In his 1972 book, “One Week One Trouble” Nigerian writer Anezi Okoro focuses on the life of Wilson Tagbo, a boy who got admission into secondary school and no week passed by without him getting into trouble. From his very first day in school, Wilson was embroiled in one trouble or another. He somehow had the unusual capacity to attract trouble so much so that in one of his many escapades, he ended up inhaling nitrous oxide (aka laughing gas) in the Chemistry laboratory. He eventually got arrested following his involvement with cultists.
In the last few weeks, while most of the world was still reveling in the aftermath of the holidays and yet to come to terms with the new year, Nigerians were already being served breakfast – a Nigeria slang made popular by Burna Boy and refers to the certain heartbreak or tragedy that befalls everyone at some point in life. For us in Nigeria, it’s been one day, one trouble without as much as enough time and space to recover from one catastrophe before the next one lands on our already filled plate. Sadly, this is slowly eroding our humanity as our tears of woe and pain are often short lived and transferred onto the next calamity and repeat.
While this verse in the Bible is very intriguing, Matthew 6:34 is “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”, it scarily validates the certain tragedy that Nigerians confront everyday. Only two weeks ago in my maiden article, I wrote about the resilience of Nigerians and how no matter what we face, we are bound to get up again and live to fight another day. However, the daily onslaught of tragedy and trouble that we all have to confront is one too many and it is becoming increasingly difficult to count on the resilience of the Nigerian spirit. After all, there is only so much a human heart and body can take before it collapses under the heavy load because where in the world do people crowdfund for ransom?
Yes, as ludicrous as it sounds, while other people crowdfund for education, healthcare and even a holiday, Nigerians have to crowdfund to pay kidnappers ransom to stay alive. As this now ‘lucrative’ business expands, it has come home to roost right in the middle of the nation’s capital territory, the city of Abuja once adored as a safe haven but now a place where many residents no longer feel safe. And no one is safe, no one, whether rich, poor, old or young. These unscrupulous merchants of evil do not care as long as they can instill enough fear and dread in their captives and families to pay up and they are not afraid to kill their victims either.
On the one hand, we are dealing with a political class who have no regard, respect or love for the people or how else do you explain the wanton corruption and plundering of our collective wealth by the political class with impunity while asking the people to brace up for hard times? On the other hand, we are confronted with a judiciary that is allegedly now up for sale to the highest bidder – the one arm of government deemed to be the last hope of the common man. Then you have the failure of infrastructure in critical sectors like health, education, security and power to contend with and Nigerians have now fully resorted to providing alternative solutions turning these state operated services to backups
Before you mention our faith in God as a shock absorber, we are confronted with the revelations from a BBC documentary that a popular faith leader (now late) had allegedly sexually abused his members and also faked miracles for decades. So, even religion – the opium of the masses, is not spared. Lastly, as if the alarmingly high rate of insecurity in the country is not enough for one country to deal with, we now have to deal with neighbours who stockpile explosives in their homes right in the middle of a residential area. How in the world did explosives get purchased, transported and stored in a residential area by miners without the knowledge and safety inspection of the responsible authorities to counter such deadly ventures and ensure they are stored in appropriate places?
But none of that happened, someone dropped the ball, looked the other way and most likely collected some inducement and now hundreds of people are dead, injured, homeless, or critically in need of mental and emotional support to deal with the aftermath of the explosions in Ibadan. Many lives will be affected in one way or the other by these unfortunate and avoidable destruction of lives and property in the days, weeks and months to come as the aftermath can only be better imagined than experienced. How does anyone come back from such a loss?
How much more can a nation and a people endure? The truth is we have passed our breaking point as a people and as a nation. We are currently living on borrowed time. There must be something innately and eerily supernatural about our ability to even exist yet alone thrive as a nation and I dare say that this phenomenon beggars research and needs to be studied.
Before we descend into complete anarchy and a state of no return – if we aren’t there yet, the government must realize that we cannot continue like this. Something is fundamentally wrong and it is their responsibility to fix it. Ordinary citizens don’t give mining licenses, sell explosives or approve their storage. How do legal and illegal miners gain access to state land and move around such weapons of mass destruction unguarded? Ordinary citizens also don’t have the resources to build hospitals, schools, roads and power their own communities. If we have to crowdfund to do all these then why do we need the government?
It is foolhardy for any government to continue to count on the resilience and the can-do-spirit of its people in the face of obvious brutality, non-functional systems, chaos and state capture. Regardless of the vehicle conveying the legitimacy or otherwise of such a government, it is in the best interest of our political leaders, security agencies and the legislature to take this current situation seriously and deal with it now because the buck stops at their table. This is not the time for condolence messages and visits, apologies and regrets until another calamity befalls the people and the government repeats the sequence. This is the time for strategy and collective action by those who have the mandate to protect and secure the lives and property of Nigerians. Last time I checked, only the state had the monopoly of violence and they need to use that to combat insecurity and crime rather than on the people they are meant to serve.
Yes it may appear that Nigerians are used to dealing with one trouble per day but that may no longer hold water as William Butler Yeats wrote in his poem “The Second Coming” over a hundred years ago in November 1920, when the world seemed on the verge after the First World War. Perhaps even now, these words are instructive: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”
Almost 30 years later in 1958, our own Chinua Achebe in his debut novel “Things Fall Apart” reminded us again about the consequences of not heeding advice when trouble beckons and how it will eventually swallow us all up. A word they say is enough for the wise.
