​Social Media Nightmare, Nigerian Version of Ageism, Self-serving Interpretations of African Culture & The Many Versions of Truth

​Social Media Nightmare, Nigerian Version of Ageism, Self-serving Interpretations of African Culture & The Many Versions of Truth
The storm that accompanied Nobel Laurete, Prof. Wole Soyinka’s outbursts about his green card has thrown light on certain issues that in the interest of nationbuilding and public peace, it may be suicidal to ignore.
One, it has shown that the youths are angry. Very angry. And even if sometimes their anger is misdirected, it still doesn’t take away from the fact that any nation that ignores the collective anger of its youths is sitting on a keg of gunpowder.
Two, social media is turning out to be the ‘older generation”s nightmare. The older generation of politicians, intellectuals, columnists are used to having opinions and making them public without contradiction. They are used to writing in newspapers and declaring their opinions as final without contradiction because some of these youngs ones, it will take them a year to ever get their opinions published in those newspapers. What social media has offered the youths is the opportunity to challenge every word spoken, the opportunity to talk back, the opportunity to examine every word written and spoken and sieve out the bullshit from the real message. This is very uncomfortable for certain persons.
Three, Ageism. The normal definition of ageism is: an unfair treatment of old people. The Nigerian definition is quite different. It is used interchangeably with ‘disrespect’. When a young person ‘has the audacity’ to tell an old man or woman that her opinion is incorrect, that young person has transgressed. In an African setting, you dare correct an old person? You are an African and you dare say an old man is lying? You were born and bred on African soil and you dare say an old woman is wrong? How dare you? Have you no elders at home? Do you intend to grow old or you want to die like flies?
If it is disrespectful to criticize elders and you have a nation where the minimum age for contesting elections is 45, you begin wonder if there is no constitutionally-backed conspiracy to silence the younger generation. You begin to wonder if respect is only an age thing and if it is no longer a give and take thing. You begin to wonder what number stealing from the younger generation falls on a one to ten scale of disrespect. You begin to wonder how long it will take for the radar of disrespect to start chiming when you load it with every inhumanity from stealing money that should be allocated to education to stealing money that should be used to secure our lives that the older generation of Nigerians have subjected the younger generations to. How can there be a mutual agreement of do this, I do that and you fail to ‘do this’ and expect the younger generation to ‘do that’? How?
Four, Self-serving interpretations of African culture. When you are an African, you do not have the liberty to talk as you like. You are told to challenge injustice and untruths, but there is an unspoken caveat that your African upbringing should have instilled in you: challenge injustice and untruths among members of your generation, not among the elders. African culture is flung in our faces by elders whose words and actions drag African culture and what it represents through the mud every day. When you speak up, they remind you of African culture. A child that says the mouth of elders stinks will not grow old. You don’t know? It is not a curse; it is OUR CULTURE.
They are quick to forget that inasmuch as African culture lays emphasis on respect for elders, it also emphasizes, perhaps even more, the protection of young ones and seeing to their upbringing. It is like a social contract: protect the young ones and raise them well and they will respect you and cater for you in old age. The older generation breached that social contract first, the older generation of elders ditched African culture and stole from from the younger generation. They ditched African culture and shared the money meant to build our schools, money meant to give us a safe and comfortable learning environment, money that should be used to stock our libraries and laboratories. They shared everything and allocated allowances after allowances for their own upkeep and comfortabiltity while the children, the young ones are left in the wild to fend off wild animals and to suffer the biting cold of life. That is not African.
African culture pays premium to the wellbeing of the young ones first. African culture says it is wrong to steal from anyone talk less of children. African culture says the elders protect the young ones. You should visit our schools. See our libraries with outdated books. See our laboratories with outdated materials and kitchen stoves. That is not African.
And the elders that are not politicians, they kept quiet. They, with their deafening silence aligned with those who stole from us. They who tell us tales of being paid to go to school. They who tell us about the good old days of being fed fat in schools. They who tell us about finishing school and having to choose from three or four jobs with great pays. How did they get comfortable with stories of us learning in war zones? How did they feel at ease with our stories of empty labs and libraries? How did they feel at ease with our stories of fee hike, lecturers demanding sex to pass students, graduating without job and selling akara. How did they feel confortable with all these?
And when the young ones decide to fight a fight that the elders refused to fight for them, when students in higher institutions decide to face their school administrations and state governments that refused to fund their schools, the older generation that should wake up and support the students slap a tag on their agitations: “JUVENILE DELIQUENCY” and support their arrest and expulsion. How can you default in your responsibility and still have the moral decency to talk down at those who do your job for you? How?
Five, The Many Versions of Truth. Elders always teach the young ones to say the truth at all times. But as we grow up, we realize that the truth has many versions and contrary to what we were taught, you should not always say the truth. You learn something new about the truth. Say the truth when the truth does not affect someone close to you. Say the truth when it is convenient. Say the truth when elders are not involved. Say the truth when it does not affect someone who has achieved so much. You learn that the truth has countless varieties and has an ever-expanding caveat. You learn that as an African, there is an age people get when you can no longer say the truth to them and about them. You learn that there is an height people reach when you can no longer say the truth to them or about them. You learn that people contribute so much to society that they get to a point where saying the truth to them or about them is a travesty. You learn that someone can spend his/her life fighting for the right of people to speak the truth and in his/her old age, it becomes disrespectful and a crime to say that truth to them and about them.
In the final analysis, the young ones are angry. Very angry. And it is the failure of the older generation of Nigerians that the young ones don’t know the direction their anger should take. Someone asked on Pa Ikhide’s wall if the younger generation have read Fanon. How can they read Fanon when the system under which our schools run recommend books that teach children that heads are for carrying load? I have read Fanon. I have read Chancellor Williams. I have read Walter Rodney. I have read Ngugi Wa Thiong’O. I have read Nkrumah. But I didn’t read any of them from schools.
How can you enjoy a robust educational system, and see dilapidated structures passed off as schools today and still be able to ask if our young ones have read Fanon? It is a miracle that we graduated with our lives at all and you are asking if we brought anything out. “Alfa jona, e n bere irungbon e.” (The alfa burned to death, you are asking for his beard).
Mark my words, the Prof. Soyinka saga is not an ending, it is a beginning. Mob justice is no longer just going to be physical, it is going to be virtual too. Unfortunately, because the youths lack the proper ‘education’ to know who is villain and who gave ascent to villainy via their silence, there are going to be so many casualties who are not direct scoundrels but whose silence and dancing-around-the-bush antics will see them burned to death by a mob of young virtual mobsters that were birthed by the theft of the elder members of the ruling class and by the criminal silence of the older generation of Nigerians who are not directly responsible but whose silence and focus on irrelevancies led us here.
I guess the older generation of Nigerians should be grateful then that the younger generation has not read Fanon, Nkrumah, Cabral, because if they had, instead of virtual attacks on social media, they will be on the streets, marching and attempting to tear down this system.
James Ogunjimi

