one will ever know the exact value of a woman’s headache. A friend once told me that she had bedtime anxieties. Whenever night-time approached, she would start by moaning about a ‘terrible’ headache, then graduate to lying down ‘for a while’, then ask the children to buy her some Panadol tablets, then ask that all lights in the room where she lay be turned off, and finally the children should not let her hear any noises. After all that, no one would have the heart to ask her for anything.

Perhaps, these convenient headaches could be due to the fact that most women think that Nigerian men just don’t know the meaning of the word ‘romantic’ and so do not think the trip worth the while. They say Nigerian men are unemotional, uncaring, blind, brusque, brutish, unromantic, dishonest, difficult to please, violent and don’t know how to treat a lady. For one thing, most men think the most romantic moment is when they hand over the month’s housekeeping allowance. For another, they are more likely to wonder what’s got into the woman if she decides to send the children to stay with her sister, leaving just the two of them in the house ‘for a romantic evening’. ‘Are you mad?! You sent my children to stay with that sister of yours who doesn’t know how to cook? What do you want my children to eat this night, bread? If you don’t go and fetch them back this instant, this ground will be higher than you!’ Now, I ask you!

Perhaps again, these headaches do occur because women are never off duty, unlike the men who have this superb ability to distance themselves from the problems of the home. Sometimes, when the lights are turned down low, and the mood is catholically pure for that romantic joust, the woman is more apt to exclaim: ‘oh look, it’s this part of the ceiling that’s leaking again! I had been wondering where the water was coming from. Wait; let me get a bowl to collect it.’ And off she goes. Or, she might exclaim instead, ‘Ha, Baba Wale, I forgot to tell you that while you were out yesterday, we found a snake in the compound but it escaped into the garage. If you can help us look for it later…’

Furthermore, many women probably do not obtain the maximum benefit from any romantic venture because of the fact that our culture does not really permit any pampering for women. Rather than be sent flowers for instance, a woman is lucky if she is allowed to ask one question: how many children should she produce in this union? And rather than be dined and wined and wrapped in the gentle hues of candle lights turned down low, she may be given the chance to ask a second question: what sex? For, the wrong one can send her out of the house. Things may not be this bad in some cases, but to African women in general, the joy of the birds, the bees and the flowers is much overrated.

Generally, culture imparts the idea that women have very few rights, especially in the matter of the birds and the bees. Women believe it and do not act; men believe it and act on it. Unfortunately, education or lack of it, does not really have much to do with this as it happens to ’em all; the illiterate, the halfwit, and the super elite. While women in the first and second categories simply grin and bear it, those in the third have refused to be so helpless. Collectively and all to a woman, they have taken their fate into their hands, gone into a closeted meeting, and have come out with a unified resolve: to have headaches until such a time that their opinions would count. This thus accounts for the lying-ins and the evening-evening Paracetamol!

Clearly, there is an impasse here that would task even the famed sagacity of our Socrates. Headaches, for one, are difficult to prove or disprove; culture, on the other hand, is difficult to change. So, while the women hold their heads, the men hold their groins. I rather think the women should bring down their hands and demand instead their rights. A Nigerian woman is entitled to maximum romantic considerations; flowers, candle lights and all, or let us all agree that the matter of the birds and the bees is best left to the birds and the bees.

•A version of this article was first published in 2006 or thereabouts to celebrate women.

March 3, 2013
Time to rethink Nigeria, I think

There is a regular, beer-parlour joke about marriage and it goes thus. In marriage, the priest usually intones, ‘a man shall leave his mother and father and shall cling to his wife with whom he shall become one’. Yes, a much beleaguered man replies to his neighbour, the question is which one. True, when two people decide to come together in a marital union, it is all you can do to stop yourself from pulling one or the other aside and asking in consternation, have you quite thought this through? Listen, what you’re about to do will not only land you in hot soup, you will even have to cook it yourself. More importantly, in the history of the world, no perfect couple exists; indeed God is still looking for two people who agree on the brand of toothpaste to use.

So, with two people not being able to manage a marriage, here we are asking a country of different nationalities to manage their contrived and greatly multiplied ménage of strange bedfellows. Ha! This is why chaos rules in this land, ok! In this country of the deaf, lame and blind, all kinds of ideologies have come to play. Just listen here.

Currently, we have an ideology that says one for one, none for all. This enables every individual to get to positions of power and then use that position for himself, family and group against the interests of the overall majority. Then there is another ideology that says some for one, none for all. By this, every individual is constrained to defend his or her tribal kinsman against the interests of the national majority. Finally, there is the strangest of all the ideologies: all for one, yet none for all. This permits all individuals to worship another individual who has elevated himself to the national common hood of thievery at the great expense of the vast and silenced majority.

