In The Beginning…

For too long, we have been in the wilderness of Midian, we have tended Jethro’s flock in the pursuit of ephemeral pleasures, and the pursuit of transient things, and in that time, our nation has drifted aimless and without purpose…

This social media thing is completely new to me, and I will crave your indulgences, and ask that you bear with me as I seek to learn what is essentially a new language in my old age.

In the coming days and months, as I become more proficient in the usage of this medium, I will respond more readily to your messages, and I shall be doing a lot of communicating via this platform.

If you’re my friend on Facebook, you either went to Lasu with me, be it alaaro, olosan, or the evening class. I am privileged to have spent a significant part of my life and time with you. Or I have had your friendship suggested to me by the wizardry of digital programming. I expect to be boring you all at regular intervals, going forward. I will be talking matters Nigeriana.

I have been cursed with an Hoseaic complex. Whilst Hosea was afflicted with the instruction to marry a prostitute, I have been cursed with a deep burden for our country, Nigeria. I love Nigeria. I love her with all of her imperfections. I love her because it has pleased God to make her my homeland, and the only viable country that my children will inherit. Black Lives matters in America and most parts of the world, but Nigeria is my home, and it will be their home, and that of generations yet unborn.

I have tried to run away from her. Believe me, I have tried. But it has pleased God to have me born a Yoruba man, in the beautiful country called Nigeria. I cannot seem to find either peace or joy, anywhere else, and time spent away from her, can only be holidays. I salute those who have borne or are bearing the pains of exile, be that exile political, as was the case with several champions of today’s democrazy, or as is the case today with several forced to earn livings, or go to schools outside her shores.

Nowhere else in the world, have I found the peace and fulfillment that Nigeria has given me. But the thing is, she has also driven me round the bend several times. I have railed against the madness endemic in our society for a season. I have picked up the gauntlet at other points. I have ran away from the battles, and like Jonah, I’d been tossed right back to my Nineveh. So I have made my peace with Nigeria, and we shall live together happily ever after. In the immortal words of the song;

l love my kontry, I no go lie,
na inside am I go live and die,
if she push me small, I push am small,
she push me, I push am,
I no dey go.

Whatever the outcome of this journey might be, Nigeria is far more important than the individual citizens, but it also fails as a state, when the individual’s rights and interests, are not the basis of its existence as a state. I will be looking to have a say in the affairs of our nation in the not too distant future. Starting now.

I see evidence of a failed state, and a disintegrating society all around me. I see myriads of problems wherever I turn in our nation, and I have come to the knowledge that; I am seeing these problems because it has pleased God to make me a part of the solution. If you see the problem, it is because you either have the capacity to be the change, or the catalyst for that change.

I will be learning the language of social media in the coming days as I have already promised, and I will find many ways to reach out to you as my thoughts evolves, but I challenge each and every one of you, to be prepared for the inevitable battles that must be fought and won, before our nation may live to fulfill her God given potentials. Our children’s very future, may depend on it. It is my intention to take away your capacity to sit happily in the mess that we have all made of our country. Nobody else will do it for us.

My grandparents generation looked to mine for the salvation of Nigeria, they had already wasted their children’s future, if you’re my age mate, WS and your parents are probably age mates. Truth is, if we fail to save her, our children will not have a Nigeria to inherit.

My generation is the Moses generation. For too long, we have been in the wilderness of Midian, we have tended Jethro’s flock in the pursuit of ephemeral pleasures, and the pursuit of transient things, and in that time, our nation has drifted aimless and without purpose. I am now 48 years old, I have buried a parent. The fact of my mortality, has been firmly established.

Silence is a luxury we can no longer afford, and in the coming days, I shall be seeking to discomfit you, and to galvanize you into becoming convinced, that Nigeria will not change, until we its citizens, resolve to change it. The Turkish people were invested in their motherland, I have lived long enough to remember a season when we were similarly invested in the Nigerian dream, before the goggled one and his gang of visionless looters blighted it and made a nightmare of it. We can do it again.

I am am not interested in political office, and or political correctness. I have zero sympathies for any of the two set of visionless tendencies that has afflicted Nigeria since the beginning of this republic, I have even less confidence in the shitstem that has produced them and our kwashiorkorised democracy that offers the citizens no real choice. It is my intention to seek to build a mass movement with a clear vision for the future of our country, and in doing so, I will be afraid of only God, whilst respecting men. I lay no claim to a monopoly of wisdom, chances are that I know nothing, but I do know that something has to truly change, if our children are not to be shortchanged.

May God strengthen our collective resolve. Amen

Lets talk.

First published 27 July, 2016.