THE pathetic state of Nigeria was revealed in the N500 akara I bought in Orita Challenge area of Ibadan as I sought to launch an attack on certain loaves this week. As I held the steaming hot resource placed in black nylon in my hands, deep sorrow at the state of our union engulfed me. The entire package was not even nearly as big as my fist, and I am no boxer! When I was a corper I could not finish the N50 akara I bought at a market in Jos, Plateau State: I had to explain to the seller that I thought that things were as expensive in Jos as they were in Yorubaland. But here I was with N500 akara, roughly the size of a small orange. I had to tell the seller: “See what they have done to our money!,” and she sighed deeply. What a shame!
I am a young man, but at no time did my brothers and I collect anything called naira while we were in primary school. I recall how we danced when my father increased our school money to 40 kobo! Now 40 kobo is in the land of the dead and will never be resurrected. A colleague of mine embarrassed himself at a market recently. He saw two big, well roasted Titus fish and quickly approached the seller, then flinched when told the cost: N4,500! The fishes were actually N2000 each, but the seller had to input the cost of roasting, transport to the market, etc. I say: Muhammadu Buhari should have left us alone and not fought corruption! A bag of the best grade of rice was N7,500 when he came to power. Nigerians used to buy bags of rice in those days when everyone thought that life was hard.
The kegs people are using to fetch water now were kegs of ororo (vegetable oil) that they bought in this same country when it was thought that things were hard. By the way, this is a piece of advice for you petty/street thieves: if you love yourself, don’t go to anyone’s house on a stealing mission: the dogs are severely underfed and the way they will handle you, even a dynamite will not save you from their hands! These are not the days when people organized bonfires, etc, on the road, eating and drinking, and railing at subsidy removal: in those days, they had different kinds of drink in their fridge. Today, it is bottled water they have and even the water was taken from their borehole, not ordered from any factory.
Now, have you noticed that every new government that comes asks Nigerians to “exercise a little patience”? They all say the same thing but life keeps getting worse! I recall Mr Femi Adesina saying at the beginning of the Buhari years that things would be better after three months. As it turned out, things only got better for the few individuals in government. Why is it that every government that comes asks us to “exercise a little patience”? Why? That’s how we exercised patience and Nigeria became the global capital of poverty. The present government came and also told Nigerians to exercise a little patience. Even the National Assembly urged “oppressors” to let the poor breathe. As it turned out, though, our lawmakers were not prepared to exercise any patience when it came to their perquisites. They ensured that each of them got a N160 million bulletproof SUV, and the 2024 National Assembly budget is the biggest the Parliament has ever had, jacked up by 74.23 percent! Yet these human beings will come and tell us to “exercise a little patience”? Is this god of little patience not a fraud?
Stung by the duplicity of the political class in whose service he had deployed his skills and resources, the late Babatunde Omidina (Baba Suwe), king of farce and one of Yorubawood’s biggest names, resorted to curses at a time during his odyssey: “It shall not be easy! May it not be easy for all of us!” The man of laughter had expected compensation for his electoral services in which he had rolled out skit after skit to prop up the powers that be, but the politicians kept singing the song of hardship, saying things were not easy. It was this “It is not easy” track that crew the thespian’s ire: “It is not easy, it is not easy, yet you build houses and buy cars. If it was easy, what would you do? May it not be easy for all of us!”
We are tired of the little patience! Nearly everything about Nigeria is fake: the constitution which our lawmakers have been dragging since 1999 and under whose wings they have gorged themselves on the fat of the land is an elaborate forgery hastily put together as the military prepared to hand over power in 1999. It was neither innovative nor truthful. Nigeria is like the Super Eagles: 12-0 today, 0-2 tomorrow. The naira keeps going down and the polls every four years only make things worse.
In 2012, seven units of Bajaj motorcycles cost only N490,000 but the times were hard. One could have become a millionaire today, though away from the smoke and drink that mark “Tarmac” life, and of course the exchange of women between ‘debuty’ and ‘siaman’ (deputy and chairman). One aimed only to be a distant investor, not a hemp-hewn transport lord struggling to sing the national anthem but highly experienced in the undergarments of a million actresses. How sad that N490,000 could fetch seven Bajaj motorcycles before Buhari fought corruption but can’t buy even one in these heady days of nairatragic despair! You need nearly N700,000 to free just one from the store, but of course the government has told us to exercise that medicinal little patience, drinking from the forge of alien gods. It tells the poor that the suffering which never ends is to free them from suffering!
I shall end with another story: in the late 90s in Ilorin, Kwara State, an alfa balked at drinking Fanta because it was “oti poun mefa!” (6-pound drink, meaning N12 drink). That N12 drink now costs N250. I hope it is not N500 by December, when the masses shall still be drinking from the fountain of little patience. We must join the poet Christopher Okigbo in asking: “Today- for tomorrow, today becomes yesterday: How many promises can ever fill a basket?” As our politicians share the meat, let them remember thunder.
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