Our Leaders Have
Made Us Mad…This
Nigeria Sef!
By
The Chief Medical
Director of the National Psychiatric Hospital in Lagos raised an alarm,
most of us already know of, that they attend to an average of 18 mental
cases a day, this is in Lagos alone…in Aro Psychiatric Hospital the
case is not any better, while I was building this essay I had also
experienced a bout of madness…an impregnable traffic situation on my way
home which necessitated some drivers without drivers’ license to teach
me the rudiments of how to drive like Michael Schumacher the Moto GP
driver. We all cursed at each other at the top of our voices not minding
whether the person you were insulting in your language understood what
you had just screamed.
The President of our
gradually becoming mad republic was expected in Jos and the whole city
was littered with Police Officers, the same Police men that are never
there to cope with crime, the same Police that has been there and
helplessly watched as citizens live in fear and a state of madness.
Why is the populace
running insane gradually, when we hear conversations that go like this
“my brother I am not feeling fine I think I have a serious migraine” and
in response the friend replies “just drink water and sleep”. The friend
giving the prescription is no doctor or health worker. When this fellow
sleeps, the nightmare that he still has been job hunting for six years
after graduation, he wakes up feeling dazed. In his dazed state he
cannot afford the next meal…he has begun a gradual journey to Aro.
We are mad, that is
sadly a statement made with a sense of finality, tell me if we are not
mad, how comes with increased revenue from oil and bunkering, political
jobism, sales of this license or the other, if not oil well, it will be
Privatization loot. Nigerians on an average are poorer than they were in
1999. Democracy is beautiful at least that way if a donkey plays his
game properly in the name of majority it can be a leader...how that
majority is achieved we care less, besides when the Donkey starts
misbehaving the present state of insanity is inevitable.
After several years
in the labour market, (whether qualified or not is another issue), a
graduate sees his course mate whose father was an ex-this or
present-that driving a posh car not because he is better off, but
because of his crooked father or the IMM phenomenon, Ima madu amaka
(literally meaning ‘Too Know Person Good’). Tell me why he won’t develop
traces of mental misbehaviour.
Every evening the
average Lagosian can tell better the experience he goes through the
hands of touts on the roads of Lagos, how many times he has to change
his clutch pad because of the several hours he has to spend everyday on
the traffic and you tell him not to go mad…
Eighteen mad cases a
day, some may see this as an exaggerated picture but the bitter truth is
that this 18 are just the few that either can afford the Psychiatric
Doctor or those who are humble enough to accept that they are loosing
it. Three years back, the case was reported of a man that instantly went
mad on arriving Abuja…in the last three years he has been ranting and
raving mad screaming around the Wuse Area or so to all who care to
listen “See London Oh, them no tell me say I fit reach am by road and so
the place no far from Asaba”. The divide between affluence and slum is
best described when one takes a drive from Asokoro to Nyanyan or what
ever the place is called and you will get the true picture, this drive
is barely 10 minutes if the traffic allows.
Nigerians are the
worst culprits when it comes to drug abuse…Do you blame them, cheap
Teaching Hospitals which by any standard are simply morgues were
students are taught will charge between three to six hundred Naira for
hospital card, yet for six days you are yet to a see a Physician, so
those that cannot afford the Saint Nicholas, Eko Hosipital and co,
simply feel their symptoms and prescribe drugs for themselves, that is
when they do not have faith.
For a couple of years
as the weather changes yours faithfully is afflicted by Asthmatic bouts,
I was informed by a Doctor friend of latest drugs for the fit, I went to
the Pharmacists to pick the drugs, on seeing the price which I could not
immediately afford I received Divine Healing and went feeling better but
temporarily insane at what my nation was turning me and millions of
others into.
Let me ask what does
a good pre-nursery or crèche education cost, I mean good one, in a place
like Jos an average 15 Thousand Naira, I am sure Job in the Bible would
be better than a Nigerian man with 5 kids all attending different levels
of schools. Now parents rather than send their wards to school prefer to
home-school them whether they are qualified or not and no one thinks
this is insanity.
Why won’t you and I
living everyday in
Nigeria go berserk
when the Power Company does not supply electricity but then does not
default in sending outrageous bills for power you never could have
consumed even if you had a transcorp factory inside your bedroom.
