Time to Create Some Drama

By

Deola Ndanusa

deola.ndanusa@gmail.com

 

 

My years in Nigeria were filled with so much pain, economic uncertainty and political instability. Insecurity and poverty was a constant feature in my everyday life. There was the constant threat of armed bandits, ready to cut short your life on every road. I experienced it once, and still thank God I am alive to talk about it; the trauma of that incident is still very vivid in my memory The general story back then was they came from neigbhouring countries, and the police had limited resources to curb their activities.  

 

I had cause to travel through many northern states, and I saw real and excruciating poverty and wished our creditors cancelled our debts and reined in the leaders that looted our treasury.  And maybe our leaders would get things right after that. I relied on cassette tapes of religious sermons to keep me constantly focused, and prosperity preachers propped me up daily in the midst of disillusionment and suffocating poverty. I have since been relieved since relocating overseas; I left that aspect of the nation’s drama behind. Stepping on the plane was all I needed for a more stable and less riotous life.

 

I am no longer faced with the daily threat and torture of poverty and armed robbers. At least, I can travel more freely now, and my God and the state are watching over my every move. It is refreshing to have left the epileptic power supply and religious riots forever. Nevertheless, I still face new set of challenges everyday that reminds me of home, and make me wish the economy was better and life was saner back there.

 

The curious faces in this strange land bother me, very few black faces; loneliness has become my constant companion. The language and culture have all become a burden, and I am learning to do things afresh. I thought I was “aje butter” enough to fit right in.  And to my utter dismay, the harder I have tried, the more obvious it shows I don’t fit in. I have since stopped imitating the native English speakers, and have since accepted English as a second language. I have all of a sudden become a “visible minority” .I have become so visible that my racial label has become a burden to bear. No matter how proudly I try to wear it, events at home have continued to eat at my self esteem.

 

 Maybe it just dawned on me, I know I have a responsibility to make my country better, and it is not too late to encourage other Nigerians overseas to do the same. The time for inaction is gone, and we all have a collective responsibility, irrespective of ethnicity or religion. The ancestors of the white people, worked so hard to develop their societies; we equally must make a sacrifice to develop ours. We don’t always have to be victims, and perpetually drown in our own tears. There is so much we can do individually and collectively. All it takes is taking a stand on issues that affect our collective well being, and defining a purpose for our existence as individuals, and the country will soon reflect our collective aspirations and take its destined place amongst the comity of civilized nations.

 

 

I have lived in a white neigbourhood for sometime now, and I have watched with amazement how they tend their gardens, and care passionately about their environment and society. Their lives are more orderly and civilized, although they can be pretty boring too. My only contact for now with my people is the volume of email scams that besiege my mail-box daily, soliciting every kind of financial assistance in the name of business deals. If only they knew I was Nigerian, maybe they would have stopped wasting their money sending those mails. It is weird, but I have enjoyed reading their emails. They frequently trigger a mental journey back home, and make me laugh at the ignorance of our leaders and the stupidity of my people. It reminds me of how far I am from the life of desperation and miserable existence. How I wish I could say the same for every Nigerian.  I am happy, but I can be happier; my frequent calls to my folks and siblings back home still keep me grounded, in spite of all the liberties of my new found life. It is very nice out here, and I always wish here was Nigeria. Although, I am sometimes sad and lonely, but I am very glad I have left the social confusion, and all the national drama behind me.

 

Living overseas has humbled me, and continues to teach me to be self reliant, more strategic, and learning to accommodate other cultures. It has opened up great vistas of knowledge I never knew existed. I fix virtually everything in my house, from the kitchen sinks and water cisterns to troubleshooting my internet connection and computers, something unimaginable while in Nigeria. And it appears my era of dependency is gone and gone forever; my arrested development is giving way to gradual development.

 

Since I left home, I have matured in ways never imagined, and I am believe I am still a work in progress; it appears this is not the case with my country, over forty years of independence and many years of recycled leaders, still the same old story. Their inability to seize the opportunities of the moment for the betterment of our future is quite worrisome. The social confusion I left behind is still rife, and continues to arrest the nation’s development.

 

The inability of our leaders to break with the past creates a social discontent, and exacerbates our national malaise. The country has been handed over to a zoo of nitwits, to run its affairs while breaking every rule of democratic governance. Our politicians have kept the faith with the masses in a comical fashion. Power has become so attractive like pornography to our old politicians, civilians and retired military officers alike; even though they are too old to make any good of it, they still can’t stop craving it.

