Naija-Area: Simplifying complexity or complexifying simplicity?

Reuters photo

By

Prince Charles Dickson

Street Parliament

So the biggest court wey dey obodo Naija be don talk say na Makarfi be the right and authentic guy man to hold the chair of one time biggest party in Africa, the political party wey suppose hold power for like 60 years according to one of dem former oga. The same party wey gather people like Fayose the Don for Ekiti.

Ali Modu Sheriff the guy man wey hold swag for like 14 months no find the matter funny especially the join body talk say he has been forgiven by the new ogas at the top. With vexation the former sheriff of the party talk say now the party don enter the hands of ogbologbo thieves again.

Ear wey day ground show say plenty people happy on top the court yarns and e funny as even some APC members and IPOB members wey want Nigeria day jubilate on the matter.

While this drama still get actor and boss, different kind gist follow am, because 2019 no far, plenty people wey no read math for school don dey do arithmetic like for example if Osinbajo go run, or Buhari decide not to run and all those kind running. But any way is a way, no be Naija; like winch we dey sabi snatch defeat from the hands of victory.

Unfortunately as our gist dey go…DISCO formerly known as PHCN aka NEPA just carry light waka.

The Matter

The political divisions are crippling; income and opportunities are as unequally shared as they have ever been; and society is divided in terms of the different lives, hopes, and dreams that the rich and the poor have. The Christian fear, the Muslim Agenda, the secessionist blurs. The starkest marker of this crisis of societal ill-being is the rising rate of mortality due to premature deaths (suicide has become real in our climes, we are competing with the Mexicans in kidnap, neither ends of earnings are meeting, among others) and these problems are primarily among seemingly a middle and low class of whom they elite now clearly see as hyenas, jackals and vultures.

From Fayose to El-Rufai, Wike to Kanu and FFK, and what is the name of that AREWA YOUTH coalition dude; it’s noise galore, the nation, is currently being run like a WhatsApp group where the admin has gone awol. The zookeepers have left the animals livid, elders are mute, and the youths cannot keep quite.

It’s already two years that a ‘WHOLE UNIVERSITY’ has been under lock and key in Southwest Osun State, and a (new) Senator from same state was in a now virile and soon to be forgotten video, dancing away his life, troubles and dancing in a new status quo and indeed no one cares about the lives of thousands of students of the Ladoke Akintola University. If tomorrow comes and a student from that school is found on the wrong side of the law, we would all wear our moral caps and start pontificating.

Somewhere in Lagos, parents in the last 45 days and still counting do not know where their kids who were kidnapped are, same state where a local chief faked his own kidnap, and same state where billionaire or is it millionaire kidnap king was turned to a reality TV king. And yet we are fed with reports of how the kidnappers relocate and how the parents have resolved to raise the ransom.

It is in this clime we see the PDPians celebrate and the APCites still battle themselves.

There are many explanations for this sad sorry story of our nation, above, but let me end with the story below.

The sparrow

In recent times, this story has been tagged; “THE BIRD, THE CAT AND THE COW DUNG”

Ahmed Soulaïman, a Siberian Tartar, told the Story of the Sparrow to Vasily Michailovitch Tolmatchoff who spent twenty years in a Siberian Gulag, Tolmatchoff told the story to Tiberiù Péskuy of Romania who spent seven years in jail where he met Mircea Cãrtãrescu who also spent seven years in jail for having written subversive poetry, and while in jail Tiberiù told Mircea the Story of the Sparrow, in turn Mircea after he got out of jail told that story to Gezim Hadaj of Albania who after having been tortured and condemned to death for refusing to kiss the feet of the President of Albania managed to escape to Romania and there met Mircea who told him the Story of the Sparrow in a Bucharest café where they met and exchanged stories, eventually after wandering for eight years Gezim ended up in Czecoslovakia where one of his cousins had also escaped, and there in Prague Gezim told his cousin Péter the Story of the Sparrow who then told it to his best friend Ivo Hlavizna, a young dissident who had almost been killed by a Russian tank when the Russian tanks rolled into Prague, Ivo met Maciej Swierkocki from Lód on a train traveling from Prague to Warsaw where both of them were going to attend a conference on Ways to Improve Your Life in the Socialist World, and Ivo told Maciej the Story of the Sparrow, and during the conference Maciej then told the story to Jerzy Patkowski, a friend he had not seen in years because Jerzy had been in jail for twelve years for reasons unknown to him, and when Jerzy, whom everybody called Jurek, got back home to Krakov he told the story to Andreij Slominski who during World War Two helped Jews escape from the death camps, and Andreij told the story to Namredef X, a survivor of Auschwitz, who many years later told me the Story of the Sparrow, and now Dear Reader, I will tell you that story, and perhaps after you’ve heard it you too may want to tell it to a friend, or even to an enemy.

On a beautiful winter day in Siberia, encouraged by the warm rays of the sun in a clear blue sky, a little sparrow left the security of his nest to fly and frolic in the air, but the 40o below zero temperature quickly overcame the imprudent bird who fell to the ground, frozen, and found himself buried in the snow where he would certainly have died in an instant. But by chance a cow trotted by at that moment, and at the very spot where the sparrow was struggling for his last breath, she dropped a large soft cow-dung on top of the bird. The warmth of this dung-bath resuscitated the moribund sparrow. He was so happy, he raised his head out of the cow-shit and started to twitter joyfully, which drew the attention of a wandering homeless cat that delicately pulled the sparrow out of the shit and devoured him.

Conclusion

Nigeria’s enemy is not necessarily the ones currently shitting on our head. Our friends, however, are not necessarily the ones trying to pull us out of the shit. And besides, there is so much twitter with our heads buried in shit; we risk blowing it up, and why are we blowing up what ordinarily is a great dream, don’t we believe there is need to rethink critically this current nightmare, should we simply keep simplifying our complexity or complexifying simplicity, for how long—Only time will tell.

Prince Charles Dickson

Currently Prince Charles is based out of Jos, Plateau State, and conducts field research and investigations in the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria with an extensive reach out to the entire North and other parts. Prince Charles worked on projects for UN Women, Search for Common Ground, and International Crisis Group, among others. He is an alumnus of the University of Jos and the prestigious Humanitarian Academy at Harvard and Knight Center For Journalism, University of Texas at Austin. A doctoral candidate of Georgetown University

Born in Lagos State (South West Nigeria), Prince Charles is proud of his Nigerian roots. He is a Henry Luce Fellow, Ford Foundation grantee and is proficient in English, French, Yoruba Ibo and Hausa. Married with two boys, and a few dogs and birds.