In 2006 portable
water even in the Abuja were the streets are tarred, it is not a
privilege for all, rather it’s a right for only few; even taps in the
so-called Asokoro area do not run. In times like this I recall when we
spoke of the year 2000 as the magical year when everything would be
free, a year that you possibly could walk into a car shop and pick a
Volkswagen Saloon car free, now it’s the Millennium Development Goals
Year 2015 and by then we pray and hope the entire nation wont have run
mad.
Nigerians cross the
road underneath a
Pedestrian
Bridge not because
they want to die but because the Bridge is almost collapsing and no one
is concerned. We are all going through one form, various degrees and
levels of abnormal behaviour. Because we love life, suicide is not an
alternative…so we dey waka like zombie they go.
Armed robbers young
enough to be ones son, comes into your house like RAMBO and screams at
you to lie down, ransacks the entire house that is when they do not put
the gun on your head and escort you while they make their choice of your
hard earned properties, in the end depending on who is the head of the
house either the Oga or Madam would someone would ‘piss’ as in urinate.
Allah forbids, they do not rape any damsel in the house. And our leaders
say we should all answer the greeting “how are you”…fine”. When indeed
fine is far away from us.
Which way Nigeria,
which way to go, I love my fatherland, I want to know, which way Nigeria
so that…we all do not go insane, this is my remake of the popular song
of patriotism by one of our numerous singers. The system is not working,
yet in our high handed manner we refuse to accept, we are glorifying in
failure. We lost a generation in two plane crashes that were avoidable
and we say the parents of these kids, the husbands, wives, relations and
friends should just be happy and not worry, it is a hard asking, very
hard asking indeed.
A friend of mine died
in the Bellview crash, that fateful October, the wife was heavily
pregnant and they had been married barely six months, the woman
delivered in December 2005, I was informed the baby girl died some weeks
back…Insurance or is it compensation she did or has not got, in the
usual noise of the moment, the airspace reform has simmered down and its
almost business as usual, after all the Presidential aircraft for which
my Journalist colleagues were persecuted almost crash landed.
Without second
thoughts, the owners of Sosoliso airline went on the pages of Newspapers
praising itself as having recovered from the crash of their plane in
record time and if this is not madness I wonder what it is, like Late
song critic Fela once put it ‘no be craze world be dis…na craze world
be dis’.
I am not a born
critic or a see no good person, I do not hate our leaders, I do not
claim ignorance of the problems that
Nigeria is,
but to whom much is given…Haba! We do not deserve to be patients at the
Left
Hand
Hospital…Psychiatric
Home. In Plateau where I reside mostly, from a mere 17 madmen at one per
local government and some additional three in the capital Jos, we now
have lost counts, this is far from the figures from Ward eight of the
Teaching Hospital.
I have been in the
forefront of those that are advocating that we conduct Psychiatric
evaluation for office holders not EFCC screening because, I know that a
sizeable number of the 776 local government Chairmen are…If a councilor
that once was living in a rented apartment builds a house, three plots
away from the Governor’s property then tell me how many mad Councilors
this nation houses. When all Governors have Houses, sorry mansions in
Abuja, then how many of them
are … Ministers, Special Houseboys called Advisers on that and this,
legislators and citizenry, all are members of this legion of the
mentally disbalanced.
The Book of
Eccliasites 7:7, I recall says that when a Wiseman is oppressed he goes
mad…”Visit our Ivory towers and see the collection of madmen and women
teaching would be mad young people. Mistakenly step on the toe of a
Nigerian at the Bus stop…you will see madness, loose your way and ask
for direction from a Nigerian …you will see insanity. Ignorantly jump a
queue…people that do not know whether you even have a father will abuse
your grandfather. You car develops a fault not even on the middle of the
road and you have a big L sign which could stand for Learner or Lunatic
and even an Okada (local bike rider) will transfer aggression on you.
Ask for a pen in the
Banking Hall, the person will nearly eat you raw, because this is the
tenth time he is coming to the bank in two days are the Bank computer
servers have problems so he cannot withdraw his last 700 naira. Ever
seen a wife organize a bloody coup against the husband because of that
wrapper or the Husband organize a palace purge against his family. I
have learnt to appreciate the phrase “It Is Well”. Whether it is or
not…Almighty Allah we are on the brink…save us
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