In all of history, no rat, elephant or lion has ever been known to adopt any of these ideologies for its own survival. It is not just because they have no pockets to hide things in, nor is it because they cannot open bank accounts to hide money in; it is more because I think they have not been able to throw away the sense of decency that God wrote into their genes in the way some Nigerians have thrown theirs over the shoulder. This is why a lion might kill to eat, but would hardly kill for hoarding or sport; a rat might hoard one or two things but believe me, it only takes things people don’t need or miss.

I am thinking about the leaders in Nigeria who manage to show the entire world how not to manage exalted public positions. Take the example of the most recent story-break in the land involving hundreds of billions of Naira. The story is so nauseating its worse than cholera. Indeed it’s an outbreak that makes you go, ‘Yuk, what kind of country is this where people do what even animals don’t condescend to do?’ What is an individual doing with hundreds of billions of Naira, feeding?

When we heard the story of the fellow who was alleged to have pilfered over twenty billion from the police pension funds, I reported here that it had me whistling in astonishment. When I heard recently how a certain chieftain of the Pensions Reform Task force, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, was said to have made away with something between one hundred and ninety-five to four hundred billion naira, pension funds of a group of people, I could no longer whistle. My lips puckered but nothing came out, especially when we heard he had been allowed to escape from the country with his loot. I just kept thinking, where is Michael Jackson to sing ‘This is it!’? This has got to be it. Anything after this I think will make Nigerians leave Nigeria for this government. Well, it would have failed to arrest the slide into total abyss, would it not?

Anyway, I think it is not a normal situation that a citizen would fail to appear before the legislature, no matter their character, in defiance of the national law; it is not a normal situation for a police chief to be asked and fail to arrest the said citizen in spite of the fact that he was within the country and enjoying the fresh air of the same country he so flagrantly betrayed; it is certainly not a normal situation for the police chief to not be able to arrest any citizen in the land. I remember writing something in the papers a few years ago that displeased the police and I assure you, they located me all right in the little corner of the little city I lived in then.

You have to agree that the situation begs for both questions and answers; I think it actually begs for more questions than answers. Why is it possible for such gargantuan levels of fraud and stealing to continue to take place? And as we look on, before our very eyes, why are the figures rising? Why are we now so helpless, police and all, if indeed we are? Have we completely gone bereft of our senses? Are there not enough things to use such monies for so that generations to come can bless us: an efficient rail transport system for the nation, electricity in every village including mine, public water flowing through every pipe in the land, a co-ordinated waste evacuation system in all the cities … people, there is so much to do with money in the country that this is just not the time to go diverting it.

The problem with this country from the start has been the strange set of ideologies adopted by leading individuals in the course of our history and across the land. With our lips, every one of us has paid homage to a ‘new Nigeria’ but we have all failed to go to work creating one. A new, indivisible Nigeria, with a ‘non-negotiable unity’ requires selflessness, an ideology that, apparently, none is ready to adopt.

So, rethinking Nigeria for newness involves three simple steps. First, we must change our national ideology. The ideology of selfishness must be replaced by selflessness. This is where everyone brings into the national purse his/her talents and resources in order to add and construct, not to take and destroy. The habit of destroying, knowing that regional, ethnic and even religious group adhesions would readily give support to individuals in case of prosecution, remains one of the most serious poisons working against this country.

Secondly, there must be a new set of ethos to replace the current one which appears to give nearly every Nigerian the droit de seigneur over other Nigerians in his/her post. People easily forget that they are working for the public and get too carried away by all the power in the office. The greatest abusers of traffic laws are the police drivers, and drivers of state functionaries, including governors, lawmakers and those from government house. As a member of a sadly small but still sane community in Nigeria, whenever I have seen a government vehicle on the roads, I have given them right of way. That way, I ensure I get back home.

This complete disregard for the law will not profit anyone in the long run. For us to rethink Nigeria, there must be a new regard for the law and this can only happen when leaders retain objectivity. Allowing someone who has committed such a financially heinous crime to escape is tantamount to allowing expediencies to drive the government. Evil portends evil.

February 24, 2013
What is the government celebrating exactly?

