COME AND CUT IT OFF: CHALLENGING THE OBNOXIOUS AND PREPOSTROUS

                   

Wonders shall never end in this society filled with pessimists, optimists and extremists. Well let’s leave those “mists “alone and go into the matter that has brought my pen to bleeding. 

Na jeje I dey inside bus o, dey go work o, with several thoughts in my head, groping into  the sunny weather, begging the Supreme being in charge of the climate to have mercy upon the poor souls who are getting roasted day by day. Filled with these in my head I alighted, stretched out a 50 naira note to the driver who was eager to collect his fare. Suddenly he reclined and started yelling, “You must be stupid, Ori e o pe . Early this morning you’re giving me money with your left hand. Do I look like your mate or what? I opened my mouth in shock, perplexed, angered and pained. You mean I got these insults on a Monday morning because I gave a driver his money with MY HAND? I kept quiet till he was done ranting. After his drama I stretched my hand and said, “ëwa ge owo mi” meaning “come and cut off my hand”. I was really furious; I felt I needed to give him a piece of my mind.

There was traffic so I entered into the bus and I began to give him in slices my mind, as e dey hot. I told him, “You are just an illiterate, who has no basis for his actions. You only act based on what you are fed with, obnoxious and irritating cultural mindsets”.

 Some reasonable people began to antagonize the man for making such remarks at me, I recall a woman said, “What’s bad in using his left hand? Is it not his hand? As for me NOBODY can tell me which hand is and which hand is not”. The argument continued that I just had to alight after satisfying my urge to talk, I left them still arguing over some inhumane cultural and traditional values.

On my way, walking through the quiet path that led to my destination, I began to examine the beliefs that consider a part of the body cursed and redundant? I began to ask myself, “If I can feel pained and less human by the remark of that ignoramus driver, how many of the left handed beings in the world face this kind of discriminatory treatment from so-called “complete”, “blessed” right handed humans?  These questions began to linger in my heart which made worried and hurt. I began to imagine how many young children would grow up with the mindset that the left hand is a taboo and a wrong hand to be used. However, some would have or have decided to deliberately change their hands from being left handed to right handedness all because of the superstitious beliefs that seems the permeate the mindset of men, women and children as to who a left handed person is. 

I had a young female student of primary six who was a leftist but stopped making use of it. I asked for her reason  and she said it was her primary one teacher who thoughtlessly stopped her. She said and I quote: “my aunty in primary one said I should not use left because she does not like it” you can imagine the disservice given to the younger child. The child who is naive of any erroneous cultural injustice is been made to forgo her desire to use her left hand for right hand for no justified reason, leaving the child confused as to why she is being made to become another person.

I met another young girl of twelve years at a party, she was served jollof rice and chicken; she was evidently hungry as she eagerly launched into the food with the spoon on her left hand. Almost immediately she changed the location of the spoon to  right hand which she uncomfortably and forcibly tried to use. She smiled timidly as she saw I was watching her, I asked why she was struggling to use her right hand when her left hand is completely “hale and hearty”, she said and I quote, “my mummy said I shouldn’t use my left hand when I am in public or else I would be called a devil”. Are you kidding me? What affiliation does being “left handed” have to do with the devil. Does he reside at the left wing of the universe or is Hell in the left part of wherever? Or is the devil and his fallen angels left handed?

This is the extreme damage that occurs when we continue to savor the decaying stench of myth and superstitious beliefs. Our society will inexorably tilt towards an imminent decline in traditional justice and cultural considerateness if we do not stop at upholding fallacious mores.

 I understand your pain, even majority of common tools are designed solely for use by right handed people making it difficult, painful, or unsafe for left handed people. For example tools like scissors, saw to name but a few. To worsen it, I understand that you are considered unlucky and unfortunate beings and are seen to be stupid, dishonest and even accursed. And for the younger ones who face beating and more extreme measures as hurting their left hand fingers simply to ward off their mind from using it, I understand your pain. 

