Nigeria is the world’s number one all-round ultra-peculiar country. She holds bragging rights for every global booby prize, for keeps. The citizen who contests this obvious fact must either be out to flaunt crass patriotism or is out of touch with reality. Out there, our beautiful fatherland is ugly; seeded in the world’s minor leagues of the most corrupt, the most poverty-stricken, the least united, etc. We may condemn these comedown nomenclatures in public, but we know deep down that they represent the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Take the idea that the country is the global headquarters of the happiest people, for instance. No one who is conversant with Nigeria’s economic, social and political reality would shy away from decoding the joy tag for what it is: Outright mockery or a satirical salute to Nigerians’ stoicism and never-say-die indomitability. By embezzling the commonwealth and allowing visitors to maltreat Nigerians right here in Nigeria, our leaders qualify us as a people grossly assaulted by local and foreign oppressors; a people exposed to horrible infrastructure, healthcare, education and opportunities. We cannot suffer such sadness-inducements and still be the happiest people in the world.
I don’t like discussing present-day Nigeria. It almost always makes me depressed. Talking Nigeria kidnaps my ever jubilant mood. What a country, so enormously endowed but so criminally below capacity and expectation! Nigerians bicker over crumbs but gloss over the meal itself. Families fight over an ‘outsider’ in an election, scatter when the time comes to enjoy the dividends of democracy but reconcile afterwards in preparation for another round of electoral in-fighting. Yet, as soon as winners emerge, another quarrel sets in again.
Nigerians disagree in perpetuity: Before, during and after every election. As early as six months into the four-year tenure, different camps start arousing the country rudely via cacophonous actions and speeches suggestive of the next election. By the time two years have passed like now, drumbeats for the next polls reach fever pitch. That’s why everywhere you turn in 2017 both the oppressors and the oppressed are upbeat about 2019 whereas the 2015th elections that promised so much change have changed nothing (well, except retrogressively). Nigerians are a sad people deeply rooted in anticipatory happiness!
Are we under a spell? A few people popularly elected and entrusted with so much would turn around to abuse the constitution, the office as well as their conscience and the citizenry by primitively amassing stolen wealth, which their own children’s great grandchildren won’t exhaust. Consequently, with no funds left to implement meagre budgetary provisions for electricity, potable water, medicare and other basic necessities, life expectancy tumbles. Alas, to remain the globe’s happiest people, we celebrate these empty big thieves with public adoration and adulation, chieftaincy titles, and front-row honours at places of worship. Fortunately, we only fool ourselves -not God!
It is that unfoolable God who grants faith to some Nigerians to believe that El Dorado Nigeria cometh.
Forgive that longish deviation. I meant today to feast in the main on one other area where Nigerians need to catch up with the cultured world: Our telephone mannerisms. I concede that the coming of GSM has brought monumental impact economically, socially and indeed in every sphere of our daily living. However, can we deny the huge shame, losses and in many unreported cases, the wanton deaths caused by our (mis)use of this blessing? Do we have data on fatalities caused by handsets left on beds to charge overnight that exploded while owners slept?
Should we delve into the totally-ignored health hazards concomitant with carrying the handset in breast pockets or overusing the mobile device or how generator noise has conditioned most of us into shouting when we are on the phone? Nigerians need lectures on radiation and the effect of off-putting phone habits. The authorities should understand that these electronic communication gadgets compete with leading killer diseases like malaria, AIDS, Ebola, etc? The statistics of deaths or serious injuries caused by wrongful use of these ubiquitous attention-soaking elements would alarm us.
Even more worrisome is what mobile telephony does on our roads. Beyond stopping motorists to check ‘particulars’, FRSC, police, soldiers and others on road duty should watch out for call-answering drivers or such other road users abusing the mobile phone. Too many of us spend abnormal time on phone calls or smsing while on top speed or in tricky traffic situations. Most accidents result from drivers and cyclists taking off their eyes from the road to pick up their handsets or to type a quick message or losing concentration because of being on long calls. Pedestrians cross busy motorways with their phone to their ear or eyes fixed on handset screens. This obsession endangers lives of these phonoholics and other road users!
As a Special Marshall, I pray FRSC to do something extra-crazy to fight this ubiquitous killer which decimates our population quietly. Around the country, you would see mothers(?) during school runs driving children (in the back of the car) to or from school but chatting away on telephone. Left unmonitored, some hyperactive children wind down the back glasses and hang out their heads. This happens every day in our cities. Of course, men are worse culprits. Our phone conduct while on the wheels is dirtier and unpardonable. Please don’t beam the searchlight on drivers of big cars. Armed with just this little device, these small men have turned our roads into their fiefdom!
Since Nigeria has largely fought malaria and company to a standstill, she should now turn her attention to the new quiet killer on the prowl: Telephone-infection. Who hasn’t seen traffic controllers on duty taking a call or typing an sms? Gradually, this fatuous stupidity has crept into hospitals, churches, filling stations and such service delivery points as hotels and so on? Haven’t you seen a medical staff who should understand the place of time in health management keeping a patient waiting endlessly because of his useless personal phone engagement? Or, a supermarket attendant whose queue is building up because she’s on the phone?