A Daring Diary and Fearless Embrace of the Truth -By Jimi Bickersteth

The slow moving Akute river, (near where I was putting this together; Akute, once away from civilization, but now a bubbling commune), that supplies the ‘giant Lagos’ with pipe borne water, wound through a dense undergrowth of saw-grass and duckweed. The great naked roots of the mangrove trees in the mud give the impression of a forest on stilts. An oppressive, tropical heat hung over the river.

The streets on the other side of the river looked like entering a 1900 movie set, as if they were sleepily and still compos mentis stepping out of the past. The streets were lined with trash bins that smelt as if each of them contained a rotting corpse. Stinking trash bins, used contraceptives and used sanitary towels brought from afar by flash floods lay in the gutters where a number of fat roaches were having fun.

The Abuja city and the ‘new Lagos Atlantic city’ skylines, in contrast to the mess here, has the reputation of being two of the most expensive, lush-plush cities in the world and fully equipped with gimmicks the rich can’t live without. To keep this reputation and to cosset the billionaires and teeming teeing numbers of tycoons that thronged the two African cities looking dapper as if they had stepped straight out of the pages of Gone With The Wind.

For these tycoons, who lives in those locales as Asokoro, Apo, Banana and Snake islands, who’ve come up from nothing and throw their money around, it is essential to employ a vast army of workers, street-cleaners, hotel staff and life-guards, unlike this our compact town of tatty bungalows, cheap eating-places, noisy tough bars where boys, (and here I’m not researching the boys, sorting the goats from the sheep, I’m only making a general statement as the goats far outnumbered the sheep) with nothing to live for or a nice promising future to look up to milled aimlessly around and created noise, and experience the same tension, the same danger, the same excitement.

I watched the young frolicking and listened to their distant shouts. They had that soppy expression kids get when they are turned on. Living like orphans left to chart an unknown world, and with one lewd music flowing and following the other. I looked at the girls and felt sorry for them. Beautifully built girls, adrift, and struggling to survive as so many kids in these clime, are struggling to survive. What had they to offer? Nothing anyone wanted except that beautifully built bodies and their willingness to drop on their backs on a bed.

It never crossed their young, stupid-minds that the years move on and they would become less and less attractive. Men hunted for the young. Right now, with all the assurance these young bodies gave them, they couldn’t imagine that the time would come when some other girls, struggling to survive, would push them down the lust-queue to the waiting perverts and the drunks who would grab anyone in the shape of a woman. The foregoing ad-libbed as a prologue, happens to be side issues, although important in a nation that was apparently floating in a sleep mode.

The sun had set and the shadows were lengthening at the time I was opening my bunk’s lid still wondering and thinking of the boys and girls living under the illusion and pretences of been able to handle their ‘life.’ I discovered that no talk will ever influence the kids of today whatever gender unless they want to listen. I switched on the TV and watched Simi screaming into a mike. She jiggled her backside clawed at the air and screamed: I love you. I love you! I love you! I tried the other channels, but got more or less the same treatment so I switched off.

The noise on the street came back to haunt me. The noise that sounded as if the third world war had began for a loose generation without direction and astute role models. Heavy rain clouds had brought darkness early, and in any case, it was a season of shorter days longer nights. I also began to wonder why it seems everywhere we turn these days, we’re confronted with reminders of how much division there is in our nation and how much suffering goes along with it. Even among colleagues, neighbours and family members, it can sometimes seem mainly impossible to come to a consensus about what is true about our existence, about sustenance and wherewithal, in an environment that has become deeply polarized. 
The issues were further compounded by the nation’s inability to shake the tambourine on how to live together and also cultivate core competencies to be able to navigate a stand for truth in a world that was becoming confusing.

Have you noticed that everyone seems to be walking around with a different “truth” these days? In a world run amok with conspiracy theories, fake news, and polarised views on even the most basic scientific facts. It can often feel like the very ideal of truth is slipping through our fingers.

In today’s world of polarised cultural atmosphere navigating the minefields of competing opinion we encounter–both in ourselves and others–is becoming high art. But should be an art with a growth mindset that requires the questioning of old assumptions, and take a stand on what is believed to be the truth while remaining consistently open to expanding and even changing perspective.

