By Me For My People

I get to leave…

In “The White Man’s Land”

Let’s not forget the privilege we have even when it feels like we suffer the worst of the residual blows thrown by the fists of history. There was a time I forgot where I was from and began to resent where I lived, until I went back. I went home and realised the privilege I have and have always had, the privilege that a lot of us have taken for granted (both at home and in the diaspora). I went back to the motherland in all its imperfect glory.

In “The Black Man’s Land”

I went home to my big house, chauffeurs, generators, wealth and comfortability. I went home and the first thing I wanted to do was fly back to the country I always felt I didn’t fully belong. I heard the deafening sounds of car horns butting heads, drivers climbing on top of one another with their rundown vehicles and all I wanted to do was run away! I wished to grow wings so I could fly back as fast and as high as I could because my so-called motherland felt so foreign and distasteful.

I let out a deep sigh and took a moment to look around me because, for a minute, I felt so entitled to my form of comfortability. My people are struggling, but the funny thing to me is how comfortable they are in their shackles. I saw a male bus conductor ride on the back of an iconic yellow bus holding tightly to the roof so effortlessly as the driver sped along the road, potholes and all. I saw boys and girls, men and women hawking all-sorts in the dead of night with only car lights and lanterns preventing them from meeting death. I saw my people cross the road without fear of dying. I saw public busses packed to the brim with what seemed like a hundred people seated and a hundred more stood holding unto the railings as their driver swerved between cars and motorcycles, avoiding potholes and roadside accidents to get to the next stop.

The Mentality of my People is...

I cried as I watched my people go about their day to day lives hoping and wishing not only for a better tomorrow but to last the rest of the night unscathed. But, my people, you already are battered and bruised! I laugh as I think I used to blame the government alone for the failures of the country but my people in the land, my people we need to wake up to the fact that change begins with us. We too need to look after the place we call home and not use survival as an excuse to deface our own environment and communities.

The mentality of my people is poisonous — Drivers! The road was built for your cars but this does not give you the right to run me off the road because you are too impatient to look out for your fellow citizen. Traders! Our roadsides were not build for your makeshift shops. Making ends meet is a trade in itself where we are from but you are contributing to the problems of disorderliness. I have seen traders selling under concrete bridges. Pastors and Ministers! Your belief in the Lord does not warrant your demonstration of self-entitlement nor does it justify your superiority complex. Government officials! Setting laws in a lawless country must be hard. But how the heck do you expect your people to follow the same rules you constantly break. How the heck do you expect your people to have faith in you when you yourself do not have faith in your own capabilities to do great things, but instead sell your blood to the very people who take pleasure in seeing you and your people crumble so long as they are left sitting high on the throne of globalism. You are a government of people who steal, kill, bribe, sell out and turn deaf ears. Police and other law enforcement officers! You are not our friend. You are the thorn in your people’s front. We see your deceit. Schools! How do you expect your people to trust you when the school term consists of 20 hours lecturing, 30 hours of exams and 100 hours of strikes! I could say so much more.

But at the end of it all, it seems…

Health and safety is no concern for my people, just money. But I get to leave and it feels like there is nothing I can do. I get to go back to steady electricity, no dirt roads, and cool air whilst my people stay suffering and doing everything and anything for the imaginary coins invented to create inequality and division. I feel deeply saddened by the state of both my country and my people; and I wish now, as I always have, to do more. I wish to find the courage to give out an intentional and purposeful scream to insight change.

The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience — Chinua Achebe

In the end, I didn’t really want to leave, for I am my people and my people is me.

By Ope

b(L).