I have faced it too, I have lived a life where I can’t eat with an elderly person because I use left, I can’t give an elderly person anything with my left hand else I will be considered rude, immoral and uncultured. I began to live cautiously, pretending to be right handed before aged extremists. Oh to hell with that culture!!!

Well, to my left-handed humans: First it has been discovered that approximately 10% of the world population is left-handed. This estimated percent gives me a strange feeling and a sense of hope. Do you know why? The reason is simply because despite the fact that we belong to a very minute percentage of the world’s population yet we still find great humans almost everywhere who happen to be left handed.

 Now I discovered that these great humans such as left-handed U.S. presidents like James A. Garfield  20^th, Herbert Hoover 31^st, Harry S. Truman  33^rd, Gerald Ford  38^th, Ronald Reagan  40^th ,George H.W. Bush 41^st,Bill Clinton  42^nd,Barack Obama  44^th , to name a few, from Nigeria we have got the likes of the former Executive Governor of Lagos state Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) also history has it that Leonardo Da Vinci, Aristotle, Michelangelo Buonaroti, Charlie Chaplin, and the science veteran Albert Einstein were also left handed and also  the great Oprah Winfrey to name but a few. These people have internalized their identity; they have stood their grounds on their humanness and are ready to go at any length to justify their humanness through great feat which has indeed led to their immense greatness.

To the left handed humans who are still out there trying to fit into a “world that has been orchestrated for the right handed” like one fool said, I bid you to rise up and face the challenges of being left handed, confront superstitions and putrefying beliefs, let no man look down on you because you are left-handed, that is who you are, don’t try to be who you are not. You are DIFFERENT and that is the major problem.

 Human beings dread uniqueness, they intimidate change, they try to bring down a person of difference, and they desire to level a distinctive man up to their standard. You are not like the majority, you are a minority, let your deeds speak; let your greatness speak out your humanness. Left-handedness is not a curse; it is a gift, a call to being DISTINCT.

And for the likes of the ignorant bus driver, who just internalize rubbish, who have allowed it form their policies and belief system, I say 'Stop and think, who really is left-handed?' He is human and left handed; she is human and left handed. We are humans and left handed. I repeat we are humans. We feel pain, we feel rejection, we are happy, we are accepted. We love and desire to be loved.

This is no form of appreciation or whatsoever, but I must thank my late grandmother for beating up my mum who tried to stop me from being who I really am, who attempted to stop me from being left handed.

TOWARD DECOMPARTMENTALIZING NIGERIA(of Retrospect: Nigeria at 54)

                   

Few days ago we celebrated Nigeria at 54, where we had so many sanctimonious patriots who claim to be true citizens of a country where ethnic differences and cultural segregation seem to be worn like a cap on the heads of almost every citizen of Nigeria; the aroma of the decaying frame of the nation spreads like wildfire beyond the borders of the nation and has caused unworthy mouths to speak ill of us. The naysayers predict our fall, pessimists make a pre-extinct mourn, the negative minded ones imagines the expunging of the name “Nigeria” from the surface of Africa. But all of who I don’t blame at all, an adage says, ‘‘if the older woman brings one down, the little one climbs on him’, I have no word for them but I have loads of it for my nation who clocked 54 in putrefying body, being filled with the foul smell of distrust born by ethnic inequality, religious disparity as well as our incorrigible firmness to the past that gave birth to no fruitful future.

We speak of our desire to build a nation yet we bear an identity separate and disparate from the one and only identity that we possess which is the Nigerian identity; one rich in culture, intellect and talents. Now every man bears his father’s name which we acknowledge as our ethnic beginnings while we relegate the true beginning which is the beginning of Nigeria, we have failed to come to terms with the fact that the land which we ignorantly or consciously claim to be lord over was built upon the blood of patriots, those who ignored tribes and tongues to achieve one goal which is Nigeria. The building of a nation is not the responsibility of the president neither is it the work of the lower administrators but the sole responsibility of every citizen of Nigeria. Administrators are there to oversee not lord over us; we have the voice how come we have become one without a voice? Well the answer is glaring, so visible to the blind; we have compartmentalized everything in this country; we now answer to our tribes and tongues rather than as a nation, we now separate the poor from the rich, the privileged from the less privileged, Christians from Muslims. We now savor the taste of death which comes as a result of a scattered broom, dancing to the beats of disparity yet we ask preposterous questions if God is on our side. What folly!!