December 2016

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Scattered Thoughts: We are All Walking Corpses

There are days when you are rendered speechless by some actions. How do you describe the refusal of some people to join us in the 21st century? How do you explain to people that a group of mad people that share the name “Nigerians” with you felt offended by someone’s preaching and their only solution was to hack her to death? How? Eunice Elisha, a 42-year old mother of seven was hacked to death in the early hours of saturday for early morning evangelism.

This is sad. But we are always sad now. We live amidst killers. We are “Nigerians” with psycopaths. How do you kill someone and go back home and just go on living your life? How? How do you still have the guts to think your life can be anything but miserable from then? How can you even wish that you have a future that will be anything but bleak?

This is sad. It’s as if these serial killers have become bolder. Hacking people to death over the smallest issues has become “normal” now. Our “normal” would cause sane people to shudder. It is a very dangerous “normal”. This is an environment where adults are not safe, how can children be safe here?

It becomes disturbing when we can condemn killings in foreign lands when we are all walking corpses in our own land. We have to walk on eggshells in our own country so that we don’t offend some people and they don’t hack us to death or remove our head. How can we be strangers in our own country? How can we be afraid to talk, eat, move around in our own country?

May the late Mrs Eunice Elisha find rest. May her killers never find rest, peace and progress.

In the spirit of us all being walking corpses, “here’s a toast to the dead already and hurrah for the next to die.”

