By Dafe Ivwurie
Dear Mr. President, I have this funny feeling that you will not get to read this, because I am not Reuben Abati, or Simon Kolawole or any of those big-men-editors and commentators who write on the back and opinion pages of the newspapers in Nigeria. Perhaps you do not even read Nigerian newspapers, except for their comic relief, like the man who handed over to you and your late boss, Umaru Yar’Adua, whose position God has so chosen that you occupy today.
But sir, if your media aides let you read this, I wish to inform you that young Nigerians need jobs. I will suppose that the message is simple and clear enough, but just to make you understand the full import of this no job dilemma, may I ask you to please patiently read the story of someone I met recently and see if this will spur you to help countless youths that get out of Nigerian universities yearly and find it easier to get water in a desert than get a job in the country that you are so fortunate to lead.
Peter walked up to me at the place that I call my favourite spot in the world, the Lagos Bar Beach. I usually go there in the evening since the former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, upgraded it to what it is now. I go there to watch people come and go, lovers hold hands and play pranks in the sand, to watch the waves and the ships coming from distant places, to observe the ‘area boys’, able-bodied men hustling to sell you fake parking tickets and also offer different services including choko (choko is the street slang for marijuana) to people like me who have come to bask in the serene space.
Pardon my digression, Sir. Peter came to sell me a wristwatch. It was a Tag Heuer. I am sure the President knows that name. He offered it to me at N10,000, to which I said “no thanks”. He persisted, reassuring me of its quality and the fact that I was getting it at a give away price. Not really interested, I beat the price down to N1,000 and after much haggling he told me to pay. I knew we would come to that. So I said to him, “you know this watch is either fake or stolen from a ship at the wharf and I do not buy fake or stolen items.”
His reply to me was direct and straight to the point, this time dropping the Pidgin English. “My guy” he said.
“You know very well that this country is hard and I am just trying to make ends meet. I’d rather do this than steal. Stealing is not an option but it is becoming enticing these days. So even if you are not buying, please find something for me make I take chop, anything at all will do.”
I didn’t know what to read in his voice or in his eyes. But for the first time in our almost 10 minutes encounter, I looked at his face; his mien was confident and his eyes were not dimmed or bloodshot like countless other vendors that I’d encountered on the beach almost on a daily basis.
“How am I sure that you won’t go and do gbana when I give you some money?” I said deliberately. By the way, Mr. President, gbana is a term for getting high on marijuana.
He smiled and said: “Somehow I trust that you’d know if I have been smoking weed.”
I ignored him and asked him to follow me. We sat at a table under an umbrella by the seashore and I asked him to order food and drink. His order was modest. I cracked a few jokes to make him fill comfortable; I wanted to hear his story. Not that I was sure he had a story, but it turned out that he had one.
His mother died of malaria. His father couldn’t raise enough money to buy drugs at the hospital. Peter himself had gone out to hustle for daily bread. The only person who had money to spare was his 24-year-old younger sister.
“Why didn’t she pay the bills?” I asked
“My parents didn’t want her money and I understand why.”
“Why?” I probed.
“She does runs.”
“Prostitution,” I said.
He was quiet. So I said to him, “you sound educated; what level of education did you get?”
“I have a degree in business administration,” he said as he fumbled into a bag that he had across his shoulder to show me his certificate. There was no reason to doubt him because I didn’t think that he knew that from just introducing a fake wristwatch to me we were going to have this long conversation about his background.
“Why are you not working?”
“I was. I lost my job as a security man in one of the banks some months back. I got the job as soon as I finished NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) and was hoping to get something better from there; I was there for just two years. Oga, you know there is no job in this country. I have a lot of friends who have very good degrees from Nigerian universities who still have not got a job even after five years of graduation,” he said.
I listened to him and I felt helpless, wishing there was something I could do to help. I told him that I lost my job too in the bank but was lucky because I was a journalist before going into banking.
“Ha, so you are a press man? I enjoy reading Reuben Abati and Simon Kolawole. You journalists have access to government; you should tell them some of these things happening in the country. As far as I am concerned, we youths we don’t care what these politicians do, we just want them to create jobs for us so that we can earn a living,” he said.
He told me that he is sure that his sister would leave what she is doing if she gets a good job.
