Category: Oyinkan Medubi

Why is it that governance in this country is being done by people who are more interested in standing in front of the mirror and asking each morning: ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest and most vain of them all?’

Today, I want to honour all my readers. I thank you all indeed for your interest and perseverance in reading this column, whether the messages have been accessible to you or not. Your patronage has proved that you are made of sterner stuff than I am. I acknowledge all the messages that have encouraged me, not so much because the writers like what I am doing but because they believe in the philosophy that says it is better to let a child destroy its toys than destroy the house. This translates to the fact that they think it is better to let me write each week than to let me go around stealing.

I also acknowledge all the messages that have not been so encouraging, some even downright insulting. I have nothing but great respect for their taste in writing. I mean, a woman who takes herself and her money to the market cannot be argued against. Whose business is it if she brings home shit? Some readers have complained that my points have a habit of hiding beneath their words; why can’t I write straight? Please be patient with me, the problem springs from a personality disorder. You see, I find that I cannot walk straight.

I have nothing in particular in mind to write about this week, so I have just allowed my mind to roam around on its own. And roam it has done. First, it alighted ponderously on the injustices of life. Why, for instance, should holidays be given and withdrawn? Why should the government give a holiday on Thursday and withdraw it on Monday? What is the meaning of declaring only two days of holidays for the nation? What are the remaining days for: work? I ask you, is that fair?

Then my mind went to the recent events in the country, particularly the recent crash of a governor’s ‘private plane’ and it did some somersaults, my mind that is, not the plane. How on earth is a governor able to afford a ‘private plane’? Is his state able to afford a modern, 21st century transportation or electricity system or housing or water or hospital or living standard or any standard for its citizens? What roils the mind is that you can’t just decide to go and greet your friend with those things. Where will you pack it, your friend’s bicycle shed? And then rumour has it that there are many other governors on the waiting list for these winged animals, waiting to buy them that is, and maybe fly them and crash them. What is just wrong with us in this country that robs us of all thoughtfulness? I hear one of them powerful government people bought one of those planes, and, not having too many places to go with it, had to leave the thing hanging around all day many days in its hangar, attracting very hefty daily parking fees, of course, and increasing our fuel consumption. Now, I have to struggle for fuel with their stupid planes.

Obviously, not enough has been done to discourage governors from acquiring properties for the state and registering them in their own personal names. Too many states are doing it. It is unheard of that state structures are made and left to rot while governors feast and gorge themselves to death on public treasures. For example, while governors are having private planes, the police do not have helicopters to fight and chase after criminals; while governors are having private planes, there are no road or air ambulances to transport critically sick patients or victims of crashes (like that governor!) to hospitals quick and fast (sorry, forgot, no hospitals); while governors are having private planes, there are no working fire engines to fight fires in many states (sorry, no ready water sources); while governors are having private planes, I have to ride my jalopy on pot-hole ridden roads … you know, I could really turn this into a song if you don’t stop me. Ok. I’ll stop myself. But why is it that governance in this country is being done by people who are more interested in standing in front of the mirror and asking each morning: ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest and most vain of them all?’ Ah, my mind does travel, does it not? Wait yet.

Next, my mind flitted to the weather. These days, you hardly know where you are with the weather. First, it blows hot you can almost use the tap water for tea, then so cold you need a candle under your teacup to keep it warm before you are through sipping it. Then it blows hot again you don’t know whether to remove your scalp to get some air into your brains, then so cold again you’re warming your hands on the boiling ring. Now, it gets so warm you’re beginning to think your skin is expendable, then… It has got to the point now you don’t know what temperature you want your tea: hot, so you can blow it cool, or cool, so you can blow it hot. The situation is much like the story of some European policemen on the trails of a wanted criminal. By the time they found him, he was frozen stiff in a snow storm. Yes, it was their man all right, but no, they no longer wanted him.

