We allude to the existence of a category of people who are working overtime to ensure we never quite reach those heights we are capable of reaching. In our mind’s eye, they are relatives; the bad guys who don the toga of blood to inflict pain as only they know how. Everyone has “village people”. It’s a staple banter on the streets of social media. When things are not going well or gaining the required traction, we are quick to attribute it to the wiles of village people.
It’s election season in Nigeria once again and the political landscape is heating up as expected. Already, we have witnessed defections, disqualifications as well as inter and intraparty squabbles among political heavyweights. Unarguably, the most notable of these occurrences has been the truncated re-election bid of Lagos State’s incumbent governor, Akinwunmi Ambode. No thanks to the political machinery that deemed him unworthy of a second shot at the helm affairs in Nigeria’s most valuable State.
The image above not only represents the heart-rending inferno that consumed some commuters in Lagos last week, it could also pass for the current state of the Nigerian nation. On Saturday, a young man, in an apparent demonstration of his dissatisfaction with the chaotic and saddening reality of the country, stood at the Maryland intersection holding up a signage that asked the government of the day either shape up and fix Nigeria like they were elected to do or resign. He stood there almost all day, alone and stoic in his one-man peaceful protest, braving the odds. When the pictures began to make the rounds on social media, one would have expected everyone to laud his initiative and courage, but that was not the case. Rather, some of the same youths who have been clamouring for a revolution opined he was only wasting his time and would soon tire out.