I wonder if Nigeria has enough MEN, that would stand up to refuse the chains of servitude, that the Nigerian state would offer, in place of citizenship.
I grew quite morose and resentful at the collective resolve of the Nigerian peoples to find reasons to celebrate the Christmas that just passed, and I was completely unimpressed by the raft of parties that rang in the year’s end and ushered in the new one.
Kin’ni idun’nu Elewon! Exactly what is the joy of the prisoner that straps on a wristwatch, and then jumps up in joy to proclaim himself excited about the day? Eh jor, what is he celebrating? Is it the manacles on his wrists that he rejoices over, or the fetters that adorns his ankles?
I saw absolutely nothing to celebrate, and I maintained my lane, whilst trying my best to remain civil with those that sought to extend their festive cheer my way. I kept my phones silenced, and cemented my long cherished reputation as a grouch. I did nothing to tarnish my bad reputation.
The Nigerian middle class, the one that should be adorning its head with ashes in mourning of the imminent pauperization of their numbers by the rapacious ruling class, were the ones most guilty of this mindless celebration of nonsense. Most of them would appear intent on lobotomizing themselves with bangers as a shortcut to amnesia!
Jeez! December 25 is just another day! And the 1st day of January is just exactly that, the first day of the month of January. The Nigerian state remains the same evil empire, the rulers have retained all of their evil capacities, and the Nigerian security forces, and particularly the Nigerian police, remains exactly what they are designed to be. Task masters on the slave plantation.
As the new year was welcomed by unending salvos of fireworks, I was kept awake and in foul mood before I could get some sleep around 2AM. I was awakened on the morning of the 1st of January by news of Yele Sowore’s arrest in Abuja. The news did not help my mood. I spoke with persons that were present at the scene. I was sent pictorial and video evidence of what took place. I am led by experience to conclude that the Nigerian state and its policemen, have merely acted true to type, and in the best tradition of all fascist states.
Let us examine the facts.
Yele was sat in a car clearly marked “Sahara Reporters” and it had a “Press” sticker on it. Curtailed as his rights might be, he is not under any order not to earn his living as a journalist. There was a crowd of less than 20 individuals with candles lit in commemoration of the Lekki massacre.
Across the road and less than 20 meters from the scene were two churches, and not quite 50 meters afar, a couple of nightclubs. Those that would demand that God be their houseboy, were gathered in His name, and those that would dance, drink, and fornicate their way into the year, were busy at work.
The Nigerian state is extremely happy with the two extremes available to these model subjects of the evil state. You can be as religious as you care to be. You might even be zealous enough to put in a gig with the Boko Haram terrorists, kill and maim soldiers and civilians alike, rape a few, and make some suicide bombers, the Nigerian state understands and rewards that. You will be deradicalized, and absorbed into its army.
Party away your sorrow. Gamble and you might find the riches that the governance and economic systems have assured that you may not make by your legitimate sweat. Prostitution might be illegal, but objective realities would suggest that the industry is the largest. Nigeria has no problem with you. Party away, model serfs of the feudal state.
There’s a cocktail of all types of narcotics available to the youth, science students yapa for our country. The igbo that we snuck around to smoke in our youth, that very reason that we were told increased the population of the original Wereys, have today become available in many exotic forms. The Nigerian state is happy for you to be high.
In this Nigeria, I have learnt not to look at cough syrups as innocent, soakaways are apparently not spared in the search for a high, the Nigerian requires constant inebriation, and my geriatric mother had to protest against the questions from the pharmacist, each time she had required a refill of the pain medication she occasionally requires. I will not mention its name.
On the 20th day of October 2020, at the Lekki tollgate plaza in Lagos State, the Nigerian Army, at the clear invitation of Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and on the orders of General Muhammadu Buhari, shot at, murdered and injured a yet undetermined number of national flag waving, national anthem singing, unarmed and innocent Nigerians. THESE ARE INDISPUTABLE FACTS!
I have personally met with the injured, and with families of men that were at the scene, and who have not been found since that day. I STAND BY MY WORDS!
Whilst some elected to party in the clubs, and others would beseech God to save them from their dystopian nightmare, some insane Nigerians, conscious of the humanity of the dead and injured, and understanding that but for the grace of God, those might have been them, gathered peacefully in memory of the victims. All they had were candles. This was their watch: their wake. A memoriam.
There were between 15-20 men and women at the candlelight vigil, 7 police vans were deployed to attack these pesky terrorists. The Nigerian state has never believed itself more challenged and or affronted, than by any suggestion that a serf, dares to demand citizenship.
I am not sure that the policemen knew the identity of the market that they were buying at the point of Yele Sowore’s latest arrest. It is my fervent belief that the state was merely being its natural reflexive self, and the current victims were merely in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Yele Sowore, Juwon, and Michael dared to be citizens, and Nigeria happened to them. The men and women at the Lekki tollgate on the 20th of October, and who were being remembered, also presumed to be citizens. Those of us wailing are equally damned by our presumption of citizenship, and it is this common thread that binds us irrevocably. The arrested are the same as the ones killed and injured by the Nigerian state at the Lekki tollgate. And they are all my brethren.
It is just another day in the Nigerian paradise, and it was fittingly the very first day of the very first month, in the new year, according to the reckoning of MEN. I wonder if Nigeria has enough MEN, that would stand up to refuse the chains of servitude, that the Nigerian state would offer, in place of citizenship.
I wish you all; a happy new year. Enter the year in the knowledge that some of us have resolved to challenge this evil system in this year, and we are fine with whatever its responses might care to be; but it shall not get away with passing itself off as being democratic. Buhari and the evil governance systems should get ready to be unmasked as the murderous fascists that they are.
In 2021, we are in my brother Taiwo Akinlami’s words, “called to the ministry of clarity”. We shall certainly be happening to Nigeria this year, we are done with Nigeria happening to us.
DF
I am 100%with you sir