Like everyone else, I have heard stories about the activities of various orders of monks in various erstwhile monasteries to develop or show their faith. Some have sounded just plain incredible. There was, I learnt, the order that chose to walk barefoot. Fair enough, I think, when you remember that the cost of shoes has a habit of rising astronomically and not necessarily in direct proportion to their functions or aesthetic qualities. Another order prefers to walk some minutes a day on hot coals. Honestly, you couldn’t pay me to even look at hot coals. Most horrendous of all, why, I always think, would anyone choose to belong to the order that indulges, I say indulges, mind, in self-flagellation? I would have refused to believe it if they did not have the stripes to show for it. If I had a choice, I would have chosen to belong to the order of those who get together once a year to eat very costly satisfying dinners in order to raise funds for the hungry poor and wretched of the earth. You see, pity is pithier and more cynical when you are able to do it from a certain detached height.

I believe that cynical kind of pity is what our federal government is feeling for its citizens right now. We the citizens are bursting our sinews protesting the decision of the government to go ahead with the centenary celebrations. I don’t believe that the government suddenly developed an inability to understand English. I think that the problem rather is that the government has as usual gone deaf in one ear. It tends to do that many times, mostly when the people are speaking or when the people are saying what it does not want to hear. That’s when it turns the bad ear to the public and the good one to the other side where it hears itself speak. This is why the government perpetually sees the people’s lips moving but hears itself speaking.

So, you see people, the government has no idea that there is any opposition to the centenary project because it cannot hear us. It can only hear itself humming a joyful tune sometimes made into song by bus ‘conductors’, ‘Go on soun jare, o wo mbi’ (the road is clear here). Clearly, it fails to appreciate what people say about the road which is that the light is always green when they see a fool coming. Please don’t look at me; people say it, not I. Anyway, because the government has failed to hear, understand and appreciate our opposition to the centenary project, we simply must make our arguments more vociferous and pass them through strident voices; that’s all. No violence please; I hate violence. There is absolutely no need to go jabbing stubby fingers at the chest of the president’s dog. Everything else apart, you might get bitten.

To start with, I had a hard time comprehending what the centenary celebrations were about. I asked everyone around me, what centenary? The last time I counted, Nigeria was fifty-two. No, explained someone very patiently, clearly believing he was speaking to a dumb one, independence is different from amalgamation. I coughed, reluctant to ask, what amalgamation? Luckily, the bright one read my thoughts and further patiently explained that the amalgamation was when the north and south of the country were joined together to make one. The natural question that should follow that, of course, is how come I never heard of this before?

Don’t get me wrong. Every beggar in this country has heard of how Lord Luggard sauntered into the territory, looked left, right and then left again, then declared, the north and south will be one; you know much the same way we are told that day and night and conjoined twins came together. So, I knew all that, but I had no idea the fact was worth celebrating. Frankly, every pair of conjoined twins I have ever read about has always rued the day it was born; none has ever yet gone to church or mosque to thank God for joining their two heads or two bodies together. The inconveniences you get from any joining are just too many and painful to rejoice over. For instance, when a priest declares a couple as being ‘joined’ together, I think he does so in a manner of speaking. For I am yet to see a couple happily going about their business literally tied together at the waist. So, no thanks, this amalgamation thing is nothing to rejoice over but something to weep over, for it has resulted in a troublesome case of conjoined triplets or quadruplets or any number of lets you might care to use. Ideally, the country should be in the hospital where the doctors would be trying their best to prise it apart as carefully as possible without losing too much blood.

In any blessed case, who the deuce are the celebrators? The government? Hmm, yea, I guess. The government and all its functionaries are well cared for so they do not lack. Indeed, I think they have every reason to rejoice. I have never been to Aso Rock but I imagine PHCN is not allowed to practice the profligacy it flagrantly displays on the rest of us there. Therefore, since they have electricity all the day and year round, they do not need to fend for themselves; they do not need to go looking for fuel; they also do not even need to look for food – food comes to look for them.

So, why are the people not celebrating? I am the people, and I say I am in no mood to jolly around but rather to weep for the many problems I have to get myself out of. Right now, I am busy extricating myself from the generator fumes of people who cannot sleep (poor things) without relief from the heat through their fans powered by their generators because there is no electricity. I am likewise busy extricating myself from the high cost of fuelling my car now because the government cannot rein in its friends and friends’ children who are robbing the country dry through fuel scams and I must pay. Yes sir, I am too busy extricating myself from the hunger forced on me because the prices of foodstuff in the market have aimed for the sky. So, pardon us, government for not celebrating this centenary thing with you but please go ahead, don’t let us stop you.

It is time, however, that we raised the level of our national intelligence. Believe me, the world is not mocked when Nigeria portrays herself as a wealthy nation when everyone but the government knows that people here are hungry, tired and getting angrier by the day. To go around celebrating something that should be swept under the carpet for now does not send a very good message to the world. It posits that there isn’t a sufficient level of intelligence in the country so that our children do not stone our graves.

