Category: Oyinkan Medubi

By Oyinkan Medubi

It takes thinkers to beget thinkers. Only a thinking nation can beget a thinking citizenry.

Yesterday was World Thinking Day,  so I sat down to do some thinking. You must not get me wrong. I think on other days too but not too much. Yesterday, however, I took time to visit those corners of my brain that are critical to my ability to make abstractions from the long list of data fed into it, but which I hardly use. I think mostly, like the rest of mankind close to the thousands of the geographical square metres that make up the perimeters of my surrounding (I think it’s called Nigeria), I hardly think. I know because as soon as I accessed those thinking cells, I began to have a headache. Obviously, I was straining my thinking muscles.

Seriously, help is needed, and fast. I mean, here we are as a nation, carrying on as if not one of us can think. Now, I have confessed to you, haven’t I, that I can hardly think, and when I try to, my thinking muscles go into overload. What about you, you my intelligent, ebullient and fascinating reader? Surely, you have done a great deal of thinking about this nation and have come to some savoury or unsavoury conclusions. You … you… you get headaches too?! Oh dear, then we are in the same boat, seeing we are equally become thoroughly befuddled by this conundrum.

I recently came across a post that had been going round the social media. It was the picture of a cap that is still closely associated with one of the serving ministers. I would have asked to borrow it to use for this article, seeing how very apt it is to our topic but I did not know who to ask. I think the title of the post was ‘who the cap fits’ or something like that. If I had been privileged to use it, I probably would have retitled it ‘our thinking cap’. Honestly, going by present happenings, I think that cap aptly and symbolically illustrates our present thinking level and ability as a nation, which, I’m afraid, is really close to zero, if anything.

It takes thinkers to beget thinkers. Only a thinking nation can beget a thinking citizenry. Nigerians cannot wear any thinking cap perhaps because they did not have one before, and they have not been encouraged to do so now. Hence, we have all been going around a lot like the Lilliputians, hardly able to make anything of our tall circumstances, or Fidodido, confounded by even the simplest tasks yet with this generous heart.

The simplest thing in the world right now is to make electricity; but that is beyond Nigeria’s ken. It is a light matter too to draw potable water into homes for most nations, because it was done as far back as centuries BC. The books tell us that water was drawn into cities as facilely as armouries were developed in those eras. Yet, in this twenty-first century, we can hardly draw water into buckets using our own technology. Foods were grown with technologies in centuries past that befuddled modern scientists, yet Nigeria has trouble bringing out tomatoes from the soil without fertilizers imported from everywhere. Dairy products and other consumables are produced with deftness, that looks every bit like magic to those of us standing by and watching, by thinking nations to fill markets, yet we are still killing people here to make room for cows to graze. How long shall we go on with bare, unthinking heads, people?

I dare say again that our heads are bare because our thinking caps have been stolen or we never had one. Well, the result is that we are grown squeamish and timorous so now we hardly recognise our shadows as our best friends anymore.

One of the best assets this country has is its population. As the so-called ‘most populous black nation’ on earth, this country contains a great deal of human resources it is obviously oblivious of. If properly harnessed and channeled, these human resources can harness and utilise the material resources most efficiently for the benefit of all. In order to accomplish this, we need our thinking caps. That will not only enable us to know how but how to be systematic about it instead of the chaotic system we are running now which benefits individuals at some points but harms society in the long run. Our thinking caps will also help us keep our eyes on the goals and patiently work through our famed impatience to reach that point. We must harness our population for our good.

Our thinking caps will assist us to know how to develop a coding system that’ll benefit all instead of a few. It’ll help us know that building a system for a few (e.g. politicians or Fulani herdsmen) is not only tenuous but counterproductive in the long run. When all our scientific and artistic endeavours are put to effective use for the good of all, then a strong foundation can be laid that will connect the present with the future. This means that even from these ruins, we can build a solid future when we match the brains with the muscles.

We really need to think; for, right now, we act as if we are thoughtless. No nation embarks on antiheroic antics and hopes to survive. From all rumours and hearsays filtering into my ears, there appear to be efforts going on to carve an olden day empire from a modern nation. If it were not so sad, it would be laughable indeed. That is why I took it for a hoax. The only problem is that I still have a hard time explaining the senseless killings. Now you know why we need that thinking cap.

