I am not a pessimist: not by inclination and certainly not by parturition. My dad of blessed memory – easily the greatest optimist who ever lived - said he inherited the trait from his father. If being positively inclined were the sole criterion for sainthood, my mother should have long been canonized. Even on her death bed, she still recognized the colours of the rainbow. So I’m pretty certain of the ingredients I was moulded from.
I am not a pessimist: not by inclination and certainly not by parturition. My dad of blessed memory – easily the greatest optimist who ever lived - said he inherited the trait from his father. If being positively inclined were the sole criterion for sainthood, my mother should have long been canonized. Even on her death bed, she still recognized the colours of the rainbow. So I’m pretty certain of the ingredients I was moulded from.
From a religious standpoint, I’ve been instructed right from my infancy to focus on the brighter side. Here’s an excerpt from the Good Book: “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”
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To cap it all up, my training as an architect exposed me to terms that reveal all that is right and bright: rhythm, balance, harmony and sympathy. I was taught to identify the parameters of beauty and I cut my teeth honing the skills to replicate them in my designs. I have come to appreciate why good architects do extremely well as pastors but fail woefully as politicians (the dirty, double-dealing type). They thrive better in subservient, appointive positions where intellectual acumen and a calm, calculated mien guarantee distinction.
I would dearly love to talk about the encouraging data on infant and maternal mortality and the vastly improved funding of Obafemi Awolowo University since I graduated over two decades ago. It should give me a lot of pleasure highlighting the end to police penchant for extra-judicial killing and the legendary impunity exhibited by our so-called leaders. Wouldn’t it be pure fun reeling out mind-blowing statistics on new jobs created across all sectors while collating the census of all economic saboteurs doing time in jail?
It could only make sense if I’m speaking in an anticipatory sense or I’m delusional. Fact is, at this instant, I’m as sound of mind as I can ever be. So today, I’ll have no sweet tales to tell.
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On Thursday 3 October 2013, we were once more roused to another sad tale: the crash of a hearse/airplane ferrying the remains Olusegun Agagu; erstwhile governor of Nigeria’s Sunshine State, Ondo. The Embraer 120 registered to Associated Airlines Limited had 20 live passengers en-route Akure from Lagos. In the past one week, there’s been anything but sunshine across the length and breadth of Ondo. At the last count, fifteen of the passengers had expired.
Once again the tide of tears and tributes swells while the stack of accusations and rebuttals has since pierced the ceiling. Sixteen months ago after the Dana Airline incident, we went through the same worn motions. Right on cue, the National Assembly has already seized the spotlight. The euphonious-voiced minister of aviation will be invited over with a few of her sorry-looking lieutenants. Questions will be asked, explanations and excuses will be offered and threats will be issued with the accompanying bluster and bombast. For good measure, a few official tears will be conspicuously shed. Afterwards, it will be back to the same, old stifling routine: frolicking and fornicating.
For the sake of all who needlessly perished and their grieving relations, I wish it could be different. Sadly, that’s just how it’ll eventually play out. Disaster breaks and we issue hot words and shed even hotter tears. Black boxes are recovered, black books are opened and all manner of committees and panels are inaugurated, but just as quickly, the curse of collective amnesia sets in and we are already primed for the next disaster. No one is indicted and whatever punishment is doled out is usually only in a token sense.
Whether it is a plane crash, the stealing of public funds or mass failure of students in public examinations, there is one common feature: faceless public servants who pocket filthy lucre while looking the other way. Because they are also usually part and parcel of the efforts to unravel these unconscionable heists, it is little wonder the whole truth never emerges.
While reflecting on these testy scenarios, it occurred to me that most of these kleptomaniacs making out as patriotic public servants owe their employment and subsequent elevations neither to merit nor excellence. Either they have forked over tons of cash or they leverage on the support of some godless godfather. So they owe no allegiance to God, country or a good conscience.
To improve our chances of being lifted from our current quagmire, we must not only reform and revolutionize employment procedures to exclude these charlatans; we must urgently devise means of flushing out those already embedded in the system. For as long as criminals and enemies of the common good are not adequately and expeditiously punished, our dire situation will seem like a backyard skirmish compared to the Armageddon that awaits us.
I detest negative profiling and generalizations. I smart when the Igbo are classified as money-grubbers and crooks; and Nigerians as frauds. Over the years, though, I have learnt to live with the inevitability of these perceptions which, incidentally, are not always entirely false. This is how I do it: I try to be honest with myself about who I am long before someone else notices. That way, I drain the venom from any scathing remarks or descriptions.
As a Nigerian, this is how I presently describe my country: a nation waiting for the next disaster to happen.
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
[email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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