Nigeria Daily News: The Shadow Of Hope By Ogundipe David Oluwasegun

The Shadow Of Hope By Ogundipe David Oluwasegun
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Staff on 14/09/2012 12:05:00


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By Ogundipe David Oluwasegun
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
_ Martin Luther King Jr.                                     
                                             
               
“If we keep on living in hope in the midst of tyranny and injustice without
fighting it, the hope becomes a shadow of hope.” - Creative Mind
                                                     
                                
On the 1st of January, 2012, I woke up with a heart full of joy: a combination
of songs and whistling rented my mouth, I appreciated God for what he has done
in my life, in the lives of families, friends and of course, my great nation
which one of my friends once tagged “a nation on a life-support machine”. At
least, when there is life, hope perseveres. I believe the crawling nation will
one day walk and it would one day talk and stop drawling. However, the long-term
hope I have in the giant of Africa weakened as another “draconic” policy was
announced as a New Year special: the removal of the fuel subsidy.
As a young Nigerian writer, I purposefully chose to prevent my pen from uttering
a single word on the sudden and inconsistent policy of the boy who had no shoes
and his fraudulent cabinet members who might also claim they once walked without
clothes. However, this did not prevent me from making contributions in places
where the sudden and strange development was discussed. I also joined fellow
Nigerians in the few weeks’ grumblings and lamentations which was a substitute
for the usual national anthem. The reason for  not writing a piece about the
anomaly is not far-fetched; I only wanted to give Mr. Head a benefit of the
doubt to show us how to assure Nigerians of a better tomorrow by killing their
today. Predictably, Mr. Boss succeeded in bringing nothing out of many things
they took from us. Now is the time for the pen to vex!
In few weeks’ time, a stridency of celebratory jingle will echo not just all
over Nigeria but in the whole of Africa, all for one reason: Nigeria will have
officially clocked 52 years as an independent nation; an independent nation with
nothing to show for it other than death traps called roads, liquefied poison
called portable water, a mockery of electricity called power supply, half-baked
educated illiterates called graduates and of course, the prospects of the nation
which has grown retarded in the luxury of poverty. Yes, October 1 is around the
corner.
In honour of all patient Nigerians, it is essential for a rational, articulate
and unprejudiced analyst to review what Nigerians have witnessed since the poor
boy we did the favour of giving a shoe moved into the rock house. I know no
lucid and candid man will tell us to wait till the end of his tenure before I
can evaluate him. At least, a book half-read can be evaluated. Nigerians now are
not easily cheated. This is an opportunity for Nigerians to pause for a moment
and reflect on the choice we made years back when we chose “the boy with good
luck” over his contemporaries with experience and skills. Will I be right to
say Nigerians are gullible? Have we assigned a fox to guard the hen-house? Or
perhaps, power made the tamed beast a wild one?
As for me, this is the right time to speak before we are deprived of rational
news in the national dailies and intellectually stimulating articles are forgone
for their worthless self-important rant of independent celebration and paper
achievements, because in few weeks’ time, there will only be extremely loud
and unbearable noise by the sycophants who eat from their prodigious table. Our
newspapers will become “noise papers” and our esteemed and eminent
newscasters will become noisemakers all because of the obligatory task of
informing us that the bosses are set to lavish billions on the celebration of
age of the self-acclaimed giant of Africa instead of accomplishments.
Analytically, our parents suffer severely to feed us. Not just that; they have
also become ridiculed on the streets just because of the debts they procured in
a bid to secure us a better life and have peace of mind in their old age. As
youths, think about the excessive lengths we go to secure admission, the pain it
takes to attend lectures on an empty stomach and our determinations to make it
without denting our families’ long-built image. We should reflect what will
become of us after sleepless nights and these extra sweats. We still find it
hard to eat three times a day, let alone feeding our parents who have been
living on the hope of a better future for their children or should they also die
tragically as our past fathers did? As children, are we entitled to
psychological suffering due to bad diets, sight of bombed buildings that claims
lives, poor education, our leaking roofs which can’t be repaired due to
poverty, our mum’s inadequate salary or our dad’s 28 year old car which is
now the cause of nuisance on the street? With all these, one is forced to ask if
the masses actually exist in Nigeria or we only think we do.
My attention was drawn to an enticing news item in the Tribune a few days ago
where it was reported that Switzerland has returned about 500 million dollars
(about N80 billion) of the Nigeria’s money stashed away from the country by
the late tyrant military ruler, General Sani Abacha. As worthy and stimulating
as the news is, I remain unresponsive. Why? The recovered billions will still
grow wings and vanish into the thin air where it shall no longer be recovered
while Nigerians welfare shall be left in a dismal state. Tax evasion is an