The weather seems to have settled on a mild, warm undecidedness, has it not? I think a little dryness is even appearing in the distance, you know, the kind that ushers in the festive period. Ah, Christmas! When I wrinkled my little nose at the air, smelling nothing but body odour, I thought I caught a whiff of some dryness too. I thought I could even spy a little star in the distance, but a little voice in my head said that could be the economy making me see stars. Anyway, there is no doubt about it, it is time to bring out the lights cause the seasons, they are a-changing! This time, I do not want to be unprepared. In the last festive season, I was a little unprepared cause there had been this rumour that it had been cancelled so when it came, it caught me napping, like the foolish virgins. I also don’t want to be like the clueless individual who said ‘Its Christmas? Nobody told me’.

That’s right, my mind has been roving; it even went over the economy. What with fuel shortage and all, prices are through the roof. Now, all I can do is rant and wish for the day I will be able to disdain a food item because of the high price and proudly display my own alternative: a farm. I also look forward to the day I will be able to disdain our petroleum product because it is inaccessible (large crowd around the pump) and expensive (don’t think anyone knows how much it is per litre now) and proudly display my own alternative: my bicycle (fresh air and exercise besides). I say, I look forward to the day I will be able to disdain the Nigerian government and proudly present my own alternative: an island of my own. Wait, I think my mind is roving too far. See you soon, weather permitting.

Truth is, wherever the state cannot impact the individual’s life, the society will sink, barbarism will resurface and death will be casual

I am sure that when man first began to walk the earth, the good Lord must have looked at him and sighed, ‘This one is trouble!’ Sure enough, as soon as he was able to take in his surroundings, the first thing man did was to invent a weapon of war. Anyone who dared to struggle with him over food or anything else got a head-bash of his new invention, the almighty cudgel. Oh yes, he took a look at the flourishing garden that was earth with its luscious, yet unspoiled soil and declared, ‘food sure is scarce around here, nothing but trees; it’s everyman for himself’, as he swung his cudgel up and down.

Then, not content with the cudgel, he went a step further; he added spikes to its head, just to fight better even if the fight was not about anything in particular. How really barbaric! That thing has been giving the entire world a headache since that time; no dear friend, not just the cudgel, it’s the going one step further. Now, it has grown many other heads, all called Weapons of Mass Destruction: toxic gases, bombs, guns, poison, liquor, battery, assault, tongue-pulling, etc., and each a source of horror, passing horror!!!

The problem is that the horror has gained world-wide fame. Practically everyone is using one of them weapons or the other in private and public discourses. The world’s first brothers in the bible had a private conversation, and a cudgel was called in to settle the matter which left one of them dead. When a country now wants to have a private conversation with another, it may use a bomb, just to get their attention. When a husband wants that private conversation, he has been known to pick up a knife or two against his wife, just to make his point; and many a wife has had to call in the poison of the asp, just to emphasise that they also have rights! (It does not matter that many husbands already consider their wives to be asps anyway). Anyway, the original purpose of life appears to have been lost somewhere between making points, getting attentions and claiming rights. Ha!

The point is that man has brought this weapon thing to a ridiculous level. Now, all over the world, no one can guess right when his neighbour will not get up any fine morning, not to greet, but to make a point with a weapon. ‘I have complained enough about your tree shedding leaves into my compound; from now on, it is war. Take that!’ My teacher does not like me, gbam! My fellow students make fun of me, gbam! My father has not given me enough allowance, gbam! All over the place, people’s passions are passionately unbridled. Seriously, people, is this what life is all about, learning to unbridle our passion?

Unbridled passion has dispatched many a fine set of people to the great beyond, using them … them … things. Just recently, a group of people was said to have descended on some polytechnic hostels in Mubi and killed forty-six students by shooting them, just like that, and for no reason that logic can explain! Worse, the report says that the group even went with some pre-written names which they called out! So, one by one, each student was called out ‘to come and die’. Imagine that! As if that were not enough, an entire community somewhere in the environs of Port Harcourt so completely unbridled its passion that it consented to and took part in dispatching four people to death in a horrendous fashion, using cudgels and all. This is the one that no one appears to have been able to make any sense of, as it was not only filmed, it was even posted on Youtube! How barbaric can we get, for nowhere in the world are even thieves killed so dispassionately!

