When you hear that hotels in Abakaliki have gone on all time accommodation high-discount promo and yet people are not paying attention to them, what does that tell you?
Today, Nigeria wears helmet of hunger. It is has always been a country where every form of death is possible but hunger-trigger deaths are now regular. Pilfering of items as small as ear phone is common.
Cases of theft of pots of soup are heaped in different police stations. Average Nigerian on the street is aggressive. Family crises are at their peak. Lies have gone professionals andmany journalists are now career liars. Newscasters present news report they know to be lies. While the social media is awash with daily cries of poor masses, our government control media rent air with praises and daily schedules of their excellencies with post news profiles sometimes on the potent medical composition of their spittle and excrete! Betrayal has become state craft.
Nothing trips our conscience again as long as it can give us food. A reputable judge at his 70 stands up and with two conclave lenses calls black white and allows the sledge hammer of justice to fall in favour of the highest bidder. A political appointee forces himself to laugh before his paymasters and goes home to complain to his wife within thefour corners of their bedrooms.
Only hunger can make one go through such self-inflicted psychological suffering of defending what his inner conscience resists. Hunger breeds cowards. Are we new to the threat of party loyalists who warn the courageous to mind their business and leave their masters alone? Of all sicknesses, none is as painful as cancer but the pain of hunger cannot be compared to that of cancer. In a decent environment where alternative opportunities abound, many Nigerians ought to have resigned their jobs and have their rest of mind.
Hunger is not always without positive results. It forces critical thinking on issues that were in the affluence ignored. When people begin to ask more questions than they expect answers, a wise leader ought to know that it is game-over for deceit; he should quickly readjust to gain public acceptance otherwise it would be a matter oftime and he goes the way of King Louis XVI and his wife Antoinette who took the protest of hungry citizens for comedy until it broughtdown the Ancien Régime.
In the past Nigerians paid little attention to what church and state do. That was why both institutions grew wild and defecated on people’s ignorance. But in the age of hunger some many are asking power questions our leaders may not want to answer. In the church, hungry faithful want to know what ministers of God do with the tithe they collect from people. They want to know if buildings are more important than their criesof hunger.
The question is possible because the church has become a commercial symbol which is as guilty as government in exploitation and disregard of public mood. Like government, the church pays more attention to physical infrastructure than the quality of life of the people of God.
So many auditoriums called churches in Nigeria are laid on the foundation of poor people’s sweat. The success of today’s ministering isjudged by the beauty of church buildings and number of church projects executed. Those who touched people’s lives are not seen as serious ones. Modern churches watch their worshippers starve to death but can hire Frank Edward’s live band at N5m for 2-hour performance.
They task and tax eventhe homeless to surrender their hard-earned money just because they want to build theaters called churches where ministers come to act drama and credit their accounts.Christ had in mind ministers who will leave relishing memory in the lives of the flock who encounter them. But people go away from the church more wounded that they hadcome. With optionally-compulsory tithing the poor are raped economically. Some have developed psychological obsessive compulsion that makes them rise in anger atleast provocation in the name of ‘do my prophets no harm’ to defend the very ministers exploiting them. There is nothing wrong when people give out of their abundance willingly for God’s work.
But we must bear in mind that the work of God begins with man who bears the image of God. The tragedy of Jerusalem temple was twofold: it once an entrance where trades were carried out and poor exploited; secondly, it once had a Beautiful Gate where cripples were begging for alms. It took the intervention St. Peter and St. John to discharge the man from the gate. How wrongly are we proving Marx right that religion is the opium of the masses! Again, tired of protracted bad leadership, hungry Nigerians are now interested on how our public office holders spend our public naira.
They are angry at leaders who are not in touch with their plight. Not long ago, Femi Adesina described cries of Nigerians for better living as handiwork of the opposition. Our politicians see our complaint for food as opposition politics. People who take side with the oppressed are judged as being partisans. I still write for a simple reason thatonce upon a time Satan sentenced Jesus to death for taking side. Actually, Jesus was a partisan- He came in solidarity with the suffering humanity.
One thing is sure, all those who insist that our current governments are getting things right ought to be quarantined and services of professional psychiatrists retained to their favour from our taxpayers’ money. Every day we wake up to the cries of the poor masses who manage to save money meant for their breakfast to recharge their data and air their grievances on the media. Every day we also wake up to the arguments of ignoramuses defending the indefensible.
Some bring arguments that would in a decent environment lead to the withdrawal of their professional certificates. The public outcry today is hunger-provoked. Government is owned by the people and leaders are only entrusted to run it on trust with contract to feed the people. No government should growrascal with public money as it must be invested in the best way it can benefit greater majority. The primary task of a government is to distribute available resources according to priority and the first priority everywhere is the welfare of the people.
In affluence, government may behave way they want with no much attention from the people but in famine nothing escapes people’s criticism. For instance, the government in Ebonyi State has some noble sides no matter how people perceive it.
But in the midst of prevalent problems and hunger in the state, those noble sides are like parrots being praised for uttering few words clearly. People want maximum prudence in managing their resources. They need to be brought into socio-economic equation more than they need perfect Christmas trees that add no value to their lives. Prudence minimizes waste and expands size of hope.
The culture of building and demolishing is better in affluence. No government garners stamina by destruction. For years I have known Makurdi, the woman carrying a basket of fruits has remained standing and no one had helped her down at that roundabout.
But only God can locate that man who was holding a hoe, a symbol of our struggle at the Abakaliki Roundabout. We have also buried the woman who was carrying firewood at Zik’s Avenue Roundabout. Perhaps, Akanu Ibiam had trekked back to Unwana from Spera in Deo Junction after sensing danger. At this critical moment of our nationhood, Nigerians must sit together as sons and daughters of Abraham and chart way forward.
Neither arrogance nor destructive criticism will expand our opportunities. Every exploiting institution must reform and give listening ears to public mood.
The cries of the moment have tap roots in poverty and hunger. It will be wrong to ignore them with snap of fingers. This is no time to waste punches otherwise we may wake up one dayto find out there is no more a place we call a country.
Those who play politics with hungermust bear in mind that there is a day call tomorrow. Leaders must learn true leadership from Jesus. When He finished teaching, He felt pity for the crowd but His trusted lieutenants did the arithmetic and arrived at impossibility.
They advised Jesus to send the crowd away.
But Jesus told them: “Give them something to eat yourselves.”
Nigeria leaders must look at your people and understand that they don’t hate them; they are only hungry!
