National conference of who and of what?

WE never knew ours isn’t the most unfortunate generation. I belong to a generation that was born in crisis, weaned in war and has never really known the real meaning of peace. Those who arrived here between 1960 and 1969 are appropriate children of war.


The political crises that immediately ensnared the hopes of an independent Nigeria and the hugely destructive 30-month civil war took away what should be years of take-off without turbulence for my generation. We are a generation of strugglers, scavenging for survival in the graveyard of hope. I belong to a generation sacrificed to the gods of economic and political instability.

If our take-off was turbulent, the years that were to signal our cruising level were years when locusts invaded the farm at the point of fruition. It was during our time in the university that schools were first closed for months either by military decrees or by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). My generation went to school to meet empty cafeterias and congested hostels. We schooled in tears, taught by very hardworking teachers who were ravaged by systemic poverty so much that their experience silently shooed some of us away from their fate in the ivory tower.

We left school with sighs, and for many, the turbulence that assailed the aircraft of lives has refused to temper fury with mercy. Their ships of life are still tossed about by the storms of personal discovery and fulfilment well beyond their capacity to tame.

Twenty — something years after that voyage commenced, their ships are still troubled on the high seas of life. And for some of us, life goes on; we live it as it presents itself.
But if we are a generation of sufferers and sterner strugglers, the ones that followed us are more unfortunate. For them, nothing seems to have worked or be working.

They are post-sanity generations of Nigerians for whom the country is one expansive, expensive sanatorium. In their world of the deprived, the chief priest feeds fat feigning treatment for the orphaned inmates. Just like the village repairer of sanity, the patients are ready hands for unremunerated labour. Here, and for these generations of the afflicted, labour laws, relations and responsibilities are inverted. Here, the labourers pay the owners of the farm they work on. And they don’t know, or maybe they do but are powerless to do anything. Or they are simply afraid of losing their chains and the crumbs that drop with the clanging of their fetters. Their carers are like prison warders who take prisoners to work on farms of the powerful. That is the present day Nigeria where the lords of the fleas are talking about a national talk; and I ask: national conference of who and of what?

Five days ago, I got a call from a lady from the oil-rich Niger Delta who did her youth service in my former office six years ago. We lost contact over those years and it was pleasant knowing she could trace me and call. But to my ‘how is your work’ question, her response was devastating: “I still have no job, sir;” and she is from the Niger Delta- the same region that has become intoxicated with its riches and power. My ex-corper laughed at my shock that someone could be jobless in her stupendously rich state. “ We read about the riches too,” was her measured response and I understood. What I didn’t understand is why the loquacious warlords of the Niger Delta who now poke arrogant fingers in the eyes of their liberators, find it difficult to use their new found wealth and power to make their youths happy. Just as they and their allies find the Yoruba as nothing more than bits of wood to be routinely shoved out of seats in Federal ministries and establishments, they make their own well-schooled youths suffer while they cruise about in bullet proof jets and plant private universities in foreign lands.. I told my ex-corps member that her story was not different from those of millions of her contemporaries across the country. If my generation met and fought turbulence on our flight, these generations I see behind us are simply stranded at their various take-off ports. Now, no one is bothered. Instead, the sing-song across the country is a national conference. What conference are our husbands talking about if the hopelessness of these young people is not an item of immediate consideration? A Berlin conference of some sorts to redefine spheres of influence of the Nigerian power class?
I have followed discussions on the reasons for this confab. Ethnic warlords and position scavengers are positioning themselves for snapshots at the high table. I can see that all that concerns the ‘power generation’ in Nigeria is how to restructure interests, benefits and opportunities for the maximum enjoyment and security of tenure for the privileged and their overfed offspring. Why should we be talking about ethnic positions when the stark reality is that children of the poor will always make it poor even if my state, Osun, is restructured and reclassified to become a country? Some slave catchers are already out canvassing for a mass of sentiments on why some other people must be fought to a standstill, caught and sold to economic and political slavery.

Just like the historical slave dealers, they are ruthless in their guile. In fact, it is right to add ‘guile’ to the goods in their stock and this is one of the commodities they are plying for you and me to buy. Do I have more problems with the Ijaw in Bayelsa State than I have with the oppressors right here in my backyard who pretend to be my brothers and sisters?
Now that the system is talking about a national conference, shall we ask, ‘conference of what?’

Published in Monday Lines
Monday, 21 October 2013
Written by Lasisi Olagunju