To be sure, a time may still come when this kind of celebration will not only be auspicious but will suggest itself. At that time, the people will lay tables of food, produced on the land, along their streets and invite passers-by to join them. They will waive the national flag with joyous abandon amidst the smiles and coos and laughter of freedom from want. Today, however, is not auspicious because there is too much want in the land. For now, I think we should do well to let the government celebrate alone and we the people should just wish them happy celebrations.

February 17, 2013
If love is a many-splendoured thing, just how many splendours can it have?

There is something definitely in the air; all you need do is to take a sniff. Well, first you’ll breathe in a mouthful of dust, but that’s just the leftover of the harmattan season. To get rid of that, simply imagine yourself all kitted out – suit, shoes, jeep and all – drawing up in front of the seat of government in the capital territory. A very foul odour might rudely accost the very delicate hairs in your nostrils but don’t panic, its only the government doing its talk, talk, talk as usual. It is shouting to Nigerians that it wants to celebrate the centenary of Nigeria’s amalgamation. Ha! As if there’s anything to celebrate there, but that’s a topic for another day. Anyway, because the government is shouting so much, the air is a little frothy. Again, don’t panic and keep sniffing. Behind all the dusts, odours and noxious gasses of political ill-talk, you can sniff the February perfumed gas of love. It is Valentine time again.

I was privileged to read Elizabeth Browning’s poem in which she tried to count the many ways she could love her husband. I don’t quite think she succeeded, but the fact that she tried is a surprise to me. But then, I am no poet, just a simple country lass who marvels at the way the grasses gently bow their lovely heads to the softly passing breeze. Ah! Poetry is hard.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had no idea one could count love or the ways of loving. I know I can count the gifts I get from people who hopefully have given out of the love of their hearts. I can also count the different motives for the gifts. For instance, when someone suddenly ups and gives you a car for no reason, then you better become suspicious. You might think he wants your love when all the time he is calculating how he can have access to your liver because a babalawo says he must bring one liver still bubbling and jumping with life in order to become rich. Or the motive might simply be that he is tired of the car. Once, one man was so irritated by the antics of his aircraft while in the air that when he landed, the first person he saw was his mechanic. Good, he thought. ‘How much can you give me for this thing?’, he asked, pointing at his innocent-looking aircraft. ‘Twenty dollars’, stammered the surprised mechanic. ‘Fine, it’s yours’, said the owner as he walked away, tossing him the particulars.

Really, there is no end to the things we can give to others out of love. There is also no end to the things we can receive, out of love. A woman took her child to see his father from whom they both had been separated for a long time. ‘How much do you want for him?’ asked the father. Now, that is love, the kind Jacob would willingly have elected to demonstrate if he had been privileged.

Where am I going with this? Not very far, just be patient. You see, valentine is here again, and everyone knows it is the period when love is bought and sold. No? Just take a trip to the stores and when you’re done, take a trip into the heart of every woman around you, and when you’re done there too, then we’ll talk. Right now, the shops are calculating how much profit they can accumulate this season from their outlay of investments into people’s desire to impress other people in their lives. For instance, I know many florists have invested heavily in fields of roses – red, yellow, purple and even blue – for those who will give out roses. No, of course, they do not have Nigerians in mind. They’re not stupid. One Nigerian confessed that his hostess in a foreign land welcomed him into their home with a bunch of flowers which he promptly flung on the floor and forgot all about as he made himself comfortable in their sitting-room, waiting for the food to arrive. I do not need to tell you how the hostess felt.

Meanwhile, every woman’s heart is permanently prepared to receive a gift, in or out of gift-giving season. I know mine is; so God help those around me, including you my reader, if I do not receive a gift on Valentine’s Day. I assure you that you will be joking with next week’s edition of Postscript Unlimited, which you may be dismayed to find, can suddenly become highly limited. So, be sure that the woman in your life is already counting her chickens. ‘He’d better not give me another pair of earrings again this year. Why will men never learn? Why won’t they just ask us for what we want?’

Meanwhile, the men, clever things that they are, know exactly what they are doing. They know how not to look for trouble. They know that to ask a woman what she wants as a gift is to ask for trouble. There is nothing like getting her something less with an explanation: ‘I know you said you wanted a private jet for a gift but since I cannot afford one, I thought this Honda Big for Nothing will do. I hope you’ll manage it’. Uhn uhn, it cannot work that way because the reply will be prompt: ‘If you knew you would not be able to afford whatever I ask, why then did you ask me?’ That of course is the beginning of a long conversation that starts with ‘But how could I know that you would soar into the sky with your imagination…?’ Reader, you don’t want to know how that would end, neither would St. Valentine.

