How Long will the Centre Hold?
Of all the tells that our country is falling to pieces, it is those that are difficult to spot that breaks my heart most. By themselves, they are not shocking. They may even be considered mundane. However, when situated in the greater socioeconomic context, the alarm registers. They are everyday events that have become too frequent. They beg us to act now, to act fast, to do anything at all to save our nation.
I come from superstitious places where people worry about beggars stealing destinies and robbing people of their good fortune. I am undecided about these concerns. I have always given those who asked if I felt their need. Recently, I realised that I now give a lot more money than I usually do even though I have not changed my criteria. I was walking to the Masha-Ojuelegba Napep stand when I realised this. That I was giving more because they were not the usual beggars with their bowls, those whom this country has failed to give any kind of advantage. I was giving to mothers and daughters who still smelled of the fish and pomo they sold all day. I was giving to security guards who stammered as they confided that their salaries no longer sustained their families. I was giving to fathers who spent their last to buy drugs for their children and could not afford transport. They all say the same thing to me: that they still do not have enough at the end of an honest day’s work.
I have also given to young men like myself that call the streets home. They do not ask, they demand. At Ojuelegba. In the evenings at Shitta, when I take a walk. All over Somolu while I hunted for an apartment.
“Alayé, o ma fún àwa ní ǹkan. Kí ló wà nílẹ̀?”
“Ọmọ ìyá, wòó. Kò sí nílẹ̀. A jọ wà ni.”
I have learned to spit out my yorùbá as if in disgust. I suffer with you. I also do not have enough. In truth, all that separates me and these young men are the advantages my upbringing afforded, particularly an education up to the university level. You may turn my pockets out on a random day and find that I have less than them.
Whether hustling on the streets or in offices, young men and women are becoming breadwinners. All are being shunted into a position they are ill-prepared for. The smart business analyst in your office. The energetic sales intern you wonder about. The customer service agent taking online courses in CMS traffic. Children of retired or retiring civil servants. Their eighty thousand naira salaries are for their families now. They are being suffocated by the rising costs of transportation and foodstuff. How long until a life of crime (or corruption?) is more attractive?
Today at Ojuelegba, a drunk soldier holding a red staff practised his marching while he waited for the bus to fill. Should men like this be allowed to hold guns? Is this why civilians are randomly killed, drunkenness? Is this ineptitude not why Boko Haram still thrives? He heard these comments but did not respond until he was done. He took his seat as the bus started for Ikeja and then began a soliloquy.
“You are here complaining. You are here in office that have AC while me I am fighting!”
Onipanu. The bus driver takes the BRT lane.
“Three years now. They go bring back soldier like myself, bullet dey him chest, him leg don break. Death! Then they tell you, soldier prepare to go next. You have order to go to that same place your brother just go and die from.”
Palmgrove.
“Three years. I come home to see my family now. My small girl, she don big. She don’t know me. She did not know my face that I am her daddy.”
Anthony.
“Tomorrow, I am going back. Somewhere around Sambisa. But you don’t know. You don’t know all this. You are in AC.”
Idi Iroko.
“You go know very soon.”
Idi Iroko is where I alight but the thought is firmly planted in my head that we are losing battles both in the north and south. I wonder how long the centre will hold.