One of the things that has fueled the failure of reason and instilled the chaotic disorder that we are witnessing today I believe is the economic system that creates uncontrolled insatiable appetite for material wealth. A country that does not seek to build ways by which humaneness can be tucked into the citizens’ quest for material satiety will soon expire. It will eat itself from within. I think political scientists call it implosion. So when you hear that giant ‘gbum’ sound, it is not a bomb exploding from outside, it is only the country holding its head because of this giant headache it cannot seem to cure.

Most societies get by through the exploitation of the resources of information. This does not mean the simplistic use of machines built through the efforts of others who sat down and did their own thinking. Through their thinking, they brought out something that we have now crudely adopted and are using to disintegrate the society. When a group takes control of a channel of communication and uses it for their own selfish ends, they are disintegrating the society. In short, we are talking about doing enough thinking to devise our own system of information gathering and dissemination and using it to build the society.

We end where we began. As the most populous black nation on earth, Nigeria needs to do some thinking. She needs now to find her thinking cap, and we’re not talking about the one that I saw on social media, the real one. As we mark this year’s World Thinking Day, we need to think deeply about the country and its future in line with its theme of diversity, equity and inclusion. The life of this nation depends on our putting on that thinking cap. In the process, don’t also forget to think about others. For the sake of those others, let’s stop fooling around and develop electricity, pipe-borne water and good transportation system. Believe me, these are the basics most people need to raise the quality of their lives. So let’s just think… think… think…

By Oyinkan Medubi

…People know that their ethnic or religious units are more powerful than the country; so their loyalties are more inward-directed. Our state institutions have not achieved the desired purposes of unification. The tribes still rule, ok!

Reader, in response to Minister Lai Mohammed’s alleged claim that Nigeria is one of the safest places to live in, we are repeating, in part, one of last year’s PU entries under the above title (12/5/19). Things are grave indeed, but the minister and his ilk do not seem to appreciate that fact fully if he said that. Here goes.

‘…Everybody agrees that the country’s insecurity is in the red. (It is even bleeping right now. That means, it is near to explosion). Why, it’s got so bad now that people don’t know which of the three ‘trades’ to follow because they are all paying so well: kidnapping, armed banditry or insurgency. Look at the week’s headlines: 34 killed in four states; Cult war claims 11 in Edo; Boko Haram kills 11 in Borno; Herdsmen kill 11 in Taraba; Gunmen kill monarch in a Sokoto community, etc. The people who have been fingered with proof in crime have been unbelievably ordinary. They are like you and me. Take this example.

In the newspapers, there was the story of a woman who went to the bank and in the hall, she recognised someone who looked quite familiar until she recollected that he was the man who had abducted her sometime before. He was found out by a certain scar on a certain part of his body which she noted when he raped her repeatedly and the fact that he had well over N90 million in his account which he could not account for. That man was just an ordinary man like you and I, if you don’t count the recognisable dressing of the Tuareg bandits.

Now, how do we tell which ones among us have an extraordinary appetite for evil, apart from bandits or boko haram? Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for us all to admit the unthinkable: we have a problem. What is worse, all our problems are self-inflicted. That’s right. Our security problems are self-inflicted. I would like to state that we made our insurgents, bandits and kidnappers. We created our own monsters, and, unfortunately, we have all become their victims.

Someone once said something to the effect that the most brilliant among us become doctors and lawyers and engineers and professors. The not-so-brilliant become politicians. The ones who are not interested in reading become robbers and assassins. The ones who cannot read and are not interested in reading become medicine men. And now, the medicine men control the robbers; the robbers control the politicians and the politicians are controlling the doctors, lawyers, engineers and professors. How true.

With the right orientation provided in excellent leadership, we could have leaped over our shameful negligence of yesterday, and prevented all the things that have now come upon us today: kidnapping, insurgency, callous political class, banditry, raping of women, intertribal war, chaos and disharmony. We have lived most carelessly and have behaved most atrociously as a people, and have brought upon us this state of insecurity.

Until Nigerians are able to get past themselves, there can be no headway. To start with, as a people, we do not seem to be able to get the idea that the tribe or ethnic group or religious group we belong to cannot be superior to the interests of the country. Not one of these smaller units had or even has a recognised flag or a national anthem; yet the flag and anthem we all salute and sing are flagrantly disrespected. When the average Nigerian perpetually defends his tribe or religion against the interest of the flag, there is a huge problem. This problem was pointed out long ago, but the media were thought to be crying wolf.

