I Refuse to Be Named Patience

 

 

I’m gradually losing my “patience.”  I warned my mum not to give my younger sister that name, but she wouldn’t hear. She said it was because God had not forgotten her in her difficulties. But I knew one day, some unfocused fellows might mess up the name. Now, it’s happening! 

 

Our rulers now want us all to adopt the name. They even  expect “us”  to “have patience” –  as sisters, wives,  friends or neighbours. They  always want “us” to be patient. Meaning we should fall ill and take space  at an ill-equipped General Hospital.  After five years of civil hardship, they shamelessly claim we are “impatient.” Said so often, they now sound like Nigeria’s Football Supporters’ Club – drab, unimaginative and unproductive.

 

Our patience  has been “poisoned.”   Put through a lot - stress, oppression and deceit.  Patience has been abused,  insulted and deprived. Selfish politicians have  “dismantled”  the switch of our patience. Now,  we  grope in the dark in search for the meaning of our lives.

 

So I refuse to be named patience, jare!  One is enough in a family. Call me desperate, but give me space to breathe. Deprivation  knows no patience.  Tell those “big men”  keeping dogs and lions to speak that grammar to their pets. Perhaps, they’ll  get a hand-shape from the beasts. Abi?

 

“Patience” is a card game in Britain. The Americans  call it Solitaire. A game you play to wait for “nothing.” Like waiting for our “flying president”  to bring back investors and democracy  dividends. Even after 242 trips, so far, the only returns we got was Baba’s “generous permission”  that  we can bash  his photograph when frustrated. A barbaric  option. Anyway, St. Augustine of Hippo calls patience  a virtue of the mind  – “a great gift of God.”  But patience, he admits, is another name for “long-suffering.” Some other eggheads say it’s the “ability to endure waiting or delay without becoming annoyed or upset; to persevere calmly, when faced with difficulties.” The “ability to tolerate being hurt, provoked or annoyed without complaint or loss of temper.”

 

Now, even a cleaner  in public office portrays us as impatient. But  before they got there, nobody said our blood would be used for fuel. Involuntary fasting wasn’t part of the bargain. Soon, if we ask for air to breathe in this their “demo-crazy,” they say  we’re impatient. If we complain,  the President-General either  tells us to “shut up” or calls us “total  idiots.”   The other day, his “spare tyre” said it “takes time” for democracy  to yield fruits. A lifetime?

 

 “Patience” watched   in studied silence as our refineries bled to dead. When our crude was taken out and ferried back  for us to buy at the price of our lives, P was there. Since 1999, P has not seen any budget fully implemented. Yet, supplementary “nonsense”  keeps  passing through. No checks  (except those worn by school kids)  and  no balance (only sometimes from a harassed Lagos bus-conductor). With a rubber stamp called National Assembly, who’s there to check whether our “balance” is complete?  

 

The only organ that has not told us yet to “be  patient” is the NLC. I guess it’s because one of them is married to a lady called patience.  Well, these days, if you shout “thief, thief” at a man running away with your handset  or chicken, you are impatient. He might have done it in the  national interest. 

 

But our “long-suffering” continues.  And we are not supposed to  know how much the nation makes  from oil, if we must have patience. Just pay the rising fuel prices and don’t  complain. Over N302 billion missed from NNPC account, but hey, don’t mention. Don’t even suggest that oil proceeds should go into the Federal Account. Unless you want to be called a “total idiot.” Meanwhile, those whose soil provides the oil must die in silence. Because  they’re “lazy,” according to Baba.

 

They deprive us of what is taken for granted elsewhere. Yet we’re expected to be patient.  For years, the pensioners have died on queue, obviously suffocating from overdose  of that opium called patience. But some frustrated ex-soldiers said recently they’re  “running out of patience” over  their pensions. The day they announced it, I put a call through to my sister. Just to be sure she was home. She hadn’t “run out,” she told me.

