INDEPENDENCE? NOT YET

 

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

They say that today is Nigeria’s Independence Day. They say that we should greet one another Happy Independence Day. They say that it is our birthday, and Nigeria, motherland, is 61 years old. They say we should celebrate. I say it is a day of mourning. I say we should weep for Nigeria.

Nigeria is 61 years old today, but this is no Independence Day. Just an extension of the weekend for some people who live in Nigeria, and another opportunity for our rulers to irritate our eyes and ears with their callous rhetoric. Rhetoric requires some thought. Another opportunity for our leaders to irritate our eyes and ears with their callous gibberish.

A nation, conceived maliciously by British colonisers in 1914, may have been born on October 1, 1960, but Nigeria never gained independence. We only gained different captors. Nigeria is like the child conceived through rape, whose pregnant mother was malnourished, and even though the pregnancy was late-term, the baby born was severely underweight and jaundiced. This child was deprived of much-needed oxygen, care, and nutrients, and is plagued by severe cerebral palsy, stunted, and wasted. Despite the precarious condition, Nigeria has fought to live and grow, yet she keeps being dropped on her head by her caregivers and is now in a vegetative state. Gradually, her organs are failing. Nigeria is dying a slow and painful death, and she is taking her people with her. The ones who love Nigeria are mourning, for there is even no hospice to aid a compassionate death.

I love Nigeria. While I am open to new nationalities and would love to be a citizen of the world, Nigeria is the first nation I called home. I was a Nigerian before I became a Christian, and even though as I child, I prayed for a new and better Nigeria, for freedom from dictatorship and military rule, I would sing the national anthem and recite the pledge with pride. Yes, I am many things, but I am a Nigerian, and I love Nigeria.

Today, I am wearing the colours green, white, and black. Green and white are from the colours of the Nigerian flag, and black is for mourning.

Photo by Nora Awolowo

Why so extra, Efadel? Well, why not? Exactly one year ago, I wrote a heartfelt article pondering on the right name for October 1st in Nigeria. I expressed hope that we would one day be truly free and build a nation from our ruins. A few days after I published that, it seemed as if we were going to unlock our collective conscience and tear down our prison walls. Some young people in Nigeria took to social media and the streets to peacefully protest police brutality, extortion, and the unlawful murder of citizens by state actors. I was cautiously hopeful. I thought that our time had come. Unfortunately, it ended in tears and more bloodshed. The government killed unarmed citizens and continues to gaslight and bully us.

“If something is so crushing to our souls to read it or hear about it, imagine what happens to the souls of those who actually lived it?” – Karen Swallow Prior.

Before the October 1, 2020, piece, I had written another piece, “Our Silence will Consume Us”, where I raised some burning issues that we needed to amplify. Over a year after that piece, Abubakar Idris (Dadiyata) is still missing. Leah Sharibu is still in captivity. Some of the girls kidnapped from the government secondary school in Chibok are still missing. Malnutrition is worsening because food is expensive; more children are being born underweight, and more are stunted and wasted, while our rulers display obscene ostentatiousness at their children’s weddings. Students and teachers have been kidnapped from schools. Here is a list below:

·         February 17, 2021 – Government Science College Kagara, Niger State – 42 persons kidnapped, including 27 students (one boy was killed during the raid. The rest spent 10 days in captivity)

·         February 26, 2021 – Government Girls Science Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State – 280 students kidnapped (One died while in captivity, while the rest spent 3 days in captivity)

·         March 11, 2021 – Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna – 39 students kidnapped (29 of them spent 55 days in captivity, while 10 of them were released after 27 days in captivity)

·         April 20, 2021 – Greenfield University, Chikun Local Government Area (LGA), Kaduna State -- 17 students and 2 staff kidnapped. Kidnappers killed 3 of the students. The rest spent 40 days in captivity)

·         May 30, 2021 – Salihu Tanko Islamic School, Tegina, Niger State – 136children aged between 4 and 11 years old kidnapped. (The kidnappers later sent back some children who were too small and could not walk very far. Some of the children and parents died before their release. 90 of them spent 88 days in captivity)

·         June 11, 2021 – Nuhu Bamali Polytechnic, Zaria, Kaduna State – 8 students kidnapped (They spent 28 days in captivity)

·         June 17, 2021 – Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, Kebbi State – 80 students and 5 teachers kidnapped (5 students and 2 teachers were rescued. One was killed during the rescue mission. The rest are still in captivity)

·         July 5, 2021 – Bethel Baptist High School, Maraban Damishi, Kujama, Chikun LGA, Kaduna State – 121 students kidnapped (90 of them were released after 20 days in captivity. 31 are still captive.)

