A Nation and its Culture of Madness

These are unusual times in motherland, Nigeria. Things are just no longer at ease no matter how much we pretend to the contrary. Everywhere one looks, there seems to be frightening signs of lunacy all around. There seems to be madness everywhere and every time. The last time Her Excellency was around to ‘thank Lagosians’ at the Ocean View Restaurant, Victoria Island, Lagos, overzealous security men , whose attention was seriously needed in a certain of the country, were on hand to show Lagosians how not to say thank you. We are used to ‘powerful people’ spiting at us on a daily basis. Recently, we were trapped in a traffic log-jam for hours. It was so bad that nothing was moving. Nobody knew what was wrong. In the midst of the madness, there came the usually irritating noise of siren from the entourage of a ‘powerful man’. We were all amused because we were sure even the president would not be able to make his way through the crazy gridlock we were trapped in. How wrong we were! Like a scene from one of James Bond series, the security men on the entourage of the ‘powerful man’, in a fashion that looked like the biblical eyes of the needle riddle, riotously made a way for their principal to pass through the gridlock. And like the suckers that we have always been, the rest of us in the traffic were left bemoaning our fate.
Those that daily pass through the Lagos –Ibadan Expressway, Oshodi-Apapa Road among others, will surely be familiar with a new kind of madness in town known as the menace of trailers and tankers drivers. These are men who are above the law. Lords in their own special way. To further exhibit their newly found power, one of them recently crossed the Ibafo end of the Lagos –Ibadan Expressway with his tanker just because he had an issue with a commercial bus driver. Strangely, he abandoned the vehicle on the road for several minutes leaving behind an avoidable gridlock. We live in a strange country where madness has become an integral part of our daily routine. The sight of well dressed and seemingly educated men and women begging for as little as N20 is no longer unusual on our streets. These days is no longer strange for one to come across people who talk to themselves while walking. There are several sane madmen on the streets these days.
In the neighbourhood where I live, madness extends deep into the thick of the night. What with the irritating noise of generating sets of various shades? Where I live, your status is measured by the number of generating sets you have and how deep into the night you are able to put them on. When we were young, generating sets were quite alien to us. No one was in need of them. Those were the days when public power supply was stable and very predictable. Today, public institutions and corporations factor fuelling of generating sets into their annual budgets. At what cost you might want to ask? At a very enormous cost I will say.
In recent time, the National Assembly has become a good ground for students who are willing to research into the prevailing insanity across the country. Revelations from numerous public hearings organised by diverse committees of the National Assembly are enough to attest to the culture of madness currently pervading the land. The rate at which people that are entrusted with public fund breach the public code of ethic is one that can only take place in a land where insanity reigns supreme. We recently heard tales of public officials who kept cash going into billions of naira of public funds in their private homes. To further reinforce how deeply insane the society has become, one of them claimed she made the billions of naira found in her home selling bottled and ‘pure water’! Madness, Madness just everywhere. Recently, a 400 –seater Anglican Church building was donated by a construction firm, Gitto Construztioni Limited to Otuoke, hometown of President Goodluck Jonathan Nigeria contrary to public service code of conduct laws. Clergymen in the said church referred to anyone who criticized the gift as satanic. Presidential aides fall on each others to defend their principal. Today, many of those involved in the collapse of some banks and other financial institutions in the country are walking freely in the land. Yet, this is a country where thousands of less connected people are languishing in jails, across the country, for far lesser crimes.
Unfortunately, our children are beginning to be the direct ‘beneficiaries’ of several of our acts of madness. Not quite long ago, some holidaying teenagers coming from Enugu to Lagos were given a douse of the mental illness on prowl in the land. The luxurious bus conveying them to Lagos was reportedly attacked by hoodlums suspected to be armed robbers. When their assailants discovered that the passengers in the bus were school girls from whom they could get nothing, they vent their madness on the girls. The animals that we have become, these mad men reportedly raped the girls, most of whom were virgins, in a show of shame and undiluted insanity. How disgusting! Well, this is how low we have sunk as a people.
A nation that is built on falsehood and deception will continue to breed nutty and uncultured people. No matter how much we try to pretend, almost everywhere is rotten in the country. Even in religious places, where one expects a reasonable degree of uprightness, the story is not different. Pay a visit to government hospitals, where government spend a fortune to put in the right equipment and ensure the well being of medical workers, you will be amazed at the attitude of the workers there. On our roads the situation is not different. Everybody drives as if there are no rules governing traffic. Operators of the informal sector are not exempted from this culture of madness! If you have ever given your car to a mechanic to fix or you have had course to deal with plumbers, electricians, carpenters etc. you will understand the resourcefulness of the average Nigerian in cutting corners!
There is no point in passing the buck. We should stop the blaming game. If we are to fulfil our potentials as a nation, we have to collectively change our orientation. We have to change our value system. Everyone has to play his part well. The ruling class has a greater role to play in this respect. The way forward, is for every one of us to have a rethink. If some are building and others are pulling down, the building will definitely collapse. The political class has to eschew bitterness. No matter what happens, this is the only country that we can call our own. The major concern of those that rule us should be the good of the people. Politics, religion and ethnicity should not be used as platforms to divide us. It doesn’t matter where we are, we can get to where we ought to be if we are determined to build a new nation that will be the toast of coming generations. We can do it. We have the potentials. We have the resources. All we need is a strong resolve to start afresh.
source: pmnews