Nigeria was not founded it was made, molded and created by patriots who were ready to die for the course, they didn’t consider their gains but the gain of the coming generations so how come we have decided to forget this labor of our past heroes and heroines who with togetherness of heart fought for the course of the nation irrespective of their tribe and tongues. Our brothers and sisters in Diaspora cry over the prevalent racism they encounter as the tread on another man’s land, we have forgotten that the same thing pervades our very nation, we see Yoruba mothers tell their children not to marry from the Ibo tribe, the Ibo too warns his/ her child not to attempt it at all. Also, a Yoruba prefers to help his fellow Yoruba as long as he is ‘omo kaaro o jire’ while the Ibo assists only one who is able to say ‘kedu’ as well as our Hausa citizens. How will a nation grow in such stench of inequality?

When will we begin to realize that Nigeria is not the territory but those who occupy the territory? The development and growth of Nigeria is extremely hinged on what we do and not do, when we begin to do the right thing as a citizen of Nigeria then we are on our way to building a nation that other nations will look up to, we will no longer go out to seek solace from other countries that are tagged ‘developed’, we will find comfort and accomplishment in ourselves as a nation. Let every citizen of this country begin to live and stop existing, a man that loves is a man that lives, let love permeate this nation, let us begin to heal the rottenness of Nigeria with our outstretched hands of care and hospitality. Let there be neither rich nor poor; let everyone sit on the same table to eat together as one created by one God, let the headache of an Ibo man be the headache of a Yoruba man as well, if an Hausa man is hurt let the whole nation remain awake to heal him of his wounds. I ask can we do this?

Now we are approaching another election, can we all stand up and vote for one man that will represent us all, the man who will stand as a voice for everyone. If we come together then no one will ever be voiceless because we will all stand as one to speak the voice of one body, one entity, one nation, one Nigeria. No man can come from nowhere to use his bread of corruption to scoop off our soup of riches, fertility and tranquility; if we in one accord stand we will definitely defeat the swindlers as well as the marauders who hide under the aegis of religion to perpetrate evil, let us all bring out the giant in our nation enveloped in extreme decay and debilitation.

Let us all create a nation where there is neither the haves nor the haves not; a land where riches is circulated amongst all and sundry not amid the so call elite.
We are all we have, let us defend our land TOGETHER.



This was written at the 54th anniversary of our dear own NIGER AREA....Time flies anyways.

THE KING IS SILENT{ of Retrospect}.

Tossing and turning in the vine
of where there used to be flowers and wine
with children playing and singing the song
and busy mothers in sonorous tone

The vine was calm and all was pure
in our tranquil and peaceful grandeur
like the night when angels fly
Fluttering and waving and cooling the land

Alas!! A voice we hear from afar
The mist of blood all spread abroad
The mothers are wailing, the fathers are weak
The children are dying ,some taken away
The land that was green now full of red
The blood of humans all full the vine.

“Let’s go see our king” they said
Perhaps he’s wailing his eyes away
or has summoned his aides to fight a war
in tears of hope we walked to him
our veritable lord and master of all

Alas!!!we saw our lord and god
The second to the deity, our guard and shield
Sleeping and snoring, snoring and sleeping
What hope have we who came for succor
From the one whom the gods has placed the staff
To guide and lead us to our rest
Behold all sobbing, “our hope is lost”.

This poem was written about the former President of Nigeria Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and his obnoxious silence at the sudden incidence of the kidnap of the Chibok girls... Here I was a budding grey, my beak was just growing to be sharp. able to pierce into the hearts of those who hear my pen wail.