WHY WE ARE THE WAY WE ARE

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For most part of this year 2017, I have had to commute to work and a few other places by public transport not because I do not have a car to run around but because I decided not to drive for most part of the year given some reasons including trying to keep my sanity having being attacked in broad day light in traffic right in front of a military cantonment and nothing was done by the patrol team who went into the building the hoodlums ran into. Another reason was until Governor Ambode sent those “special people” in uniforms off the streets who were frustrating drivers and car owners thus making driving a nightmare as no matter how hard you tried to keep your car documents together, they would always find a fault or two so as to give you a fine which many times do not come cheap. Unnecessary traffic in some areas was also a big “NO” for me including some other reasons which are best known to me alone. in this city called Lagos.

On some of these commuting by public transport, I would run into a couple of friends and foes alike who would ask me questions such as “why didn’t you drive? I saw you at so and so bus tops, what where you doing standing on the road waiting for a bus when you could have easily driven? Including a host of other cynical questions. My replies usually  included “oh I didn’t feel like driving too far today” or on the days when the car had a small fault “I took it to the mechanic” or was it when I was still battling with road safety for my drivers’ license? Too many instances when I had to be asked questions upon questions on “why did you not drive”?

On several occasions, some of these ‘concerned people’ would say “you like to stress/suffer yourself sha” and my immediate reply would always be “shey before we started owning cars and being driven around town, many of had to move around by public transport until God started blessing us with the wherewithal to buy cars?

Where am I going with all of these?

Dear reader, let me not bore you with long stories anymore.

My point is, we are where we are today as a people and as a nation because of the mentality of “what would people say” so many of us do things that we would not naturally do because we do not want people to talk.

Well, I’m sorry to be the one to re-echo that “no matter how hard you try, or what you do, people will always talk” so no point killing yourself just to please anyone amongst the crowd out there that think or care nothing about you.

Our leaders will continue to steal us “red” because even when the good ones are elected into power/positions, they are put under pressure by family, friends and those around him to steal from the ‘big government pot to prove that they have arrived’ even when they never intended to do such.

The incumbents look at the lives of predecessors who did not steal while in government and how society has all of a sudden forgotten them as they seemingly have nothing to offer being out of government. Their children are mocked and told such lines as “your father was in government for so and so number of years yet he couldn’t do this or that for himself yet see Mr A and Mr D who held the same position for just a few months, their properties, this that and so on all around the place but your father can only boast of that single flat you all live in at the moment”.

After such remarks, tell me why the next person will not steal when elected into power? That’s if he/she is not self-willed against all odds?

It’s really a terrible world we live in. where evil is applauded and good shamed!

The life that many of us live today is not what we ordinarily want but for the sake of society and what the next person would say, we tend to live our lives for people.

Dear reader, that kind of lifestyle must stop.

As 2017 grinds swiftly to an end, take time to access your life and decide upon how you want to run with 2018. If you want to live a simple life, by all means go for it and save yourself the brouhaha of trying to meet up with the bandwagon of those who want to live their lives to please others thereby killing themselves in the long run.

The awful part of joining that “bandwagon” is that if you drop dead today, many of them would not even notice that you are gone and even if they notice, they wouldn’t even attend your funeral. The least most of them would do is type ‘REST IN PEACE’ on your social media timeline for others to read when they visit your page and thereafter everyone would move on without you.

So dear reader, think about 2018 critically and run it at your pace.

Peace!!! 

STELLA ENE-INYANG   

NIGERIA AND OUR PRESENT STATE: WHAT DO YOU PRAY FOR?

Times without number, a lot of people have embarked on turning great business ideas into reality with a mindset of succeeding at all costs, believing that with a  large circle of friends and family members, the business will definitely succeed.

Alas they are disappointed 70% of the time because the same circle of family and friends would rarely patronize them and even when some of them do at all, a large number of that group will either want it for free or for a token and also  many a times give the attitude that they are just doing you a big favour for even attempting to buy into your idea.

Alright, let’s assume the business eventually sees the light of day, you would be shocked to realize in the long run that your loyal customers are people you never knew or thought would even give your business a thought or two at the time you conceived the idea.