The natural consequence of this was of course that criminals and offenders against the flag could hide, and frequently did, behind their ethnic unit or group, which vociferously and blindly defended the unrepentant sinner, no matter the flagrancy of the felonious offence. Now tell me, which among us, being so empowered by our unit, would not go out and strut and cause more mayhem? This is what is happening now: people know that their ethnic or religious units are more powerful than the country; so their loyalties are more inward-directed. Our state institutions have not achieved the desired purposes of unification. The tribes still rule, ok! The religions still rule, ok!

For another, the state has found it difficult to prosecute socioeconomic and sociopolitical offenders even for treasonable offences. The reason the law exists is to reign us all in. However, when the law fails to reign in the first wave of offenders, the rest will also go free. Since the law has failed woefully to successfully prosecute and punish the first wave of state offenders, there can be only one lesson to learn from that – that it is okay, folks, to commit treason against the state; your tribe or religion will set you free. They are not supposed to be the examples that the young ones follow, but they are.

I understand that in China, newly appointed state officials are given a tour of the prisons so that they would know where they would end up should they misbehave. In extreme cases, I understand they may even be executed. What we have here instead is a baffling condonement and tacit endorsement of fraud. People are stealing the country blind in billions and trillions, and the state is making deals with them just to be able to get back ‘some of it’. It is unheard of! State governors who have robbed their states into stupors award themselves pensions in billions and we are still looking on! Politicians are earning N39m a month while the minimum wage is a mere N30 thousand a month. On account of these people, social amenities do not exist and we are all looking on! What kind of people are we?

Add to that the fact that the young ones see the greedy hearts of their elders, and they want the same things these elders are flaunting before them, naturally. However, they become angry when they do not gain access easily because of lack of jobs, for instance, but they take it out on the equally hapless ones near them. This is not to excuse bad behaviour but to explain that we cannot plant thorns and hope to reap roses. The eighteen to twenty-something year-olds are the prime of a country’s work force but Nigeria appears to have donated its own prime age group to crime because of the exampled greed of the country’s fathers. Nigeria needs to put in place a programme by which the young know they can access education, sustenance, and housing like any other citizen.’

Well, reader, since that article was published, there have been developments. ‘Amotekun’, a security outfit, has since been put in place by the southwest states’ governors to fight insecurity. There are rumours that weaponized drones have been imported into the country by some people. The Adamawa state CAN chairman was beheaded by boko haram or bandits as seen in a shared video. Things are getting worse. Yet, the minister says the country is one of the safest? This is no different from Minister Fashola saying Nigerian roads are not that bad or Ministers Adewole and Ngige saying we have enough medical doctors at a ratio of about one to five hundred thousand. What is wrong with our political class in Nigeria?

The edification of the state of insecurity only breeds angst and more angst. No meaningful developments can take place in that state. Innovative thinking requires a state of calmness and security. Let us rather work towards that goal.

By Oyinkan Medubi

Listen, without a healthy fear of the law, people will continue to embezzle, destroy and kill. Until we develop more fear, we shall continue to roll the country involuntarily towards extinction. Only then can we reduce our fear.

Fear, says the dictionary, is an unpleasant feeling of anxiety or apprehension. I am very familiar with this. I get this very fearful feeling whenever I have been in a car driven by a young ‘un who is controlled by nothing but racing hormones. Then I grit my teeth, hold on to the dashboard and recite the Nunc Dimitis. I also get it when I measure my waist and realise that I would probably soon require two measuring tapes to capture the inelegant direction in which my development is going.

Most dreaded of all my fears is when I check my pot and realise it is on Ground Zero. Then I hit the panic button as I recall all its implications: money, err, money, and oh yes, money. I have found that my familiarity with fear is now fast approaching the level of contempt, for me, that is, not the fear. All around me, however, I find the reverse going on: people are not only throwing stones at fear, they have even made it to sit on the dung heap of all emotions. Very few people have any respect for it anymore.

Today, I am looking at fear from yet another angle. Whenever I have examined the newspapers, I have been accosted with fearsome stories of cases of misappropriations, gross mismanagement, willful destruction of properties, and of course, direct (and often permanent) ‘borrowing’ of people’s lives (I’m talking of murder, rape, terrorism, etc.) running into, what now, hundreds of thousands? And I ask, what happened to fear in this land: gone like a whoosh?

