Busuyi Mekusi
Recently, I saw one intriguing caption on the Facebook wall of one of my contacts, to the effect that: ‘Yes, God does not exit!’ The impression one makes of this statement is not merely based on the meanings inherent on the combination of the words but the value of patience one could bring to bear. This is because the last word in the statement could be hurriedly read and internalised as ‘exist’ by a religious bigot, thereby eliciting a reaction that would not only be inadequate but inappropriate. Sokoto is still notorious for blasphemy killings!
Needless to stress that language is not just a cultural phenomenon but a conveyor of emotions. The loss of indigenous African languages to foreign ones is very alarming, as we are confronted with the possibility of African languages being imported to the region sometime in the future by foreign countries that are presently investing in the development of these languages. With the present generation of coconut parents and Indomie offspring, Africans appear to have lost their totality culturally.
Relating to the issue of poverty in Nigeria is as fluid as taking ‘exit’ to mean ‘exist’ in the above statement. It has been sufficiently argued that members of the political class preside over the systematic impoverishment of the masses through their sustained lavish funding of their luxurious lifestyle. With the few members of the political class hankering over, and plundering, the resources of the country, the masses are repeatedly asked to make sacrifices while the rich keep expanding their reservoirs, home and abroad. Sacrifices are good, when accepted as an indispensable instrument of fair negotiation, but is problematic when disadvantageous to any of the participants, as found in the biblical allusion of Abraham who stands to benefit more from the obedience of his sacrificing Isaac to God. Castigating the ruling class for the poverty of the masses is as acceptable as some members of the masses are guilty of laziness and greed.
The notion of ‘hard times’ in the socio-economic narratives of Nigeria remains a brush by which the majority of citizens who get entrapped in the poverty net of Nigeria economy are painted. Apart from the fact that the ‘hard times’ platitude has become a measure of exchanging pleasantries among Yoruba, it is also used to excuse many of the unacceptable behaviours of Nigerians across the country. Alibi is not just an intention popular in the law-court, it is also an instrument used by some individuals to excuse themselves from punishable circumstances, and thereby escape sanctions.
Members of the Nigeria ruling class, military and civilian, have continuously absorbed themselves of the economic woes in the country while the nation continues to wobble on the precipice. As common to Yoruba satiric metaphoric saying, the bees and other venomous insects are claiming innocence while the farmer’s face is distorted and out of shape. Either you are guilty or guiltless in the matters of Nigeria’s backwardness; the realities are as painful as a boil on the forehead!
Charles Dickens’ Hard Times is a novel that is not only complex in structure but emblematic of the complexity of the Nigeria State, particularly as it relates to engagements between the rich and the poor, when the former are wont to treat the latter condescendingly. Central to Dickens’ novel is the characterisation of Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy, retired merchant in the industrial city of Coketown, England, who lives on the philosophical principles of rationalism, self-interest, and fact. Amidst the many relational shifts in the novel, chief of which is the filial and marital issues of his daughter, Gradgrind later gives up his philosophy of fact, and concentrates his political power on helping the poor. The rebirth of Gradgrind is informed by the various dynamics that hurt his prestigious positioning, compared to the rupturing of the old aristocratic order that the poor later challenged vigorously. The foregoing negative reversal of fortunes played out in the novel in the depiction of Mrs. Sparsit, a former aristocrat that falls on ‘hard times’ and has to work for Bounderby.
‘Hard times’ are transcendental of spatio-temporal borders, as found in the literary allusion of Dickens’ England and biblical referencing of the besieging of Samaria and the attendant starvation, detailed in 2 Kings 6:25-31. Due to the acute famine in Samaria, two women are reported to have receded into cannibalism by boiling and eating the son of one of them. The decision of the second woman to hide her own son when it was her turn to kill and cook him shows that reasonableness could still prevail in critical moments, as posed by the deprivation in the land. On the other hand, the fact that the flesh of the little son killed and boiled is exhaustible indicates the limits in the reason of desperation that one may want to adduce as justification for the condemnable and avoidable cannibalism. The gluttonous Samaritan woman is a personification of so many Nigerians, particularly women, that are preying on children, through trafficking and trading.
In recent years, cases of child trafficking, baby factory and child-trading have increased in Nigeria, with the prevalence traced to receding economy, while the illicit trade is for the criminals jackpots of some sorts. Few days ago, Gabriel Ekpiri was arrested in Akwa Ibom State for allegedly selling his nine-year-old son for N400, 000. Ekpiri was quoted to have blamed his action on the devil and ‘hard time’. The devil remains an alter ego in religious rascality and hypocrisy, just as ‘hard time’ continues to be used superfluously to minimise guilt and shift culpability. This was as Enobong Sunday, Gertrude Thompson and Mary James were alleged to have abducted and sold three children off in Aba, Abia State. The scandalous preponderance in this butchery reverberated again as Anthony Igbinogun and his girlfriend, Umukoro, arrested in June 2023 for selling their one-month-old baby for N1.7 million, to buy drugs.
Before the recent occurrences, the issue of child trafficking and trading has nearly dwarfed the assurances given by government agencies to neutralise the commoditisation of vulnerable children and women. For instance, among the many reported cases, Elish Effiong and his wife were alleged to have sold their two daughters in 2021 for N700, 000, as a result of what they called ‘extreme hardship’. On July 1, 2022, Adeola Omoniyi was arrested in Ore, Ondo State, for allegedly stealing and selling two children for N30, 000 each. This was as Olaide Adekunle was arrested in Ogun State for allegedly selling her 18-month-old baby for N600, 000, to repay a loan she took from Microfinance Bank. Notwithstanding basic atrocity imbued in their actions, it is lamentable that, analogous to the cannibalisation in Samaria, children are reduced to articles that are sold to; mitigate ‘extreme hardship’, repay loan and acquire drugs.
One may be quick to blame the ruling class for the debasing attitudes of these cannibals, but it is arguable that these people could have resorted to the land for agricultural engagements, and as a permanent solution to hunger. It is unfair to nature and the arable environment for people to recede into abominable acts, only to blame it on the political class members that constitute the minority that arm-twists others to corner the national cake, and plagues the people with psychopathic disorder, and by so doing making the abominable acceptable.
As things go on, we expect that the present oppressive ruling class, just like Mrs. Sparsit in Dickens’ Hard Times, would fall by reason of hard times and get forced to seek survival in unconventional sources. Similarly, we desire that the wealthy and economic exploiters of the masses would give up their old commitment to rationalism, self-interest and self-serving facts to use their political power to help the poor, who are increasingly becoming cannibals in the face of huge deprivations.
Nigeria is dangling between Dickens’ ‘hard times’ and Samarian cannibalism, and we must imbibe the teachings of Eid-el-Kabir in being positively obedient and sacrificial, with our consumerism tamed and limited to animals rather than the cannibalism that makes a prey of every Nigerian. Needless to say that the trafficking and trading of children makes Nigeria a blood supermarket, but it is more that the sacrilegious reduction of children to an article of trade is endangering our future, as a people, and damning our present, as a nation.
As we tackle the economic ‘hard times’ that seek to strangulate the masses, the aristocratic members of the political class and bureaucrats must make visible sacrifices by diminishing their lifestyle of luxury, rather than forcing bitter peels of economic adjustments down the throats of the masses. As Nigerians squirm under economic strains, PBAT must be wary of the Yoruba opinion that the goat could bite, when pushed to the wall. Nigeria needs not be Samaria, and Nigerians should not be cannibals!