offence punishable by law but the wellbeing of Nigerians could be made a thing
of levity without sanction.
Maybe I am at fault for being too sensitive, but our leaders are the reason.
Would you and I have been concerned about the outrageous and comical grammars of
the Boss’s wife if they had made life comfortable for Nigerians? If they had
fulfilled their paper promises, would you have been at home for 7 years awaiting
admission? Would a civil servant of 25 years in diligent and honest service
still find it hard to complete his building before moving in? Certainly, a
graduate wouldn’t have given the excuse of unemployment in a charge for
robbery. Those who observed the last election season carefully could testify
that the Superior was very stingy with the specifics of his flattering
“Transformation agenda”. He said very little of his strategy outlooks, but
was always yelling about changing the ways things are done. Indeed, he changed
it: he substituted the poor lives of the common men for a distinctively
miserable one with just a single policy. As a calculating man, the boss dodged
presidential debates that might expose the unrealistic parts of his agenda but
instead focused on getting the most cherished Nigerian musicians to his camps
and as such, literates got carried away by the erudite unmusicality and cash
activated melodious songs of Mr. Koko, master and the man with 2 faces: one for
the masses and one for those in power. He even engaged the former in both
national and international issues on live TV while his opponents almost debated
to stupor.
With enthralled responsiveness, I monitored the debate between the human right
activists and our bosses on the removal of fuel subsidy but there was one
question our activists forgot to ask the controllers. The question is: how
reasonable will it be to tell a lion to breed a calf? Most of the brains behind
the subsidy removal studied abroad and even bagged their degrees and whatever
they claim to have there. Sanusi Lamido even confessed he could not remember
when last he bought fuel. Yet, they were the ones that deliberated on the
affairs of most of us who cannot even afford a textbook in our public schools
let alone visiting the airports. The idea is perfectly laughable. You do not
invite a man for a marathon when you see he is limping. Reasonably, the idea of
removing fuel subsidy is a good one but I say excellent ideas do not make a man
noble; an excellent way of implementing it does. Maybe Mr. President doesn’t
know it, I will tell him. The hope of millions of Nigerians in his government
was dashed the moment he chose to remove the fuel subsidy in this time of
distress. Fuel subsidy removal is never a killer; the superiors only used it as
a tool for the destruction of common men.
Brazenly, a careful look at the Boss reveals that he desires to be the world’s
most travelled man: this is very much apparent in his constant absence from his
country which I see as a systematic way of avoiding responsibilities. He went to
Brazil just after one of the most pathetic bombings occurred on the nation’s
soil. The fleet of jets for the presidency are another issue that will surely
take a year to write on: as of 2009, a report revealed that there were eight
aircraft in the presidency’s fleet. The boss ordered that three more are
required to make his obsession of wandering all over the world a funny
expedition, without much ado, in the 2010 budget, the sum of N21 billion was
provided for the purchase of the jets. Common men can’t afford a bicycle, yet
the master still made life more horrible by his fuel subsidy removal policy.
Hence, the transport fare for “danfo” we are used to was doubled. The United
Nations Human development index puts Nigeria at 159 out of 177 countries, with
70.8 per cent of the population living on less than one dollar a day and 92.4
per cent on less than two dollars a day. Mr. Commander’s daily meal costs N2.3
million. I would have concluded that the boss is an idol and as such his daily
meals are life cows which he swallows with alacrity but we all know he is not.
Audaciously, I say the meal must have been made of gold and diamonds.
I never knew intelligence and reasonability could be bought out of patriots. The
list of nationalists-gone-haywire is alarming and even the nation’s one time
respected wordsmith became “Abatically” transformed: unleashing his fury on
every frank man who dares to talk about his master’s arbitrary tactics. The
women among these transformed patriots whose creativities would have benefited
the Nigeria fashion industry and are well appreciated in the aspect of event
planning suddenly become experts in helping to transform our economy.
Education remains a sham with bombs rattling off on campuses in session while
other campuses remain closed for fear. However, unlike other aspects where the
masses suffer the loss, the sham in education knows no eminence or status as it
cuts across every level; the Senior Lady is a case study as her grammar is a
readily available reflection of the shame on the nation’s educational system.
To my fellow Nigerians, the educational system we have is nothing to sing and
dance home about, our roads are death traps, electricity is not a thing to
reckon with, the standard of living is disheartening and it seems we’ve lost
everything. Should we also sell our voices out because of cheap political
offices and currency by not speaking in the face of this democratic cruelty like
some patriots did “Abatically?”
Indeed this is a great nation; her people are great people. Would it now be
right to say what we have in Nigeria presently is a shadow of hope? Or is one
accurate to say a great nation like ours has no reasonable head? I have no doubt
the facts are speaking for themselves.
culled from www.oluwaseguncreativemind.blogspot.com