Today is the International Day of Happiness, a day that is often commemorated with tremendous pleasure and enthusiasm globally. Indeed it is a day that represents a shift in global attitudes towards well-being and the recognition of happiness as a human right. CHINAKA OKORO, however, writes that there are doubts about the possibility of people feeling good in the midst of wars, wildfires, droughts, poverty, hunger, paying ransom to kidnappers to secure loved one’s freedom, bad roads that damage people’s cars, lack of potable water and other inadequacies that are not justiciable
A major player in the country’s beverage industry uses the phrase “open happiness” as a unique selling point (USP). The import of this bold USP comes to the fore as the world celebrates this year’s United Nations International Day of Happiness. Like the restless bubbles that make the beverage ever lively and refreshing, certain factors contribute to people’s happiness or sadness.
Some commentators have interrogated the relevance of proclaiming a day for the global commemoration of happiness, in a world fraught with distress, both manmade and natural. However, the United Nations in its resolution 66/281 of July 12 2012, proclaimed March 20 as the International Day of Happiness in recognition of the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of humankind and the importance of their recognition in public policy objectives.
This year’s International Day of Happiness theme is, “Keep calm, stay wise, and be kind.” An explication of this theme may provide a deep understanding of the entire narrative. First, no matter what happens in one’s life, one should keep calm and think about the solution. This is so because a calm mind can solve any problem or issue. Second, one should stay wise and be wise in one’s words of expression and one’s actions. The International Day of Happiness represents a shift in global attitudes towards well-being and the recognition of happiness as a human right.
Several authorities have expounded on what constitutes happiness. Some noted that for one to be said to be happy, one must experience “an agreeable feeling or condition of the soul arising from good fortune or propitious happening of any kind. It is also a state of well-being characterised by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.”
However, happiness is said to transcend moments of contentment or gratification. It translates to peace of mind. Nevertheless, happiness is not just about one being happy but how many are happy in their lives because of one’s efforts to lift others.
Any wonder the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres noted that “in 2023, we need peace, now more than ever. Peace with one another, through dialogue to end the conflict. Peace with nature and our climate, to build a more sustainable world. Peace in the home, so women and girls can live in dignity and safety. Peace on the streets and in our communities.
“Around the world, 100 million people were on the move, fleeing from wars, wildfires, droughts, poverty and hunger. In 2023, let’s put peace at the heart of our words and actions.”
Former United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, also stated that “the twin concepts of happiness and well-being feature in international discussions of sustainable development and the future. “Many countries are going beyond the rhetoric of quality of life to incorporate practical measures to promote these concepts in their legislation and policy-making.
“Happiness may have different meanings for different people. But we can all agree that it means working to end the conflict, poverty and other unfortunate conditions in which so many of our fellow humankind live. Happiness is neither a frivolity nor a luxury. It is a deep-seated yearning shared by all members of the human family. It should be denied to no one and available to all. Now is the time to convert this promise into concrete international and national action to eradicate poverty, promote social inclusion and inter-cultural harmony, ensure decent livelihoods, protect the environment and build institutions for good governance. These are the foundations for human happiness and well-being.”
For Amaka Iwuala, an insurance expert with Leadway Assurance Company Limited, joy, happiness and Nigerians are strange bedfellows, stating that Nigerians have been suffering from the effects of bad governance.“ There is no Nigerian that is happy. Any Nigerian that seems happy feigns it or is under the influence of alcohol. All policies and programmes enunciated by the government are anti-people.
“Nigerians are just getting off the throes of financial stress due to no fault of theirs. Their only offence is that they are Nigerians. The government, without thinking or thinking irresponsibly, decided to carry out a redesign of the country’s currency as the 2023 general elections were around the corner.
“Nigerians are in dire need of cash. Even those who took their money to the banks as instructed by the authorities cannot access their cash. There is much back-and-forth in terms of the use of the old naira notes vis-à-vis the new ones. There is hunger in the land as those who sell what the people need do not accept payment by electronic transfer. There is no financial security.
“Again, the rate of inflation has weakened the purchasing power of most Nigerians. Prices of foodstuff are getting out of the reach of the poor in Nigeria. This resulted from the high price of petrol which virtually affects prices of other commodities,” Amaka said.
Ms Chinasa P. O. Ihebuzoaju, a staff member of Konga Online Shopping Limited, explained happiness from the Aristotelian viewpoint. Even though she approached the issue of happiness from an existentialist perspective, Chinasa, a graduate of History and International Relations, believes that “human life should be seen from the angle of living life in a rewarding manner. God created man to realise the potential of his creation. This entails making an option for the poor by asking everyone to realise the plight of those who struggle to survive and to put the needs of the most vulnerable members of society into consideration.
“The option for the poor does not mean pitting one group against another, but rather, it calls us to strengthen the whole community by assisting those who are most vulnerable.
“From the Scriptures, we learn that the justice of a society is tested and judged by its treatment of the poor. So said, existentialism is typically focused on individual human lives and the inevitability of suffering and choice for each individual.”
