I lose things easily. Little things especially- pens, keys, socks,
cigarette lighters. I used to get exasperated and go into horribly depressive
moods until I thought of a way to deal with it: keep everything in plain view.
No hiding, no double layers in drawers- no concealment. Everything on my
reading table- except my socks of course.
I used to be like Nigeria. But Nigeria
loses big things. We lose huge ships- it goes ‘missing’ like a button in a
large bedroom. We lose 2.1 billion in 1,000naira bills- it goes missing like a
check carelessly placed in a book amidst a large library of books. We lose
pension funds- 195 billion naira goes missing. We lose 12 billion dollars of
oil windfall. We lose high profile criminal suspects- a suspected terrorist
walks quietly out of custody. No jail break or massive earthquake that breaks
the jail bars. The guy just goes missing.
That anyone can boldly announce
that 195 billion went missing, with a straight face and not fear the wrath of a
nation shows something else that we have lost. We have lost the ability to say
no, to ask why, to demand change. So a government official can announce, in a
country that is barely able to pay a minimum wage of 18,000 naira (117 dollars
a month or less than 4 dollars a day) that he intends to build a new mansion
worth 16 billion naira. And maybe he deserves it, having worked so hard and
selflessly for the country, but the fact that he can propose it means we have
lost all sense of propriety or decency.
Only recently a government ministry
announced the real problem of our power sector.
Evil spirits, they said. And you know, I agree with them. Look at it
this way. A spirit is something you cannot see right? So someone or something
usually sabotages power projects. Someone we can’t see converts the money for
the power sector to personal use. Someone we can’t see refuses to let Nigerians
have uninterrupted power supply. And that someone or something is evil. Is the
ministry not correct then to blame our problems on evil spirits? Or maybe I am
missing something.
One of our most influential Ministers just
lost her mother. Not to the cold hands of death. But to the hands of abductors
(the temperature of whose hands I am unsure of). The 82 year old went missing
from her Ogwuashi-Uku palace. This is not the first time the relative of a
Minister will go missing. It is becoming increasingly common in many parts of
the country to go missing, reappearing only after a ransom has been paid.
Since the disappearance of the
Minister’s mother I have read many reactions ranging from indifference to
outright jubilation. I read one comment that said: “So what if the
Okonjo-Iweala’s mother got missing”. I realized that something else was
missing. Empathy.
Nigeria, (or more particularly,
its leaders) has beaten and raped us so much that we have, probably purely as a
self-preservation strategy, gone numb. We are numb to the suffering, to the
pain, to the theft, to the violence, to the corruption, to the darkness. We
have become numb so that we can survive. So that when the next many billons go
missing we do not go crazy. So that when salaries delay, we keep going to work
and find other sources of income, or just go hungry. So that when we have no
electricity for weeks on end we do not run naked into the streets pulling our
hair out. So that when the next bombing happens we sigh and worry only when
someone we know died in the blast. So that when our President tells us he will
need a billion a year to feed him and his guests we will not lose sleep. So
that when he tells us he needs a new multi-billion naira banquet hall to dine
in while the rest of the country goes hungry we will just sigh and keep boiling
our stones.
But we need empathy. We cannot
afford to lose that which makes us human. If we lose empathy, and probably,
someday get rid of this bad government, we will only replace their cold,
unfeeling disregard for citizens with something similarly lacking in empathy.
We cannot become like those that oppress us. We must not lose all feeling. We
must not stay in the dark depth that allows us to lynch people in the streets for
stealing wallets; that makes us do things like bludgeon and set ablaze young
men upon an unsubstantiated accusation; that makes us kill our neighbors because
they are of a different tribe or religion.
One thing that will help Nigeria
is what helped me keep track of the things I lose easily: keeping everything
open, everything in plain view. We must open national debate. Talk about the big elephant(s) in the room. Talk about the things that threaten to tear us apart. Open up
government processes. The more open government processes are, the harder it is
to perpetrate the kind of monumental fraud that we find today. And we do have
the Freedom of Information Act, which gives citizens the right to demand access
to information from public institutions. The Act allows anyone to demand
information without a need to show reason for such demand.
The laws exist. The resources
exist. We have the manpower. What we need is the will. The will to move from
sighing and complaining to demanding and acting. We have a choice. Act. Or
lose.
I do not have as much resilience
as Nigeria. So I am working on a plan to stop losing big things. Like cars. Like
jobs. Like love.