The 1st October 2021 Sowore led ‘Buhari Must Go’ on some Abuja street while the independence celebration was going on at the Unity park reminded me of the spark of courage in a panic of agitations and the type that forced the October 2020 #ENDSARS and its attendant carnage whose bandwagon effects appeared to have been snuffed out. The feeble struggle, the government took no notice, as it kept handling the nation with the impersonal indifference of a slaughterman preparing cattle for the hammer. With debts left, right and centre, the nation continues to grope literally and figuratively in pitch-black passage.

At 61 and still waddling in darkness and with the skyrocketing prices of things including edibles and the explanation on every lips was that “Dollar has increased”, whatever that means, in spite of the Dow Jones index way down. Still the Nigerian people have that determined strong faces of a people struggling to keep up a standard and refusing to accept the bitter fact that, for them, standards were slipping out of reach.

Meanwhile, the nation’s ruling class live in opulence both at home and abroad. Their status symbol, their exquisite Burj khalifa’s, compact, white-washed with small garden, an immaculate, expensive lawn and standard roses. The roses were exhibition blooms and the kind I would have liked someone to put on my grave when my time came. The long-stemmed blood-red roses you have to pay high for at a florist.

The present crops of politicians, lawmakers and the ruling elites, some of who were two-time state governors gave the impression of one that had worked hard, suffered little, and had finally reached their haven. This and more has caused disagreeable publicity and a reflection on the nation’s democracy, governance, politics and general administration, even now, as I collate in my mind what was happening to and in the nation today.

Dissecting PMB’s (whose expression that Friday 1st October midday would have curdled milk) 61st independence Day broadcast did little to assuage the feelings and summaries of helplessness and hopelessness all around. It seems the nation was not making progress, enough progress and was lacking in impetus. You can’t stop babies growing up, what in all goodness was stopping Nigeria’s growth at sixty one.

The darkness came down on the nationals as if a blanket had been thrown over its head, and the government also could see nothing while it’s trying to see where it was going. The political leaders the people could see were no more human to them than the close-up of a movie star on a cinema screen. The people now know that survival and growth and development, advancement and comfort is not only in obtaining loans for railway alone, dead men and women, boys and girls don’t ride on railways coaches.

It is sad that with the quality of life of Nigerians abysmally low and spending money in short supply or absolutely scarce in some instances, the nation’s brimming army of youths who are largely unemployed or unemployable or underemployed have come to seek succour in the countless numbers of gambling and betting shops and sites, tramadol, codeine, and various types and colours of ethanol laden beverages. And to the rescue came bigbrothernaija, a continuous vivacious and inexplicit ‘voyeurism in reality shows’. What a life, what a prospect, what a reflection, what a future. Even now, the future yearned, before even yours sincerely is as a dark, menacing chasm.

That gory sight in the Akunyili’s half-blown head in death giving the face a new configuration and a grotesque, horrifying appearance spurred me on, mirthless, even with my head expanding and contracting looking at the pictures posted on WhatsApp; it was as if the perpetrators of the killings in and around the country were getting compatriots ready for a wreath, and were jealous of sharing their world of horrors with any outsider: does that make the nation want to listen to the killers hovering on the edge of consciousness belly-aching on a placid philosophy of politics, of  democracy, of socialism of equity, and of right and wrong! Even as they carry SMG’s slung cape-wise over their shoulders. Would this nightmare journey never end? I asked myself.
Amidst all this, PMB, like a soldier that he was, there was no shake. He looks completely relaxed and with no empathy, and this puzzled me. In a flashback, his sojourn in the nation’s Political and general administration’s consciousness started way back on that March 28th 2015 morning, when Nigerians trooped out, and in an unusual grand fashion and perhaps the first time in the nation’s political history, swept out of office an incumbent president, with all the power of coercion persuasion and inducements. That mandates was a license plate renewed in February 2019.

