He who is faithful in little...

        I have spent the greater part, amounting to about 6weeks, of my compulsory holiday from school in a town or rather, a village called Ayegbaju-Ekiti. It is a town actually, based on my secondary school geography where I learnt that a town should have a minimum population of 1000, among other things, which Ayegbaju has. I decided to call it a 'village' because: there is only ONE tarred road in the whole village; NO bank or banking facility whatsoever; only ONE filling station that does not have fuel most of the time; ONE market place that has specific days set aside for trading; almost non-existent electricity supply; just ONE commercial viewing center for watching football matches (yes! I love football). I could go on and on as the list is virtually endless. Even Obafemi Awolowo University which happens to be my school has ONE filling station and several tarred roads. As always, I'm only stating my own opinion because for all I know, my fellow residents may be satisfied with the situation of the town.

         One might then ask; why did I single out Ayegbaju? Since that is the reality of most 'towns' and 'villages' in Ekiti state and Nigeria at large. In fact some towns/villages have it worse. To its credit, Ayegbaju is a peaceful quiet town, with some hills and vegetation that coalesce to create a beautiful landscape. Back to my question; WHY AYEGBAJU? To answer, I will have to go back to the electricity supply which has been absent for more than a week now and tell a short story to explain the reason behind it.

         As part of the Obasanjo administration's policy of 'DEREGULATION' which is still being carried out by its successors, some of the nation's public enterprises were marked for privatization; a process that led to the demise of several functioning federal corporations e.g. Nigeria Airways, NITEL/MTEL and recently, NEPA now known as PHCN. Since the sale and take-over of the successor companies of the PHCN is as good as done, payment of bills to PHCN has been suspended temporarily. As was customary with PHCN, they carried out their usual house to house trips where they ask for your bill, ask you to pay if you have outstanding bills to settle under the imminent threat of disconnection. It was while on a tour as this that the 'youths' in Ayegbaju had a clash with them citing as cheating the collection of fees by these 'PHCN staff'. The PHCN staffs were obviously outnumbered and were soundly beaten. Long story short, the whole 'town' has being disconnected and deprived of the little electricity we had, including people like my family that have simply paid the money requested, until these 'youths' have paid for their 'sin'.

         I don't think beating them was the best course of action because it is a criminal offense named in the law 'assault', 'battery' etc.; rather, they could simply have refused to pay and then restrain them from cutting the wires. I also think the action of those involved in the disconnection is shameful and disappointing in the extreme since it has led to 'law-abiding' citizens such as my family being deprived of our rights to the electricity we paid for. This event is just an example of an unsettling trend in Nigeria where people wield power and authority to oppress other people and/or aggrandize themselves e.g the policeman who cooks up a charge just to force you into greasing his palms or the public official who expects some 'kola' before he serves you while forgetting that it's his job in the first place; the list goes on and on.... If people in these 'low places' behave like this, can we expect better if they make their way to the 'high places'? NO! We can only expect worse. "HE WHO IS NOT FAITHFUL WITH THE LITTLE HE HAS BEEN GIVEN CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO BE FAITHFUL IF HE IS ENTRUSTED WITH MUCH". When you see the senator, on the road blasting his sirens, forcing you into the ditch so he can pass as though he is going to take the road along with him, or the governor doing the same with his entourage, ask yourself this: WHAT DID/WILL I DO WITH THE LITTLE POWER OR AUTHORITY I WAS/WILL BE ENTRUSTED WITH?

The sheep that walks with a dog, will eat dung

       If there is such a thing as a writer's block, that would explain what I have been going through over the past few days. Out of the blues, a wonderful idea will spring up in my mind and as I begin the process of converting the idea into the currency of communication i.e words, written in this case, the idea simply melts away in my mind. It just seems like I have a leak somewhere; as though finding words that would convey the idea appropriately becomes as difficult as the biblical camel's task of passing through the eye of the needle. At the risk of flattering myself, i would say that inadequate vocabulary is not the problem rather it is a result of my extensive vocabulary. (I just hope Hon. Patrick does not read this because I don't think he will take it lightly if someone as 'lugubriously non-loquacious and  philologically maladroit as I would boast about something he is colossally adept at.)

       Haven beaten about the bush, I should go back on course before i lose my way and find myself in the forest. I still remember the first time, when i was still in J.S.S 1, that I heard the proverb in it's more descriptive Yoruba form "agutan to ba b'aja rin ma je igbe." I felt disturbed, not because of the meaning of the proverb, but because it sounded absurd to me that a dog will eat dung. I am a dog person; I love dogs maybe because i was exposed to a lot of foreign movies, especially American, in which dogs are portrayed as anything but having filthy and unhygienic habits. If anything, they were loyal, brave, heroic, fun loving creatures; hell! they even fell in love(' check out the holly wood movie - Beverly hills chihuahua'). There was this British show on television that I used to watch when I was young; 'the famous five', about three siblings, their cousin and a dog, Timmy who embark on numerous often dangerous mystery solving adventures. As the title implies, the dog was an active member of the group not just in name as he was, on occasion, key to the solution in some episodes. I think the scooby doo franchise may have been loosely based on this series but that is just my opinion.

        I have eventually 'beaten into the forest' therefore i must rummage my way back to the road. The proverb i believe is an equivalent to 'show me your friend and i will tell you who you are' or will become. This proverb should serve as a warning to us to be careful of the fledgling mega party, APC. Recently, APC has been 'phagocytosing' elements from other parties notably, the recent defection of 5 erstwhile PDP governors. While it is a welcome development signalling the fact that PDP is losing it's choke-hold on the Nigerian polity hence raising the possibility of a regime change come 2015, it still raises concerns that the APC will simply become the new mega-party of Africa having simply undergone a transplant of the unscrupulous elements from PDP to APC. I am not in anyway saying the APC is a good enough party but they represent what we need at this point in our democracy; CHANGE! A look at some of the prominent members of the APC their current actions and their antecedents should be enough evidence e.g the comrade cum politician in the south south region or our very own 'Ogbeni'.

        We all are aware that Nigeria had taken several giant strides backward in other to manage a few baby steps forward under the captainship of the PDP. Suffice to say that the APC may even perform worse but the seemingly lackadaisical approach of the ruling elite leaves little to be desired. Now the PDP boat appears to be sinking, some people are jumping ship for the APC boat which appears to be capsizing; who is to say the same people at the root of the PDP's and by extension Nigeria's problem are not already making their way to the APC, if they are not there already? If anyone asks me, I am voting APC in the next presidential elections simply because I want PDP out of power more-so because i want a change but APC cannot count on my vote beyond 2015; they even still have to make sure they don't lose my support before 2015. What is my point? We must always do everything possible to boot out any regime that does not do our bidding as CITIZENS. Oh yes! we are CITIZENS not SUBJECTS!



N.B:- this is simply my opinion although I think if everybody were to be thinking along this line, we would be making sure steady real progress in Nigeria. Please share your own opinion by leaving comments here as I know very well how much I am prone to error. 
 Eventually I witnessed a dog actually eating feces, human feces; luckily it was a 'basenji', the popular local variety here in Nigeria, not the ones I had grown accustomed to seeing in movies and television.
For the benefit of those who don't already know, 'Phagocytosis' is the word that describes the biological concept of cells engulfing other cells or foreign materials