I’m young and I’m depressed and that is an anomaly but then, Nigeria is a greater abnormality.
This is 2009 and we are yet to have something as simple and basic as electricity, we qualify it, (at least 12 hours a day) a concession of the gross and remarkable ineptitude of our government. Everybody is using petrol generators, there is noise everywhere, fumes and pollution, you can hardly think straight. If it is too much to expect electricity for “at least 12 hours a day” then your excellencies we are sorry.
The truth is that Nigerians are out there living their lives themselves, fending, protecting and providing themselves. They cannot afford to look up to the government any more than a married man will look for help to consummate the union, unless they are waiting for godot. Godot did not come then and nobody is expecting him nor anybody in their right mind.
Another truth is that, people are fast giving up hope in this country, and for the sake of their conscience and faith, if they cannot indulge in the debauchery going on, at least they can leave and they are leaving and I will also leave. And I know the government is least concerned who leaves or not but then one day we will wake up to find a morally, political, economic and human bankrupt state. One day the realisation will dawn on us like the breaking out of a new day after a period indefinite of darkness. The trajectory of our future is not one people have the least hope in. It is hopeless. How long should we wait for all these foundational things( at least some of them) to get right and resolve themselves. Nigeria is unbearable and it is causing severe clinical depression in people and more importantly in youth and even children. This is not an issue of poverty or money. If we had all these basic things that we regard as luxury, life will be far bearable. Beauty will blunt the poverty’s severity. Electricity, light(more preferable) will lighten up the darkness that engulfs the soul when you are able to watch a movie, listen to a song, or just watching the evolution of cosmopolitanism and modernism in a city like Lagos in the night with all its yawning glory, its bright lights and fine buildings and fast cars and enigmatic citizen and make you dream or at least daydream.
I’m not a pessimist and I will not let this dreary country kill the man inside. I love old school R & B, soul and a little bit of old school pop, pun and smart sound bites. I love good, classics movies like Titanic, Phantom of the Opera and all those special films that leaves me all warm inside and make love the greatest of virtue. I am a man,i can read and appreciate the beauty of expression and perspective like the intricate frilly designs of lace. I can write with the passion of an ardent lover and understand and recognize the workings of an internal logic system. I love life. I could never come out better being anything but black. I’m proud and full of lust and zest and zing for life and I’m a young man but above all I’m a Nigerian. How unfortunate!
