Some literary guzzlers will remember corruption laden African society portrayed in Ayi Kwei Armah’s 1968 novel from whose title this topic was culled. However, for those who don’t, well… I do hope you are able to get
some insight as you read.
I was at the salon on a windy Saturday morning getting my nails done when
i struck a conversation with a fellow customer about Nigeria and the way
forward. Such an odd topic to be discussing as most women meeting in
salons would rather exchange hair growing tips, beauty tips and other such trivia.
Not us though, and especially not that day.
This woman had come in with her very pretty and adorable looking 2 year
old baby girl to do their hair and I was commenting at how pretty her baby was.
So I said “wow, the beautiful ones are already being born”. I made that remark only
as a joke and in an attempt to be witty but unbeknownst to me it opened the
proverbial “can of worms”. It quickly became the subject of a full one hour
tirade on why things weren’t working in the country and how no succor can
possibly come anytime soon.
My stylist opened with a story of a young man who lived in a neighborhood
where a robbery occurred. The police had come when they got the distress call
and shot at the robbers, so while fleeing, the robbers dropped their bag of
loot. In it about 2 million naira cash and other valuables like Gold, silver, gadgets
etc. This young man stumbled upon the bag of loot the next day while he was
going for a run, picked it up and as a ‘good
Samaritan’ went straight to the local police station to submit it. Instead,
officers of the Law who were supposed to “protect” people, locked him up for
almost a week and grilled him endlessly about how he came about the loot.
Accusing him of being part of the robbery gang.
It was then the mother of the adorable baby went on to interjected saying,
if she had found that loot she would never have taken it to the police. She
would instead dig a hole, bury it and hide it for a while, and then she would
later take it out and use it to help others. To some, that may sound a bit
gallant right? But that does not make it right. After all, as they say and so
featured in the lyrics of Wyclef Jean’s song “They say two wrongs don’t make a
right”.
There is also an incident that was narrated at my house about a certain
young man who was involved in an auto-accident a few years back. Several people
in the car died but he lived. While people rallied to their upturned vehicle in
an effort to assist the victims, some came with less than honest intentions and
began looting the personal belongings of the victims. One ‘ransacker’ held the accident
victim’s hand and while trying to pull out his wristwatch, the hurting young
man opened his eyes and asked him “you would dare to steal from a dead man?”
the guy quickly ran away from the scene.
These are only a few instances of the kind of people this nation is
breeding. We accuse our leaders and politicians for being everything bad, but
what about we the citizens? How do we treat each other? The truth is that most
of us have that same mindset.
We castigate our leaders for being corrupt but even the lowest filer/clerk
at an office expects you to tip them or they will conveniently misplace your
file.
I was chatting with my friends the
other day and there was a general consensus that while we know our leaders are
less than stellar in the performance of their duties, we too intend to cut our
own piece of the national cake when we get there. There lies the problem. If
our grandparents who are in power are corrupt and we the young generation are
planning to be yet corrupt, when will Nigeria truly be better for us?
From the looks of things this nation can only get better when our
generation is dead and gone. So, therefore is our duty to train our own kids well enough and hopefully
they can change this country for their own children.
Nigeria is not perfect, but we can make it better.
Congratulations to Nigeria for marking the passage of time.
Happy Centenary celebration Naija.
Many cheers.
