A Search For Hope

I remember a question that was once asked in a group I was a member of. The question was, “Why do so many people have no hope in Nigeria?” And there was a really intelligent answer that made my eyes smart with pity for Nigeria, for us. The answer was this; “We have never seen a better Nigeria.” The truth of the statement was a hit to the gut. Nigeria has not gotten better since my generation has existed. It was worse than before at my birth and now, it is much worse than ever before. There is no metric or measure that puts pre-us Nigeria in a better light than post-us Nigeria. From morals and indigenous pride and cultural knowledge to international reputation and currency. Well, maybe, except for a change from military autocracy to democracy.

Yet, we are told to pray for the country. We are told to stick with it after graduation and not japa. We are asked to sit in the mud pits that have only grown darker and slimier and more populated with all the wrong bugs, like a “Gu poison” pit. The questions we have never been able to find the words for can now be enunciated clearly. Who holds the plan for the new Nigeria we should build? Only castles in the air work without a plan. Who knows where this exodus of a “New Nigeria” is meant to take us? Where is the Promised Land? 

Since my birth, Moses upon Moses has walked in and told tales; not even literally speaking, of a land flowing with milk and honey. What kind of milk? Cow, goat, sheep, oat, fermented? The only milk I can see in abundance is everywhere in the hospitals, the banks, and the streets. Human milk we kill ourselves to pump out every day. This last hope we have is that we can do something for ourselves and make something of ourselves- hopefully in a brighter environment than this, if we just stick it out till that big break, the will to give a little more before we give up. And this milk has little honey in it. The only honey it contains is for the ones who; by practices that mostly should not be spoken of outside soundproofed rooms, have found too much sweetness that has a lot of maggots under it. As that Yoruba adage puts it, "Isale oro, o legbin”. 

It is another Independence Day. While everyone is probably thankful for the break, it seems a little too much. A whole day to reflect on the state of the “motherland”. It looks bleak and hard-edged and very dark. The only solution-looking thing right now looks like the silhouette of an airplane that is at the very least, leaving the country behind. We pray every Independence Day, that God bless Nigeria. Yet, prayers and faith, with no set point or destination, are the hardest to pray. Building a structure with no defined material for even the foundation to lay down is a feat for the arcane and mythological. Nigerians are not Nuwa. We will not “cause the Primordial chaos to birth yin and yang so that one becomes two and two becomes five and five become...”. I know for sure that that is not in my power. 

And as I search for hope, my mind is called back, to my embryology classes. The process by which through "desire and chaos" one becomes two, and two become four, eight, and sixteen. This phenomenon is especially astonishing when considering that every human being, despite sharing over 99% of the same DNA, has a uniquely distinct makeup shaped by their individual experiences. Each is a never-before-realized permutation of our over 1 billion-long genome. Every single gene and protein just does its best. Sometimes, arms do not turn out right; sometimes, legs do not show up at all. Some chromosomes stab altogether, some chromosomes are recent amputees. In the end, it always comes together, not perfect, but much better than the dark, restless, embryogenetic period. 

We may not be creators of heaven and earth, but Wale Adenuga says we are pencils in the hand of the Creator. It may be stupid to see it as reality. I do not care. My search for hope begs me to believe. I am choosing to believe that somewhere beyond the line of sight of my inkwell and nib, a complex plot more than worthy of Sherlock Holmes, a mandala design of priceless value is being woven. I have a choice, I could hate or believe. I choose to believe, I beg of you to do the same. Do not just apoptose or necrose immaturely. Give it your best, even before you japa. Innovate, discover, and make connections and add to the database of failed startups. Generations farther along the cell division line will see to it if we do not get to see it, that our worst mistakes birth some good. Today, Nigeria is 64. The generation that saw pre-independence, the generation who lived before sapa was conceived-when interstate journeys were safe, when two cans of Titus and one dollar were not competing on nearly equal grounds-is old and almost gone. 

We are a generation that has not known any Joseph, we have always lived under a Pharaoh who never frowned less but always smiled less. I urge, that you give natural selection a chance. We are a young country, I am the voice of the aberrant cell. A cell that cries of a life outside the womb, outside the darkness and the stuffiness. My apoptosis or migration is not necessarily the end of Saddler’s embryology. There just might be joy a little out of sight, just like Alexander Brown Hall’s power supply. Give Nigeria a chance. 

God bless Nigeria. 

Salami Wisdom