When I was in the University, although my major field of studies was not Mass Communication, surprisingly enough for three consecutive times, I was adjudged the best cartoonist in the school of Humanities. The School had a weekly tabloid to which every student in that school was expected to contribute articles, features or cartoons. I tried severally, eventually my cartoons became popular among students. To a point, I was asked by the editor to produce certain cartoons instead of articles. Eventually, I developed interest in journalism itself.
And back home, since I have been writing features for several newspapers, I never one day ventured to try my hands again in producing cartoons I began to enjoy writing columns because it gives me the opportunity to express pleasant and bitter views on some major issues of national discourse. For example, writing this column As Nigeria Turns round, I have been respectful, analytical, incisive and sometimes very offensive to evil minded members of the society who don’t want their evils to be exposed while they continue to hoodwink the larger society.
The difference between cartoon and a featured article is very clear. Cartoon speaks volumes just with a little graphic impression. Only the smart minds can decipher the meaning of some cartoons, unless the author scribes few words. But in a feature article, the writer can exercise a lot of opinions in either telling his story or uses analytical idiomatic expressions or other known English vocabularies to drive his thought. So I settled to be writing features instead since our society is basically and mostly under-massively educated. I convey more meanings in my features than in cartoons. One of the reasons why I know that my contributions are making waves is the number of persons who call me either to commend or condemn one view or another.
Who am I? Simply put, I am just another ordinary Nigerian. Sad, sad and sad more than Uncle Sad Sam.
Why am I so sad with myself and my country? Because just as many other graduates, I have no tangible work to commensurate with my single and double degrees. With a top degree in Sciences, I have just been employed as a mere Administrative Officer in the shaky CGC in which I rarely get my salary reliably from the unknown administrative structure in the palace of our gullible Traditional ruler who must demand something from you every time you pay a visit even if only to come and say, “Eze birikuo.”
I am sad because there is no one aspect of social, political or economic life in this country that works well for the ordinary man. Ordinary man like myself, after all with good education, do I still need to refer to myself as an ordinary man? I am because throughout the country, particularly in my State known as “the small river that swallow ocean,” the current Governor has inadvertently wiped off the middle class which is always the central gravity of the economic sustainability of any society.
I am sad because politics has become an enterprising venture. For example, a couple of years ago, a mere LGA Councilor from my ward who could not even get money to transport himself to the LGA Headquarters, before long, bought a car, owned a building and established a lucrative and booming patent medicine store all to the chagrin of my people in the name of politics.
I am sad because, I know a man who sold his uncle’s house to contest for the Governorship election. Today, he is a proud owner of a jet, two big hotels in a bustling city in this country with a chain of other businesses overseas. Last year, he floated a small private airline company in one of the neighbouring countries. His wife, who used to head a Bible study group in our church is now heftily built, moves with siren and lives in the Government House where she has become “the Queen of the Manoral Palace.”
I am sad because all available jobs whether employment or appointment goes to the Governor’s friends, relations of interminable length, and the remaining ones go the in-laws. Eventually, the Governor’s wife has become “Employment Liaison Cartel.”
Yes, I am sad because my President is such a nice man but he cannot do so much for the greedy people of this greedy nation. But I remember that I learnt in the University that good and nice persons don’t make good leaders. But do they make bad leaders? Oh Mr. President, too many challenges particularly those coming from the caliphate who strongly believe that this country is their birth-right, to rule, to control and to command.
Yes, I am sad because the name of my country is Nigeria, but now gradually being changed to Naija. But overseas the name of my country is “the Headquarters of corruption.”
Oh no, I am not only sad but even feel like committing suicide but for the love of my own life. Why must I do that for heartless and mostly crude and greedy people?
There is corruption everywhere; in the Judiciary which is supposed to be the last defense of the common man. In the police, customs, teaching, even in the newspaper vendors’ stand, people now bribe to get hold of a hot selling paper. Even in some families, children bribe their mothers to get certain favours from their fathers. Bribery and Corruption is now as high as the old pyramid of the Northern groundnuts.
My dear readers, can I still go on and on? There can be no end to why I am sad, hot, frustrated and dejected. But the highest of this national insult is that we answer the Giant of Africa. Giant with clay legs, mud bodies and shaky frame. Each time he moves, he must look for somewhere to clutch his lifeless hands and clumsy legs. At fifty three, he is still a toddler and with endless running stomach. Doctors after doctors have tried and failed. But the truth is that he cannot die as many would wish but, a toddler yes, with running stomach, yes but what of the type of life in him? Surprisingly, he may even continue to be a toddler until he is either killed and his body shared or continues to be a toddler for life, while those owning him would never agree on how to deal with him.
That is the greatest reason of my sadness. Any hope may be yes or may be no, can prayers save this country? Prayer to whom? Who will offer the prayers? Is it the clergy whose hands are now filled with dust and tongues with falsehood? The first solution is to find those Pastors, Clergy and Bishops whose hearts, hands and tongues are not yet infected with the colossal iniquities of mundane acquisition. If we can find those, we can have hope. We wait and see because, I am sure, God the almighty is tired of listening to the prayers of people who have condemned themselves inadvertently before reaching the judgment scene. I stop so far before the running stomach of this Giant infects my hands, pen and thought which are the only possessions I have. Again, I say Happy and gear Celebration of frustrations. Because while few are celebrating, many are dying in perpetual poverty, hunger, dejected and tired of hope.
