This is a terribly long essay about the zoo Nigeria is that I just stumbled upon. Terribly long; if you're jobless read it all, otherwise select parts to read. It's a little funny.

While we all laugh: Nigeria 101 in plain language
I have been privileged to visit several countries on this planet earth, but I have not been opportuned to visit a madder country than Nigeria. My very first flight out of Nigeria, and Africa, was to London some years back. And I had no idea what to expect. Like most Nigerian youths, life in Nigeria was good and could be worse. Don’t blame me, I didn’t know differently. We left Murtala Muhammed international Airport and I had no idea how much it stank until I experienced differently. We made a brief incursion onto the Atlantic airspace, a detour through an arid and Northern Africa, over the Mediterranean and then …. That was the first shocker. Watching London from the air was like watching a perfectly pencilled work of an Engineering student, with all the curves and lines where they should be. Even river banks we neatly down, more like a giant cup of coffee, with banks glittering greyish white from the distance. River, ordinary river that we use as conduit for all things disgusting and nasty back home in Nigeria?

Before I knew what was up, tears were streaming down my eyes. I wasn’t the emotional type, but the anger, the betray, the loss that I felt, that all our leaders have been privileged to visit these saner climes without returning home to improve our conditions of living… We the youth, we do not know any better, so you should pardon us. We should pardon ourselves. They know better. Rather than returning to the country with a passion to improve our home land, they go out there on spending spree, buying houses, buying cars that only gods or insanely mad people should ride, spending money on oyinbo girls whose behind is hardly different from the frontal region…

Yet we laugh.

After all we are Nigerians, and the only consistent thing about us is our penchant to turn everything to joke and laugh it off. We do it. Our fathers did it. Their fathers before them did it. We play the ostrich, maybe if we bury our heads long enough in the sand and laugh under the hood of the earth, maybe, just maybe the problem will have disappeared before we remove our heads from the sand. And in time, we have lost the knowhow of how to remove our head from the sand. Problem rages where our asses reside, but who cares, our heads are in the sand and troubles cannot get to us. The price of cement doubles, more than doubles within the space of 6 months. But who cares, the harder we laugh, the more distracted we get, the less painful it will all be.

The generations of our fathers bought brand new cars during NYSC and they didn’t have to share testimonies in churches and mosques. And yes, our fathers studied history, and demography, and education, and business admin. During NYSC, yes they bought DL cars, tear rubber. We are better than they, we study pharmacy, and law, and medicine, and chemical engineering… But 10 years after graduation we still don’t have a job that does better than keeping us alive to suffer grimmer fate of the coming morrows.

But who cares, our churches are there, and our mosques, and our senate… they take our mind off our fate, and they make us laugh, and clap, and make celebrations and Christ… If I pay my tithe of 10k today, next week God will make me a millionaire. The good Lord in Nigeria has taken Ponzi scheme to a whole new lever. Just a seed of faith and in the morning we all are at par with Dangote. But how? Just how will this happen? Beloved, the Lord cares not about the details, neither should we. After one year, and two years, and three years, we still can’t manage to increase our offering from N20 to N50… But we are to have faith, and bury our heads in the sand of religion and indifference as Dangote the son of God buys us all and makes us give him change.

Who cares?

We have a President, and he has certificate that no one has seen. Several months ago the 180million of us left no stone untouched but we couldn’t find it. We looked everywhere, everywhere except the other room where he keeps a lot of things plus our madam. And when we’re all exhausted from the search the graciously allowed us to consider his NEPA bill…to become the President out our dear mother-father land. Not too fast, JAMB has refused to allow us present NEPA bills to enter higher institutions. What are we going to do? Our favourite spot remains still in the sand, we need to bury our heads deeper so this concern will not get to us.

A rule exists for the Senate and the politicians, another for us that live in the jungles of our common national hustle-ship.

But who fucking cares?

Steal a loaf of bread and your fellow-in-suffering, before you say “Jonathan not Buhari”, has lighted you up like a candle… Or worse still, the police get to you before you fulfil the destiny of a human torch. They take you to SARS, and for stealing a loaf of bread, you enter their nest and you never again come out alive.

The gods that occupy our senate no longer have to steal these days, they have carefully legitimized and apportioned the choicest part of the loot to themselves. After all once the law backs it it is kuku not a crime. A single alert announcing the salary of a senator, could well have paid the salaries of a hundred Nigerians, and Dende that entered SARS’ nest would not need to have paid such a fatal visit.

Someone dared us and we tried to see if indeed we could remove our head from our precious sand. We did, only briefly, and found that our President dearest, the Lion of the tribe of the other room, the Lord of WAEC, and the wife of Saraki, had been gone for more than a month. Ah! Who stole him? The Queen? Before we were answered the Lord of WAEC quickly gave us the blessing of Suleiman and Otobo, and Sowore and Dino… And we were happy, the Lord of WAEC is happy, Saraki is happy, so happy he has gone on summoning spree. Before the year runs out all of us must appear before the senate to justify their criminal pay.

Perhaps one day the wind will blow our sand away and we will have no choice than to stare with naked eyes at our naked and sorely butts. Perhaps we will someday grow the courage to beat sense into the senate and the executives. After all, the people they say is the power of democracy… Perhaps, someday our youth will live up to their true strength, not merely seeking and taking up jobs, but building industries and inventing mechanisms to put the old dinosaurs leading us into old peoples’ homes.

But right now, let’s keep laughing until God comes round to building a ladder that allows Him to descend into Nigeria to sort out our problems, every one of them, by Himself. Who knows, the desperate and fervent prayers of our mothers and their fathers before them, might just get answered in our days. But if that doesn't materialize there's at least a heaven after now and here.

But hallelujah somebody, Nigerians needn't be afraid of a Hell after this life: Hell's headquarter has now moved to Nigeria, with the executives and legislators and public officers outdoing each other as the able representatives of Hell's special envoy to our land.

But who cares, our sand still remains.

http://voice-diary..com.ng/2017/03/while-we-all-laugh-nigeria-101-in-plain.html

Its like our minds are synched, you have the better tool of expression with real experience of the world out there. Thanks for piece like this should give reasonable youths sleepless nights. But many do not grow with loyalty to family regardless of a country. Thanks again bro, Thanks.

I will comment when I become senator

op.....remove your zoo tag......this is fp material unfortunately people like you dont/cant get the message.....
as a matter of fact wipe out ur statement before the mods arrives...

mazizitonene:
op.....remove your zoo tag......this is fp material unfortunately people like you dont/cant get the message.....
as a matter of fact wipe out ur statement before the mods arrives...

Front page material

Beautiful.