Unpopular side with Thomas Oti
Email: thomasoti@qed.ng
The drama is unending. If M. Night Shyamalan had written the plot for the Nigerian story currently playing in the cinema of our lives, he could not have added these many twists and turns to such an amazing incredulous story of a nation as it gleefully appears to delight in a journey to the back of beyond. There is a most apt ‘Chinese’ saying “May you live in interesting times”. On the surface, it sounds like a prayer for excitement and good times and good things in your life but below the surface brightness of these words is supposed to lurk a dark curse. It is supposed to mean that your life should be full of ups and downs, twists and turns, uncertainties at every turn, etc. Where ideally the prospect of living in interesting times should excite, the case for interesting is unprovable. More often than not, an “interesting” thing is a thing of curiosity, a non-positive phenomenon, an unknown and usually one to be trepeditious of.
These are the times we live in Nigeria. Or maybe these are standard times all over the world. We would be robbed of exciting opportunities to cause change to happen or to make money or to be successful in some fantastic way if the times we live in are dull, boring and uninteresting. As a rule of living and life, interesting times keep our blood flowing and hone our base human survivor instincts. Our nation has never seen as much change as we are seeing now and what is ultimately defining the change for us isn’t anything we all obviously would have liked it to be. Which is the problem.
Change isn’t defined by the boundaries of our comfort zone. Change isn’t dictated by the whims and caprices of our innate desire for automatically better things for ourselves than for any others. Even if we were living in abjectedness, the imperium to change is never automatic in us. As humans, we are more likely to desire to stay in a place of comfort rather than risk change. As positive as change traditionally sounds especially when we feel we are in a bad place, undertaking the change journey isn’t one that particularly pleases us. Comfort zones are set and defined by where we are that we have grown accustomed to. The prospect of any change causing a difference in that status is exciting, energising and enervating. Even though we all want change, only the 1% of humanity go on and take the key necessary steps to make change happen. And then even they need prodding. Imagine where Adam would have been without Eve’s prodding? Or where Eve would have been but for the serpent’s prodding. Getting jolted from our place of comfort is good for us. Change is good for us even when the pills that enable it are bitter, uncomfortable, painful and sad. Just like the changes we are currently undergoing in our dear country Nigeria.
When the APC guys came brandishing their broom and the mantra of change, Nigerians felt like yes they were more than ready to change. The feeling that too many of us had been disenfranchised over so long a time was one that wasn’t particularly pleasant. We ‘saw’ the daily unabashed looting of our commonwealth and feared for the health of our dear nation as we slowly watch the currency life drain out of her. Or more like siphoned out of her. Nigeria was on her death bed. Herfake doctors fed fat on her pain while administering lethal doses of lootocracy; doomed to doom her. She had passed the point of complaints or talking as the many open sores on her body had been well and truly plugged into silence with yanfu yanfu oil dollars. The Chief Medical Officer was clueless. He knew fish business was going on right under his nose but he was a fisherman from the creeks. Without something fishy happening, how could he survive? So he chose to look the other way rather than risk the boys from the creek abandoning fishing and causing trouble. He was in charge of all the fish in the oceans now. So he gave them a free hand to eat all the fish they could. And those they can’t consume they should pack and store away for anytime they are hungry. And then they should export the rest and keep in some fantastically ‘friendly’ countries. The patient was dying. The doctors were happy. The nurses were happy. The family was happy. The relatives were happy. Until the lights came on and it turned out that only the doctors in charge were truly smiling. And a spattering of nurses. But the family, relatives and friends had been wearing a grotesque death mask. When it was time to change, the times they became interesting.
If you walk into a place carrying a broom, why should anyone then be flabbergasted when you begin performing the sweeping task you had come for? The marshal rides into town on a shiny white cow, why on earth did we think he would stop cow merchants from feeding their cows fat on our lands? At least they reared from one end to the other only destroying the crops that keep our body, spirit and soul connected. So what? Others had chipped away at our body, raped our spirits and pillaged our souls. A grazing bill is easier to enact than an anti-corruption bill.
When you put a wiry old man with a change mentality and mantra in power, what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG). So no surprises thus far. The only problem is we are seeing and getting more than we ever bargained for. And while we are on the matter, we are hearing more than our eardrums can contain. Or our brains process. But it’s a journey. We thought the ride might be bumpy so we had bought mental seatbelts. But I don’t think any of us were prepared for the journey of Akaraogun and his mates into Igbo Irumole that we are on now. It will get worse before it gets better (IWGWBIGB).
The Augean stable has to be cleaned out if we hope to get far. And we are not going to like it.
Yet the times are unravelling too. Nothing good gets done in a hurry. Rome wasn’t built or repaired in a day. Maybe it’s because they tried to repair Pompeii in a hurry that it hasn’t been able to rise from the ash that buried it till today. Change from bad to good takes time. If you want your food to be sweet, cook it slowly and deliberately. The results usually turn out much better. Especially if you use the right type of sauces. That is why I love my dodo slow fried.
We live in interesting times.