Nigerians bought into the APC’s ”Change” mantras and spoke with their ‘thumbs’; and their tone was a resounding ‘change’, a peaceful change that echoed and its reverberations cut through the maze of tribe and or religion, and across the length and breadth of the nation, but have had no respites economically, politically and socially, depending on how you view it as individuals and on which side of the pendulum you belonged.

It must be noted for emphasis that the pressure and persuasion in the’change’ Mantra which the electorate bought into between 2015 and the present, stemmed from their fear of recession and the frustration of retrogression, corruption and mindless fleecing in high places; social ills that were threatening to blow the nation apart. But have the APC/PMB brought the desired succour and comfort, you are wont to ask.

Well, while, nothing was working in the country, nothing was happening to the people. Nigerians have closets full of clothes and yet it still have nothing to wear. The peoples swansong today was a stilled grumbles of ‘all motion no movement.’

Before anyone starts nudging about the railway and road construction forgetting about the mounting debts and liabilities it is bequeathing on generations yet unborn; one must state that the aim of this treatise is not to examine the step by step guide and procedures in dealing with the differences and problems, but rather the focus is on what the disposition should be.

Nigeria is a great and complex country where the social and economic structures are also so complex, to a point where we could not properly interpret what democracy stood for neither could its managers and political juggernauts make it serve the general interest of the mass of the people. Rather than making democracy co-efficient of abundance, it became a meaningless metaphor of a people sheepishly submitting to the state. It also became meaningless to the heart and life of the individual. In retrospect, its easy to see where we went wrong as a people with voting power and became accessories after the fact. Did we not collect the politicians ”stomach infrastructure” and other inducements at the polling stations!.

Nigeria at 61 and were yet to manifest the grace in the transforming power inherent in their great potentials, what with huge and mounting “foreign” and “local” debts. All the people were saddled with today were mere excuses, explanations and more explanations. Yet, there is a glaring fact, that the nation’s sudden and freakish odyssey in to civil rule looks a foray too forlorn, with strange bedfellows, who sit on the destiny of the Nigerian estate and who share experiences they hardly understood nor could relate with; a hallowed chamber peopled with characters with loose values, loose lifestyles, self-absorbed, self-centred and morally decadent individuals, superintending over the affairs of a country that appears to have nothing to offer except dust and poverty and constantly making forays into Dante’s inferno.

It is ambiguous in our nation’s political settings that the members of the nation’s legislature owe their positions to self not their local or state electorate, not in reality, to their national party leadership nor to their colleagues in the legislature. As a result, the legislative behaviour of representatives tends to be individualistic and idiosyncratic, reflecting the great variety of electorate represented and the freedom that comes from having built a loyal personal constituency, needless to talk about how national wealth is being squandered in the name of constituency allowances.

Government is a complex, often overlapping patchwork of federal, state and local activities, and to function properly it requires the commitment of its elected and appointed officials as well as the direct involvement of the citizens it serves. Government may not be particularly efficient, PMB’s administration in particular, but should maintain and encourage democratic tenets, debates and citizens participation as highly held values. However, with a NASS so upended, the best the nation have produced in the circumstance have been unending crises.

Nigerians once murmured, and their misery quotient increased, but now are muttering and screaming, and today were crying and shedding real tears. How did we get from tranquillity to volatility. As the people move to protect their nation from the predatory interests of its leaders, there came the incessant chant of “don’t heat the polity”, this were sincere sentiments that were sincerely wrong, aimed at mass mesmerising the nation and hush it to silence. If the weather was very calm there is not much wind. The nation’s political climate everyone knew had been stonecold since 2007, so heating the polity in a nation out of control and order should be a deserving and welcome departure.

As passive as we are, Nigerians should not be afraid of the ‘wrong’ thing, and should not be scared of telling ourselves some home truths, truths that are in any case glaring. The truth in the ruling elites and leaders motivation and idea of work as something that should be undertaken lightly and airily – trifled with; this are evidently, the types of attitudes that had been mitigating and largely responsible for our usual below par achievements, and the reason why we are where we are.