 

Surprisingly, the “old soldiers” jolted  some people in Abuja out of their ineptitude. They threatened to cut off Musa Kwankwaso’s head and things started happening. The National Assembly woke from a slumber and summoned a panicky minister who told the usual government tales. Inadequate funds.  The  N10.6b to pay seven months pensions arrears wasn’t there, he claimed. But why is it that when it comes to anything concerning the lowly, there would be no money? They had money to host COJA and CHOGM so they and their cronies could  share from the loot. About N30billlion went into COJA. Plus N50billion for the Abuja stadium venue. Yet, those who fought Nigeria into existence are outside, at the mercies of the elements. Since 1999, the N81 billion meant for pensions hardly reached the owners.

 

Now, we might as well find another use for that forgotten army. How about the Masses’ Projects Implementation  and Monitoring Committee? Every ex-soldier with a rusty gun should be a member. Their job? Threaten any agency, personality or tier of government who sleeps on anything that should by mistake give us the much sought after democracy dividend.  In fact, threaten every politician!

 

Imagine, some people woke one day to tell us all the governors have been stealing our money. That, they said, was why we have no good roads, no drinkable water, no jobs, no steady electricity. Why we pay high heavens for fuel dug from my backyard. Mrs Nenadi Usman, junior minister for Finance, first saw a vision that governors were packing  our money abroad. A few days later, she woke up from a “bad dream,” claiming she was misquoted. As usual, ever the weeping boy, the press took the blame. But Obasanjo strayed from one answer at one media “yabis” to include the issue. He said they had evidence  some govs where doing more than governing. Just when we had forgotten about the allegation, the EFCCman, Nuhu Ribadu took it up – insisting the govs were still looting the treasuries and he has names.

 

Fine. Obasanjo has been making so much fuss about fighting corruption. I heard he even has a demo cassette on “Transparency.” But the only transparency we have seen so far has been offered by female students in higher institutions. Now, whenever   a government official mentions “transparency” I think of see-through “spaghetti” tops and skimpy skirts. When the auditor general was unceremoniously fired for exposing government fraud of over N20 billion, transparency travelled. It went into a coma, when over N302 billion was allegedly unaccounted for at the NNPC. 

 

Yet, Ribadu drinks pepper soup with Baba and goes to sleep. Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is just a body  with windy mouth-tearing acronyms. And there’s ICPC. With a goatee-bearded head that has dealt with all the rogues in the land. Only in the press. All we get everyday are stories of how people are corrupt. Yet, no action. Oh, I forgot, Ribadu  arrested some 419 suspects. But didn’t the “other party” go home to sleep? The law says the “giver” and the “taker” are liable, abi? 

 

Anyway, if Ribadu has names of the offending governors, is he waiting for us to “beg” him to do something? Even the governors are now challenging “one by each,” like Prof Ola Rotimi would say, that the said names should be published. Orji Kalu of Abia, for instance, wants to clear his name. But perhaps, Mr EFCC has nobody to type the names. Oh, his PR-man  has just gone on maternity leave, so we can’t have the list. Pity!

 

Until I threaten to “assassinate” somebody, they won’t say who stole how much. Look, somebody should not make the mistake of thinking  that I’m not an ex-soldier- o. Well, I wasn’t  there at the civil war, but please, I have fought wars. And I have medals to show for it. 

 

When I rented my current apartment,  some fellows arrived a few days later – insisting we were going to share the place. In the night, they wouldn’t let me sleep. I fought them to a standstill. I called a carpenter who put a net on the windows and doors. Then, I got a tin of insecticides. By the time I finished, some where dead, please do not tell the police. But another set off enemies emerged a few days later. And I bought “kill and dry.” I won’t say what happened, so you won’t tell Boda Tafa, the IG. But if those weren’t wars, then nothing was! At least, they showed that my sister may be patience, I am not. Call me “impatient,”  that’s your business. It’s better than waiting till I become  an “in-patient” –  in this big hospital called Nigeria.

 

 

 

• First published in Saturday Sun of  July 10, 2004