In the better parts of the world, even robbers and murderers have been known to receive greater consideration. Just think, you might get a fully-furnished room, sorry, cell as a prisoner, with free electricity, water and other amenities, free government-sponsored meals (I hear you can even choose from a menu), free training to acquire a skill (such as how to speak better), a job if you are very good (and no one dares tax your returns), a battery of lawyers or activists to defend your right to life should you be condemned to death … It is, in short, the good life for many and almost makes you want to go be a prisoner there. It sure beats life in many Nigerian cities, and it certainly beats life in many Nigerian prisons.

But these were said not to be thieves, they were said not to be anything but students. So, how they came about such a horrendous fate beggars all belief and makes nonsense of our nationhood. When we have citizens settling small squabbles (such as a students’ election in one case and a financial debt in the other!) with the death sentence in any form, the senses must reel and the sensibilities must swoon. Here indeed is the nadir of this country’s moral turpitude.

We must, however, look beyond these incidents to hone home some points. The first thing to note is that Nigerians are getting too dangerously desensitised to death and the things of death. Come, how many stories of death through sickness, rituals, murders, accidents, domestic violence, religious violence, playful punching, etc., does an average person hear in a day? Someone was said to have been annoyed by another person who persisted in heckling him. So he gave the heckler a punch, just to shut him up; but instead of shutting up, the fellow just slumped and died. There appears to be little state intervention in many of the deadly and death-causing things flying around here.

Then, there is the fact that Nigerian leaders do not show any value for Nigerian lives. This is true. Listen; are there not many stories of Nigerian governments failing to take action to rescue their own citizens from other countries while others have long since brought their own citizens home? Then, there are just too many cases of extra-judicial killings, police stray bullets, assassinations, ritual murders, etc. A country that cannot even resolve the killing of its own justice minister is bound to have problems. People will lose faith, lose fear and resort to self-help.

Worse still, Nigerians have long since tired of the cheating and brutalisation coming from government officials who should be looking after their interests at the local, state and national levels. They know that LG officials only go to work to share money, state officials have no interest in assisting the people and national ministries’ officials are also only interested in their own lot rather. None of them is interested in fashioning out any impactful national policy.

So, when there appears not to be any government intervention in their lives, people soon become hopeless and will find an outlet where they can: cynicism and self-help. After all, there is no greater help than self-help. The only problem is that self-help has no ability to draw its lines within the bounds of reason and sanity. Nigerians help themselves in matters of electricity, roads, water, and justice, never mind who is hurt or not hurt. Yes, thank you for asking, I still breathe in fumes from my neighbours’ generator sets while I’m sleeping. Truth is, wherever the state cannot impact the individual’s life, the society will sink, barbarism will resurface and death will be casual. Nigeria has thus had the singular honour of moving from barbarism to barbarism without the usual interval of civilisation. We need to bring it back from the brink and regain the purpose of life.

Did you hear the one about a mentally unstable man who was released from an institution for good behaviour? Well, his doctors felt he was sufficiently healed to be let into the society so he got out and went on the streets. Two hours later, he was back at the institution. What was the problem? He said that while he stood by the road side, he saw a man wearing thick glasses riding a commercial motorcycle and carrying a pregnant woman who had a child on her back, and another one who carried three passengers on his motor cycle. He also saw a taxi driver who had carried seven passengers in his four-seat vehicle and a policeman who only laughed and collected some money from him. Then he thought, ‘the people out there in the world are all madder than me, and I am the one committed!’ So, to avoid being contaminated, he went back.

This last week, I listened in on a radio programme celebrating World Mental Health day. And I thought, ah, mental health! That is the inability of the mind to distinguish between what is socially acceptable and what is not. For example, since most husbands have not been able to distinguish between what is domestically acceptable (such as leaving all their month’s pay in the pockets of their pants for their wives to find) from what is not (such as leaving those pants on the kitchen table), we can assume that their mental health is challenged. There’s someone else whose mental health is challenged: my dog. For reasons best known to him, he thinks barking is beneath him. Do what you like, he just won’t bark. To harass visitors therefore, he simply, err, licks their feet. Grrr! That dog is so in need of a specialist.

