Suffering and smiling

I woke up this morning with a strong urge to write this article. But as I opened the system I ran out of gas. Nothing was forthcoming as I grasped at straws for something to pick on. When this happens, I usually scour the internet looking for a hot topic to latch on but this time, all I am seeing are tepid run of the mill stories. Bobrisky the popular transvestite or whatever it is that he is was as usual leading all story lines. Kemi Olunloyo the indefatigable Investigative Journalist that she calls herself was at her very best, asking the highly respected General Overseer of the Redeemed Church, Pastor Adeboye to try and sleep with one of his Church members – quite interesting—and the CBN refusing to approve MTN’s plan to charge some ridiculous fee on USSD Transaction.

As I scour, the Nigerian spirit begins to dawn on me and Fela’s classic – suffering and smiling hits me. The lyrics, very germane to the situation in our country continue to waft through my senses as I glean through the Nigerian spirit. ‘everyday na the same thing….’ As the maestro growls in my head with his funny chorus ladies who coudn’t careless about the notes chime irritatingly at me – suffering and smiling they scream….

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Then, I see that Davido has just welcomed a new baby boy from his beloved Chioma even as the billionaire politician, Ned Nwoko, continues his whirlwind romance with the actress who could pass for his granddaughter. Then, inflation spikes, Buhari cuts travel allowance for his Ministers and outrightly bans them from travelling. The First Lady apologizes and moves on, Obaseki and Oshiomole continue with their tug of war and Lagos is submerged.

Fela screams – suffer suffer for world, enjoyment for heaven….. as he rails against a corrupt religious eco system just as I reach the Dakolo/Coza wahala. She has sued for N10m damages, he has counter sued and the roforofo is going on. I still maintain that only those two and their God truly knows the truth but who am I to say anything. By this time, Fela’s song has reached the point where he is asking us to ‘open your eyes everywhere, archbishop na enjoyment, Imam na …… my people’ and the dire situation we find ourselves with a collapsed economy further compounded by a rapist inclined religious systems just sinks down into my subconscious.

Big brother is over, the young girl has run away into the arms of her Lothario with N30m and an assortment of gifts, the telcos and organizers are smiling to the Bank and the stark reality of our situation is thrown at our face with the revelation that over 50 million people voted during the last week of the programme. If you now juxtapose this with the numbers released by INEC as to the number of voters in the last election you will get what Fela called ‘na poi’.

We are really in a ‘poi’ situation where we are all being taken in our backside by people who pretend to be leaders suffering from a huge manifest destiny. They have anointed themselves leaders not minding that they remain bereft of the qualities and capabilities of the kind of leadership we need…. And then Fela’s voice suddenly breaks and the militant horns man sounds like he is about to cry when he belts out… na different kind of meaning and suddenly gets back his gusto with a climatic yell…; animals in human skins’

If he is told today wherever he is that animals have literally taken over he will die all over again. He must have written that song in a haze during a large intake of what he usually knows best to take and when he came back to his senses must have said to himself, ‘that was crap, but who cares let it go’. Today those prophetic lyrics have come to pass as we see. ‘ na craze man be that, animal in craze man skin… wey want dash me my human right’. Did I scream, when I saw the Customs Head say security should take precedence of human rights and suddenly go back to ‘ human rights na my property, you cant dash me my property’

The phrase suffering and smiling encapsulates our tendencies in Nigeria of today. This evolves in my thought processes as I meander from crater to crater to mini Lagoons avoiding floating houses and women in wrapper with nothing under scooping the Lagos lagoon out of their bedrooms. What else can we do, since we cannot fight those who say they have the masterplan but to continue to smile at our suffering?

Happy Felabrations.

By Joseph Edgar….

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