Semaj

Hello Sexy!

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Hello Sexy!

Eniola whistled excitedly as she made her way back from the meeting with her publishing company. Her agent had called her the previous day to give her the good news that her manuscript had been accepted and that the publishers wanted to meet to hash out other details.

She waited to get a taxi and when she didn’t get one, started walking with the hope of a cab meeting her on the way. She was too excited to stand still anyway. As she walked, someone waved at her. She stopped and stared but couldn’t place the face. The face looked familiar. The lady looked like someone she had met before but she just couldn’t remember where or who she was.

As she was still squinting, trying to connect a name with the face, the lady crossed the main road and nearly crushed her as she threw her arms around her.

“I love your hair!” The lady shrieked, patting Eniola’s hair.

Eniola gently wriggled away from her and forced a smile. “Thank you.”

After she left the lady, she had not walked for more than two minutes when she passed another woman. The woman was short, had legs that looked like tree stumps and eyeballs that looked like they wanted out of their sockets. The woman sized her up, spat on the floor and hissed as she passed. Eniola turned around, wondering what was going on. That woman too looked familiar.

“Sisi Pelebe!” A man called as she rounded a bend. His voice was familiar too. But just like the others, she couldn’t tell who they were.

As she rounded the bend, she heard a car approaching and turned around only to discover that it was filled up already. She turned back to resume walking when her leg hit a stone. Her bag fell and the contents spilled on the floor. A copy of her manuscript was one of the things that fell. As she bent up to pick the manuscript, it suddenly hit her; the faces, she knew them. She knew them all. They were characters from her novel.

She remembered now. The lady that hugged her was Helena. She remembered her face from when she was building her up in her head. She remembered that she described her as a hugger. She remembered the voice; smooth as silk and the fact that she loved giving complements.

And the short woman, she was Gbemi. In her novel, Gbemi’s husband had left her for the maid her mother brought from the village. Gbemi had been bitter since then. Every lady that had the audacity to dress well and appear beautiful was an enemy to Gbemi.

And the man who called her “Sisi Pelebe”; she remembered him too. She introduced him in Chapter 3 of her novel. He was the man that sat outside waving to people as they went to work and greeting them welcome when they returned. He had a name for everyone that passed. Bolanle, a fat girl in her novel was called “heavy duty” by the man.

As she entered the gate of her house, she rubbed her scalp and sighed in relief. She didn’t know what was happening but whatever it was, she was grateful that the antagonist in her novel, Kelvin, a dashingly handsome medical doctor was not part of those she had met. In her novel, he was a medical doctor by day and a serial killer by night. At night, he hid in the shadows and called his victims sweet names before digging a scalpel into them and slicing them open like ileya ram.

As she looked for her keys in her bag, she sighed again. Maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe she had spent so much time building those characters that they were now a part of her life. But whatever was going on, she was grateful that she hadn’t met Kelvin. She just couldn’t…

Her eyes caught movement. She saw the shadow step out from the darkness before she heard the voice whisper: “Hello sexy!

James Ogunjimi

July 2016

The “Buhari is Better than Jonathan” Anthem

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The “Buhari is better than Jonathan” narrative is itself very faulty. It is one of those things that gets accepted due to constant repetition and nobody bothers to check the truth of it again.

BUHARI IS NOT BETTER THAN JONATHAN. Yes, you heard me right. Let us analyse.

The two main reasons why Buhari was presented as a better alternative to Jonathan was on SECURITY and ANTI-CORRUPTION.

President Jonathan was a weak man. He should never have been President. A nation of over 160 million people should never have a weak president. How can a President excuse his inability to take a decision with the “If I do this, they will say that” story? No. He was weak. As such, the wound of corruption festered under him. He stole and gave others license to steal too.

Come to President Buhari. He was presented as the messiah. The “I never stole a kobo” campaign was successful. They said he was a farmer who had nothing. Hell, he was so poor he couldn’t afford 27 million for form and had to take loan. They said he was so poor he could only afford sachet milo. Dino Melaye even wrote an article saying that Buhari had not been collecting his more than 30 million naira pension, until those in charge countered that lie and said the man had been collecting his money complete.

