I was walking along a street in Abuja with my wife. In that waning evening sun, Christian worship songs were drifting out through almost every house we passed, while down the road the Moslems were chanting their own prayers. Instead of experiencing that sense of peace such an atmosphere is supposed to envelope one with, I felt fear and despair and desperation loaded in these religious exercises. I wondered out loud why Nigerians are so religious?
A remotely familiar face greeted us. I replied with gussto, but my wife’s response to him was less enthusiatic. I watched the fellow approach us. He is a cleanly attired young man, but not expensively. He had come out of a car which I presumed was he’s. He had a smile on his face which I could not make out the reason for. He reaches us and greets, Then I asked that forbidden question in Nigeria, ‘How are you?’ and before I knew it I was Two Thousand Naira short.
‘That is why Nigerians are so religious sweetheart’ my darling wife said with an emotion laden voice. No one after experiencing Nigeria will want to go to hell. It will be a double lose for such a person. It is like being a poor witch. On earth you lose, and in the after life you will also lose. A double tragedy, she expantiated.
Then I sat down all through that day and wondered how a country like Nigeria can afford to remain together.
It is like a badly written poetry of cacophony and confusion. It almost brings to mind the word Pandenomun. The spiritual capital city of Hell. A place of fear, sorrow, despair, hopelessness and regrets. Added with confusion.
Corruption, looting and bribery
in one country
Police brutality, boko haram, IPOB and Militants
All in one country
Fulani killers, kidnappers and bandits
ravaging the same country
Revolutions, protests and strikes
In one same country
poverty, no salaries and no pension
in one country
Cultism, ritual killings and Scammers
In the same country
Incompetent and greedy legislators, ethnicity and religious intolerance
reigning supreme in the country
recession, depression and acute poverty
in the same country
unemployment, youth unrest and stay put antique near illitrate leaders
in one country
Oppresive laws, totalitarian constitution, martial presence
in this country
bad roads, porose borders and unreliable electricity
still in the country
election rigging, negotiating with terrorists and lauding criminals
in this country
No welfare, no health insurance and now there is corna virus
in the same country
This is just to say a few of the sorrowa of this enclave that is still dragging an insult of a colonial label. A land which her people used to walk the corridors of the world with near arrogant pride, a country that has produced and still producing powerful men and women all over the world. the most populous black gathering in the universe and the supposed most powerful country in Africa, has become the bane and joke of the pack. the one that was leading the match is not being asked to catch up.
One wonders how such a ricketty, badly managed contraption has managed to remain any sort of one entity.
