The Nigeria of our dreams.

Dear Nigerians,

We have come to this day, the day you celebrate me. I admit my vulnerabilities hold me back from doing much, but you my child, have you done the little that I ask of you? I have fallen short of your expectations and often I stand amidst my counter parts with my head bloody, but yet for your sake unbowed.

Fifty four years ago when power became yours, the things that made you different were what made you strong. It hurts me so that now you’re being torn apart, broken by the diversity that was once your anchor. Once upon a time I heard children sing in my streets, I heard songs of hope. Now I see fear, I see pockets that are broke, hearts that have been broken, and dreams that are dying. I have come to wake you up, to remind you it is not too late.

The change you desire is not in the power at the top, the change begins in the will at the bottom. The will to do what is right. You want electricity, do you pay your bills; you cry out for clean surroundings, but litter the places you go. You demand water in your homes, but destroy the pipelines that lead there. I see your hearts burdened by the cost of education, where are the schools your churches build? Don’t the places you fill on days of worship remind you to be your brother’s keeper daily? Why then do I see hearts driven by lack living off crime on the streets? Haven’t you heard the story told, of the man who gathered treasures on earth for the moth and the cold? What good is a man who gains the world while his brother has nothing of his own? You are not poor because of  lack, most of you are kept poor by your vices. You drink away your earnings and lust away your savings. You want so much my child, so much that you work against.

The time has come to stop playing victim and really grow up. The Nigeria of our dreams is not filled with perfect citizens, flawless leaders or faultless systems. The Nigeria of our dreams has people who are long on actions and short on words.I know your leaders are faulty and hardly do what they should. But you are also a Nigerian; do you do what you ought to? You might claim I do not understand, but I am mother earth, I have known you from conception to the day of your birth. I see you not for what you are but for what you can be, I see in you only greatness because you are a part of me. We all can attain the Nigeria of our dreams.

                                                          Courtesy; Nigeria.

The Synagogue disaster and National bedlam.

I distrust anything that is not a bird that flies. Be it airplanes, pigs, elephants or witches. Flying is such a daunting affair that it is not all things with wings that achieve it, so imagine the surprise of Turkeys and Ostriches all over the world when wingless pigs began to fly earlier in the week. I saw pigs fly over my home when I read the statement after the collapse of a part of the synagogue church building (that sadly claimed the lives of tens of people). I quote "our CCTV camera caught footage of a plane flying round the perimeter, I was the prime target" The overseer said. I want to thank the gods of aerodynamics and CCTV that it is possible to tell that it is an airplane. It isn't hard to imagine the spiritual uprising it would have caused if it were to be a un-identifiable flying object (U.F.O).We will forgive the using of the laws of engineering to test miracles by attempting to build a five storey building on a two storey building foundation. After all ants carry bread crumbs fifty times their weight and neither has any collapsed nor passed out. Ever! Do not forget, Church service holds on Sunday as usual.

I met Asari Dokubo for the first time last week. His beards and chubby cheeks, fingers strangling the microphone in mid sentence in a picture that came after the caption "no girls are missing" in an interview with an unnamed national daily. This was my first impression of the man. It was not a good one. I imagined the wiggle of his full face of hair as he asserted "what international society? Tell me. The same that claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but couldn't find any? Why haven’t they found the girls?". I understand he may not have heard the saying "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence". Four months later with enough proof that the abducted girls are really missing, we still hear doubts from the corridors of Dokubo’s mind (proofless doubt, I might add). Ignorance is not a pepper soup affair.

 'The gift that keeps giving' is how I have chosen to summarize the 'Jonathanian' administration. Has kpomo ever really hurt anyone?  Unlike beer, vodka and almighty Alomo that have left some wives toothless and presidents in questionable medical maladies. I beg to suggest that the people Baba listens to please whisper to him (over a few drinks) that if he needs to pass a diversion bill to keep us busy and take our attention from pressing national drama, he could ban alcoholic beverages or better still codeine. After all not everyone drinks, but every household knows the joy that comes with kpomo swimming in the little lake of our soups and stews. It will be embarrassing for all parties involved if we have to advocate for kpomo rights and if need be, we will.
Signed; mama Bashiru, suliat and Bose. Kpomo sellers since 1960(when some people had no shoes)