The Nigerians being sold into the slave markets of Libya and the Arabian peninsula, began their enslavements closer to home.
I had just left a meeting on Lagos Island and was heading back to Lekki. This was just a tad after noon. Today.
The traffic on the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge was as usual horrendous, it started just before you climbed the bridge, and I happily joined the queue to pay our tribute to the Alaafin of Bourdillon, after all, “omo go, won ni ko ma ku, sebi jeje wa la kuku go”. I am not sure that you would find a populace happier to be afflicted as the Lekki inhabitants.
Halfway down the descent into Lekki, and at approximately 12:20PM, I noticed a Lexus SUV causing a slight backup in the traffic, I could see the driver laboring to change the front tire, sweating profusely in the hot sun, and he did not appear to be having much success in getting the jack to lift up the car, and then I saw the reasons for his fruitless exertions, and my head exploded.
There were passengers in the car. A Lexus RX, probably about 15 years old, definitely seen better days, but the air conditioning system appeared to be working just fine, and the pair, a man and a woman, were chatting away animatedly, oblivious of the driver’s Sisyphian struggles, and then I saw the occupants clearer as I leveled with the car.
They were Asians, probably Pakistani, Indian, or Sri Lankan. The fact that they were not Africans or Nigerians, might have been critical in galvanizing me into acting as I did, but my foolish friend almost got us into trouble until I pushed him back into the closet from whence he had threatened to emerge.
Horror of horrors: Black Moses almost got out today.
So I parked in front of the car, got out of my car and knocked on the tinted rear window of the car. Mr. Man been try ignore me when I first knocked, but I guess he received sense on taking another look at the bearded mad man knocking on his window. Black Moses was also standing behind me, and I could feel his breath in my nostrils.
How do you justify what you have done, I demanded to know? I then offered him the comfort of my own car, if he must not be exposed to the evil Nigerian sun, even as they milk the Nigerian cow, and reap the fat of the land. He promptly blamed the decision to remain in the car, on the driver, pronounced himself happy to enjoy the sun, and made a show of coming out of the car along with his consort.
Why wouldn’t you tell them to come out before trying to kill yourself? I demanded of the driver, but he had no answer to offer to me. I am unable to tell if it was the fear of losing his oyibo masters that stilled his tongue, or if he was indeed as silly as his ogas. I am not sure that oga would have been happy to be contradicted in the circumstances, and that he would come down was enough for Dele, even as BM was cocked and loaded to erupt.
The incident left me troubled for several hours, and I have shared only as therapy for myself. But the story would be incomplete without a clarification that I believe to be of extreme importance, and that is the one regarding the race of the ogas in this case. It just happened that the ogas were not Nigerians, but the foreigners learn how to treat us, by watching the way that we treat ourselves.
I have been the recipient of great and gratuitous help, extended my way in foreign lands, and I do not believe that what I witnessed today is necessarily about race, or racism. It is purely about an insidious class war, where the rich have devalued the life of the poor, even as they are impoverished and rendered perpetually subservient, all the while ensuring that his children never find a way out of the existential crises into which they have been systematically locked.
The Nigerians being sold into the slave markets of Libya and the Arabian peninsula, began their enslavements closer to home. The primary slavers are the political and economic elites, and the choices made at different levels of Nigerian governance systems, are the reasons why citizens have had their very lives devalued.
Make of it what you will, but na wetin Musa see for maiguard job today be that.
DF
First published 11 December, 2019.
