“We are the nation, we are part of this…”

A few days ago, I sat in front of my balcony trying to enjoy the gentle rays of seemingly scarce sun on this side of the world. I scrolled through my twitter timeline and saw various kinds of tweets about the independence celebrations.  Frankly, the celebrations mean nothing to some folks other than the temporary break and relief it gives them from work. And when it comes to that, Nigerians love public holidays that are kind enough to fall on a Friday or Monday. This, to them, creates a really long weekend.  I scrolled my timeline further and saw some similar posts  from some media agencies. Right then, my mind flashed back to dailies at home. I imagined there will be hundreds of fully paid advert, some in coloured, others in black and white, congratulating the nation “on the occasion of her 52 years of nationhood” as they normally would put it. Some more dauntless ones will take centrespread in coloured prints  depending on the depth of their pocket and the strength of their balance sheet.  I refreshed the timeline  further and realized that a lot  of folks were pretty happy and enjoying the break.  A friend pointed out that Nigeria isn’t 52 years old. He insisted that that is  her “football age”, claiming we have been in existence since 1914. Whatever his arguments were, “1960 marked a pivotal role in our nation’s history”, I said to myself.  “ That was the first time we had the opportunity to decide our fate by ourselves”.

But the tweets did more than remind that it was Nigeria’s birthday. It created an excellent platform to think about my growing up days in that primary school in Bukavu barracks, Kano.  Honestly , I cannot lucidly talk about the nation’s metamorphosis since independence without dwelling on history books.  But I can attempt to talk about the dream I once had as a ball playing, barrack boy, about Nigeria from my perspective.  I can remember vividly one of my best songs in primary school was :

“ We shall make Nigeria great! Great!! Great!!!

We shall make Nigeria Great! Great!! Great!!!

Right  now and forever! ”

We sang this song among others while we marched to the class from the make shift assembly ground in our red chequered, short sleeved shirt, tucked into our light blue shorts. It was my favourite of all my primary school songs apart from the popular “Holiday Is Coming” for obvious reasons.  It created an ineffable passion and desire to contribute towards the wellbeing of my country.  It gave me hope that when we grow up, we will contribute to fix whatever was wrong with the nation and put her on the right spot where she belonged among the league of other nations.  I was just too optimistic that the nation was going to be great very soon, as our school song implied. I was driven by a strong belief that in just some few years, our leaders will make the dreams and wishes of every little kid come to pass.

My level of reasoning then meant it will get to a time I would stop hearing the regular : “Money no dey town o. Things too hard abeg. ” I figured then, in my head, that when a time like that comes , dad would not hesitate to give me anything I need.  I would be spared the regular “ Do you really need it or you want it because other kids have it?” question.  Late in the evenings, Dad’s four legged, brown boxed ,  Sanyo television speakers reverberated NTA’s  “ Vision 2000” jingle across the room. Year 2000 seemed so far, but I was convinced that by then a lot of our problems as a nation would be gone. In the year 2000, Dad would be the one to ask me for the things I want.

I dreamt about beautiful manmade features and breath-taking landscapes.   I remember the days I walked around the classroom, admiring beautiful pictures of international holiday spots and breath-taking landscapes around the world and imagine they were in Nigeria. On such occasions, I mentally shared  them across the Nigerian states I can readily recall. They weren’t that hard to remember, we just had nineteen of them.  So, all I do is imagine that we have them around the states. “By the time I grow up I wouldn’t have to travel far to see things like this. Nigerian would be great by the time I become an adult.” I said to myself on several occasions while I hurried up to join my colleagues outside doing the “Police and Thief” game during the school break time.

 Probably , the first reality check I had was when our French teacher was changed in primary four. We got a new teacher I would call Madam Asag  ( for the purpose of this piece). Madam  Asag was a wife of a major in the Nigerian army. They had  just been transferred to Bukavu  barracks. She picked up a job teaching in the primary school nearby which was mine.  Asag’s class marked the beginning of the gradual death to my belief that things would always be alright. Madam’s class were not about French alone. She usually had around forty minutes for each of her lesson period. She took us through the rigors of conjugation of French verbs and construction of simple French  sentences  for thirty minutes.  The last ten minutes were usually spent talking about Nigeria in general. She spoke so much about how things were good in the past.  She dwelt on things that were wrong with the nation and highlighted some things I have never seen to be abnormal. How was I to see them as abnormal? That is all I have known since birth. Telling me things could be better than the status quo  still sounded   slightly “abnormal” .