 

But, I am more worried about the able Nigerian citizens, who have become muted on national discourse, maybe out of culture of respect for our elders, ignorance or our religious beliefs. The most painful thing is the potential cost of this silence is our future. The silence of the years past has cost my generation already, and might cost many more generations theirs. And possibly cause the disintegration of this potentially great country, if we all refuse to act with courage and be united for a common good. The greater majority can’t afford to be too silent for long. It is about time Nigerians overseas stood up to the plate, and helped galvanize and shape public opinion at home and internationally. The efforts so far has not been quite remarkable, our approach has been delineated on ethnic and religious lines.

 

Imagine the news of a 120 million people march protesting the economic and social injustice of the nation’s looters, the IMF and World Bank. That should make news like Tsunami and should help stimulate world debate on Nigeria, and we might see the production of Bono and Bob Geldof clones in a way never witnessed in the history of the world. After all, the repayment of the nation’s odious debt has cost us so many untold misfortunes; this has not been well articulated to the custodians of public opinion in the west. The story of the social disorder it has wrought on our lives has to be told; the Nigerian youths that are rotting away in overseas jails has to be brought out in the open; the parents that may never see their kids because they have become economic refugees need to be mentioned; the lonely women and their absentee husbands living and married to white women overseas, and have continued making babies at the guy’s every home visit. These are the damages the “Babaringa” and “Agbada” wearing politicians and past military leaders have wrought on our lives, they are the social issues worth discussing. And these are the real problems and our heritage from years of misrule by these uncouth leaders.

 

The west is paying a hefty price too. What about their kids, the American, Irish and German mulattoes of Nigerian fathers, produced only for economic survival and left for the state to cater for? The credit card scams, bank frauds, prostitution and the drugs, are all stories the west understand too well , and fits within their daily narrative. These are the stories that need to be told in simple language, and told in the court of public opinion. And they can all be catalogued on Oprah Winfrey show, Larry King life and in protest marches in Downing Street and Capitol Hill. We need to make sure that the western nations understand in clear terms, that there should be no hiding place for our politicians and leaders looting the treasury. Maybe, we might see movements and causes spring up, with actor and actresses scrambling to write their names in gold to save the country. And the good citizens of the world are lending support to ridding Nigeria of our national debt.

 

 

The truth about Nigeria’s problems need to be told simply and in lay terms, and needs not be obscured in academic papers or journals. Our intellectuals have written about the problems of the country and advocated for citizens rights and privileges like in western societies. And human rights organizations have sprung up because of this, and they did battle with military dictatorship. There should be a paradigm shift from this tired approach on how to get the country moving faster towards national development, and the fulfillment of its national goals.

 

The country needs some “drama” at the international stage; we need the world to focus on our issues in a manner that shows we understand our problems and have the capacity to solve them. Our “drama” should make enough news to set the agenda for public debate on Nigeria and its woes. The “drama” should help highlight some of the pressing issues of national concern; that would grab the attention of the altruistic investors, western politicians, media giants and religious leaders. The citizens in established democracies have a whole lot of input in public policy, and once they understand the message like they understand globalization, we might see their politicians working hard to make debt cancellation a critical aspect of their policies for Nigeria.

 

 

The country needs us all, irrespective of ethnicity, whether you are Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba, Ibibio, Kaje Gwari , Tiv , Urhobo, Efik , Edo, Kanuri, Igala or Nupe. Nigeria should hold a promise of hope and privilege for every Nigerian, all Africans and the black race. The size of the country is too huge to be ignored, and too talented to be relegated. Our leaders’ incompetence does not represent our collective ability. The creative geniuses that are wasting away in our villages and rural towns are the people will should seek to give a voice to, they are the ones that need the education that would release the creative potentials that lie dormant that will make the country great.

 

Our country needs all our support, and the better way to save our country is to show the ineptitude of our politicians and leaders, and have them kicked out. And also showcase our misery to the whole world to see, so we can have debt cancellation. Without eradication of poverty, democracy dividends will be very far from us, and the potential of a human tragedy becomes more real. The ship of state shouldn’t be allowed to sink, and it is wishful thinking to hope these folks at the helm of affairs have a solution to bettering the lot of the Nigerian people. We can only ignore this current breed of politicians at our own peril; they have made ignorance an institution and are helping breed mass poverty, disease, crime and confusion in the land. We need to start setting our own agenda to have them accountable for their actions, so we can save Nigeria and her people, and probably have a place our kids can call home someday.

 

 

 

 

Deola Ndanusa

Ontario, Canada