by Tosin Fatoyinbo

Think of the lecturer who publishes students’ intellectual work as his own so as to earn his professorship. Think of the medical doctor who prescribes a caesarian for a pregnant woman as a mean to boosting his clinic’s revenue and not because caesarian is needed.

They say’ Lagos no dey sleep’ but really, you don’t want to be outside the comfort of your home and without a car of your own at 11pm upwards, especially when you think of many hoodlums filled dark streets of the city. That was my predicament on Thursday night. I closed work late; I knew that it was not going to be easy getting a cab at the normal rates because of the fuel scarcity. But I was shocked at the ridiculous prices the cab drivers were calling. Come on, Surulere wasn’t so far and besides the traffic would have trickled down. So there was no reason for the ridiculous price. I bargained with the drivers, all to no avail. They all gave one simple defence, fuel scarcity. That’s nonsense, I thought; so I chose to take the journey home in bits.

There are times just because you don’t want to be cheated, you decide to stress yourself. It’s not always the best though. When you calculate the energy expended and the time wasted, it dawns on us that we might have been wrong. I regretted this decision in part, but mostly I enjoyed it. The journey started with a keke marwa (tricycle) trip from Ikoyi to Obalende. The keke was driven by a woman who said in a husky, ‘oga na N100 o’. I didn’t argue with her. I couldn’t but noticed that she drove the keke more carefully than the boys often plying that route. When I got to Obalende, I had to wait for about 20minutes before I got a bus going towards to Yaba, I was sandwiched between three men who reeked of dry gin and agbo jedi. At this point, I felt stupid at my decision. I could have saved myself the stress by taking a cab. These guys made it worse; they kept talking at the top of their voice with each sentence followed by a long lasting stench of the agbo jedi residing in their bellies. I felt like screaming ‘shut up’ at them. I knew I couldn’t do that so I told my shut up to shut up.

I was more than relieved when I dropped at Adekunle, from where I took another bus to Oyingbo, and yet another bus to Constain and then the last bus to Masha. The real fun started at Oyingbo, the driver of the bus was an elderly man called old soldier. I sat directly beside old soldier in the bus. The man who sat next to me reeked of agbo jedi. ‘what’s with you and agbo jedi people this night o’ I thought.

Usually, Oyingbo to Constain costs N30. Old soldier said N50. When he asked why it was N50, he said that we should ask the Government. This got most of the passengers annoyed. The conversation started.
Passenger 1: wetin you mean?

Driver: No be government dey cause fuel scarcity?

Passenger 2: shut up, make all una shut up. No be government, na all of una dey cause the wahala wey dey this country, una go come open una big mouth dey blame government, shior.

Passenger 3: No government can satisfy Nigeria. We swallow our leaders, we hail them today and tomorrow we call for their heads. Every little thing that goes wrong, we blame the government even we are truly responsible for them.
Passenger 2: na so oga, this wicked petrol station wey be say dem get fuel nko? Dem get the fuel but dem dey hoard am. Small time dem go dey scream government.

Old soldier: Dead got wey lost, na the man on the street steal am?

Agbo jedi man: wetin be the meaning of that stupid proverb now. You just talk thing wey no get meaning.

Old soldier: I no dey talk to you, na this educated person I dey talk to (taps me)
Passenger 2: even you old soldier, no be army you dey before? You no dey among government ni. Na devil go baptize all of una wey dey make Nigerians suffer.

The conversation continued this way until we got to constain. And I learnt again that the major problem with Nigeria is not really with the government or perhaps not majorly with the government but the people. Truth be told, government is formed from the people.

I discovered that the problem is really with the society; the student who swipes a paper off the internet and passes it off as his own or the student who smuggles in prepared notes into the exam hall. The job seeker who pads up his CV with things he might never do in his lifetime just to impress the employer. Think of the he employer who conducts an interview for 100 candidates knowing full well that the job has been reserved for his cousin. Think of the executive who writes a casual dinner with a friend as a business expense in the company’s account. Think about the Journalist who sits in his bedroom and writes stories capable of initiating insurrection.

Think of the lecturer who publishes students’ intellectual work as his own so as to earn his professorship. Think of the medical doctor who prescribes a caesarian for a pregnant woman as a mean to boosting his clinic’s revenue and not because caesarian is needed. Think of the mechanic who buys substandard spare parts so the car owner can return in a matter of days. Think about the passenger who slips out of the bus simply because the bus driver has no conductor. Think about the family whose profession is making other families sad by kidnapping their babies. Think about the boys who break people’s car windows in traffic to deprive them of their valuables.

Think of the petroleum marketer who hoards fuel just to make extra gain or even that simple market woman at Balogun market who sells a product way beyond what she should because the customer doesn’t know any better. Think of the commercial drivers who exploit other citizens in the name of fuel scarcity and traffic. Think of the school proprietor who after collecting expensive fees refuses to pay the teachers and other workers. Think about the traditional ruler who collects royalties on natural resources collectively owned by the Community and keeps all of it to himself. Think about the married man who spends extravagantly on maids while his worried wife and hungry children wait for him at home. The list is endless.
So long as the Nigerian society fails to get it right, the government may continue to stumble. We are the most important factor in this equation. We must get it right so that our government can get it right. It’s not going to work the other way round. Let’s us for one moment forget about the politician and think about ourselves. Even if we elect the right government, we won’t let them succeed so long as societal ills remain rampant. Will society ever be free of such ills, the answer is obviously no but we cannot make progress if these things remain normal to us. Not when events that should get really miffed only evokes a shrug. Not when we should rally round and speak with one voice, we conspire to keep quiet. We have to stop swimming in Devil’s pool. This conspiracy must stop if we are to move forward as a nation. A new government will come onboard soon; can we praise it when it performs and speaks against it when it doesn’t do so well and yet encourage it to strive to do better? Can we forget about how to feed our tummy now and think about how our children will thrive? Can we?
My two cents

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Lawyer, Music lover, Arsenal fan, Oluwatosin tweets from @Tosinfat

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.