Listen here, people, are we not holding this stick of love by the wrong end? When the poor saint conceived of ways of showing love, it was not for the purpose of bringing it to its knees. What is done today in remembrance of St. Valentine is no more than self-gratification and making the word love common. Those of us who only think of the physical end of the valentine celebration obviously do not know what that day stands for.

Valentine’s day is the day we should all take a pause and ask ourselves this important question: what are the many splendours of love? The answer will surprise you. It will lead you to discover that the splendours you have been dealing with as a Nigerian have shown only the basest and the most wrong kind of love. For, it is the basest love that leads us to cheat other Nigerians: at our jobs, in our trade, on the road, even in our relationships. It leads us to embezzle right on our jobs; it leads us to proclaim to be very religious, not missing any church or mosque activity, yet denying other people their dues; it fills the world with hatred. This base love carries no reward, only punishment.

Valentine’s day is for giving our hearts, not necessarily for gratification but for its own sake. That is the kind of divine love the poor saint demonstrated. Doing likewise will help us discover, like Francis Thompson, that love’s many splendours are magnificent, beautiful and endless. We will find its splendours when we give items to those who do not have, give helping hands to those in need and sacrifice our own needs for others. In short, love is many-splendoured when we feed others; hatred is equally many-splendoured when we feed only ourselves. From this valentine, therefore, I have resolved to demonstrate the many splendours of love whenever I can. What about you? Remember, what goes around comes around.

February 10, 2013
A judgment so bizarre, a Daniel could not have done it

Some court adjudications, the last bastion of social hope for the average citizen, are so right on the mark that one can shriek with delight and exclaim like Shakespeare’s Shylock that indeed, a Daniel has come to judgment! On another hand, some are so incredible they can make one hiss and spit in disgust and exclaim that indeed, the law is such an ass! On a third hand, there are some judgements that are so bizarre they leave everyone’s mouth agape for the first five minutes. Then, the words start rolling out in gabbles as people go ‘gabble, gabble, judgement, gabble, bizarre gabble, gabble …’ The whole world, err, country is gabbling right now about the judgement of some seven hundred thousand Naira handed down against someone alleged to have pilfered over twenty billion Naira. It has me fair whistling now, and I tell you, I don’t whistle easily; I do it through the nose. That is also how I speak English.

Now, if we remember anything about Shylock, it is the fact that the man was difficult to please. First, he drew a contract so tight that literally required that his debtor would not be able to wriggle out of it without shedding some of his precious blood. Next, he wound his daughter up in a domestic wreath so carefully woven with starvation that the poor girl could not legally get out of it without resorting to elopement. And that was what she did, with his lucre and diamonds. And that had him crying for his daughter and, yes, his lucre too. In the midst of his woes, he remembered a very comforting thought: the contract he had drawn up would at least give him the much needed respite of being able to obtain a pint of blood or two, just for the satisfaction of seeing someone shed some blood. The judge said yes, he was entitled, and so he enthused ‘… A Daniel come to judgement!’ Why am I giving you this long story in its entire height and breadth? I honestly don’t know except perhaps to give you the background of how Daniel, the biblical prophet, came to be associated with Judge Advocacy Duties (JAD).

Good judgements are getting increasingly rare in Nigeria, perhaps because good judges are getting increasingly rare. Good judges are getting increasingly rare because, let’s face it, there aren’t many Daniels around anymore. (Don’t get me wrong; there are many people called Daniel but obviously, they are not necessarily judges.) So, good people are getting increasingly rare in Nigeria. Just to buttress that last point, I heard the other day that a couple in this country employed a supposed house girl; only to find the next day that their house had been swept clean of both goods and girl while they were at work. In English, this means that the girl disappeared with all their worldly goods before the good people came back from work the next day. What dangerous times we live in.

And how’s this for a horror story? Someone recounted how the commercial vehicle he travelled in was waylaid on a Nigerian highway by the Nigerian highwaymen who demanded everything everyone had. After the robbers left, everyone was relieved to find that the only things they lost were material things, all that is, except one person who had cleverly quipped to the highway men that all fingers were not equal, that was why he could not give more than he did. They then made his fingers equal with their cutlass. I tell you, things are so bad in the country now you do not go around testing your wit against anybody’s anyhow. Now, where was I?

Ok, like I said, everyone is gabbling about that judgement. People are wondering how on earth anyone can be said to embezzle something in the region of twenty billion Naira, and the court hands down a judgement that finds him guilty but awards only seven hundred and something thousand naira against him? That judgement stinks. It is laughable. It will encourage us all to steal and damn the consequences. That’s as good as throwing the judiciary into the dustbin of history like a discarded appendix.

