Call me what you like, I don’t care. Nobody can compel me to call for revolution now, justified or not. I would rather yell how revolted I am by Yele Sowore’s daftness. How could smart Sowore fall for the bait by calling for revolution in a nation like ours, where harmattan winds can never turn to spring? Or has he been too long in the Sahara that his brain got screwed up?
I must confess that I don’t have Sowore’s guts in misfortune. Of course, he has always been a fighter, from his university days. Thankfully, I was not; I only managed to stay in my little corner to sulk, like most other weather-beaten Nigerians, knowing that I had nobody to fight for me and that hailers would be first to scamper for the safety of their own skin.
Weather-beaten Nigerians? Yes, but not beaten by sun or rain. Rather, I mean the inclement weather of hunger, the poverty and deprivation that has played yoyo with the bollocks of men, now gone flaccid and unable to throb at the sight of delectable damsels. Many a man no longer gets excited by those scintillating mobile sugar that sweetens their lives, sinfully or righteously, because they can no longer afford it.
Gone with the wind is the side-chick. And madam is in her territory, arms akimbo and shooting straight from her lips, ratata, ratatata, ratatatatat, and, poor man, he has no helmet to shield his head from the barbs, much noisier and deadlier than the herdsmen’s AK47.
And that’s another point of revulsion. No man is safe anymore. We cannot go to the farms, to which government’s lip service drove us despite First Class degrees, because of herdsmen’s ambush. We cannot drive to Abuja through Kaduna, the road has since been ceded to gutsy bandits; even now only brave men dare ply Benin-Ore road but with thumping hearts for marauding goons have respect for nobody, not even for Pa Adeboye’s children, coming to commune with the Holy Ghost. It’s gotten to the point that Zamfara has to now go before criminals in ‘peace’ conference. Even ever the wailing South-West are as garrulous as ever, full of empty verbiage, while Fulani vigilante take over their mothers’ hearths.
This is what revolts me about Sowore’s stupid revolution. He has no reason for revolution. Do fearful men understand revolution? Do you start revolution on empty stomachs and not faint in the way? Can Sowore’s revolution wake the dead, those that commit suicide or do Andrew on a daily basis, and get buried in the belly of the Mediterranean? Does he not know that calling youths to revolution is akin to calling them out to the slaughter slab, even including himself? Ask Shiite Muslims. That is why something tells me Sowore’s plight is more of editorial mistake. Where he meant ‘revulsion,’ they imprinted ‘revolution’ and he didn’t spot it on time.
Is Nigeria worth dying for? Sowore, no! We don’t need revolution but we can be revolted by the nonsense around us. When we do, we will better deploy our votes instead of selling it or serving as thugs for the oppressors. When we do, we will refuse to line our pockets with cheap lucre that mortgages our destiny. When we do, we will not join the looters’ gang or sing their praises.
How can we call for revolution when we are complicit? In our own little corner, we cheat and scheme out our compatriots and potential rivals, lording it over others, as if life belongs to us. How stupid power makes us; we forget that the change that thrust us up soon comes around to sweep us away into oblivion. That is why I feel revulsion. We are all hypocrites, pretending to be better than those we want to revolt against. The difference is the opportunity that has come or is yet awaited.
I hail my cowardice. Those that hailed Sowore’s bravado are in their houses now, nesting on the bosom of their wives. Since Sowore got his 45 days of legal detention without trial (in the first instance), how many more people are on the streets? They made Ben Johnson with their limbs, having suddenly realised that life, no matter how parlous, is still sweet, after leading Sowore to be shipped as Dasuki’s roommate.
Ah, weep for Nigeria, weep for gold misplaced. Weep for brains so dense we cannot assimilate common sense and reason. Buhari did this, Buhari did that; haba! Won’t we tire of this singsong of broken tomtom? I suspect some fraudsters of using the old man’s name to advantage and misleading us. Is Buhari in Aso Rock and all 36 states at the same time? Is Buhari the tax man or the engineer that approves payment for undulating road as perfect? Does Buhari import the fake and adulterated drugs everywhere? How about the absentee doctors that abscond from their duty posts but would rather be at their own private runs and yet collect pay from public till or declare strike if they don’t get it? Or the marks-for-paper-back-for-ground lecherous lecturers? How about the governors, stripping their states bare of assets but yet wangle their way into the Senate? Is Buhari the lawyers compromising the bench and bar? Why do we believe he has pocketed the judiciary and legislature when the gutless operators are willing collaborators? Abeg, mek I hear word, jare. We are making the old man a superhero; he is our Nemesis.
Sowe, preach mental revolution. Preach peace and righteousness, and love. Our nation is rotten. How can the nation prosper when innocent blood washes the streets like rainwater? How can the nation prosper when a man could rape his own four-month-old baby? How can the land be healed when a man could rape his own mother? How can we get it right when renegade parenting has turned our daughters into rebellious lesbians and sons homosexuals?
Honestly, sometimes I wonder if Rapture has not taken place and we all missed it. Maybe we really need to be sure of that. I can’t understand how our beautiful world has gone bonkers. The devil has let loose his arsenal at full throttle and we are steadily and swiftly galloping into oblivion.