I don’t know about you, but I believe that any society that does not write fear into its constitution is gone like a whoosh. Someone once got a scorpion bite and made so much noise about it that his screams could have woken the dead were he to have been in a cemetery. His problem, he spat out between screams, was the pain, oh, the pain! It got so much someone around him attempted to stuff some rags in between his teeth so he would shut up, stand still and get some medication. Noooooo!, screamed the writhing man as he eyed the needle approaching him, ‘you have to give me something for the pain of that medication’.

Then the sympathies and conversations started in the form of questions. What caused all that screaming? Was he so fearful of everything? Was he so afraid to die? What could happen that he was so afraid of: paralysis? Why, they all chorused to a man, was he screaming? Pain, he managed to explain; the pain was worse than what he imagined labour pain to be. Oh for a body that would not feel pain, he ended in a self-pitying moan. Now that would be very dangerous, replied the doctor. Pain, he said, is there for a reason; it helps the body know the limit of hurt it can tolerably manage so it does not go into involuntary self-destruction. The same goes for fear; the presence of fear should keep a state from going into involuntary self-extinction.

Every society thus attempts to write its own fear into its constitution (or commandments if you like) by writing out laws. So, a society that asks people not to commit murder (a commandment) or voluntary or involuntary manslaughter (a law) is actually attempting to protect other people from being killed for reasons ranging from stealing to being drunk or even just looking ugly. ‘I killed him because I didn’t like the way he looked’ is therefore not tenable before the law. There are many other things that should also not be tenable before the law: holding public office to no effect; using public funds and office to fund private social causes; taking billions of Nigeria’s money and hiding same in foreign accounts; insufficient housekeeping money for housewives; and of course, my insufficient take-home pay. I tell you, the law should say no to these things.

I’m sure I have told this story before but I’ll repeat it here for the sake of those just joining the class. Once, I went to a self-service diner in a western country where I served myself some snacks. Since I needed some salad and not knowing I was expected to get another plate for it, I simply added some to my dry food plate. The cashier at the end of the queue was furious but pardoned me when she realised I was a foreigner. She refrained from throwing me out but coldly turned me back to rectify the ‘mistake’. My host then took me aside and gave me a five-minute lecture on the importance of the fear that keeps that country sane and going: the fear of the law, which bends for no man or beast.

Right now, however, you and I both know that the law cannot talk principally because it has been made toothless in this country. In other climes, of course, it is merely an ass as I have said before on this page. The Nigerian state itself detoothed the law systematically. Now, we have reached a point where people look at lawyers and judges and ask which law exactly they are upholding: the state’s or that of the guilty. Again and again, the crooked have not only ascended some hallowed thrones in this land, they have gone on to corrupt and infect them. The list is countless: examine many of the assembly, state and local government positions where parties turn the blind eyes of the law on their protégés and install them, like corrupted computer programmes, right into the people’s unwilling consciousness. Powerless and unable to uninstall those terrible highnesses, the people simply have kept their resentful distance.

Many have been killed in riots, bombings and kidnappings, and for such horrendous crimes, many people have sometimes been arrested, but few have been successfully prosecuted. Seriously, many murders have gone on unnoticed in the urban areas and the guilty have merely been shipped abroad by rich parents or the law been made to throw its key away, before putting the criminal away that is. And many of the crimes that go in the rural areas are simply not noticed. The watchman-law watches and sees the whole thing but does nothing.

Wait yet, worse is still to come. The law now takes the guiltless and simply rolls them off the constitution, like. Yep, that’s right, dear reader, you and I don’t really count where the law is concerned, because, let’s face it, we are only the people. This is why it is that the plaintiff at the police station does not stand a fighting chance on his case if his opponent has more ‘muscle’ than him. I still have a cartoon where a policeman tells a citizen to go home and arrest his own armed robber himself because, well, you know why. It is also the reason that many have fallen to the stray bullet of policemen, soldiers and irate husbands and wives. It’s a tough world.

The problem with this country is that we the citizens have developed the nasty habit of shamelessly bending the law for relatives, friends and escorts, and everyone has an endless list of those. This has led to a standing joke that Nigerians have found a shortcut to getting to heaven: it’s a matter of knowing one or two powerful angels. In Nigeria, we have relegated fear to the backburner. Listen, without a healthy fear of the law, people will continue to embezzle, destroy and kill. Until we develop more fear, we shall continue to roll the country involuntarily towards extinction. Only then can we reduce our fear. Get my drift?