Madam Asag gave us almost incredible stories of things in the past. How buying a fairly used –Tokunbo- car was not an option in the past. “Civil servants like my husband bought new cars comfortably and had access to loans whose  interest rate were not beyond reach”   She once said.  On a certain day, she told us prices of bags of rice and Ovaltine. She was careful to make us understand then that it is not about the price of the things you buy alone, what mattered more was the affordability. How easy it was for people who make honest living to buy the basic things of life.  The one that made sense to me the most was when she said she could buy  a packet of sweets for less than fifty kobo. I quickly looked at my fifty kobo note and imagined how many more sweets I could have afforded during break time, if Nigeria was still “good” as it was during her time.  My fifty kobo note couldn’t buy more than five branded sweets except If I decide to opt for the local ones sold by the old women –we popularly called “iya”- under the trees where we had mini traders within the school premises. Even at that, it could not fetch me 12 sweets let alone a packet of over 24?

“Nigeria will not get better except you and your parents do something different. Go home and tell your parents I said so. Au re voir classe, a demain” . She once said, at the end of the class. She made  for her big  black bag. I watched her walk out the class and I imagined myself  standing in front of my stern looking father, reiterating what she has just said. “No! its not possible.  That lesson stays with me”, I thought silently. Like the Yoruba proverb says “The dream of a dog remains in the dog”. I was not ready for some African branded Yoruba spanking. Madam’s lessons always left us, as young  as were, in pensive mood after the class.

While  I got this history coated French class, I had never stepped out of  Kano. I had never even crossed the toll gate to Zaria. I had never even seen the tarmac of an airport, although the barracks shared fence the same  with Aminu Kano international airport.  Travelling outside Kano for the first time was a feat I achieved for the first time after about a dozen years after birth.  So each time madam Asag talked about things happening around other states. All I did then was to look at The New Oxford English Course (NOEC)  textbook . I read about the Bako’s travel and read about the concerned city a little again.  NOEC was my first lens to the bigger Nigeria outside the ancient northern city. I would then imagine that I was with  Biola and Alade as their  unseen companion, in ther vehicle.  When she talks about increase in pump price and resulting queues everywhere I would then try and recreate the scenes in my little head by distorting the perfect imagery I have had of the various cities before.

Almost a decade later, I got admitted into the university and could not even get the student accommodation Madam Asag told me was for three per room. She had told us most were originally meant for two students. Till I finished in the university, I doubted If I ever stayed in a room of less than eight students. That today , is history. I can not  say if things have actually gotten better after my encounter with  Madam Asag. One thing I am certain of however, is that they have not gotten really close  to the level of the childhood dream I had.

Back to reality, the flash back is over.   As I write,  this morning in a city in the south of France with the gentle rays of the morning sun caressing my reading table, heralding sunrise while ushering in a new day,  I hear the sound of automobiles moving on the road some floors below. I turn my head towards the direction of the balcony and took another stroll outside to look at the amazing beautiful scenery through my horizon. To the right, are carefully planned buildings, decked with uniformly coloured red roofs. They are sandwiched with strategically placed trees dancing with meticulously pruned branches in such a way that they contributed magnificently to the aesthetics of the environment.  To my left, is  a school, alongside a couple of  hotels. The streets surrounding are clean and the lawns surrounding the schools look so tender and the serene environment itself radiates peace and warmth.  While looking at these views from above, I observed  that the haphazardly  arranged GSM  masts that dotted our skyline at home were missing . The towers and their accompanying generators are nowhere to be found.

