Children’s Hour (2)
On Saturday October 1st, Taiwo, Ogbuagu and I cancelled all engagements and gathered at the Old Hide Out in Surulere to keep faith with the Children’s Hour and feast on Madam’s Independence Cake. HM, the good man, was there, too—this time with must have been fifty children.
As we and the children took the stage, two young men walked up.
“This program is for children,” I said.
“We are children by default,” they answered. “We graduated from university ten years ago. No job!”
“Why?”
“Couldn’t find a job! No jobs available!”
“Why don’t you start something?” shouted someone.
“Like what? . . . With what?” they shouted back.
Silence.
Everyone looked at their neighbor. Some shrugged their shoulders.
“The job situation is a known national fact,” I said. “Advertise one position—and fifty thousand people will show up. But today we came to help these children find answers to their questions.”
“We heard about it. And we came to help. . . . Maybe we can find answers to our own questions. Please let us help.”
And so the conference began with fifty little children and two Big Children.
One little girl raised her hand. “Please sir, last week we did not answer the question: what brand of soap or chemical is used to launder the country’s dirty money?”
Another hand: “And should the bank managers be awarded National Honours for helping to clean the country’s dirty money?”
Big Child 1 grabbed the mike.
“Mr. O.J., it seems we didn’t give these children the correct answer. I think we should give children correct answers always.”
“Too much truth may be too much for children,” I replied.
“If they are old enough to ask, they are old enough to know the truth,’ said Big Child 2.
Tense silence.
“Parents, what do you say?”
“Tell them! . . . Tell them!”
“OK. Big Child, tell them.”
Big Child 1 took the mike.
“Children, listen very well. Banks do not launder money with soap or chemicals. They do so by secretly transferring billions to foreign banks using fake documents.”
The children erupted. “So it is wayo? . . . So it’s a crime? . . . 419?”
“Money laundry is a crime,” said Big Child 2.
“Whose money do they transfer like that?”
“Mostly Nigeria’s money, stolen from the Treasury.”
“Why doesn’t government catch the thieves?”
“Government must know the thieves . . . .”
“And the banks doing the laundering . . . .”
“Yes, government is always talking about it!”
“Government knows the whole story!”
“Government is just our name for the persons making the decisions,” shouted someone from a distant corner.
“Maybe the same persons doing the stealing.”
A lull fell on the assembly. Even the children went silent—but not for long. Hands started shooting up.
“Just the other day, is this why the Prime Minister of England said Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world?”
“I think he said the second most corrupt,” said another child.
“And then some days later he said he had ordered the banks of England not to accept any more stolen money from Nigeria.”
“Oh ho-o-o-o!!! So they had been accepting our stolen money all these years and hiding in the Bank of England-o-o-o!!!!!”
“So why do they say Nigeria is corrupt but England is not?”
“They didn’t say England is not corrupt, just that Nigeria is more corrupt.”
“So, is the person who steals his country’s money more corrupt than the person or country that helps him hide it?”
“Good question. Big Child, what’s the answer?”
“Please, sir, not me o! Some questions are unanswerable!”
“I thought you said we must answer every question.”
“But not this one-o!”
“OK. Tell me, is the Queen of England corrupt?”
“Of course she is corrupt!” shouted Big Child 1. “Their Prime Minister is corrupt! Their Parliament and all their Members are corrupt!!!”
“Their entire system is corrupt!!!” shouted Big Child 2.
The children sat in shocked silence.
“Why do you say that?”
“Look,” said Big Child 2, “those people left their country, one swampy little island, and sailed over here. Attacked our people with their ‘maxim guns’—and our people had only bows and arrows and spears. You can imagine the slaughter—the bloody massacre of thousands. Those still standing—they made them work for them by force. They and their European cousins—French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, etc.—they subdued the entire African continent, took over the land and made the people their slaves, developing and exporting all their resources to Europe.
“And this,” said Big Child 1, “was after these same Europeans had wiped out the native owners of North and South America, murdered them in cold blood, the men, women and children, and settled on their land. Then, for 250 to 300 years they kidnapped able-bodied men, women and children from Nigeria and West Africa and shipped them in a horrendous trans-Atlantic voyage to life-long slavery in the Americas.”
“In other words,” continued Big Child 2, “Europe and America built themselves up in the past 500 years on the blood, sweat and tears of Nigerians and Africans. They are global criminals of the first order. What God gave them the mouth to call Nigerians corrupt???”
At this point Madam strode into the dining hall, followed by a huge trolley with an enormous green-white-green cake whose crest scraped the rafters.
“HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!!!”
Onwuchekwa Jemie