Now, he became President and different revelations began to emerge. The man wasn’t poor. He had house in Daura and Abuja. He was collecting pension of more than 30 million naira. How come someone that knew he was going to contest for over two years now had not saved anything from the over 30 million pension and his farm produce? How come somebody that was paying school fees of his children outside the country could not afford 27 million? How come somebody that could afford a private physician from outside the country since the early 90s couldn’t afford 27 million? How come somebody whose wife was so rich had to go to a bank to borrow 27 million when she could have borrowed him the money?

Different revelations followed. The no certificate issue where 13 SANS were hired to answer the simple question: Buhari, where is your certificate? The appointment of Fashola despite the website and borehole issues after he gave his “I don’t sign cheques” ‘explanation’. The appointment of Amaechi inspite of being wanted by probe panels in Rivers state for financial mismanagement, the Soyinka dinner and the weighty allegations raised by that foreign newspaper. The CBN and FIRS secret recruitments that were left unaddressed and unreversed. The Buratai case that was swept under the carpet. All these have thrown out the anti-corruption stance of this government. As far as I’m concerned, Jonathan was corrupt. Buhari is corrupt.

Now, insecurity. True, President Buhari has crushed boko haram to a large extent and bombings are no longer as regular as before. We can rate him higher than Goodluck Jonathan on security. But security isn’t just about defeating boko haram; it’s about keeping citizens safe. Boko haram may have been defeated but the killer herdsmen killed their share of people too.

Now, infrastructure wise, Goodluck Jonathan created more than 10 new federal universities, built almajiri schools in the north. President Buhari on his own is trying to build grazing reserves.

In terms of freedom of speech. President Jonathan signed the FOI bill into law. President Buhari on the other hand is hounding everyone that dares speak against him. The case of the Kaduna poly lecturer that was arrested and fired for his criticism of Buhari is there. The arrest and continued detentipn despite court orders of Dasuki, Kanu, Fani, etc are there. The arrant disrespect for the rule of law everyday is there.

Economically: Economically, President Jonathan left an economy that was applauded as one of the fastest growing economies. Salaries were paid as at when due. President Buhari on the other hand has laid the economy flat on its back. Everything is expensive. Policies keep flunctuating. A policy statement is made today. Tomorrow it is reversed.

So, before you join the bandwagon to sing the “Buhari is better than Jonathan” anthem, make sure you have your facts right and know exactly why you are saying it.

Semaj

Migration: Time for Africa to be Proactive

Time for Africa to be Proactive

In a report on migration titled ‘International Migration in Africa: Framing The Issues’ released during the 9th conference of African finance ministers at the on-going African Development week (#ADW2016) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it was realized that migration streams within Africa are much larger than those out of Africa. This results in more than half of those migrating internationally doing so within Africa, with only about 28% of migrants from Africa going to Europe. Of the total migrant stock in Europe, less than 12% are from Africa.

Shocking right?

What this report is saying is that majority of those who leave African countries in search of greener pastures do not actually leave the continent; they move in a circle, over-burdening the infrastructure and facilities and then slowing down development rate some more.

There are two options: we either look at this situation as a problem or as a condition that can be turned around.

It is equally important for me to point out that in destination countries, migrants do not only do jobs that the local citizens of that country do not want to do but in most cases, create jobs for themselves. What this tells us is that the role of migration in development must not be overlooked.

The next question would be: do we realize the fact that migrants contribute to the development of  regions? Harnessing opportunities within African countries would maintain and sustain these migrants from moving out of Africa.

Intra region moving could mean a whole lot for the continent than the moving to Europe. Remittances from internal migrants are about four times more than international migrants. They get to the remotest parts of Africa, something these international migrations cannot do.

Not to confuse refugees for migrants, refugees for some reason or the other may not return to their countries. One of such examples is caused by conflict and severe human rights violation, as well as exploitation of economic resources. This raises the question of ensuring security in these disaster prone areas and ensuring that these places are not abandoned but instead, given the opportunity to develop and provide the needed growth facilities.

In the next 15 years, Africa would have to find jobs for 350million people. The doubling of population within the next thirty years will lead to migration both inside and outside.

Right now, because of the high rate of movement into urban areas, migrants are seen as contributing to poverty and crowding facilities in these urban places. But instead of focusing on sending them back without anything to look forward to, we should note that rural-urban migrants play a big role in the urbanization and poverty alleviation of these places.