• ••A version of this was first published 1st April, 2012.

Oyinkan Medubi

People have been said to build houses with billions of Naira and I have asked, do such houses take away one’s high blood pressure when you enter it? If not, then such houses are utterly useless

FOR electricity, these days, I have noticed that most families have taken to employing one of these strategies: using a generator, solar, inverter, stars, or just plain old rubbing sticks together to bring out fire. The reason is that the government cannot give her citizens no more than two or three to six or eight hours of electricity per day when and where they can. The remaining hours are given to moonlighting, if you know what I mean.

Recently though, I noticed that IBEDC, my own distribution company, tried to increase the hours of power they give me. Bless their little hearts, though, they started to give me eight to ten ours of electricity in the night. When I asked people whatever for, no one was able to give me a satisfactory answer. I mean, do I conduct a night vigil just to iron my clothes, blend my pepper, and do my other electricity related stuff?

So I just prayed that IBEDC would quickly see the light and reverse their nocturnal habits. They did and they have gone back to giving me the few hours of daylight electricity so that I can see the sun better. I also prayed that they would pay the bright fella who gave them the idea not to have any other good ideas. I think they have done that too. So, with the world back to abnormality, I have taken to supplementing the few hours of IBEDC electricity with God’s own unfailing light: rubbing sticks together.

Yet, going by the sums of money this country has voted, or claimed to have spent, on upgrading and repairing our electricity generating devices, any other country would have been able to put air conditioners on their streets into the bargain. Not us; um hun, not us. We, we prefer instead to do things the most difficult way, the way of the devil.

The way of the devil involves ‘doing the crooked’ such as diverting/ embezzling three-thirds, that’s right, three-thirds of a vote for a project for personal use. I have asked many people what this ‘personal use’ means but no one has been able to give me a satisfactory answer either. I think I ask too many questions. I mean, it cannot possibly be for food because I don’t think anyone needs to store up 50 billion Naira just for food. That would require an extremely large stomach that would probably include stomach-donations from every person living on planet earth right now.

So, I have tried to find out just what Nigerians use their stolen funds for and the answer has astonished me, mostly because of the futility of it all. To be honest, I did not think that it was possible for some of those reasons to be tenable for totally denuding a nation of all its resources but let’s see.

The first reason I heard about was that some people aim to seize control of the state funds in order to be able to buy and control their fellow men. In other words, they seek to have power over them. Wow! Those, I said, must be very insecure people who absolutely desire others to worship them. Such people must be hollow inside and can only find fulfilment when they know they have their feet metaphorically on other men’s necks. Such people are counterfeit human beings.

Yet others, I am told, need to gain access to huge sums of the nation’s funds in order to gain access to the good life. The good life includes, so goes the explanation, being able to send one’s children or family abroad to school or live. Again, wow! I think one of the most unfortunate privileges that Africans have, and I believe this is even at the heart of the African corruption, is the fact that there exists a ready market to receive this ill-gotten wealth in Europe, America and so on. The bane of our lack of development is actually the developed world. If these developed countries did not exist, the sense of greed would be infinitely reduced in the African, I think. Well, that’s my theory. What do you think? I mean, dogs bark less when they cannot perceive the aroma of food coming from the next house.

Too many people are said to ‘borrow’ funds so that they can ‘go and enjoy themselves’ in the lands of enjoyment. They conveniently ignore the hard work the natives put into making their own lands enjoyable. Anyone who does that obviously has not heard of the concept of hard work which maketh a man rich. Wealth, I think I have said here once, is not obtained by illegal means.

An offshoot of the enjoyment syndrome is the fact that people are said to use embezzled funds to build state of the art houses and fill them with state of the art furniture. Unfortunately, furniture is still made for sitting on by our dirty behinds. People have been said to build houses with billions of Naira and I have asked, do such houses take away one’s high blood pressure when you enter it? If not, then such houses are utterly useless.

Reader, we are still trying to account for what people do with our stolen common wealth because the lack of development in this land or even in Africa has been tied to this penchant for ‘helping oneself’ to state funds. The one I find most amusing, if it wasn’t so sad, is that of using pilfered monies to keep and control a string of women or men. Now, how is a lady being maintained in her expensive habits by the equivalent of a local government’s allotment to feel towards everyone else? I would be disdainful of the rest of the country even, thanks.

