Still suffering and smiling at 64?
Moving round the streets of different cities, you will see a vast majority of Nigerians trying to eke a living. People are walking on the streets either hawking their wares or moving from one place to another in a bid to make something out of their lives. Children are playing on the streets after school for those who still go to school with their empty stomachs yet playing to while away time waiting for food.
There are different stories of how different families try to put themselves together. In all of these, they have that smile on their faces. One which signifies hope in a better tomorrow, the hope and quest for a better day amidst the toils and disappointments of life. It’s a cycle that goes on everyday.
Nigerians are no doubt, the most enduring people on the face of the earth. There was a time Nigerians were known as the happiest people on earth.
The Nigerian person is one who is able to weather any storm in life. It is in our nature. It is part of the make up of our being and existence.
There is no where you will see a Nigerian on the surface of the earth and you will not know that he or she is one.
We are a resilient, sturdy, hardworking, energetic, goal getters, hustlers and highly driven people. The average Nigerian can go through anything and still come out strong. We are not a people who simply fizzle out due to the problems and circumstances that surround us. This is what the Afrobeat music maestro, Fela Aniuklapo Kuti, called suffering and smiling.
In one of his hit songs, ‘Shuffering and Shmiling,’ the late Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti satirises the uncanny ability of Nigerians to endure almost anything. The lyric describes the deplorable state of Nigeria and that of the poor masses.
Here are some parts of the song:
Every day my people dey inside bus
Every day my people dey inside bus
Forty-nine sitting, ninety-nine standing
Them go pack themselves in like sardine
Them dey faint, them wake like cock
Them go reach house, water no dey
Them go reach bed, power no dey
Them go reach road, go-slow go come
Them go reach road, police go slap
Them go reach road, army go whip
Them go look pocket, money no dey
Them go reach work, query ready
Everthing na the same thing
Suffer, suffer for world…
Nigerians are people who despite through the toils and travails find a way of smiling or laughing. They try to make jokes out of every situation to lighten their burdens.
Over the years, the economy of the nation has continued to spiral downwardly. It is fumbling and wobbling. The hard times are indeed real and the sufferings will, unfortunately exacerbate even further if nothing is done to consciously bring the problems to an end. We have tried to cope with whatever life throws at us. Through every administration, Nigerians go through one thing or the other and find ways to scale through.
Through the challenges, through the pains, through the difficulties, Nigerians always pull through. We are a good example of when life throws you lemons, you make lemonade out of it. Behind the smiles of Nigerians lie stories of resilience, struggle, and triumph.
To some, suffering and smiling don’t portray a negative way of living. For them, smiling through suffering is a mark of strength. However, when a people’s natural response to suffering is to smile in a way that it keeps them from doing whatever needs to be done to face the issues headlong, then, there is a great problem. You don’t smile at the problem and push them aside. Doing so amounts to living in a fool’s paradise.
For a long time, Nigerians have lived in poverty amidst plenty. Somehow, they have been smiling through it. Rather than things changing for the better, they are getting worse, if not worst by the day. Every sector of the economy is replete with overwhelming problems, and many have inadvertently chosen the pathway of smiling through it all. This is why comedy in Nigeria is increasingly gaining an upper hand. We make jokes out of every situation making it look lighter or smaller than it ordinarily should.
In the early seventies, it was the case that we had lots of money and did not know what to do with it! For example, in 1973 the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon was reported to have stated during a discussion that “Nigeria’s problem is not money but how to spend it.” Today, we have myriads of problems and there is ‘artificially no money’ to provide even the basic necessity for millions of Nigerians.
It has become difficult to survive as a nation, state, group or families and individuals. Salaries are owed workers for several months in many States. We are a nation, knee deep in debt. What a paradox of a nation! From arrogance, through our affluence (oil boom), to a total submission to abject poverty (oil doom)! When we had money, our leaders squandered it through frugality and profligacy; now there is no money, and the poor is left to suffer from non-payment of salaries and all sorts of pay cuts. Notwithstanding, the leaders continue to collect their salaries accordingly. What a country without conscience!
It is not funny, when citizens cannot be guaranteed of their next meal, not to talk of two or three square meals a day! Many children are out of schools today because of their parents’ inability to pay the necessary fees.
In the health sector, Nigerians may again be forced to go the herbal way for their medical needs since the hospital fees and the high cost of drugs (fake and genuine) will not be affordable. Many private, substandard and poorly staffed hospitals which are everywhere in big and small cities may even close down.
Some of our roads are nothing to write home about even in the state capitals, yet we ply through these roads and smile.
To some extent, I don’t even see it as a problem of leadership. I look at it as a people comfortable with getting peanuts from those who have mortgaged their future and are always ready to receive handouts from these people rather than speak the truth. We have sold our consciences because of our affiliations in one way or the other and this has beclouded our level of thinking and reasoning. A few persons have put the majority onto the sorry state we find ourselves in.
Nigerians can only smile genuinely if we take our destinies in our hands and do the needful. God has truly helped us as a people, we need to help ourselves by having the political and social will to do right by all citizens.
The people are beginning to groan and the smiles are becoming fake under the weight of intense hardship as a result of unfriendly policies which are targeted at the majority of the suffering and smiling Nigerians.
Nigeria is 64 years. At this age, things should have been far better for us a people; yet the cycle of suffering and smiling continues. A 64 year old person is no longer a young person. It is about time Nigerians stopped hiding their pains under their smiles. We no longer want to wait for tomorrow for things to get better. The right time is now!
