WHICH WAY NAIJA By Blessing Peter Titus

Some stories you don’t share outside the comfort of your diary; not because you don’t want to share it but for want of people to share it with. People who wouldn’t read it in the prism of judgement, of emotions laced with anger or fear, or the many other untoward emotions that the reality of your experiences, our experiences will elicit.

Judgement that you compare the past with the present. Anger that you dared to speak about the degradation. Fear that you may be next because you ruffled the status quo and repeated what should have been only heard in whispers.

I grew up in Jalingo in the late nineties, back then, people left their children in the care of their neighbours without fidgeting; for they knew they would look after them like their own. A child belongs to the community after all, every member contributed in one way or another. No child freely misbehaved outside because the elders will definitely call you to order.

Children played together late into the night during holidays, sharing stories from their different schools or listening to stories from their parents or older siblings. Meals were mostly shared in trays; siblings and neighbours eating together, a lesson in love and consideration as the fast eaters considered the slow eaters and everyone ends up with food in their stomachs.

I remember many nights when we went for Block Rosary with other children in the neighborhood, walking back home at night in peace without a care in the world. Sweets still sold for 50K, not thousands dear, Kobo. Biscuits were sold in varieties between 1 – 5 Naira. Life was good, I had no worries aside going to school, learning and passing my exams.

It wasn’t utopia, you see, because at that time, owning a black and white TV was rare, few homes could afford them. NEPA was as unstable as it could be, with lights coming up once in a while. Letters were the major means of communication, as Landlines could only be afforded by the government or the wealthy. The Water Board that supplied pipe borne water hardly worked; most houses got their water from nearby streams or wells.

Despite these challenges and many others that were part of that period, there was never a time I felt out of place in my neighborhood. Never a time I feared running errands because I knew that if I got lost, I could ask anyone for directions back home, once I told them where I lived. People were each others keepers and crimes where just stories, stories we heard our parents discussing or over the radio; they never happened near us, it was always in far away lands.

It started gradually, just like the HIV virus gradually invades the cells of it’s victims, destroying them slowly until there’s nothing left and life gets snuffed out. Children learned to lie for their parents, “tell them I’m not at home,” before long, the children lied to their parents. Siblings ate in separate plates, we’re learning to use cutlery and observe table manners. Large compounds began to shrink into self contains and flats; better housing they said. People warned others to stop disciplining their children without their consent; mind your business they said.

All these went unnoticed for years by many people as the moral fabric of our society began to fray at the edges, slowly but surely.

2001: Jos Crisis

Cause: Unknown

Result: Areas became divided along religious lines. It’s better this way they said, it’s easier to avoid a repeat this way.

2002: Boko Haram

Cause: Religious radicalism

Result: Thousands lost their lives, livelihoods, and homes. Take out the leader they said, the others will scatter.

2003: Niger Delta Militants

Cause: Inequitable distribution of oil revenue

Results: Pipeline vandalism, loss of lives and environmental pollution.

2011: Banditary

Cause: Unknown

Results: Whole communities pay taxes to them and many others have been displaced.

2012: Biafra Agitation

Cause: Unknown

Results: Destruction of lives and properties.

2014: Mass kidnap (Chibok girls)

Cause: Religious radicalism (Boko Haram promax)

Results: Increasing rate of individual and mass kidnaps.

2015 till date: Massacre of farmers

Cause: Unknown

Results: Increased distrust for the Fulani herders.

All these have made the country unbearable. Whether things will ever get better is one question everyone keeps asking without getting an answer. But I think we should all go beyond asking questions to doing; doing the best we can to make our own little corners better by being our brothers keeper, through loving and looking out for eachother.