To start with, it has us all wondering what the role of the judiciary is in this world. I had always thought the judiciary was supposed to serve the purpose of arbitrating between two contending sides such as my dog and I. If I fulfil my contract of feeding, sheltering and clothing it (I brush his coat, don’t I?), then he should please bark to assure me he can guard the house. Now, when, rather than bark, he prefers to lick visitors’ feet, I have the right to call in the courts, don’t I?

The judiciary should mediate between ‘We the People’ and anyone who decides he/she wants to go buy Italian villas adorned with swimming pools with the hard earned money of pensioners. We should expect the judiciary to hang such people for us by going after him/her, guns blazing and daggers drawn, on the side of The People against the corroding insect.

But that’s just silly us talking. We must have thought we were in this normal country where everything runs as it should. Instead, we find ourselves in another country where the abnormal is not only common place but quite the norm because ‘friend, this is Nigeria’. Come, it is only in Nigeria that one can loot any number of billions and all you get is a tweak of your nose and a playful twist of your earlobe by the equally playful court. It is only in Nigeria that a major airport can be put in total darkness on the orders of a minion while his superiors are literally in the dark about it all. And all we do about these things is grumble silently.

Really, I don’t begin to know the role of the judiciary any more, given their antecedents. Together with the police and the press, the judiciary is supposed to work for the progress and good of the society by punishing the bad and rewarding the good. Now, all that the judgement has done is show that the judiciary is crumbling. So, should these courts continue to adjudicate for us or should we look for another?

Perhaps, we should look out for some wise men in our midst and set them up with all the paraphernalia of office without the wig, for I am beginning to suspect that wig. Just look at the colour. Ugh! That’s right, let us look for some hard-nosed, white-haired wise men who would come to judgements with only one thing on their mind: the good of the society. Forget your school-trained judges: they seem to be more preoccupied with wanting to be like the politicians – interested only in filling their offshore accounts that cannot be traced and which they will never spend. Believe me, I know; there are too many examples of Nigerians who did not spend theirs. Forget the law also: it is an ass anyway.

Look, I believe that people are really not interested in the law being an ass any longer in Nigeria. The sanctity of the law is the progress and sanity of the society. I therefore recommend that the country should reject that judgement and ask that it be reviewed. It is too bizarre to believe. Indeed, one should not even let it stay in the records because someday, if the Martians succeed in colonising the earth and they come across that judgement, it will give a very bad image of the country and leave a sour taste in their mouths, if they have any.

February 3, 2013
Wars without end… Victims without end…

What is with men and wars, I’ll never know, but records show that over ninety per cent of wars in this world have been initiated and executed by men. No, no, I am not starting an argument, just stating a fact. Just think, in the lifetime of any given male, the chances that he would initiate or help to execute a war is close to fifty per cent. Imagine that! I know that when they were little, my children initiated many wars against each other, mostly over nothing, but that doesn’t even count. The fighting gene nevertheless appears to run true and deep in all men.

Most worrisome, however, is the fact that somehow, the fighting genes running loose in men are now being transfused into women and other things. Women, knowing no better and no different, proudly don the togas of war, supposedly for love and country and head out, leaving behind tearful babies, crying children and baffled husbands. Tch, tch. If those women only knew the truth – that they have been infected by the blood running in men’s veins – they would know better where to direct their heaving chests of indignation. All together, mankind has become like a couple of pigeons which seems to do nothing but flap their wings in real antagonism towards each other three mornings a week behind my fence. What the bone of contention is exactly, no one can tell, but all we seem to get from them are their emotions all flapped up.

Actually, nothing excuses mankind’s behaviour which seems to stem from the belief that only the fisticuffs can settle any and all matters. This is why we now have community, civil, international, cyber, psychological and, most worrisome of all, domestic wars. And with the match of science, those simple fisticuffs have been translated into the rat-ta-tat-at-tat of machine guns or the booms of cannons aimed at other human beings just like them. I don’t know about you but anytime I have stumbled across TV programmes depicting war scenes, I have been struck by one question: to what purpose?

Just recently, I read the story of a soldier who was shot at the war front but instead of falling and dying quickly, he got caught on the barbed wire that separated the two sides in the war. The war continued around him however with shots from the guns but now punctuated by his own groans of pain as he slowly bled. His own friends could not come to his rescue for fear of being hit. Finally, a soldier from the side which had hit him in the first place could stand the groans no longer so he put down his gun and ran towards the dying man. Both sides, seeming to realise what he was going to do, ceased firing at each other and watched him in disbelief as he gently disentangled the wounded man and carried him across to the enemy line and gave him to his friends. As he turned to go back to his side of the war, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the commanding officer of the enemy troop who removed a bravery medal from his own uniform and pinned it on the rescuer and saluted. Both sides then waited for him to run back to his side before they resumed their insane game.