Eventually, I gave him some money. I think he appreciated it. He thanked me profusely. He didn’t ask for my name or my phone number, he just said, “please tell the President to create jobs for youths, otherwise”, by this time we were by my car. I smiled and told him to stay out of trouble promising him that I will write and hope that the President will read it.
There, Mr. President, is a message from a young Nigerian.
Nigerian Music, popular culture and politics
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Jibola And His Daughter
By Dafe Ivwurie
Jibola rushed into the pub to catch up with one of the games of the just concluded English Premiership League. It was one of the high profile matches between two of the biggest teams in England. The pub was full with an eclectic mix of men – the bankers, the oil workers, the telecommunications guys, the neighbourhood lads, mobile policemen and security guards, who left their duty posts, artisans and of course some ladies to ensure that soccer is not gender biased and if you like, to keep the guys going.
The smell of cigarette and the smoke thereof was pervasive, almost choking. The white silky plume was sailing in the now musky air entangled with human perspiration; it was coming from every direction. What was also coming from every direction were all the swear words, the F words and the S words and the new inventions of suggestive words that seemed to define moments in the game in an uncanny way. Men (and women, too) say all sorts when they are under the influence, more so, when the influences are alcohol and the adrenalin that comes from such high octane and passionate encounter between rival teams.
Jibola did not come alone. He came with his daughter. She should be about 10; pretty young thing with very inquisitive eyes. She came dressed like her father in the colours of one of the teams, which her father supports, obviously. Suddenly, all eyes that noticed their entrance turned away from the television screens positioned strategically around the bar, to the direction of the father and daughter.
In no time the ladies in the pub and some of the men stampeded and yelled Jibola out of the bar for his wrong judgment and lack of discretion and circumspection. A silly looking guy, who I could not tell whether he was drunk or excited over nothing, actually quoted a Bible passage: “Train up a child in the way that she should go and when she grows up she will not depart from it.” His argument was that Jibola was teaching his daughter to be a supporter. A few voices and heads mumbled and nodded in agreement. I was shocked. I was scandalised on their behalf.
Since when has a pub filled with misbehaving men become a playground for a 10-year-old impressionable girl? Alas, Jibola did not see the point, until someone told him that the only places you can take a girl to at such tender age is the church, the bookshop, a family picnic and her friend’s birthday party, not a booze parlour filled with people who have come to vent in the most offensive language you can imagine.
I am not a father and may not understand the relationship between parents and children, but I had a father who, by all means, I refer to as a role model in some things, that I still find it hard to engage in certain things just because I think the old man will turn in his grave when he sees me engaging in them. But trust me, I’d rather not be a chip off the old block when I look back at some of the things he did, too.
There is something in your subconscious that holds on to things you picked while growing up at home, in church, in school, in the hood, from your parents. This does not explain why some children of pastors and imams are far away from what their religious parents teach. The mind of a child naturally explores possibilities; so the opportunities we expose them to provide veritable grounds to imagine scenarios as they grow up.
I was unfortunate to have seen drugs at a very early age in secondary school. I mean, addictive drugs like cocaine, marijuana and one that they called Chinese capsule. If you must know, I only saw, I did not take. I did not take for a very simple reason; because my father told me that “if you take it, you will go mad” and gave me countless examples of so-called role models of my days who were messed up by drugs. The option of being mentally deranged was not appealing to me, but I doubt if it was my strong will that saw me through the excitement, attractive and adventurous escapades of my peers. I got drunk once out of curiosity on a mixture of palm wine and stout at the age of 15. My siblings and cousins had to lock me up in a room in the BQ till I got sober. The feeling was bad and nasty and I still wonder why anybody would want to live permanently on the edge with a hangover. I think I prefer my red wine, which the doctors say is good for the heart (and the bones, too?).
I wonder what story Jibola must have told his daughter if she asked “daddy, why did they ask us to leave?” or “daddy is that place a bad place?” as they left the pub. I wonder where they may have gone to that afternoon. I wonder what impression about good judgment and fatherly love may have been etched on the girl’s mind. I am positive that the girl must have some mind boggling interminable whys which she may not even ask but which she may explore in the fullness of time.
Perhaps, we did a good thing for Jibola and for his daughter, because I guess that the impression of men belching beer and swear words and making suggestive and lewd remarks would be heavy on the poor girl’s mind. Who knows what images her inquisitive mind would have painted thereafter? We may never know.
