OPINION
 |
| Dr. Odion-Akhaine |
By Sylvester Odion Akhaine
As toiling Nigerians
cannot merry today, eat their ponmo, let it be known that their days of
‘suffering and smiling’ will be over (apologies to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti). They
shall claim their day, they shall have their laugh, and they shall merry again
with shouts of victory over their oppressors.
Today is Christmas. The
big question is how many Nigerians can really merry and embrace in merriment, a
season’s embrace wrapped with peals of laughter. Given the palpable suffering
of most of the population in long-lasting struggle to eke out a living and its
compounding by a bunch of reckless state actors, the hilarity of Christmas is
at least gone for today. In pains, the suffering masses would continue their
existential drudgery in search of what to eat. This undermines hope, a panacea
of sort. From the beginning of the year, in their toil for what to eat, a
hardly fruitful endeavour in this clime, hope is always there like a shadow
trailing its owner.
Christmas
is a season for new clothes, eating and wining. Some culinary finesse is
brought to bear on our diet. Beef, chicken, fish, crayfish, prawns and ponmon.
The latter is known by many names such as kanda and ohian.
Its value lies in being affordable and also mouthful. Medicine men says it’s
cholesterol full, others say it is wholesome for the liver, yet there is the
view that it has no nutritious value. Also, an indolent ruling class is even
considering tapping into an estimated 75 billion dollar global leather industry
where cow skin or ponmo ought to be. Fears of chemicals and
contamination are even being invoked to dissuade the poor from his/her
preference. Whatever the views, they are the reason while it is the refuge of
the poor and always tops a sense of a wholesome meal. It is an easy complement
in the combination called in the South-West, orisiorisi (assorted
meat.)
Irrespective
of their faiths, poor Nigerians often look forward to Christmas; not really for
its religious essence but for the leisure it offers, the vent its provides for
a momentary mirth of life in which we are at one with the creator; inspired by
his work of creation, we would exclaim: life is beautiful! Today, hope is
driven away, or shall we say smashed, not a lick of the lips and the crunching
of ponmon, the choice of the impoverished Nigerians, which by some
ironic and weird force of attraction is also patronised by those responsible
for their misery.
In
spite of the masses’ impoverishment, already hemmed in the margins of bare
existence and uncertainty of a season, our tomorrow, if there may be one is
already being overshadowed by our tormentors, mouthpieces of IMIFI JUJU, known
as Bretton Woods institutions, and a man who promised ‘change’ is telling them
to prepare for pains over obvious economic downturn that they did not engender,
others demented are clamouring for the removal of oil subsidy, an imaginary
specie, you and I know, does not exist but a fraudulent carbuncle inflicted on
the people by the thieving elite. Others are projecting tolls for unpassable
roads while the naira is racing towards Golgotha. Agencies that provide power
and energy have upped their tariff blatantly without improvement on their
services. Aforesaid, hope is a panacea. Where is hope? It is being attacked by
our tormentors in ways that made good old John Keats say that pains abide
forever with us while happiness is a rare visitor. As Shakespeare’s Cassius in Julius
Caesar puts it, oppressed people when burdened never lack the means to
dismiss the fetters of oppression. In his words, “…Cassius from bondage will
deliver Cassius: Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong; Therein, ye
gods, you tyrants do defeat: Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor
airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of
spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks the power to
dismiss itself. If I know this, know all the world besides, That part of
tyranny, that I do bear, I can shake off at pleasure”.
The toiling people of
this country would perhaps invoke the general will to damn their traducers and
oppressors.
Cassius envisages suicide
or revolt. The option for our people maybe the latter. The toiling people of
this country would perhaps invoke the general will to damn their traducers and
oppressors. This could take on different social expressions. The country is
already contending with Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East, Indigenous
People of Biafra, Niger-Delta militants, one of the most impoverished enclave
in the world, Odua revivalism is lurking at the corner and who knows, very
soon, Ogiso brigade would emerge from the Mid-West. These processes are
irreversible for a people beaten to the wall. History is there for us. The
Americans took on the British tax masters in 1760s, the Cuban people triumphed
over Batista and his gangs in 1959 and the Bolsheviks took on the reactionary
forces and the Czar scums in Russia in 1917.
The suffering of our
people today reminds me of the signature tune of Hotel de Jordan, a drama
series in NTA Benin, written and produced by the inimitable Comrade Jonathan
Ihonde, in the early seventies which goes as follows: “God save us make we no
see trouble; who see one no dey know whether na white or yellow; poor man dey
suffer, monkey dey work, baboon dey chop”. As toiling Nigerians cannot merry
today, eat their ponmo, let it be known that their days of ‘suffering and
smiling’ will be over (apologies to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti). They shall claim
their day, they shall have their laugh, and they shall merry again with shouts
of victory over their oppressors.
·
Sylvester Odion Akhaine, a political science lecturer at the
Lagos State University, is a visiting member of The Guardian Editorial Board.
No comments:
Post a Comment