Today, the world remembers the millions and millions of victims of the World War 2 Holocaust but we are expanding it here to include all victims of the insane thing called war all over the world. Sources say that presently, there are one hundred and forty-six wars being fought and from these, over one thousand people are dying yearly. This gives us a very frightening picture indeed considering that it shows a considerable build-up of victims of war who are mostly women, children and the aged. The worst part is that these victims, and the wounded and dead soldiers, have no clear understanding of what caused the war in the first place.

So, who declares a war and why? As a member of the human race, and a national of a country located somewhere on this planet, I think I have the right to know. Who the deuce feels he is obliged to declare a war where he does not often go to fight but only the young and able-bodied men (and now women) are obliged to go and be killed? I ask this because our lives, planet, children, and whether or not we wake up tomorrow depend on the answer. I believe that, and you can check this out, whoever declares a war must have a very little brain indeed, even tinier than mine, and he would be the kind of person that cannot even get along with his neighbour. Just watch out, next time someone declares a war around you, first interview his neighbour.

There is a line that says that ‘Love has no religion, only God’. I don’t know exactly what that means but I can extrapolate that humans can choose the Christian, Muslim, Animist, Atheist, or the Love religion. Clearly, most people have not been choosing the Love religion because all wars in history have been started by someone from the other religions. This is quite different from the poster that reads ‘Make Love, not War.’ Again, I don’t know what that means either but I would guess that it still borders on what choices we make.

I honestly don’t know what war-mongers are really after: plunder, fame or power. Whatever it is, I think we should all accept right now that none of that stays if built on the sacrificed blood of innocent men and women. One can get better plunder by raiding a rat’s hide-out. They are the only creatures I know who gather what they don’t need. Fame can come from a variety of other activities. Try calling the press to witness as you jump down from a ten-story building unto a bed of hot coals and sharp nails. I tell you, you will be toasted at every gathering in the country for years without end. And power? Why, have you tried to imagine a king testing his power by standing without his aides in the path of a herd of rampaging elephants? Again, should that king survive, he will be toasted for ever as a very powerful man indeed. That takes me to a second line I found: ‘We should realise that we have not been put here to rule the world – God does’. Anyone who feels compelled to test that theory is free to because my third line has the answer for them: ‘Those who thought they did had to leave it’.

Most people agree that wars have never solved any problem; they are only indulgences for old men looking for their manhood. They do not consider that wars without end only create victims without end. They also do not consider that the only things that wars leave behind are victims who do not even understand why they are being called on to be victims. They are helpless against the insatiate appetites of men to seek and create drama everywhere. This column commiserates with all victims of war today; they are the ones who have to deal with, and pick up pieces of lives shattered by, the insanity of war.

The long and short of it is that wars are not good; let us stop them. Only God himself can put out the flame of domestic wars, but we can try our best with the rest. Those do nothing but point to the failure of human intelligence. Nothing succeeds as much as good governance, fairness and justice. A good mixture of those elements can give us a world without wars, Amen.

January 27, 2013
When silence is golden

One of the prominent features of modern urban living is the firm grip that Nigerian religious pundits have over our early morning sleep. I tell you, the prison warden’s grip over his prisoners cannot come anywhere near it. Each dawn, I am rudely pulled out of my dreams by the vehemently inconsiderate shrills of religious men and women from mosque-church loudspeakers calling me to pray or shout ‘Amen’ willy-nilly when all I want to do is get a little more sleep. Sometimes, I wonder what the gates of heaven and hell must really look like – perhaps they are lined with marketers touting the advantages of the two places. It is quite enough to make me appreciate the age-old adage which I whisper repeatedly to myself: Silence is golden! Silence is golden! I think somewhere in my sub-conscious, I believe that if I repeat the sentence long enough, the noise will stop. It does, but well into the sunrise, when it is time to get up anyway. Grrrr! They always win but someday, I intend to win too.

So, from sunrise to sunrise, the average Nigerian seems to be surrounded by nothing but noise; which he seems to take in his stride. If the irreverent loudspeakers of religious or music shopkeepers are not assaulting our ears, then party persons are doing their stuff right into them. And now, we have to contend with the noises of and from mobile phones. Recently, I saw a cartoon showing a man and a woman at a dinner date in a restaurant. Instead of doing the reasonable things such as looking deeply into each others’ eyes, holding hands or, at the least, eating, they preferred to talk into their individual phones. I just thought, the blessed things that had been invented to keep the world out were being used to bring the world in.

