Hiding under so many things – culture, religion, bigotry!

It was the Ebami Eda himself, the legendary sage, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who drew our attention to a special characteristic of the Nigerian – that is, his/her penchant for fakery and lily-liveredness. If you open your eyes very wide (an advice Fela was well known to give), you easily see it running through every facet of our lives, individually and collectively – much better put, as a country, as a community and as a cultural entity. We like to chase shadows, believing like that powerful one-line poem of Chinweizu, that a drowning man can become so desperate for life as to reach out to grab a passing shadow. We like to live under the influence pretension – we can see that we are not moving in the right direction as a country and as a people, yet we fail to stop and take a very deep breath to do a proper soul searching, no matter our stations in life.

It is this characteristic, which Fela identified, that makes some people who are fortunate to be in positions of authority to abuse those positions and become monsters, lording it over the rest of us, ignoring the laws of the land, abandoning the ethos of democracy and telling the rest of us to go to hell. It is also the reason why those who are not in power or positions of influence and authority ‘fake it’ and pretend that they have power. You know that popular exclamation, when some people have minor accidental altercations, where one is seen to be shouting: “Do you know who I am?” And trust the Nigerian, a reply would follow: “Who do you think you are?” In those two exclamatory questions lie many of our problems in this country. That people can see themselves as being above the law! What a shame!

The story is often told about an incident involving Cherie Blair, the wife of Tony Blair, a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This was while Blair was still in power. She had taken a train and because there was no ticketing officer on board, upon getting to the final destination and not being able to produce a valid ticket for the journey, was subsequently fined ten pounds, which she promptly paid. There was no exercise of power by a Prime Minister’s wife. In Nigeria, we see flagrant abuse of power by wives and even girlfriends of those in power. Power has a way of becoming an intoxicant, but it can be controlled and measured by people who are responsible. Here, our people lack control. They hide under the guise of culture, particularly an ancient culture that says once elders or those in power speak, no one else can challenge their views! Yet, we all know that if that were true this country would not still be what it is. It would have sent a man to space by now. If you doubt that, go find out how many Nigerians are working in the space science industry in America and other parts of the world.

How can a country as big and populated as Nigeria exist with so much bigotry and expect that it would make any progress? The country is overpopulated with people who live for the now and not the future. That is why in the political arena 2015 is turning men and women mad and all sense of reason has been lost. For them the world appears to be at a standstill. There are those who are busy accumulating financial resource every which way – by hook and by crook, I mean – all in the effort to build a war chest to fight the 2015 elections. They have taken their eyes off the problems of today that require their attention and focus has shifted. Two years to 2015, they are just past the midterm of their reign, they have nothing concrete to show for the time they have put in so far, yet they seek to abandon the promises they made in 2011 to concentrate on the next conquest. And we wonder why this country is not making progress? If only they will listen to the small voice of reason that whispers quietly into their ears the following admonition: “There was once a President called Musa Yar’Adua. He was a sick man and should have known he was not up to the job in that state and so could have told those who fished him out that the job was not for him. Today, no matter what anybody says, he is only remembered for being a President who just occupied the throne for a time and just sat there looking, waiting to exit.”

Many would wish that Fela was alive to witness the reign of Yar’Adua. He would have produced good music from that experiment, because that was what it was. But as this is the beginning of a weekend, and as I am led to believe that several indulgees who are gathered today at The Square Table, and are lucky to have a place of work that they go to, are already singing TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday), I don’t want to waste any more of your precious time trying to paraphrase the message that Fela put out decades ago about ourselves. I think it is best served by the Ebami Eda himself! In the classical Sorrow, Tears and Blood, the wise one, who saw far into the future, sang:

  Hey, yeah

Everybody run, run, run

 La, la, la, la

My people self dey fear too much 

We fear for the thing we no see

We fear for the air around us

We fear to fight for freedom

We fear to fight for liberty 

We fear to fight for justice 

We fear to fight for happiness 

We always get reason to fear

We no want die, we no want wound

We no want quench, we no want go

I get one child, mama dey for house

Papa dey for house, I want build house

I don build house, I no want quench

I want enjoy, I no want go, ah

So policeman go slap your face 

You no go talk 

Army man go whip your yansh

You go dey look like donkey 

 Those who have power abuse the power that they have. But they are actually largely fake and lily-livered men and women, who are not conversant with what history does to people in this country. History is punishing and it confines non-performers, abusers of their positions to the cesspit, often brought out for vilification and opprobrium! Those who don’t have power show their fakery by pretending to be powerful. That is why you will find across the country many civilians who have nothing to do with the military very quick to display military stickers on their cars in the attempt to scare the rest of us. It gets even more laughable when you see a vehicle with a military beret or horsewhip displayed on the dashboard all in an effort to ensure that the occupants avoid scrutiny by the law; and to scare the living daylight out of supposed bloody civilians, who are supposed to still carry the fear of the military even when we are in full-fledged democracy. This is where these pseudo-democrats are failing all of us.

If you asked me, fellow indulgees, we are still in a big pile of mess! There is nothing to suggest hope is being inspired by anybody that is closely or remotely connected to politics. There is no way a winner-takes-all attitude can lead any country out of its deep mess. We are in real trouble!

 By: PHILLIP ISAKPA