 I loved the scene around me and wished we had things like this in our major cities back home. I figured that there is nothing wrong with dreaming, I decided to lift the whole scenery, mentally and place them in Odonguyan, Ikorodu, in my mind.  Oh! then I realized the roads back home  are not readily pliable . I copied and pasted the roads.  Just then, It occurred to me that all the storey building will need lifts.  That is one massive KVA rated generator for all the beautiful buildings I have lifted.  Generators mean I would have to depend on Otedola’s imported diesel, create noise pollution and strain the auditory nerves of those around the vicinity. Oh no! the problems were  becoming too complicated  so I left the balcony and disappeared back into the room.

I ran back to the internet, but just before I typed what I was looking for on Google, my mind travelled back home .  I imagined the cycle of things that must be in place before you can enjoy  internet  . First you have to pay the broadband  –never mind that some days the race is not for the SWIFT-  service provider .  Then you must be rich enough to fuel your generator assuming there is no fuel scarcity.  Then you beg God that it must not rain. If it does, you will plead with heavens not to make it a windy  or stormy one.  If anything goes wrong in that chain of events you are on your own.  In fact it is “Plug and Pray” as somebody once put it.

I figure soon I will return home where I will travel in Danfo for short distances and  popular “hummer buses”  for relatively longer distances.  I will be back  to a place where running a surface train is close to rocket science.  It would be better to forget that the London Central Line Undergound tube started operations since July 1900.  I would try and erase the fact that I know of Shinkasen  in Japan that runs high speed trains with an average speed of 240-300 Km/h.   That, to me, is Lagos to Abuja in about three hours.  By the time you remember to say your journey mercy prayers you will probably be in Ondo State. And that means you  won’t be troubled by phone calls from  family and friends after every roundabout in your “hummer” bus.  Also,   I would pretend that it is not possible to have Shinkasen’s safety  record of no accidents due to derailment or collision for over 45 years of operation.  These things must be very hard to do. If not,  we will  not be struggling to run diesel  surface powered locomotives a century after  the  London Underground tube has been in operation.

I could go on and on about things we could have in  the country. I could go on with my day dreaming , creating  wonderful edifices  and amazing infrastructures in places like Ode-Omu, Omu-Aran, Tsanyawa, Babura, Ibesikpo , Isiala Ngwa and so on.  I know you figure that most of these things will be accomplished if we have the right leaders.  But the buck does not stop on their table alone.  We also have a role to play.  A country where four robbery and  rape suspects where lynched to death and burnt alive in Port Harcourt, while other “enlightened” ones shot the scenes with their mobile camera  is not bedeviled with  leadership problems alone. ”.   It is easy to blame the powers that be in  Aso rock.  There are vices we commit in our little way. The regular “sorting” you take as a lecturer.  The hidden lobbying you do before winning the contract. The agents you settle before collecting purchase orders from firms.  The backdoor university admission  stunts. The excess luggage charge you collect and did  not return to the airline coffers. Yet, we scream  when airlines fold up.  The list is endless. We all know where we should have done better. I am not extricating myself from this. I think of things I should have done differently on certain occasions too.   While it is not bad to be optimistic , it is also appropriate to have people like Madam Asag around us to give us a reality check. They often serve as the spinning totem used in the  Inception movie to make us understand how far our dream is from reality. Such checks  give us the courage and the zeal to pursue the goals, fold our sleeves and get back to working towards making  the  nation great.

In conclusion , I think we need to change the world in our own little way,  so our kids cannot only  sing that they shall make Nigeria great! Great!! Great!! … but see it great during their lifetime.  Do I feel overwhelmed by our problems? Yes. Do I get tired of incessant bombings around the country ? Yes. Was I shocked by the recent Mubi gruesome massascre ?   Why not.   Do I worry for  my safety while travelling on our roads? Yes.  Do I say my prayers before flying?  Why wont I ? I know such things cannot be done except with fasting and prayer.  Do I want to give up on the project Nigeria? Far from it!

Recently , there is a song that keeps me going when I feel like throwing in the towel about my beloved country. It is TY Bello’s “ we are the future”. I like the way she put it in her song  ; “We are  the nation, We  are part of this…” .  My favourite line is “ How can they say that we are finished when we have just begun? … ” I join my voice with hers. We are not finished we have just began. I dare to dream  again!  I leave you with TY Bello’s song.

 I tweet as @shimoshi1 .