I am told that yet others use such pilfered funds to purchase expensive vacations abroad. There we are, abroad again, the bane of our development. Honestly, I am wondering how that vacationer can honestly sleep forty winks knowing that the money for his or her lounging by the beach is coming from some hapless fellow not getting access to medicines or education or potable water or good road.

Worse of all, among many others, I am told that pilfered monies go to making illegal purchases such as recreational drugs, as many of our pilferers, I understand, are on one illegal substance or the other. It is very unfortunate, indeed, if the nation has to pay for someone’s bad life choice such as drug habits, don’t you think?

Naturally, the nation loses in more ways than one from all these illegal transactions. The most obvious result is the absence of a national coherence. As we stand today, Nigeria does not make sense. Worse, she can’t even make sense of her structures and institutions. Her electricity is almost non-existent, there is no sensible transportation system, the roads are bad, notwithstanding Minister Fashola’s claims, a large part of the population has no access to potable water, etc.

The staggering wastefulness of the country’s resources being placed in private pockets is more painful when we realise that it is all so futile. When an individual seeks to advance his/her own comfort by helping himself/herself to funds meant for millions of people, nothing good can ever come from that venture.

To start with, no individual, no matter how much he or she tries, can ever get through spending such colossal amounts in one lifetime. One requires several lifetimes to get through them. Using two wristwatches at once attracts a doctor, the worst kind. More importantly, one disease or the other soon interrupts that one lifetime. So, why bother? This, reader, is the sum of our lives. We need to get wise.

By Oyinkan Medubi

You know, we have determined that we are no longer going to allow the national situation to overwhelm our humour as a country since nothing good seems to be happening anyway. Our leaders continue to oppress us with our common wealth while also threatening us with laws against hate speech. In other words, we are being given doses of pain, yet we are not permitted to cry, is that it?  Someone reported the other day how forty-something private jets attended some big fellow’s child’s wedding in Borno State in a land where many people have not been able to eat well, right there in Borno State. The jets were fed, I am guessing, but I don’t know about their owners.

What is most worrisome is that the country’s two political parties seem to be working in cahoots with each other till you hardly know which is which again. There is hardly a ruling party or an opposition party; there is just this group of politicians in this country now. All we can see is a minister dancing, and our president being silent, and all of them chasing 2023 elections, even when Nostradamus predicted long ago that 2020 itself may be dicey.

In the meantime, all we appear to have between us is maybe what is left of our sanity and humour. We must make the most of them both this year. Today, we are going to talk about the rhetoric of wealth.

Have you noticed that the name Dangote has been used in so many songs in Nigeria? You know the bearer of that name, don’t you? He is said to be the richest man in Africa; that entails that he is also the richest man in Nigeria. Anyway, I’ve found it disturbing that the frequency of the use of his name in Nigerian pop music is high.

Usually, when the name is used, it has been to exemplify wealth in all its profuseness. In other words, as we say around here, the man is used to exemplify one who is ‘stinkingly rich’. And when the name is used, it is to illustrate the singer’s desire for that kind of wealth; or that if the man could achieve that kind of wealth, so can the singer. You’ll notice people hardly choose teachers or writers for that kind of example.

Now, I have no idea what the man did to earn his money beyond the fact that he appears to be a notable businessman. Until a few months ago, I held him responsible for much of the damage to many of the roads in Kogi and Ekiti States, which his heavy lorries plied laden with cement to distribute round the country. I noted, and I remember mentioning on this column then, that his cement company at Obajana in Kogi State should have been more proactive about the roads they would use than they were. I believed, and I said so, that the system of evacuation and distribution should have been planned ahead before a single bag of cement was manufactured. However, that is not our focus today. I just needed to get that out of my system because, you see, my anger is still not abated.

I am today more concerned that many of our young ones constantly model their ambition on Dangote’s wealth. In short, if allowed, most of them would wish to be as rich as Dangote. Nothing wrong with that, you’ll say, and I would agree with you, but only to some extent. If Dangote as a model is based only on the wealth getting, then it is all wrong because it has not emphasised the right values that we really need in this country, which is hard work.