Apart from the human factor, the many other necessities such as unavailability of constant electricity  supply, lack of good road, insecurity and most importantly the many stringent and unfriendly business Government policies on the other all add up to frustrate businesses in this county.

What is responsible for the above scenario?

 Life is complicated! Really complicated therefore, it is impossible to get all the answers to the countless “whats, hows and whys”.

Sadly, it is the same “we” who make the life as complicated as it is. We need no ‘rocket science’ to hit that hard-truth nail in.

Just yesterday, I watched on one of the local stations as a 37 year old man from the eastern part of Nigeria who now lives in Doha was being interviewed about his life in Doha and why he left Nigeria in the first place. I was totally disappointed and deeply hurt to hear the first statement from him was “Nigeria is a killer of destiny”. Those words cut really deep.

I wasn’t disappointed at the man who is now doing so well in Doha that he said those words without any apologies, I was disappointed because our government pushed the young man, a Nigerian University Engineering graduate to that point and I was hurt because the man reminds me of the reality once again that I’m also a Nigerian thus makes me scared that I may one day, if care is not taken, be pushed to that same level of saying “Nigeria is a killer of destiny”. Gosh! May God not let it get to that level for the rest of us even as we pray for a better Nigeria.

We pray for a better Nigeria where the gap between the rich and the poor will get so short by just an arm’s length.

We pray for a better Nigeria where our leaders will think about led positively before policies are made and actualized.

We pray for a better Nigeria where entrepreneurs will be encouraged and not be frustrated out of the country  seeking  greener pastures only to die in the desert, at sea, sold as slaves or killed in places such as Libya amongst others.

We pray for a better Nigeria where every family would not need to toil so hard to put food on their tables, clothes on their backs or shelter over their heads.

We pray for a better Nigeria where the era of “brain drain” will be over thus our great and excellent professional doctors, teachers, scientists, lawyers, sportsmen/women, engineers and more will be well taken care of so that they would not need to leave home to go work in other countries thus leaving Nigeria as wrecked as it is right now.

We pray for a better Nigeria where immorality will gradually become unfashionable, eventually fading out completely as every Nigerian becomes comfortable hence they would be no need for so much atrocities.

I could go on and on as the list is endless!

What do you pray for? Yes, I mean you, dear reader!

STELLA ENE-INYANG

Pray! Pray!! Pray!!!

Nigeria must get better!

LET THERE BE LIGHT: AMBODE LIGHTS UP LAGOS

Light indeed cannot be comprehended by darkness when they meet. As a matter of fact, they cannot even meet because from experience, once darkness perceives light from afar, it indeed flees.

Light is undeniably powerful that’s why people who are in love will use phrases such as “she lights up my world”, “she lit up in excitement as soon as she saw him” and other phrases as such. There is always a sense of security whenever you are in a well-lit environment as everything and everyone become visible.

And so I felt really good the other day while out for the night (which was unusual for me), I realised that I wasn’t in a hurry to get back home as it felt as though there was no point rushing back home like I would usually do whenever I find myself out as  nearly all the places which were usually dark at about that time of the night were all lit up with street lights and then it occurred to me “aha! So this is what Governor Ambode’s ‘light up Lagos’ project is all about”. Was I impressed? Yes I was and I hope this spreads to all other parts of Lagos soon. 

From the on goings, given the roads under construction, it is expected that they would be completed with necessary road infrastructure which includes lighting, walkways and properly built drainages amongst others.

Until now, I have never had to say a good word about Politicians as they rarely make good their promises. But for this present Lagos state Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode who one can aptly describe as a jolly good fellow that does not only enjoy being called a youth at heart but also an unrepentant performer. We look forward to seeing more visible footprints, development wise across the length and breadth of Lagos, Nigeria’s centre of excellence.