Even more recently, I read of our dear federal government, which never tires of putting its foot in, obliging our Nigerian farmers to purchase mobile phones willy-nilly. Come now, I am thinking, is it for lack of mobile phones that we have no food to eat? Ever heard the children’s refrain, and I think I have used it here before, for want of a shoe the horse was lost and all that? Well, we have a new take on that. For want of a phone the farm was lost; for want of the farm the farmer was lost; for want of the farmer the citizens were lost; for want of the citizens, the country was lost.

Honestly, I had no idea we still had farmers, let alone farmers whose farm lives would depend on the mobile phone. I have since regarded Nigerian farmers, and I mean no disrespect here, as charming antiques who made themselves but have been relegated to the shelves for posterity as showcases for aliens who once lived here. I thought no one, least of all the government, cared about their existence. No one, least of all, even knew their uses. The Nigerian farmer is the least considered of the low. Seriously again, I mean no disrespect either to them or the government, but all at once, too much is happening and too late. Suddenly, the government seems to have turned around, seen the farmers and exclaimed, oh look, the farmers!; let’s see what the mobile phone will look like in their grubby hands. And so, it is even now shoving the strange things into the farmers’ calloused hands and asking them to grin into the camera. I tell you, I tell you.

Growing up at my grandmother’s, a worthy farmer in her own recognition, I believe I have had a few farm experiences; not what you would call the heavy duty kind, but somewhat enough to help me know which end of the yam to dip into my plate of palm oil at lunch. Now, you believe me, don’t you? Of course, in the course of gaining my farm education, I also came across a few farmers. Yet, in all those days, I never did come across one farmer who sat down moaning that his greatest problem in life was not being able to talk to his neighbours. No sir; to talk to their neighbours, most farmers simply hollered. Believe me, I have heard whole conversations enough to fill your ears conducted over the air waves and over long distances. The golden silence was sufficient to ensure perception. WHY DID YOU NOT COME TO THE FARM YESTERDAY? YOU WERE SICK? YOU THIS LAZY THING, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR WIFE’S PEPPER-SOUP IS FOR, SLEEPING? NO, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE STRENGTH FOR MY WIFE’S PEPPER; YOU WILL COLLAPSE. FOR THAT, WHEN YOU FINISH ON YOUR FARM, COME TO MY FARM AND SERVE YOUR PUNISHMENT. And the laughter rang through the air, pure and delightful, energising the work.

True, farmers are no longer what they used to be; but honestly, in Nigeria, who is? It is quite clear that the problem of the federal government at any season seems to be that it never realises that the people are often smarter, more advanced, knowledgeable and forward thinking than it is. For some queer reason, however, it seems to think that it is always smarter, more advanced, knowledgeable and forward thinking than the people, so it thinks that it can think for the people. Big mistake. The farmers have told the government that they do not want mobile phones. Each farmer can procure his/her own phone or their children will. Yet, the government insists on going ahead. Why?

Come, government, let us reason together. Pre-paid mobile phones have habits of consuming money either to purchase them or to run them. On whose account can that be charged to: the farmer’s anticipated profit, or will there be a regular subvention from the government for that? More importantly, what is the phone for – to talk with the government or their neighbours or their families? Most farmers are tired of talking to the government: it has not listened to or heard them so far, and is even now not hearing them say they do not need or want the mobile phone. To talk to their neighbours, they visit; and to talk to their families, they send SOS. Even most importantly, a large number of our farmers do not have the required literacy to manage those demanding things, and who is to teach them? But what do you know? The government insists it knows what the farmers want: mobile phones. I suspect those phones are coming from a source which has tied the supply of fertilizer to the purchase of the phone to farmers. In other words, the government has done what it thinks to be some neat packaging of ideas and products without considering all the issues.

I honestly do not know how this phone thing can work. Do you know sir how many phones will be spoilt, lost or stolen within a week of taking delivery? Besides, how on earth can a phone enhance the growth of a farmer’s farm or his farming methods? Listen, dear government, what farmers need is a facilitated access to soft loans from banks so that they can have some long-term plans for their farms and be able to purchase items they want such as fertilizer or tractors on the open market like anyone else. Fertilizer can be subsidized; even end products can be subsidized but not at the expense of the free will to grow. Then, each can move from subsistence farming to large-scale farming at their own pace. Otherwise sir, you just may hear your phone lines crossing one day and someone saying, ‘Eh hen, Baba Sikira, now I have a phone; are you going to let me take Sikira as my third wife now?’ Then you will appreciate, as I have done, that silence is golden.

January 20, 2013