You know what a model is, don’t you? It is when someone patterns his behaviour on another person’s who is thought to be more superior in intelligence, wealth, knowledge or foolishness. Often, the foolishness angle is ignored until quite late, such as late in the evening when everyone has gone home.

Anyway, as I was saying, I would say few people know the history of the man’s rough road to opulence which he cannot ignore or forget. There is a post in my phone right now which compares success to an iceberg divided into two parts. The part that people see on the surface is labelled WHAT PEOPLE SEE. It is marked by things like medals, cups, plaques and what looks suspiciously like gold. That part is less than a quarter of the whole picture. The remaining three quarters or more is buried beneath. It is labelled WHAT PEOPLE DON’T SEE. It consists of things like sacrifice, good habits, focus, disappointment, persistence, growth mindset, meeting targets, sleepless nights, rejections, tears, determination time management, staying healthy, daily goals, etc. Like someone once said, success is two per cent inspiration and ninety-eight per cent perspiration.

For the comfort of my mind, I want to assume that those songs eulogising Dangote, or any other successful person, be he/she a renowned doctor, magnate, politician, performing artist, etc., are meant to serve as inspiration for people. The understanding should then be clear that to be like those people, people need to lose their own sleep as well. In short, they should also perspire seriously like their models.

Unfortunately, in Nigeria, what motivates success is getting more and more unclear. For most of us, the motivation appears to be this insane desire to inspire fear and envy in our neighbours. The thrill of watching their faces as they envy us is almost worth any amount of trouble we take to get wealth. Worse, the thrill of watching our neighbours squirm under the lack of the affordances of wealth or success that come to us is past any commentary. So, if only to be able to oppress neighbours with new toys of necessity – electricity, water, big house, big cars, big wives, big debts, etc., – we would be rich!

This is why Austin O’Malley, the twentieth century American writer, says that ‘God shows his contempt for wealth by the kind of person he selects to receive it’. And, ‘because he didn’t ask for titles and honours and dignities but only for immense wealth, these other things came to him also,’ says Saki (H. H. Munro), another twentieth century English writer.

I don’t think that getting rich should be anyone’s life goal. Doing that breeds a lot of let-downs, criminality and plain silliness. ‘Be not concerned if thou findest thyself in possession of unexpected wealth;’ says J. J. Roche, yet another twentieth century writer, ‘(God) will find an unexpected use for it.’

It is not wrong to eulogise Dangote (or anyone else for that matter) in song or play. What is wrong is to do so for the wrong reasons. The virtues that promote true development for the individual and the nation far outweigh the importance of wealth.

For far too long, the national ethos has been built on wealth for the sake of wealth, the gathering of money for its own sake. This even negates the spirit of capitalism; the western economic model we purport to be emulating. That model says that, as I understand it, to each as he is able in his work, not in outright robbery or outright corruption.

Rather, the national ethos has made money worship the sole aim of gathering money in Nigeria. That is why, even as the country languishes in poverty, some of our countrymen are said to be worth tens of billions of dollars while the country languishes, and they can sleep the sleep of the just. This, again, is past commentary.

Gather ye money while ye may, but justly. Indeed, it is better to gather the work experience first. That is what ennobles more.

There was the general election itself which we’re still trying to categorise into pain, gain or being stranded somewhere on Planet Mars. Someone has described it more as being Lost in Space. I think they’re thinking of the economy.

READER, welcome to this new year. Although, to be quite honest with you, I have found it hard indeed to tell the difference between last year and this year. I mean, last week Tuesday was last year and the next day, Wednesday, was the new year. Who does that? It was just one midweek day dovetailing into another midweek day. Now, if the year had ended on a Sunday, and the new one started two days later, I might have noticed something. As it is though… Anyway, since people persisted in shouting out the greeting of Happy New Year to me, I had no choice but to reply, if only to make sure I did not get stuck in last year when everyone else would have moved on.

All your Merry Christmas and Happy New Year greetings were thus not wasted on me, dear reader, I assure you. They assured me that indeed, I had not become stuck in time. You know, ever since I learnt of Einstein’s Relativity theory, I have become very suspicious of science. I have lived in mortal fear of being stuck in time or space, you know, like when you get stuck in the blades of a revolving door and you find yourself pressed in between two slats of blade threatening to cut you into two.