The question PMB should address at this time of our national development, is, could he provide Nigerians with leadership at its most challenging. Let me quickly add in parentheses that, one of the nation’s most prominent and front line politician Chief Obafemi Awolowo ( of blessed memory ) had in moments of deep reflection, provided tailor made criteria on leadership and development. His views on this aspect of national growth, although pro-left, favoured a greater degree of social change, and that industries should be controlled by the state and that wealth should be equally distributed, which had clearly pointed out who the ultimate beneficiaries of development in the nation should be.

Our political leaders, since the commencement of the Third Republic in 1999 did not seem to understand the arguments about the dynamics of development, which in other words, are the dividends of democracy. This was due largely to the fact that majority of the nation’s ruling elites have a pro-right political leaning, and support more traditional social values, private enterprise and control of industry by private companies rather than by the state.

Therefore, in the nation’s political space, the two extreme could not arrive at a concensus on how to make the inner dynamics of the socialist orientations an integral part of the nation’s development strategy and processes. It is not one’s intentions here, to argue the pros and cons of the rightist or leftist model, save to lay a basis for the core of the argument on dynamics of development, the nation’s experience and the journey so far.

The raison d’etre, why the nation’s process of development was this sloppy and slow, could be traced to our leaders mindsets that ran contrary to the ideals of social integration. The nation’s leaders hardly understood or so it seems the relationships between economics and politics and at the interface between the two, they get lost. Nigeria have great traditions and rich cultures, while the aspirations and expectations of the people are varied and sophisticated. The complexity of our country is further enriched by the commitment of the people to good government based on democracy.

The nation’s development, therefore, should be indexed and majorly, predicated on the people: in the quality and access to education; functional health care programme; in their objective housing and living conditions, and in the quality of food on their tables. All other issues of life, are indeed, subsidiary to this essential needs, and, any interest(s) contrary to these set of objectives is collective poverty of a people gripped by mass hysteria, as we have it today.

It could be argued, that the country had trumped up leaders who had consistently displayed patent lack of knowledge, maturity, experience and exposure necessary to pursue the ideals of an egalitarian society, where justice and equity and equality hold sway and reigned supreme. The leaders the nation have been blessed with, were the types, that were living, stringing themselves to the memories of the past, they were the type that prevaricated, knowing perfectly well what developments imperatives were. They have remained unresting, unchasting, and silent as light, if only they had done some of those things that light can do, rather than collectively, leading the nation down the path of doom and darkness.

The much sought after ‘change’ is here with us, PMB & Co and the 9th National Assembly should know that they needed more enlightenment to be lightened, so that their work could shine as light. Ever wondered what light, literally, figuratively, and metaphorically, could do in a nation dawdling, dithering, dulling and groping in darkness. In a nation swarmed over by corruption and surviving on mere instincts rather than a well planned and articulated programme.

One could not but pity PMB for perhaps picking up the job at a wrong time. Today, Nigeria is not where it was in December 31st, 1983, those ‘consulting clinics’ are now death alleys. Nonetheless, PMB should not grit his gapped tooth, but must keep a wary eye on the swollen and pompous bureaucracy, he inherited, because of the corrupting influences they usually have and wield on politicians. They have been the real problems of successive administrations, and remain so even today. PMB’s won’t be an exemption.

The president should note that modern administrations the world over, and at this time, do more of outsourcing, rather than be saddled with maintaining a larger bill in recurrent expenditures, to the extent where government’s would go aborrowing to finance its recurrent expenditures. He must not allow the slugs and worms in the corridor of power, flourish in their penchant for goading leaders on a self-destruct mode and help press the button, for which Nigerians have always been the ultimate losers.

Nigerians have been rendered unproductive, because political leaders have woefully failed to realised that in the dynamics of development, energy follows thought. We could only move forward, but, not beyond what we can imagine, and what and where and how we are led. One could compare ours as against the USA’s star and stripes leadership orientation.

