SHAME ON ME!

Yes, shame on me! Now that  proclamation was not meant to be self-deprecating but instead to create self-awareness and propel me toward self-transformation. I am a self-confessed skeptic about many things especially people and systems not that the two are mutually exclusive anyway. My skepticism led me to make a choice not to vote in 2008, America did not have a predilection for someone whose cutaneous hue was as such but people proved me wrong. The sense of hope was palpable then but it was more than just electing a president it was the hope that maybe just maybe the ugliness of the past could be put behind us. So today the ugliness of the past is not behind us, but the larger population wanted it to be realizing that in the end it’s about issues that affect all people and so they voted. Watching the president take the oath of office in 2009 made me cry for many reasons. Seeing how much people hoped and wished to get away from the past and chose to make their voices count, watching someone from an unlikely background hold the highest office, finally having a reason to maybe take a step toward believing in systems again, and also being reminded of how ashamed I ought to be of myself for not being part of the process. So from that point on I decided to get off my high horse that was daintily clothed in pragmatism and jump into the rigorous, time consuming and sometimes painstaking process of doing so I VOTED, yes- early voted yesterday. Much to my suprise the heavens didn’t open up but I felt a huge rush of kryptonite when I pushed the red button labelled “cast your ballot”. I had just unleashed my power, the power that made me equal to everyone in any cadre of life since we all have been allotted one vote, and mine had just been counted. I also did something else that I would never have done- I received a request seeking signatures to change legislature and make public lynching a criminal act in Nigeria stemming from the Aluu4 tragedy. I saw it, ignored it as I always do because I felt it was a road to nowhere considering this was being done in Nigeria. I soon remembered the commitment I made to myself to be a verb and not just a noun and I signed it. I didn’t have anything to lose did I? and the worst that could happen was what I already believed so my actions couldn’t cause further damage. And so even though I feel that in Texas I already have an idea of who will win – likely not my candidate I still did my bit and participated in the process; and even though the signatures for the Aluu4 may remain just that I vow to continue to participate not because I think I will make a change but because I just might make a change, and so that I don’t ever again have to say shame on me for not participating! Moving Forward, I urge you to live your life as a verb, and rock the vote.

The answer to the Nigerian condition

So Nigeria turned 52 on October 1^st, and for me it was another day at work so I did my piece by wishing “Happy Independence day” to the other lonesome Nigerian that I saw on my floor at work. The only reason I remembered  October 1^st this year was because it was “Work Day 1” aka “close” aka “very busy time for accountants at work”. Pardon me for not sounding patriotic or excited about “Independence” day, but pondering on what that day meant, and questioning why it means absolutely nothing to me was a journey that I had to take and it left me begging for a prescription for what Nigeria needs. Unfortunately Nigeria is a condition for which all prescriptions have failed but please indulge my futility . My journey began with feelings of nostalgia with the images of varied memories-  going to Apapa amusement park as a child, the bar beach, the fear of “gbomo-gbomo”(Kidnappers) who cares if it was true, visiting the national arts theatre, going to the cinema in Surulere to watch “Aiye” a Herbert Ogunde Production (don’t ask me why) , when kobo was still a currency, Mrs Onuoha, my primary 6 teacher who made an impression on me as all teachers should, environmental sanitation day, "the Nigeria go survive" theme song begging Andrew and fellow citizens to stay in Nigeria with the promise of hope and change- ok you get the picture. Nigeria has changed as systems do and should, but as my journey ended and I compared the images I had against the backdrop of the landscape today and it left me feeling angry, sad, despondent.  Andrew and many others have checked out and the colonial masters have parted ways with us but we have remained enslaved by our mentality and the inexplicable “Nigerian factor” that's masked in patriotism, and national pride. It’s almost as though my people need someone to literarily whip them back into shape and then it occurred to me – let us bring back a military regime ONLY if it’s the Idiagbon-Buhari regime. That government sure knew what Nigerians need – discipline! War Against Indiscipline was a huge step in the right direction and I don’t care that in some cases it was by force-as they say war is sometimes necessary to usher in peace. It was about simple things like the discipline to maintain order at the bus stops and if you needed a whip to remind you- so be it, or to create a maintenance culture with environmental sanitation. But when little things aren’t taken care of they turn into big things like fiscal indiscipline, because if you do not have the presence or mind or consideration to let the man in front of you board the bus without pushing and shoving your way through, surely you don’t care that you have fed full of the entire national cake and left nothing to anyone else. Most, yes- most Nigerians today do not remember the part of the pledge about being “faithful, loyal and honest” and there might be “valid reasons” but that’s for another blog or some other philosophical journey. So I wish Nigeria this one thing at 52-discipline; unfortunately it cannot be prayed into  existence or intensely hoped for as the die-hard patriot believes. I leave you with these words that I wrote last year while ruminating on the Nigerian condition:

So I cry for you- for the rape by your own people and the suffering it's caused for your children, still I meditate for you that the anguish of pain spews from your underbelly causing change that will heal the land. Happy independence day!