I try to look back on last year and all its pitfalls and I find my memory failing. I mean, there were many ups and downs, highs and lows, probably many more downs and lows than ups and highs, yet I seem to have developed the Nigerian syndrome regarding them. You know what that is, don’t you? It is the penchant for forgetting and downplaying the past good and bad deeds of people in public spaces but choose rather to remember and uplift only their propinquity and congeniality. In short, by highlighting their kinship with such public servants rather than their suitability, most people see themselves moving a little inch closer to the mother of the goose that lays the golden egg. Some people just like scrambled eggs, that’s all.

Ok, now I remember something. … No, it’s gone again. … Yes, there it is. Oh dear, it doesn’t signify much. Let’s see now… The reelection of Governor Bello in Kogi State … That’s a pain, yes? Ok. Then, there was the general election itself which we’re still trying to categorise into pain, gain or being stranded somewhere on Planet Mars. Someone has described it more as being Lost in Space. I think they’re thinking of the economy.

Oh yes, it was also the year of the ravaging, destructive, no-good bandits whom no one owned up to having invited into the country to wreak havoc. Then, of course, it was the year of the unprecedented ministerial utterances that did the country’s psyche no good. Not only were they ill-timed, they were out of sync with the internal dynamics, aspirations or internal revenue of the country. Talking of putting one’s foot in it. Looking back, I also remember the closure of our borders during the year to my favourite type of rice. Naturally, the new year has inherited the highest all-time price of rice. It was also the year of the unending Boko Haram… insurgencies of all kinds, especially in kitchens across the land… Oh, such groans coming out of me should not be heard by any living being right now.

Anyway, I can go on with the pains, gains and other hoverings, but time, and space (again!), will not permit. Certainly, the value of any year lies literally in how many laughs it engenders. Let me think now. There was this story about the minimum wage but that is not funny, mainly because inflation is already waiting for it. Then there are the stories of governors (e.g. one complaining he had not received his allowance of ten million Naira, not to talk of pension, since he ‘retired’ – ha, ha!), senators, parties, etc., all of the same ilk of dark or gallows humour.

Sometime last year, The Economist magazine predicted gloom for our economy. I think they got the picture wrong though. I think it’s a lot worse, for people are barely holding on by the skin of their teeth now. That is why it is essential that we get some tips on how to hang on properly by our two front teeth at least; if you lack that, then I am sorry, you might have to use a couple of your incisors.

To make this new year count, we must look ahead into it with something akin to hope. I know, hope is not easily transferrable to the plate. If you believe though, anything can happen. Hope makes us to remember that tough times never last, tough people do only if they take their hands out of the till and immerse it in the murky waters of work. Hope becomes translatable to something a knife and fork can work on when we find something to do. Oh yes, there is always something to do. Kidnapping or highway robbery are not things to do. Growing things such as food or businesses from the ground up is something to do. So, in this new year, it is time to put those hands to work to grow things.

We could also raise our expectations this year. I believe that Nigeria would have been a better place if the people’s expectations were not so low. This is why they do not hold their elected representatives to account for anything. Rather, they are content to let them get away with the highest emoluments in the world for the least amount of work done while the people wallow in poverty. Perhaps, if we were to raise our expectations a bit, we would get a better economy, transportation system, power generating and distribution system, water system, and altogether a better social system. Raising our expectation means we would stop being content with numbing stupidity.

One thing we must absolutely do this year is to set ourselves to get a laugh per hour, day or week. Definitely, we must see the funny in everything, not just the comics. We must see the funny in all the roads in Abuja being tarred while those in the remaining parts of the country are filled with pot, kettle or rat holes. We must learn to see the funny in the neighbour who thinks that by living on stolen millions from his company somehow makes him better than the rest of the street. All Nigerian streets are filled with them. If you can’t find anything to laugh at in any given week, all you have to do is look at that neighbour.

I’ll tell you what Nigeria needs right now: people who wish to genuinely serve her. Most people are not interested in serving the country, not where they work, heck, not even in their own homes. They are more interested in people who will serve them. If you determine to serve the country, who knows, you could be the first to actually desire to work. So, do look forward to a year of serving the country. It’s easy; all you have to do is imagine that God is about to magically change this country to America.

You know how Americans wax lyrical about their country? Well, Nigeria could do with a fraction of that romance. Let us begin to pretend to love our country. We could practice looking like people who have just swallowed a bunch of roses and the scents are coming out of our noses. What, you can’t pretend? Just imitate the politicians; they’re good at it.

Go make the new year count!