MAY NOT BE PERFECT, BUT THE GRASS WOULD ALL BE GREEN

A friend, Blessing-Obi on his facebook page posted:

"When l look back to my birth country, l see people struggling, women sad, men kicked out of jobs, sisters travelling to Abuja and Lagos to start a career in prostitution popularly known as "runs", running inflation besets the economy, innocent children roam the streets, people blaming Govt. Insecurity everywhere even with the kidnappings of commoners and monarchs. And in the midst of these social ills and despair l still see HOPE, HOPE and BELIEF. Let corrupt politicians who live in luxurious houses and drive expensive cars wallow in stolen wealth, the sweat of the Nigerian, still l see HOPE, l still BELIEVE in HOPE. A day is come and it is no longer far, we sit with fellas, we are planning, the days are near, when political criminals will gnash their teeth and common Nigerians smile, children would have clothes on their backs, although not a perfect world where the grass is all green, but at least a world fair enough".

After reading the post above, you would agree with all sense of being unbiased that this is ‘hard truth’ and a clear picture of what is really going on in Nigeria at the moment and to say the least, it scares me.

Yes, it should scare you because the way things are at the moment tells that except God intervenes, it may get worse and if it does, the rhetorical question is, “who will be spared” or “which class or category of persons in the country will not feel the brunt”?

The kidnappers are no longer after just the high, rich and wealthy but are also after people who can barely pay their rents. So also robbers are not just after the rich neither are the ‘runs’ girls after just the rich as they go round every Emeka, Shola, Dahiru, Akpan, Tom, Dick and Harry to hustle even if it means getting a token or recharge cards from a couple of these Toms, Dicks and Harrys, at the end of the day, to them, every ‘collection’ add up for something.

Children hang around people even strangers to see if they can get freebies because many of them hardly get to eat enough at home anymore.

Well dressed and healthy looking people now stop you on a daily basis begging for food. The list and scenarios are endless.

  

One TV soap that was widely watched and followed by many back in the 90s ‘the rich also cry’ comes to mind even as reality of the economic situation sets in on a daily basis.

Ironically, many of the ‘rich’ who are now also crying, are making the poor who have cried nearly every day of their lives, cry even more than always because many of these supposedly ‘rich’ are unrepentantly owing a larger number of these ‘poor’ without any hope of paying up even in the nearest future.

These ‘owed’ poor are faced with the dilemmas of dud cheques which have ‘bounced’ severally or tales of “sorry my mummy, daddy, uncle, aunty or even friend (as the case may be) is not home” even when the person is quietly hidden in the house and children or wards are made to tell lies.

It should scare you even more because as at this morning the Governor of the Nigerian Central bank was reported to have told Senators during a closed door meeting that the country is in what he termed ‘stagflation’, trapped between a ‘stagnant’ economy and a high level of ‘inflation’ even as the IMF has also officially asserted that the country is going through an economic recession.

What scares me the most is the hanging ‘if’ which the CBN Governor was said to have left in the air. That is, the part where government may not be able to pay salaries by October this year, 2016 if things remain or get worse than this. This should really scare you.

The question now is “what is the way forward”.

Like my friend Obi reeled out in the post as seen at the beginning of this write up. So many people have been sacked, women sad, children roaming the streets, ‘runs’ increasing as more ladies are joining the trade traveling not only between Abuja and Lagos with the social media making it a lot more easier. Sad but true and even more.

Ironically, men are not giving without ‘taking’ as everything given must be paid for in ‘kind’ even for as little as lunch, a drink, recharge cards, phone and more; not to mention when you ask for a huge sum, rent, car the list goes on. Shameful! That tells you how tough it is out there.

Nevertheless, there is hope, hope in the fact that you can choose to either sit back, fold your hands, until you eventually die as a result of hunger or find something honourable to do while we await a way forward from the government. Learn a trade and avoid depravities, spend wisely as that’s the way to go for now because even the ‘mugu’ is getting wiser as we speak or as you read. *winks*

Enough of the ‘blame game’ about this Politician or that Politician did this or that. However know that there is hope but for now, “Let corrupt politicians who live in luxurious houses and drive expensive cars wallow in stolen wealth, the sweat of the Nigerian, still l see HOPE, l still BELIEVE in HOPE. A day is come and it is no longer far, we sit with fellas, we are planning, the days are near, when political criminals will gnash their teeth and common Nigerians smile, children would have clothes on their backs, although not a perfect world where the grass is all green, but at least a world fair enough”.

   

Hopefully, the question on ‘the way forward’ would be near ‘answered’.