Reuters photo
By
Prince Charles Dickson
Laifi’n babba, rowa, laiii’n yaro, kiwuya. (The boy complains that his master is stingy, the master that his boy is lazy).
“The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you’re not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I’m not perfect. I’m just like you. They don’t ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense.” ~ Ann Richards (recent death).
Nigeria is sick, very sick, we do not really care about what happens to the millions of Nigerians that cannot afford routine Panadol, millions that rely on self-medication and more millions that have become herbal medicine freaks.
We are in trouble, whether Buhari is sick, or his organ has or will fail, Nigeria is the story of Buhari’s health, good in places, bad in vital places, may pack up, may end up not packing up…but there are warning signs, they may be wrong and we hope they are not right. Of the 36 Governors only half a dozen have not traveled out for medicals, from acute asthma, intense migraine, stomach adjustment, pocket realignment, pimples, facials to irresistible stealing hands syndrome and all sorts of monkey business…the sickness aplenty.
Tell me a Nigerian that is not sick, sick from lack of electricity, water, good roads, quality education and improved healthcare facilities. These are the ones we can lay hands on, we forget the school fees, bills for unavailable utility, frustration of inadequacies which all result in abnormal blood pressure.
Sick politicians, sick followership, sick nation, but we keep moving one day at a time, we won’t die, we have a strong resolve, we believe that it cannot end just like that, while some of us patronize Mazi Kalu’s chemist, others leave their fate to Baba Tinubu’s Herbal concoction, many are sick with no choice than death. While another group just refuse to fall ill, which is scary or put simply…SICK!
The sickness is exploitation… so we all do some form of monkey business…”I dey think of school fees, house rent, money to send to village, no be when I survive today, I go plan for tomorrow. If business is good I plan for one week or a month. But politicians, they live on lies that’s why we never finish 2017 sef and they are killing themselves for 2019.”
Northerners have failed the North, Ibos have failed Ibos, and Yorubas same thing too, minorities have failed, we have failed ourselves to an extent ours is a reminder that nobody slaps you without your consent, we are our own problem.”
Inherently it is not a case of a people that hate each other but that of a people used by their politicians/leaders.
“All of them are liars, the North had power and did nothing other than steal for most of it, and yesterday the South did same, Jonathan did not do much because taba ta banbanta da gari’n gero, meaning (Tobacco and the flour of millet are very different things).”
The current circus called APC is the same difference with its PDP colleague, all monkey business. Idan gora tana rawwah, ba chikka ne ba. (If the bottle is shaking it will not be filled). The problem is the Nigerian mind, it is unstable…to the ordinary man, it’s about the basics, not free things, but available things. Usman mai doya buys water, has a small ‘I pass my neighbor power generating set’. Add that to the quasi-private school his children go to, the money he pays on healthcare, yet he pays some tax to government and he still is a government on his own, having to provide security through payment of some sort to some vigilante.
In a system like ours we are easily and brutally open to manipulation by religion or faith. We are on a blame-game golf course while the architects of our un-palatial circumstances feed fat on us with our subtle approval.
Promises are being readied for us again, in cases pipe borne water, the same that was promised us in 2015, and the same that was promised to us by the President.
The same pipe borne water was a campaign promise of the Senator representing them and the Representative man collected a constituency grant for pipe borne water. The state legislator promised the same, by 2020 there still would be no pipe borne water.
All monkey business…and let me end with this story.
Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10.
The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.
The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts. He further announced that he would now buy at $20.
This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $100!
However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his servant would now buy on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the servant told the villagers, “look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $75 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to him for $100.”
The villagers squeezed up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. After they did, they never saw the man nor his servant, only monkeys everywhere!
From Sokoto-Abeokuta, Onitsha-Minna, Jos-Uyo, Yola-Abakaliki, Ibadan-Dutse, the boy complains that his master is stingy, the master that his boy is lazy. These are the two faults which masters and servants respectively find most objectionable. It’s monkeys everywhere we go and we are talking 2019 when the men and their servants have left us the deficit–only time will tell.
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