Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea..

In a couple of days the fate of Nigeria my beloved country, will be sealed for the next four or possibly eight years to come. I have religiously followed the news and all the current happenings in Nigeria as much as I can and of all the feelings I have felt about the happenings, the prevalent of them is fear. Fear because of the two top contenders, I think that we are indeed trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea.

GEJ and GMB as they are fondly referred to, instill fear and uncertainty in me because left in their hands I know not where my beloved country is headed. Sadly there is a dearth of worthy contenders that can come forth, take this monstrosity that is corruption in Nigeria and decimate it for good. Where are our “future leaders” ??? since I was a child I have always been told that we were the leaders of tomorrow. Will tomorrow ever come? might the future leaders be lost in Nollywood? or the music industry? I know not.

Nigeria has robbed me of so many things, too numerous to mention. The joke that is our health system has robbed me of my father’s health. A simple surgery that would have helped him walk again was botched hence he cannot walk like he should, my grandma, two of my aunts, my pregnant friend and a couple of my close friends have been sent to their early graves because there is no such thing as speedy help in time of health emergencies/ accidents. Growing up, Nigeria robbed me and many other children both in my time and today of so many basic amenities that no child should be denied of. If the roads had been fixed like they ought to have been, I would not have had to waddle in still waters and often times mud on my way to school because it rained a day before.

I could go on and on about all the things that Nigeria has robbed me of, but can I really blame Nigeria? Nigeria is rich, really rich, wealthy in fact  she is just poorly led, poorly managed and so its no wonder she is what she is today. While its easy to blame our leaders and bemoan the fate that has befallen us, let us and by us I mean you and I, kindly accept our portion of the blame because we are Nigeria. You who sits on the BRT bus and decorates the floor of the buses  with gala and pure water packs, you who flings banana peels and used recharge cards from your moving car, you that sends off your under age child to go and hawk on major express ways, shall I remind those of you that haven’t paid your PHCN bills in years, and have no qualms with joining wires and tapping electric currents from street to street, or you that makes it a daily habit to dispose of oil and all sorts of garbage into the drainage? We are all to blame in one way or another. The change we so desperately seek can only start from our own little corners, the government cannot do everything for us.

Having said my piece, I sincerely feel that we are trapped between the two Gs, literally between the devil and the deep blue sea,  and all I can say at this point is let the best man win, as long as the girls come home, Naira becomes less of a joke that it is as of now, and the senseless killings stop, I will make my peace with who ever gets elected or reelected as the case may be.

“You must be the change that you wish to see in the world”.- Mahatma Gandhi