I sure recollect, dear reader, those moments when I am a figure standing in front of a camera and told to smile as the word ‘cheese’ is pronounced. Well, I do smile, not because I know what cheese is (many of us learnt to call the word long before we saw it) but because somehow the word makes me spread my lips only to remember that I have forgotten to flush out the strands of orange caught between my teeth. Just as the camera’s shutters come down, however, I can’t help wincing because of the pain caused by the blisters on my feet caused, you guessed it, by my shoes. So, between the dirty teeth and the pain, the picture is shot. I come out looking like an Ojuelegba-crazed figure, half-wincing, half smiling, dirty teeth baring, and altogether ready for deportation to Mars.
I believe Nigeria is just like my figure in that picture. True, the country has cause to smile. At 59, there are plenty reasons. Just think of the many accidents she has been able to dodge (civil war, coups d’état, etc.), the many assaults of the enemy from within and without, the many aggravations she has endured from her so called admirers (think politically motivated uprisings), etc. So, like me, the country’s teeth are barred in a smile, while she’s also wincing from the agony of her load of troubles. I think our venerated Fela called that shuffering and shmiling but which sounds more suspiciously to me like shmiling in shuffering.
To be sure, I believe few would argue that Nigeria is perhaps the most socially disorganised society in the world. The reasons for this state of things have been trashed here and everywhere, including university seminar rooms and universally acknowledged beer parlours so we need not waste time on them. All our seminal opinions and beer parlour discourses have narrowed down our problems to be governmental laziness and its unwillingness to confront the truth. Sadly, though, like in all old men’s wars, it’s the young ones who suffer, but they are now refusing to say ‘cheese’.
There are worse results. Nearly every Nigerian is suffering right now from social angst and cultural disorientation. I hardly know what these are but since you have asked me, I will assay to explicate them. After consulting my all-knowing google, I find that social angst is a mental disorder resulting in fear of everyday social interactions. It is also called SAD! Imagine, who can blame us for being sooooo SAD in Nigeria, what with boko haram, bandits, herdsmen, kidnappers all on the loose? I tell you, they are enough to make me SAD!
Cultural disorientation, on the other hand, they say is when an individual suffers from what is commonly called culture shock. This is when we begin to experience for real things that are normally and vaguely foreign. For instance, right now, travelling around Nigeria on Nigerian roads gives me and many others the greatest cultural disorientation and social angst you can imagine. The reason is plain. You don’t know whether you are going to do one of four things: be kidnapped, have an accident because of the bad road, be robbed by armed men or, wonder of wonders, arrive at your destination. Tell me, what can be more shocking than that?
Unfortunately, Nigerian governments have fallen into the habit of not really caring about what befalls this country, as long as some of the individuals who man the posts are aye ok. So, let the bandits roam, let the insurgents rule, let the herdsmen rile on, it’s all the same, thanks.
One tell-tale area of our national life is this matter of housing. In reality, individuals have been left to the vagaries of their cultural upbringing. I am no psychologist, but I’m guessing that with the economy getting more and more incomprehensible, many young people actually have angst about their future, hence the tendency to resort to the line of least resistance – lash out at others.
Theoretically, everyone deserves a decent housing arrangement. By rights, every Nigerian who desires it should be given access to a means of obtaining a decent accommodation without too much hassles. This need not necessarily come directly from the government. The government should however be able to pave the way to make this possible by enabling private companies interested in estate development working hand in hand with banks. Ditto for electricity.
Right now, the executive arm of the government is playing lip service to these social concerns. The legislative arm, on the other hand, is even less caring. The latest news right now is that it is consuming as much as 15% of the nation’s budget and the members are just aye ok. One, I think those members think they are more important than everyone else in the state. Two, I think it is also in their nature to think that they are more important than the entire state put together. I have said the same thing, right? Never mind. The thing that worries me is that no one has adequately described to me exactly what this group does to warrant that much pay-out. Do you think they are twisting our collective arm, like… say… you know…the mafia?
Anyway, the result of all this social disconnect is that Nigerians have become a people who have lost their smile. And why not? To start with, rather than focus on nation building, the different nations within the nation are busy (as usual) creating many Nigerias among themselves, i.e. apportioning the different arms to themselves such as politics (to…), service (to…) and economy (to …), and other absurdities. Under that kind of evil arrangement, what can make one smile? Congratulations, government; you now officially have a nation of people who have lost their smile, which is a world offence.
The world believes that Nigerians are the happiest people on earth. I still have posts put together on Nigerians abroad. Come, these posts present the opinions of some foreigners on Nigerians they have lived, worked or associated with. Surprisingly, these posts tell of the smiling, good-natured and hard-working people they know and love, with one top notch even declaring she ‘wanted more Nigerians in her community’. Of course, I shouted, ‘here I am, take me,’ but I guess she could not quite make out my words.
The politics of the land have turned the nation’s economy into nothingness which in turn has turned the social fabrics into rags and in turn, has made the people lose themselves in the search for that crucial reconnection. One word? Lost. Who is to tell them, however, that the answer is in the political connection? Not me, sir; no, not me. Clearly, for want of a political direction, the land was lost. For want of the land, the economy was lost, then the people were lost.
Last Friday was the World Smile Day. That was the day the importance of smiling was once more brought home to us. However, I’m not sure I have the heart to tell anyone to smile when the prospects of having even a square meal in a day are as dim to many as a dim-witted storm.
So, what to do? There is one thing we can do, and that is to make do with the consolation prize: which is to seize our smile, no matter what. The next best thing is for us to begin to insist that national affairs begin to be truly national. Let Nigeria begin to belong to Nigerians instead of northerners or south westerners or south easterners. Obviously, what we call ourselves matters a great deal. Perhaps, when we begin to bear the name ‘Nigerians’, then we can have a Nigeria to smile about.
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