In the same manner, Ms Nnenna Chukwuani, a graduate of Economics and also a member of staff of Konga Online Shopping Limited posited that “Nigerians are not a happy people. This is a place where nothing works. Our leaders do not care about the people unless there is any relationship or connection among them. The majority of Nigerians are poor and in a state of docility. They have ‘no right’ to react or reject a source of pain to them. This is so because the leaders have weaponised poverty.
“If the world is bent on celebrating the International Day of Happiness, certainly it won’t happen in Nigeria because the citizens will have nothing to celebrate about.
“This is why Aristotle noted that ‘happiness can only exist in a country if virtue thrives.’
“This implies that Nigeria is in the state it is because of the endemic corruption and other societal contradictions that exist in the country. It also implies that if corruption is dethroned and virtue enthroned, happiness would begin to flow in Nigeria.”
First UN conference on happiness
Regardless of the experiences the people are going through, the United Nations maintains that whatever the situation with humankind could be, there are conditions when a man feels good despite the horrendous situation. This happy moment may be transitory.
So, on April 2, 2012, the first United Nations conference on happiness was held at the UN headquarters where the General Assembly adopted a resolution which decreed that the International Day of Happiness would be observed every year on March 20. At the conference, the UN made a case for a happiness-based economy.
In a report by Seán Wood, the CEO of Positive News Magazine said the delegates at the conference proposed making well-being the central goal of economic development. He described it as a significant step towards governments placing well-being at the heart of economic progress. Following the conference, well-being is now intended to be at the centre of new sustainable development goals, which replaced the millennium development goals that were terminated in 2015.
Also at the meeting, the Director of Action for Happiness, Mark Williamson said: “This (the happiness resolution) will add a positive aspiration to improve human happiness alongside existing essential goals such as eradication of extreme poverty and universal education.”
These are noble proposals that are supposedly germane to human development. But, are these proposals realistic in our world fraught with hunger, insecurity; low human development index (HDI), diseases, poverty and some grief-engendering issues such as tribalism, nepotism and corruption, among others? Does happiness manifest in situations devoid of encouraging experiences?
An American psychologist, educator, and author Martin Elias Peter Seligman, in his 2002 book Authentic Happiness, noted that “happiness is made up of positive emotion, engagement and meaning.” He also identified eight external factors that affect an individual’s happiness. The eight factors, according to him, are money, marriage, social life, health, religion, positive emotions (e.g. fun, curiosity, love and pride), age, education, climate, race, and gender, even as he maintained that “happiness isn’t the absence of negative feelings.”
Reasons for misery among Nigerians
There are several reasons for anyone not to be happy in Nigeria. If they are not caused by some deliberate government’s perverse policies and programmes that are anti-people, it results from some not inevitable social dislocations. In some respondents in a survey on why most Nigerians are unhappy, four out of 10 (38 per cent) mentioned heightened insecurity as the major challenge Nigerians are experiencing at the moment; a situation, they say, engenders wretchedness.
The security crisis in the country, they maintained, has deteriorated as deadly attacks persist in almost every part of the country. Parts of the insecurity situation include kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery and corruption. The corruption that hampers development and encourages poverty, which Nnenna Chukwuani described as a weapon in the hands of Nigerian leaders through which they hold down the feeble poor, has become the middle name of most Nigerians.
She said: “Even though some religious gatekeepers have pontificated that poverty results from that yoke generated by demonic forces in the life of man; probably because of man’s profane disposition, poorness cannot wholly be as a result of spiritual feebleness.
“Contrary to this puritan view which attempts to see man’s destitution as an aftermath of spiritual hollowness or deviation, God has made adequate provisions for man to live in comfort and abundance all days of his life. One is convinced that it could not be God’s plan that man should face hardship or experience poverty which is common in Nigeria and among Nigerians.”
An exploration of Chukwuani’s prognoses reveals that poverty is a man-induced situation and not an aftermath of spiritual hollowness or deviation from God’s laws but brought about by the leaders’ insensitivity to the well-being of the masses.
In their Happiness in Nigeria: A socio-cultural Analysis, published in the American Psychological Association, Agbo, A. A., Nzeadibe, T. C., and Ajaero, C. K. noted that “the study of happiness, life satisfaction, and well-being has gained greater acceptance, so much so that it has become one of the global indices on which nations are ranked (UNDP 2010).”
They stated that the index was a valid measure of how well people live and flourish in different countries. In one of the rankings, they said, Nigeria was rated as one of the happiest countries on earth; ranking 23rd above many countries that are well above her in terms of economic and social development.
“In the light of the challenging socio-economic circumstances in which many Nigerians live and work, we ask whether these rankings actually represent the well-being of the people. The World Happiness Report (WHR) indicates that Nigerians still seem quite happy.”
The report, which, according to the authors, ranked 155 countries by their happiness, ranked Nigerians as the 6th happiest people in Africa and the 95th happiest in the world. “The WHR report outlines areas that are crucial to increasing the happiness of citizens. They are “care, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance.” If we take just a brief look at Nigeria according to those variables, things don’t look good,” they said.