So long, 2016!

UNLIKE mortals who die every night but awaken at dawn, 2016 will, momentarily, be gone forever. In a few days’ time, 2016 will draw its last breath. Ironically, it will from a state of intense euphoria, slip into a deafening coma and alas, the inevitable – an eternal slumber. My mental clock has been ticking vehemently in the last one week and with every resonating tick, comes a flashback of my scuffles with 2016. My heart has become a cornucopia of divergent emotions. Hope comes but so does despair, certainty accrues but doubt dissipates all its traces. I strive to be expectant but how can I be as the shadows of the wraiths that doomed 2016, remain, lurking in the corridors of power.

However, my sole relief comes from bidding 2016 farewell. Maybe this transition into a new year is the elixir Nigeria needs to be cleansed of the litany of problems ravaging her. I hope that our woes will end as this year dies for in this year, we wept sore and our children ate the bread of sorrow.

Though we started 2016 with lush hopes and big dreams, how our expectations came tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty from his infamous wall? In the same year Nigerians bought a bag of sachet water for N80, that same year, the price tripled… I am euphoric and so must be every Nigerian because this transition may be our good riddance to bad rubbish. We may perhaps allow ourselves to begin to dream again, believing that maybe the hardships that so encumbered us in 2016 will not be swift enough to make it through the portal of time, besieging us again in 2017 but are mere wishes enough?

For most of us, 2016 was the most inconsiderate partner, a ruthless dictator who gave maggots-infested apples in place of fresh fruits and poisonous snakes as fish. Thank God, 2016 is fizzling away and we must be ecstatic to let him go. We were told to brace ourselves up for tough times at the beginning of the year and of a certainty, the times have been inexplicably tough.

However, the ills that beset Nigeria have gone pass what one redeems by standing in front of a wishing well… these are precarious times and deliberate actions must be taken to salvage the nation’s wrecked soul.

Will our leaders eventually mature into mastering the generosity of allowing the commoners gain ascendancy on the national ladder of priority? For all our national woes are fruits of ineptitude dotting several enormous trees… unemployment, inflation, insecurity….

This sounds like a mammoth task. It may seem to the realist as building castles in the sand because for too long our leaders have fallen short but what if…

If our leaders can become selfless and achieve this feat, maybe an end will come to the aimless roaming of graduates on the streets with shoes bearing severe resemblance to boats my grandfather carved. Maybe, a master’s degree holder will not be working a job with a school certificate holder pay grade. Maybe, in 2017, parents will cease to haul their children, the country’s future out of its shores. Maybe, our naira will again hold some value in the international market and perhaps, we will someday cease to be a nation, which has become an aberration of the creator’s design.

I hope that in 2017, Nigeria will pop out of recession and Nigerians will  cease to starve but harvest bountifully. Merry Christmas in arrears and Veracity wishes you an absolutely prosperous New Year.

Still on the frozen mavros

Fast forward to 2015, MMM made its way into Africa… first into South Africa, Zimbabwe and then Africa’s giant, Nigeria but in both countries before Nigeria, MMM got frozen at some point and while participants in South Africa claim that it came back stronger and better, those in Zimbabwe gnash their teeth for the renaissance of MMM was with a devastating catch – ‘withdraw your funds and loose 80 per cent!’ So, like in the 1994 aftermath in Russia, some investors in Zimbabwe took to suicide.

Now, MMM Nigeria has been frozen with the same promise of reviving the scheme after 30 days. In an auspicious time, when Nigerians, ravaged by the current decadence in the economy turned to MMM as a lifeline to at least felicitate during the yuletide, the Mavros froze just few days to Christmas.

Some Nigerians invested their future in MMM or how would you explain the situation of parents who put their children school fees in the scheme, workers who took loans to participate in MMM, businessmen who folded up their profit accounts to earn 30 per cent or 20 more as the incentive just before the Mavros were frozen!

Blame it on recession but I would blame it on a mortal’s avariciousness. For some participants, it hasn’t been just be a black Christmas but may be a black 2017 when the creditors come calling. While some may already be thinking of burying themselves alive, some others are keeping hope alive – MMM will be back and better, 30 days is not eternity but what if the Mavros never thaw?

The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) has set the pace by providing an emergency contact in the attempt of suicide in the state; other states may take a cue for not even the paltering hags may be unable to decipher the consequences if the Mavros fail to thaw come 2017.