KEN UGBECHIE

A friend once remarked that God indulges in the humourous; or at least has a good sense of comedy. He likened the earth to a huge television set with multiple channels. Each channel represents the different countries that make up the earth. He sees God as the owner and custodian of this giant, earth-size television set. Each passing day, he says, God sits in an expansive sofa in heaven with a remote control in hand to scour through the channels in search of good programmes to suit his mood. He said each time God wants to get serious with issues of life He would switch to Channel Japan or United States or Switzerland. When He wants to enjoy good football complete with all the sublime attributes of the Beautiful Game, He tunes to Channel Brazil.

God, He says, loves hard work and He loves people who cherish the values of hard work. And that is why, he says, God does not miss any of the Asian channels any time He wants to appreciate dignity in labour. Channels China, India, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea readily engage the Almighty with a sense of seriousness and a reminder of how mortal man has strived to copy His template of hard work.

But watch the same God when He wants to serenade Himself with the humorous, the hilarious and the downright theatrical. He switches to Channel Nigeria. Here, He is feted to a rich programming content replete with side-splitting humour, oddities and nerve-jabbing paradoxes. Sometimes, God Himself finds it difficult to understand the wily ways of this community of 180 million people. Even that number gets to God as one of the self-contrived contradictions that afflict this community. How did Nigerians know they are 180 million? It makes God wonder why a community cannot accurately count the number of men and women therein; why the simple task of census would become as contentious as the other simple task of casting votes, counting votes and declaring result. Anybody who has participated in any Nigerian census knows that the figures are usually sexed up to arrive at a pre-determined terminus. A household of seven persons will claim they are 10 and the census officials will tick it so. After all, in Nigeria we play by the numbers, not by expediency. Revenues are shared according to number of states, local governments and population captured in the books. It does not matter if those persons are non-existent, for as long as they are tallied as the population of a state.

At every point in time, census in Nigeria is censored; elections are rigged. Even examinations at any level are as controversial as the people writing the exams. The examiner does not trust the candidates to play by the rules. The candidates do not trust the examiner to guarantee the integrity of the question papers. So, everybody – the examiner and the candidate – enters the exam hall with palpable mutual distrust.

Pray, where in the world would you find a country with the quantum of petroleum reserves as we have in Nigeria yet has to rely on other nations for its survival and supply of petroleum products? Nigeria is the 6^th largest producer of petroleum products in the world. Nigeria is a strong voice in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel yet Nigerians pay through their nose for basic by-products such as gas and kerosene. Sometimes, they are not even available for purchase at any price. No OPEC member, not even those at war, suffer this much. God is both bemused and amused.

Where in the world do you have a preponderance of anti-corruption agencies and laws yet corruption continues to thrive and flourish like trees planted by the river. The loudest anti-corruption noise rings out from Nigeria. You hear the chant from our presidents, governors, sundry public office holders, the private sector and even from our homes yet we remain the undisputed champion topping the list of vile nations with worst corruption records.

The Siemens, Wilbros and Halliburton stories are enough to throw God into a frenzy of laughter. Here is why. Officials of these three companies have variously admitted to offering bribes to some Nigerians for contract against global business ethics and in clear contravention of the cannons and ordinances of good corporate governance and best practices. These officials were tried and convicted. The companies were fined by their respective native countries for bribery. But in Nigeria, home of the recipients of the bribes, we have carried on as though nothing ever happened even when certain persons were named by the bribe-givers in their court depositions.

Where in the world would bombs explode for over two decades since that eerie morning of October 19, 1986 when Dele Giwa, one of the nation’s brightest and best journalists, was despatched to early grave via a fiendish letter bomb, and the bombers, not even one, is brought to book. In the case of the Boko Haram sect, the security authorities say they have decimated the insurgents and that we should go about our normal businesses. Yet, the more they make this claim, the louder the bombs explode. They even bomb and kill the same security men that claim they have neutralised the terrorists. In plain language, the hunter has become the hunted and he seems fated to remain so. God is watching and giggling.

My friend wondered how God feels each time He throws His gaze at Nigeria, a country He has blessed with limitless natural resources and exceptionally gifted human capital yet the nation imports anything and everything including toothpick, matches, handkerchiefs and razor blade. The mere sight of an armada of ship berthing to offload containers of balloons, bubble gum and serviette in a country spoilt with excess hydrocarbon and variegated vegetation is enough to send God rocking in His big sofa with laughter.

Is there any serious country in the 21^st Century where everybody, including the eminent residents of the Presidency, is dependent on generators for power? Absolutely none. God’s sense of humour is fuelled daily by our craving for generators and more generators. What with the varied sounds and sizes of these generators. Some are big, so big that they occupy huge space in the ambience. Some are small, so small you can strap them to your door panel. And you wonder what goes through God’s mind when He sees all this in a country He has blessed with so much sun for solar power, water for hydro-power and hydrocarbon for thermal power among other natural endowments including wind.

Pray, if you were God, would you not be amused that in a country blessed with ocean, rivers, lakes and streams, there is not a drop of potable water for the people; that individuals have to sink their own boreholes to guarantee steady supply of water?

And now this: a group of Fulani terrorists (herdsmen), the type never seen before, has been up and about killing innocent Nigerians and annexing communities at its whim, rather than tame this killer squad, the Minister of Defence, Mansur Mohammed Dan Ali, the man whom the containment of the excesses of these killer herdsmen is his bailiwick, tells us to steer clear off the path of the killers otherwise they will keep killing us. He simply handed to the Fulani terrorists an open cheque to keep killing the same citizens he was supposed to defend. Cruel irony!

These are paradoxes and contradictions in terms. The mere fact that God still preserves this earthly space called Nigeria tells me that God himself loves comedy and must have a voluble appetite for racy ironies.

Culled from Sunday Sun