Nigeria perhaps has the most notable proclivity for making simple things utterly complicated. That is our style; our everyday disheartening identity. It is the unfortunate nature of our system: Human, societal and governance. Up until today, Nigerians are still being begged, sensitised, educated, cajoled and dissuaded, etc from indiscriminate dumping of refuse. But a lot of Nigerians still do it. Some of us are so into dumping of refuse in drainages, streams and waterways that it could be taken as some form of a ritual for survival. Those who indulge in this act usually target the rain and empty their rubbish in either the drainage or the erosion path. It is for the rain to take away. To where? Well, we are all left in a guess.
But Nigerians in their hundreds of thousands, if not in millions, still do this. Quite sadly, Nigeria is now the numero uno in the world when it comes to the dirty act of open defecation. In 2019, after running neck-to-neck for many years, we successfully overtook India as the country with the highest number of people in the world who practice open defecation. That’s us! A Fuji musician sang against filthiness and sundry acts in the 1980s. He pleaded that we should desist from dumping refuse on the road. His appeal was a kind of follow-up to (then Major General Muhammadu) Buhari’s “War Against Indiscipline” (WAI) of that era. But we still do that. That’s us!
Our society too has instituted its queer standards. Why not? Isn’t it made up of the same new us? That’s why our society now measures success largely by the type of cars we drive; the type of houses we build and live in and by how much of “Eze Ego (King of Money)” or “Cubana” or “Hushpuppi” we are. We have abruptly found ourselves in a society that readily condones and explains frivolity away. Suddenly, our people now stoutly defend immorality and scoff at rectitude. Our modern Nigerian society now judges us when we appear or act normal; strive to be upright and when we fail to be abnormal.
The story was told of a man in Imo State who, upon retiring as a Permanent Secretary in a “lucrative federal ministry”, returned to his native community just outside the state capital, to continue with his life. He finished as a well-respected public servant who got honours and awards for diligence, honesty and accountability – some (well, maybe) routine human virtues. He was known to be strict and stickler for the rules at home, in the community and at the ministry where he retired from.
At a community gathering where ideas and money were being contributed, this man received the shock of his life. He made to speak but was shouted down and verbally upbraided. Someone said he was “hushed-up and put down”. His sin against the angry pack of locals was that he was not a ‘hush puppy’ or a ‘Cuban’. So, he was humiliated by his own community for not being a thief of public property, especially money. It didn’t matter anymore that he attracted development projects to the area; gave scholarships to deserving students and helped qualified indigenes to get jobs. He was derided and told to join the community’s vigilante group! His home was “too humble” and was not one of the numerous modern prisons we see ‘rich’ people live in across the country. That’s the new us! That’s our new society.
That’s the same society that has produced the various despicable administrations and numerous lax government officials, at all levels of government. The most modern of our governments is the current one headed by President Buhari. Our incumbent president emerged from the ashes of the hugely derided Goodluck Jonathan regime in a blaze of propaganda and outright falsehood. We were told many things which were either deliberate lies or well-crafted untruth. Many acolytes of this administration have carefully been defending what many have come to refer to as “the error of 2015” since that year. But, the new us, in 2019, again, surprisingly rallied behind the same government we said was a glaring, ubiquitous failure. By our queer standards, we explained the failure and lamentations of the previous four years of the Buhari administration and gave it another “mandate” to rule for four more years.
One of those defending the administration is Dr Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Productivity. Many are of the opinion that Ngige is only defending his pot of soup. What do we expect of Ngige or from Ngige? He cannot be wasting his time with doctors who have refused to do their job and understand the incapacity of the government. If the government was not incapacitated, why would the president go for medical treatment in London? If the government Ngige is defending had made good its promise of ending medical tourism by making our hospitals the type the president could be treated in, why would we need to worry about some unprincipled doctors? Had the Ngige government kept to the agreement it reached with the doctors, why would he be peeved by them? Okay, then he might be justified.
It is the same society that has produced members of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) who are currently on an indefinite strike action. The Nigerians who are currently left to their fate in terms of healthcare belong to this same society, and they must receive healthcare. How? We do not know. The angry doctors said Dr Ngige (yes, Chris Ngige is a medical doctor) and his counterpart in the Ministry of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, should face the sack their government had pronounced. Ngige said they would be fired if they fail to report for duty. The doctors said Ngige, Ehanire and Tajudeen Sanusi, registrar of Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), should be sacked if they are overwhelmed by their responsibilities. The NARD members said the government must keep its promises or they would not return to work. And the beat goes on…
While this grave issue affecting millions of hapless Nigerians swings up and down like a pendulum, the president is abroad enjoying the comfort and provisions of other nationals without any word being uttered. That’s the new us.
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