I am neither an atheist nor an agnostic but believe me G.O.D may be gone forever. I see it in the void of daily life, I palpate it in daily practice and the olfaction is dulled by the stench of its absence. I sorely miss the ʽtour de maitreʼ, the paradise lost, the mirth, the abundance; I miss all things good and desirable. I miss the GOOD OLD DAYS. Donʼt you? If you do not, then you must belong to the growing class of the parasitic oligarchic and feudal lords, or the dare-devil politicians, or the spoilt corrupt top civil servants, or the drug barons, or the esoteric world of corporate leeches; or the negligibly small conclave of the honest self-made men or the hermit group. Still donʼt belong? Then, you are not a Nigerian!

Did G.O.D ever exist? Yes they did! We all saw and experienced the GOD but like a scene straight from the deepest recess of hell, and before our very eyes, they faded like mist on a desert noon. Sweet missed anecdotes, sour contemporary tales, saints gone, living thieving rogues; the nostalgia is strong, much stronger than the love to live. In times like this, we resort to prayers. Nigeria is a praying nation. Even when the rate limiting step is our attitude we blame the devil.

The Nigerian story is that of a state in coma vigil, dying but not yet clinically dead. Every facet of our life is littered with what could and should have been but may not be. There is frustration, apathy, want, disease, poverty, dearth, corruption, ineptitude. And now there is P(eople) D(estroying) P(eople)! In all indices of health, education, good governance, power (read electricity), housing, and even sports, we always score excellently poor. Here, strange things are common and common things are even stranger.

Then how did we get mired in this peculiar mess? What cause or curse brought us this abysmally low? There is the curse of oil but the curse of bad leaders (and followers!) has caused a greater damage. Yes, bad followers are an etiology.

A blind man and his crippled friend once conspired to rob a farm of its fresh corn. The former could not see while the corn stem was beyond the latterʼs easy reach. A grand alliance: the blind carrying the cripple to harvest what neither of them sowed. Before the village deity, both swore: the cripple swearing if he ever set his foot on the farm and the blind swearing if he ever harvested a cob with his hands! Who, then, stole? This aptly sums up the leaders-followers conspiracy we have at hand.

Nigeria is blessed with vast resources that we are too rich to be poor. And yet too poor to be rich. The leaders and followers attitude is too poor to make Nigeria rich. The leaders squander the common wealth while the followers encourage corruption, bad governance and things odious that brought us this far. The followers inspire, connive and applause bad leadership. The 2007 elections were not rigged by Martians. We have an attitude problem. The family of honest committed Nigerians is an islet in an ocean of would-be rogues. The leaders were once common Nigerians: deprived, poor, ambitious and just waiting to strike when the metal is hot. They flaunted and feigned service, dedication and altruism but na lie, they were just bidding their time. People who (mis)govern us were drawn from a pool and recycled all over. It seems as if men in government are all in the ministry of ʽpower to stealʼ.

Military incursion into the political space sounded the death knell for GOD. There are claims that some military apologists invited and even actively supported the military in the first place. The Shonekan- Abacha heist and the sour taste it left on our buds till date is known to every sucking babe. Well, that is a topic for another day.

Have you been to a general hospital of late? Most are certainly worse than when the dark-goggled one announced the Buhari-Idiagbon coup of 1983. We still have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world; the saddest twist to it being that malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, upper respiratory tract infections and other totally preventable diseases are the causes. These are secondary to poverty and the poverty level is deepening daily. When last did you see a child repeating a class because of poor academic performance? How many times were you awakened to the staccato of robbersʼ shootings this year? When did Nigeria win laurels at a major sporting event? Forget that Abuja charade. The Dream Team you want to ask? Very few of them are under 30. When last was a big-man jailed for looting the treasury? Remember T(hie)afa, Alayeseyagayaga, Ete (Yoruba word for conspiracy), and all those very strange names with stranger than fiction pen-robbery? When? Where and when did you drink last from a public water tap? How many times did you fuel your kerosene lantern this week? How many times did a well-dressed young (wo)man approach you for ʽa little change, brosʼ last week? When did you visit a varsity campus last? I was at Ibadan the other day and nearly wept. UI of all universities? If the living condition of medicos is this awful, then we are in for it. When last did you hear of embezzlement less than N10million? While youths in other lands are busy exploring the stars, here N800million is being spent on voodoo by a single person.

I could go on and on and on. While some may diagnose me of selective amnesia, the truth is: things were not this bad. How many ʽokadaʼ graduates can you count in 1983? When did a sanitation officer visit your area last? How many times was the pump price of petrol increased in the 80s? What was the naira to dollar exchange rate even during the gap-toothed oneʼs regime? The list is endless.  The aforementioned is just a tip of the iceberg. The pertinent question is: can we see the good old days or the semblance of it again? Can we replicate those halcyon days of yore? Will we ever have a functional altruistic government? Can we guarantee a bright future for our childrenʼs children? How can we regain the lost paradise?  I am not a pessimist rather I am a pessimistic optimist but I also believe in the time-tested cause-effect relationship. Everything counts. At this rate can we ever be rated in the top 20 economies by 2020? Ophthalmologists would rate our vision at 0/20 or as ʽno light perceptionʼ as at today. Thatʼs blindness!

What are we doing very right that will make us stand out in the comity of sane states now or in the next 5, 10 or 15 years? The Yarʼadua administrationʼs 7-point agenda is good only if implemented to the letter. That may be the nucleus of future hope but where is the will? Where are the men of integrity? The more things appear to be changing the more it remains the same. There is motion but no movement.

Citizens in other climes of our dream are awakened to their responsibilities, they know their rights, and they fulfill their obligations religiously. The Qurʼan tells us that God will not change the state of any people until they change it by themselves. The people must desire, work assiduously and embrace progress and change. We must start thinking right and doing the right things. The trite better be late than never may be apposite here. Perhaps G.O.D may come back. We may yet see G.O.D again.

Robot  # 1 | 03.09.2008 01:26

I am neither an atheist nor an agnostic but believe me G.O.D may be gone forever. I se...Read the full article.

shinycoin  # 2 | 03.09.2008 19:28

Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable, so said a wise man not too long ago. We hear of stories in the news media where the people rise against an irresponsible government and make such to step down and let go of power and governance. In Nigeria, our resilience is our greatest undoing. Unless and until the Nigerian people stand up en mass and demand change, things will sadly remain the same for years and years and years to come, with only a few people making the right and proper noises about change and feeling nostalgic about the G.O.D of yore. The good old days are gone and gone for ever, but we can introduce or strive for better times than we currently face. No society is static, so we face either of two scenarios: we either strive to change our society to become better than it is today or we adopt an i-don't-care attitude and wait for the next man to do something about it, in which case things will only get worse than it presently is and ten years from now we have another beautiful write-up like this bemoaning the dearth of the G.O.D as we know it today. Change has to start from us, not from the government and not from the man on the street, but from within us, in our attitude to work and our belief in ourselves.