PAY DAY I don’t like to talk about the Dana air crash because I don’t handle tragedies very well. So, don’t mistake it for flippancy if I rush across the facts. I don’t want to be pulled into the eyes of those four children, or their parents, or their grandmother, or their aunty; I don’t want to imagine their final moments. Or those of all the other people on that plane. It breaks my heart… And I’m not judging either, any of the families who made a different choice, because I am not standing in their shoes, and I don’t know what any of them is dealing with. But when I came across this story in one of the national dailies today, ‘THE ANYENES REJECT DANA COMPENSATION, URGE REFORM INSTEAD’; I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Because we all want payback – for the broken down secondary schools we went to; the over crowded hostels we had to sleep in; the NYSC camps with their rusted bunk beds and putrid latrines; the non-existent jobs; the streets we pounded looking for sustenance; the office after office that rejected us; the Managers that said we should bring letters from Senators; the ones that invited us in and pinched our bottoms; the hospitals that let our parents die because they were on strike; the roads that took our friends and cousins... We all want payback. So, people say it casually, but seriously, ‘Kai! God help me, if I ever get there, I MUST chop!’ Something died inside over the years, watching SUVs race down the road with sirens blaring, while it’s knocking on three months since your last paycheck. The humiliation of begging for more time to pay the rent; it’s turned us all into repressed kleptocrats. If we appear virtuous, it is because we haven’t gotten ‘there’ yet. Let the chance come first – one on one with that Minister or Senator, that President you’ve stalked for years - what will it be? A million? Ten million? A hundred billion? A job in Shell? Jobs for all your brothers and sisters? A Ministerial appointment? A guaranteed ticket to the House of Representatives? What will it take to quench the desire for revenge; to grip it by its throat - this country that just watched you scratch the earth with a broken hoe - and squeeze out recompense? I ask myself that question a lot, because I know that day will come; it comes for everyone. God, help me. I want to be able to say – I don’t want your money. I don’t want anything. I want everything. I want good roads from here to Enugu, so the stretch of road that killed my brother never takes another life. I want light in every home, down every street; I want schools that don’t strip our children of their dignity; I want to be treated with respect at Immigration counters around the world; I want to get into a car and drive, no fear of fuel shortages or kidnappers. I want a country that works. It will happen. One day, our years of suffering and deprivation will bequeath us an over-riding leverage, an almighty power to DEMAND payback. The Niger Delta militants are using theirs to procure mouth-watering security contracts. Nobody’s talking deeper issues now. But when he got his own chance to bay for blood, Nelson Mandela sowed for peace instead in a rainbow nation. In the end, like with everything else in this life, we will get exactly what we ask for. When your day comes, what will it be?
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 18:22:30 +0000
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