·         August 16, 2021 – College of Agriculture and Animal Health, Bakura, Zamfara State – 15 students, a teacher, his wife and 2 children kidnapped. (They spent 11 days in captivity)

·         September 1, 2021 – Government Day Secondary School, Kaya, Maradun LGA, Zamfara State – 73 students kidnapped (Still in captivity)

Scores of people are still being killed in Southern Kaduna, and other parts of Nigeria, and most of those killed are women and children. On September 26, a few days ago, 38 were killed in Madamai and Abun, in Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Unknown murderous gunmen run amok in the South East, and Dr Chike Akunyili, the husband of the renowned Professor Dora Akunyili is one of their latest victims. Human persons, with names, dreams, ambitions, and loved ones. Human persons, like you and me.

And there is more!

Imagine what happens to the souls of those who live it and carry it in their bones every day. Picture them, parents waiting for a call to come for their children, but not quite sure whether the call will be to identify corpses or receive them alive. Students waiting for their rescue from kidnappers, with no end date in sight. Children living in unspeakable terror, praying for death, so that it all ends, yet praying to live, because just maybe... Children getting the news of butchered parents, or sometimes, seeing the videos or pictures online before they know that that is their loved one violated. Parents denied the broken lifeless bodies of their loved ones, denied the privilege of a burial ceremony for closure. Former property owners, now in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, not knowing where their children are.

They say the state of insecurity has worsened because of the #EndSARS protest. If it is true, I hope you see how wicked these people are. They are willing to let more people die because people protested that they should stop killing them. Rulers and officials paid by our taxes and collective wealth, have decided to exact vengeance for a phantom wrong against them, and have failed to do their jobs to protect the lives of the people!

As the president confirmed in his speech this morning, no government since 1999 has done what the current rulers have done in six years. What I refuse to speak on in this piece is whether they are putting Nigeria on track or further off track. I don’t know if Nigeria is the train or a stander-by. I don’t know if he means that they are pushing Nigeria on the tracks, in front of an oncoming train.

Every death diminishes me. Every kidnap or disappearance chips a piece of me. I feel it, and then I wonder about those who are directly involved, the primary victims. Every time I get the news of another killing, another kidnap, another disappearance, I am crushed. Yet, I will not shield myself from the news. I will not create a blissful denial, an alternate reality, where we are all singing kumbaya, just because I am privileged for now to be distant from the atrocious events and the mourners do not converge in my household. I will mourn with those who mourn, I will grieve for the losses because every day that my loved ones and I live is a day when we are potential targets. None of us is really safe until all of us are safe.

Resist the temptation to think that you are immune from this wasting of Nigeria. Do not think that your steady and possibly rising income, your high fences and other passports will insulate you when your day comes. Do not think that your early morning fire prayers or declarations will exempt you. Ask today’s victims, many of them were just like you until Nigeria struck. It was not their portion until it was their portion. Just because you have blocked your eyes and ears doesn’t mean it does not exist, and you must know, the bell tolls for you too.

Photo by Ifiok Ekott on Unsplash

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. – Jesus the Christ.

Nigeria is dying, but maybe that is a good thing. Maybe it is better that she should die so that we can live, instead of her to continue a vegetative existence, only to die again and again along with the people of Nigeria. Maybe what we need to do is to nurse Nigeria to a compassionate death, so that she can be conceived again, and born again. And maybe, we can get a second chance to nurse the pregnancy, midwife a safe birth, and nurture a new nation to thrive.

Before this day is over, I may summon the strength to sing the national anthem. But it will not be with pride and hope as I once did. It will be with humiliation and love, with a broken voice, mourning for the many deaths I still have to die. When I sing the second stanza, I will be praying deeply, that in my lifetime, these words will come true. I am desperately hoping that when this death is over, we will have a new life, and this time, we will flourish.

I am in mourning, and you should be too. Yet, while we mourn, let us remember to smile and sing and dance, not for Nigeria, but ourselves. Let us eat jollof rice, or swallow something with delicious soup, even if it is just peppersoup without any obstacle. And don’t eat alone, share with someone who may have nothing to eat. Who dey cry dey see road. If you get the chance to love Nigeria from afar, please embrace it. Problem no dey finish for this life. No be only us waka come.