03/08/2024
WASTED GENERATION - When Hope is Lost
I am in my late Forties; I was born in the 70s into a good nation.
I started primary school under the free education policy of Prof. Ambrose Alli, the then Bendel state governor, of UPN. There was even a school feeding program then, not the audio school feeding we have today and the monumental corruption attached.
Since birth, we have hoped for a better country but Nigeria has progressively become worse. In the last four decades, across civilian and military rule, we have progressively taken many steps backward as a nation.
We are loke cast away at sea. Too young to be youths and too young to be leaders. We are in limbo torn between a nation we loved but never loved us in return and the chances we let to leave this promising but bereaved landscape. Ours is a tale of broken promises and broken hope, one cycle after the other.
I am appalled at where we stand as a nation but what ails me most is where we are headed. I believe in the theory of multiple outcomes but if we keep heading where we are headed, we will get to doomsday soon enough.
The economy has tanked, being propped up by debt. There is a spirit of greed and avarice is let loose over the land. We have evolved a culture of mercantile philistinism, self-aggrandizement, and ostentatious accumulation and display of wealth, whatever the source and at whatever cost to others.
Life is no longer sacred. We are a people who have lost our direction, values, morals, ethics, and ourselves. Nigeria is a nation in which anything goes, and the end justifies the means. So, the worst of us can be elevated to rule over the rest of us depending on the depth of their pocket and how much of it they are willing to throw around to bulldoze their way into power.
The middle class has effectively been wiped out in Nigeria, and while the people get poorer and poorer, our politicians, their lackeys, and the tenderpreneurs are feeding fat on our commonwealth.
The death knell of a nation is sounding, but the leaders are frolicking, wining, and dining with their side chics while the destiny of over 200 million people hangs on the precipice of disaster.
Many years ago, I stopped praying for Nigeria. I saw that the prayers were not doing her any good. I did not cease to pray so I kept praying for Nigerians hoping that they can do their blessed nation the justice it deserves (Every city was built by someone...)
I now think that Nigeria is beyond redemption, at least not in my lifetime. If you look at the present administration and those hanging on the wings ready to pounce on power next, you will know that the night is going to be long. Draw up a list of the 20 likely people to succeed the present president and you will see that it is going to be a long night.
Even if a violent revolution were to shake things up or the military takeover (because democracy will not as long as INEC and the present system of elections persist), there will be no new Nigeria in my lifetime.
I have not written about Nigeria in a long time. It is tiring and depressing. And it makes no difference to the people or the government. They are set in their ways and not even the mightiest pen cannot sway their unthinking hearts.
Immigration is a world-wide phenomenon but Nigeria are braving the wild, the deserts, the high seas and even death to far flung places, many where they are clearly not welcome. They are not emigrating, they are escaping the cauldron called a nation, a pretend nation.
I have joined protests before in the hope that some things will change, but not anymore. We have crossed the Rubicon. The leaders are so entrenched in their ways, and their enablers, security forces, civilians, media, religious and traditional institutions, and all others have taken sides with the very cause of their pitiable, inhuman existence that is void of conscience and dignity just to get a morsel of bread.
Four decades of hoping. Hopes dashed, hope forlorn, hope gone. I give up.
I have lost hope in a better nation in my lifetime.
I am a victim of Nigeria (In the words of Dele Farotimi).
The inmates have taken over the asylum. Nigeria is a vast crime scene and our leaders and the criminals and the jailers.
Do I want my kids to have their hopes, purpose, and future dashed and truncated by this same system I have been a victim of, no I don't, even if that is the last thing I do.
When hope is lost, there is nothing left.
No hope. No faith. No fate. No future.
