Sometimes the only way out of one’s dilemma is to sit down and weep, weeping out the tears of sorrow that might have settled in one’s heart for too long. True, if you allow so much quantity of tears in your heart, it will become so heavy and weighty that can finally result in death or at least depression.
It is good to cry out your heart. If you are crying and one comes to console you to stop crying, he would tell you, “it is ok, it is alright, we will do something about it,” and so on.
In my primal youth, I can remember. I cried, I did that very well, Sometimes for my mother to carry me on her laps, or to eat again after I just ate or demanding for more meat or perhaps to follow my father out.
If I cried for meat my mother would give me and say, “stop crying.” She would simply do so or if I wanted to follow my father he will carry me and say, “don’t worry I am going to work, I will buy you bread when I come back.” That will persuade me to stop crying and make me hopeful.
However, in Nigeria people have been crying for decades for several reasons and those in the saddle only mocked and called them “town criers.”
The people of Niger Delta have been crying for more than 60 years in this country and successive governments only come to say, “you like crying”. Imagine the many oil spills in the Niger Delta region and the recent one in the shores of a community in Southern Ijaw local government of Bayelsa State. Fire is burning and killing the aquatic lives of the community, the people are inhaling toxic carbon monoxide and dying and all the government does is to send a minister of petroleum resources there after almost a month of concomitant havoc to human and aquatic lives. Yet the minister only came to say, “Stop crying” and she left. Nothing has been done to alleviate the suffering of the people and their waters emit hell like a melodrama.
Is stop crying a relief material? Is it a form of compensation to come and look? Chevron which equipment failure caused the fire is sitting down to watch the people die and their fishes die too.
What a Nation? The Bunga oil spill only ended after the National Assembly raised alarm. What has happened to the UNEP report about the Ogoni environmental damage as a result of oil spills? The answer is that the federal government is still studying the report and it does not matter if they study the report for two years while the people of Ogoni, (the remnants of the Abacha/Komo/Okuntimo genocide) die everyday as a result of the hazards. This is a report that tasks federal and state governments to take an urgent step to address the Ogoni situation before the whole region becomes a dead sea. Yet the government is studying the report as a delay mechanism or delay tactics to ensure that the worst happens to the people of Ogoni and possibly to wait for them to die off and so oil can be extracted without protestation from the people.
What I see everyday in a part of Eleme is a dirty old tanker purportedly carrying water from who knows where for them to drink. Now, assuming government wants to bring a palliative measure to Eleme or a community badly affected by the environmental hazard, is it ONE DIRTY OLD tanker that will solve the problem? How many litres of water can one small old-in-days tanker supply? How many people will gain access to such insufficient supply? How many people live in that village? Ok, how come such dirty, smoking and appetite quenching tanker is the conveyer of good drinking water”. And that is the assistance that our government has rendered so far to a community facing imminent emasculation.
Go to Gokana street in Bori and see good road construction when an Ogoni man is the commissioner for works. Gokana Street is only an example of other deplorable roads in Ogoni. But to be frank Governor Rotimi Amaechi through his former workaholic commissioner for works, Hon. Dakuku Peterside did wonderfully well for road networking in Bori metropolis.
Why should we stop crying when government continues to make jest of the people? People are really suffering in this country. A country they call their own. Unemployment alone makes people older than their age. Poverty continues to bombard and raid on the people unabatedly. Nigerians buy common water at cut throat prices and other food items are alienated from the masses because of high level of inflation. The rich sap the poor at all times by all means. The rich and their children occupy all the public offices and head all the companies you can think of. The poor and their children are only employed as thugs and assassins as a rich man’s leeway to stardom.
In Rivers State, last year a certain rich man budgeted N10 million for the wedding of his daughter while in his village majority can only eat meat on Christmas day. Politicians build their houses in the village with foreign materials while their neighbours live in thatched houses. What a world?
Insecurity combined with poverty loom every where in Nigeria. Politicians in the north now kill the poor with Boko Haram. They sponsor Boko Haram to bomb, kill, maim and destroy instead of sponsoring these boys to go to school. Instead of giving them scholarships to broaden their educational horizon, they sponsor them to die as suicide bombers. When they reveal their names as sponsors, they say “na lie”. What kind of big man is this? You sponsor religious crises asking thugs to bomb churches, blow markets and kill police. Is that a way to rule?
Nigerians are crying and their tears are already over-flowing the Atlantic Ocean yet there seems to be no succour and no solace.
In Rivers State, poor people are fighting and cursing each other simply to gain access to the nozzle of the fuel pumps at filling stations. Meanwhile under their feet are large deposits of crude oil. People are actually crying for a messiah in Nigeria but their tears yield no results.
There seems to be a potent pipe connected from the various government houses to the private residences of their occupiers where dollars and nairas flow endlessly. These pipes seems to have been laid underground beyond the visibility of the masses so that occupiers of the various government houses even swear zorfuu and zordere juju combined to say, “we cannot steal your moneys”, yet the moneys are going down the drains.
If politicians don’t embezzle and siphon the people’s money, why then should they fight tooth and nail to become commissioners, advisers, board chairmen and members? Why are they fighting to become ministers? Why are they using thugs and assassins to kill opponents and rig elections to win? Why are they doing everything including imploring voodooism and jujuism or occultism to become governors, ministers, commissioners, advisers etc? Are they doing all these to serve the people? And which people? Those they will insult? Those they will oppress? Why are two brothers fighting to become just one thing? There must be benefit.
There must be a gain, monetary gain and benefit. Why are they pretending that there is nothing in it and at the same time seeking re-election? True, the dividend of democracy in Nigeria is the exclusive reserve of politicians who have found for themselves an irrevocable occult empire in governance. It is irrevocable and they are now fearlessly on the throne. The fear of those that rule is now the genesis of wisdom. Leaders now wear over their heads an Ekpo masquerades like a painted devil. It is thus nightmarish to dare them. You wan die?
There are too many evils in the land. The churches are no exceptions. Pastors now use voodooism to perform magic they call miracles, advertising themselves on television and radio stations instead of advertising God. Showing their new suits and haircuts and seducing women in the name of God. Asking followers to use physical cares to combat spiritual demons. Juju, shrines are now called temples of God. Juju Priests now wear suits and carry bible in Nigeria calling themselves Master Jesus. Native doctors (babalawo) now pray in the name of Jesus to market their products. They quote the scriptures rapaciously to sell. One hardly hears of juju priests in Nigeria. What juju priest now answer is pastor or prophet or evangelist. There is thus general, moral and social decadence and you want to stop me when I cry? Don’t stop me, I am crying for help, political, social, spiritual or divine redress to our many problems. I will not stop until there is an answer. Don’t stop me when I write on our social ills. You can’t stop me from writing. I and my pen are inseparable. My pen must cry on until there is a change. ###
Barr. Gideon Kpoobari Girigiri
08036784327