Today’s children know too many words at 12, which I am ashamed to say I did not know when I was 15 and I thought I was hip. How did the words French kiss, wet kiss, lap dance and threesome get into the vocabulary of teenagers or am I getting old?
Jibola rushed into the pub to catch up with one of the games of the just concluded English Premiership League. It was one of the high profile matches between two of the biggest teams in England. The pub was full with an eclectic mix of men – the bankers, the oil workers, the telecommunications guys, the neighbourhood lads, mobile policemen and security guards, who left their duty posts, artisans and of course some ladies to ensure that soccer is not gender biased and if you like, to keep the guys going.
The smell of cigarette and the smoke thereof was pervasive, almost choking. The white silky plume was sailing in the now musky air entangled with human perspiration; it was coming from every direction. What was also coming from every direction were all the swear words, the F words and the S words and the new inventions of suggestive words that seemed to define moments in the game in an uncanny way. Men (and women, too) say all sorts when they are under the influence, more so, when the influences are alcohol and the adrenalin that comes from such high octane and passionate encounter between rival teams.
Jibola did not come alone. He came with his daughter. She should be about 10; pretty young thing with very inquisitive eyes. She came dressed like her father in the colours of one of the teams, which her father supports, obviously. Suddenly, all eyes that noticed their entrance turned away from the television screens positioned strategically around the bar, to the direction of the father and daughter.
In no time the ladies in the pub and some of the men stampeded and yelled Jibola out of the bar for his wrong judgment and lack of discretion and circumspection. A silly looking guy, who I could not tell whether he was drunk or excited over nothing, actually quoted a Bible passage: “Train up a child in the way that she should go and when she grows up she will not depart from it.” His argument was that Jibola was teaching his daughter to be a supporter. A few voices and heads mumbled and nodded in agreement. I was shocked. I was scandalised on their behalf.
Since when has a pub filled with misbehaving men become a playground for a 10-year-old impressionable girl? Alas, Jibola did not see the point, until someone told him that the only places you can take a girl to at such tender age is the church, the bookshop, a family picnic and her friend’s birthday party, not a booze parlour filled with people who have come to vent in the most offensive language you can imagine.
I am not a father and may not understand the relationship between parents and children, but I had a father who, by all means, I refer to as a role model in some things, that I still find it hard to engage in certain things just because I think the old man will turn in his grave when he sees me engaging in them. But trust me, I’d rather not be a chip off the old block when I look back at some of the things he did, too.
There is something in your subconscious that holds on to things you picked while growing up at home, in church, in school, in the hood, from your parents. This does not explain why some children of pastors and imams are far away from what their religious parents teach. The mind of a child naturally explores possibilities; so the opportunities we expose them to provide veritable grounds to imagine scenarios as they grow up.
I was unfortunate to have seen drugs at a very early age in secondary school. I mean, addictive drugs like cocaine, marijuana and one that they called Chinese capsule. If you must know, I only saw, I did not take. I did not take for a very simple reason; because my father told me that “if you take it, you will go mad” and gave me countless examples of so-called role models of my days who were messed up by drugs. The option of being mentally deranged was not appealing to me, but I doubt if it was my strong will that saw me through the excitement, attractive and adventurous escapades of my peers. I got drunk once out of curiosity on a mixture of palm wine and stout at the age of 15. My siblings and cousins had to lock me up in a room in the BQ till I got sober. The feeling was bad and nasty and I still wonder why anybody would want to live permanently on the edge with a hangover. I think I prefer my red wine, which the doctors say is good for the heart (and the bones, too?).
I wonder what story Jibola must have told his daughter if she asked “daddy, why did they ask us to leave?” or “daddy is that place a bad place?” as they left the pub. I wonder where they may have gone to that afternoon. I wonder what impression about good judgment and fatherly love may have been etched on the girl’s mind. I am positive that the girl must have some mind boggling interminable whys which she may not even ask but which she may explore in the fullness of time.
Perhaps, we did a good thing for Jibola and for his daughter, because I guess that the impression of men belching beer and swear words and making suggestive and lewd remarks would be heavy on the poor girl’s mind. Who knows what images her inquisitive mind would have painted thereafter? We may never know.
Today’s children know too many words at 12, which I am ashamed to say I did not know when I was 15 and I thought I was hip. How did the words French kiss, wet kiss, lap dance and threesome get into the vocabulary of teenagers or am I getting old?
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