If we have adequate infrastructure, facilities and a stable economy, refugee status can change along migratory routes, relieving governments of continually having to provide them with aids.

What is the next course of action? Reviewing tax laws to improve our weakened system to stop illicit outflow from the continent, so we can provide adequate security for the disaster prone areas, develop the rural areas by investing in Agriculture, upgrading and expanding urban facilities to cater for increasing population of people in the cities, and to begin a process of preparing for the population boom that is bound to hit us in the next 15 years.

Sadiq-Mabeko Oyinkan

The ‘Religiousification’ of Our Politics

The ‘Religiousification’ of Our Politics

There is an attempt by some people to ‘religiousify’ our political terrain. Such people, tired of keeping their doctrines and ideologies within their religious houses, are trying to bring the ‘let the weak say I am strong’ ideology into our politics and indeed into our everyday life.

They want us to look at Nigeria going through one of its darkest hours economically and say: “Things are ok.” They want us to listen to the vast majority of our people groaning under an heavy weight of directionlessness and say: “Nigeria has not had it better than this.” They want us to watch tears roll down the faces of our people and still say: “Nigerians have never been happier than they are now.”

We will reject every attempt to substitute genuine feelings of Nigerians with delusions of those who are disconnected from the pains and tears of the ordinary people. We will not proclaim strength when we are weak. We will not declare plenty when there is lack. We will not say we see a giant standing tall when it is in fact a dwarf crawling in the dust.

Those “let the weak say I am strong” doctrines can work in religious places and go unchallenged but when they are introduced into the political terrain, we must see them for what they are: dubious attempts to justify an inability to deliver while encouraging the people to tell barefaced lies everyday to themselves about their situation while the people who are supposed to fix the situation look on, clueless, directionless, powerless to lift a finger to do the job they were hired to do.

If they want us to say Nigeria is strong, let them make Nigeria strong. If they want us to say there’s plenty, let then eradicate lack. If they want us to talk of a Nigeria of happy people, let them work towards removing those things that cause our people to cry.

James Ogunjimi
27:12:2015

Emergency Call

Emergency Call

Her hands shook as she reached for her phone. She rubbed her scalp, whispering encouragement to herself in a bid to calm her ragged nerves. She jumped as she heard her husband, Richard bang the gate again. “Veronica, open the gate this minute or I’ll beat the demons holding your brain captive out of you.” As she heard the two girls with him giggle, she knew exactly what to do.

She began to dial on her phone. “9-1….” Her hands were shaking even harder now. She willed herself to continue, hating the fact that she had never been able to go through with this call since she started trying two months ago. Yes, two months ago when the police announced that a serial killer was on the prowl in their little town, killing young ladies.

She swallowed hard and entered the last number. Almost immediately, a voice chimed in from the other side: “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” Now that she had gone through with the call, she didn’t know what to say. Everything she planned to say, everything she rehearsed these past weeks had all flown out the window.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” The voice said again. And still she found herself tongue-tied, too scared to talk.

She knew she would have to talk eventually. She was tired of everything. Tired of her husband. Tired of him bringing girls to their home to make love on their matrimonial bed. Tired of him undermining her, beating her up and expecting her to say thank you for the beatings.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” The voice was still asking over the phone.

She sighed heavily and answered, her voice shaking: “The serial killer killing young ladies, I think I know who he is and I know exactly where he is.”

As she heard him bang the gate again, she shuddered. Soon the police would arrive and drag him away. They would discover the bloodied clothes of the murdered girls in their basement. They would see the murder weapon. They would see his boots, stained with dry mud, exactly the way the police described it. They would haul him off. What they would not and may never know is that he was not the serial killer, just a fool paying for his crimes against her.

Every time he beat her for complaining about him bringing random girls to their home, she marked the faces of the girls he brought home and went after them the next day. She would shoot them and return with their clothes, which she would dump in their basement.

She knew the day would come when he would push her too far that she would want him gone forever. Well, this was it. He would be halfway to the electric chair before he knew what hit him. Maybe if he returned in another life, he would remember to treat people with respect.

James Ogunjimi