The nation’s developmental strides warts and all had left not only a trail of destruction in its wake but also a traumatised (H.A.L.T) hungry, angry, lonely and tired citizenry. There is sourness in and the country. The first duty of the 9th National Assembly after the 61st birthday celebration, with its supreme power and authority, therefore, is to:  a.apply a combination of strategy and character in streamlining the budgets, in the believe that economic factors are the prime movers of change, b.that the living and development of the people takes paramount pride of place and importance, c. the NASS by its oversight functions, must help to prime the pump to encourage the growth of new and weak industry by allocating and investing moneys in them, d.the National Assembly is expected to work with the state to sift out the slugs and worms in the corridor of power, whose little idiosyncrasies were to grab the commonwealth for themselves and their cronies, e.the NASS must also designed away to ease out those that have remained stubborn and intent on foolishly keep consuming and plundering the nation’s resources instead of rapidly diversifying the economy and constructing infrastructure, and prepare adequately well for a future of declining oil revenue. The time is now, for the fatherland to move forward, therefore, it should be, an emphatic, no more business as usual.

Nigerians have been forced to defend themselves against previous administrations disappointing and poor inputs to the matters of state with arsenal of angry words, demanding attitudes and bomb of blames, hence, this ‘change’; the Buhari administration was not going to receive any different brouhaha treatment, if it continued with the old patterns of doing things. Even with the realities of technical insolvency, and its threats to our corporate existence, PMB should not sponsor or support any visceral defence of low or non performance, that was not what Nigerians expect.

PMB is also expected to be creative enough, and with the benefit of hindsight, having been there before, to find new means and methods of navigating the maze. The minimum the nation expect from him, is to redefine, reposition and give us a new meaning, and in doing that, it’s doubtful, if the people will accommodate or entertain any slapdash approach.

Solution presupposes problem, hence, the mandate that was freely given, that in itself, was an indication that the nation expect the PMB’s administration to hit the nation with delight following delight. It was a beacon to PMB to continue to address issues and problems posed by the national question, propose and apply solutions and or sanctions. Some of these issues include but not limited to, i.fears of ethnic and religious domination and or deprivation, ii.inequitable and unfair distribution of economic and political power, and government patronage by individuals and groups arising from their historical location in the political system. So, as a way of lifting the mass of our people from their ordeal of struggles, some of which are justiceable, all known and perceived fears occasioned by the failure of the state must be corrected with impersonal, practical and unassuming efficiency.

With the state of things a bit fuzzy, and difficult, as it were, to attract FDA’s; with no foreign companies making inroads into the domestic market, and the domestic economy near comatose, Nigerians whose lives were a constant battle against poverty and weary in body and mind, had been exposed to grasp the rudiments of basic economics, to weather the battles of life. They are now clamouring, that the economy is not in charge of their lives; that there could not be enough jobs anywhere; and that their world as they know it without crude oil would come to an end. The people are more aware than ever before, that their political and economic systems have failed them. The best the Buhari administration should do is for it to capitalise on the peoples prevailing self-help ethos, to save the future.

The Greece scenario could be likened to the Nigeria’s nightmarish experience. The striking similarity- was dissatisfaction with social systems in the nations. Life is unfair, but that’s the way of the world, and when people believed that the government and economy served their needs and interests, there is little or nothing to protest, but when people feel that this systems are unjust and skewed, conditions are ripe for social unrest, often this moves people to action, to change from resignation to a belief that they must do something.

PMB & Co must brace up and begin to think outside the box. However, there is no point in being down in the dumps about our conditions, now that the “change” has come. Its time to stir and provoke strong feelings in the lame and docile 9th National Assembly and PMB to get to work now that things are stirring and a new optimism in and around the nation, to kick start Nigeria’s national life, bedevilled by rots in its systematic make up which has become endemic to development.

It’s lame and it’s amazing!.

Here I remembered my father’s advice: When you are stuck, son, go back to square A, and you might, if you use brains, find an important lead you have overlooked. This is apt for the nation’s situations in need of a wide turn-around or a roundabout. And Comme ci comme ça. Literally “like this like that.”

#JimiBickersteth

Jimi Bickersteth is a blogger, public affairs commentator and writer.

He can be reached on Twitter

@bickerstethjimi

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Email: jimi.bickersteth@gmail.com