Obviously, then, anyone whose mental health is challenged needs help. I can count the people who need help. All taxi drivers need help. All Lagos bus drivers need help. All okada riders need help. Believe me, all husbands need help. How else can you classify a husband who sells his wife for a sum of money if not someone in need of help? No, that happened in literature. But I know one who nearly sold his wife because she was costing him too much to feed. Really, what constitutes mental health is a matter of perspective. After all, I once drove the car into one of the walls of the house. No, no one pushed me; I just thought the road extended there. Of course, need you ask? Those around me went, ‘But, were you mad?!’

So, like everyone else, I interpreted the mental health day to mean the day we pause in our respective tasks, think for a moment about any mad person we know, say a little prayer for them, and then move on to choose what we are going to have for dinner. Not so, explained the resource person, it means the day we examine our mind and clear it of debris such as excessive love of money, excessive hatred of our noisy neighbour and too many death wishes such as driving the car at one hundred and forty kilometres an hour on Nigeria’s rough roads. Or, we can just use the day to think about those who appear well on the surface but are really sick beneath, like Nigeria.

Reader, pause awhile and say a prayer for Nigeria for we have, by our behaviour, converted it into a mental institution. Seriously. The poor thing thinks it is well but it is really, really sick. Just think about the antics of her citizens. Where else in the world can you find a people so cheerfully bizarre, yet uncompromisingly devilish? Where else can you find a people so nice and yet so wicked to each other all at once? I say, where else can you find a people so artful at biting each other and so equally artful at blowing palliative air to soothe the pain? Where else but in this your good ol’ country can you find people perpetually screaming at each other ‘You hit my car, are you mad?! You beat my son, are you mad?! You stole my prayer, are you mad?! You stole my future, are you mad?! You stole all the meat in the pot, you this stupid child, are you mad?!!!

When we think of the fact that what peoples the walls of this country is a veritable mix of schizophrenics, psychosomatics, psychopaths, sociopaths, sociogoths and psychogoths (if you know what those are cause I don’t), repressed and depressed joy killers, quarter-mad, half-mad and fully-mad individuals, and all in need of specialists, then we know we need to tread a little. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the Lagos traffic and transport system. That is pure madness. Whoever contrived that system should be hung up for the world to behold as the example of a mad man. Or, you might look at Abuja driving. For exercise, drive to and from Abuja and you will see what I mean. Clearly, every driver along that route needs a specialist. The ones inside the city itself appear to be beyond redemption, so the government appears to have left them alone to finish one another off. When they finish getting rid of one another, to the last one of them, then we can claim the city back from madness. Right now, it is on the brink.

When we think of the mad things we have done to this country, then we would agree that it is all but hanging on a thread, or just hanging. And it all began when we stood the country on its head, much like when you stand logic on its head. Again, pause a while and let us go over the facts together. Is it not in this country that people who have been convicted or are under suspicion are also ‘elected’ into political office? Is it not in this country that people who say they are trying to salvage the country’s economy ask to be paid in foreign currencies? Don’t these things boggle your mind? They do mine.

Sadly, it is also in this country that people go out to kill in the name of God and still preach that that God, in whose name they have killed others, stands for love. Hmm. Strange love. Anyway, this is also the country that houses the highest number of people who steal from the government so that they and their children will never be poor again. Yet another kind of strange love. So, with so much strange love going around, are you surprised that there is so much madness in the land, and we are all ensconced in this giant mental institution?

The World Mental Health day came and went without too many people noticing it. Perhaps, those who did were the only sane ones among us. I dare say the rest of us were too busy displaying our mental instability to notice. So it comes down to this. The mental health of this country is in your hands. Stop screaming at others; stop driving recklessly; stop embezzling recklessly; stop killing in the name of God, and begin now to take care of yourself and others in this mental institution. Who knows, if we begin to behave ourselves we might be let off, and be allowed to join the comity of sane nations soon, real soon.