Murphy’s Law of the Nigerian Conundrum
Murphy’s Law states that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time.” The last part of this quote is added because Murphy’s Law is open source and we can make adjustments to the law.
You are walking through a narrow street in Alagomeji, a bike is approaching you in the Lagos bikely manner. A car is driving towards you from behind you. As you are trying to maneuver, you move to the left side of the road so the car behind you can pass beside you. You find yourself on the exact part of the road where the cars are double parked and you are in the narrow road with a motorcycle approaching you fast! The motorbike rider picks the lesser of two evils; crashing into the new looking Honda Accord or trying to slow down and crashing into you. He chooses you. The next couple of weeks for you are ruined as you have a few broken bones and will need physical rehabilitation, no big deal. Your accident is as a result of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Take yourself away from the equation and the accident won’t have happened. Sometimes, just existing at a particular place just makes shit happen for you.
Today, it seems the only right place and right time to be is as a White ‘Christian’ in America.
Existence in Nigeria seems to have run out of perks and there is a new Nigerian Dream, “To amass enough wealth to leave the country and become a Canadian Citizen where it’s now possible and most likely to live the American Dream.” There no longer exists a place for planning in Nigeria. Everyday comes with a new challenge. We currently have no monetary policy, no foreign exchange, no electricity, no atmosphere for entrepreneurs, nothing going on for us. Somebody stood up and organized a protest and the government and the Police came out to ridicule the efforts of protesters. Nigerians living abroad and enjoying their bubbles and privileges came out to condemn his efforts and some people called out his technicality and prowess in the bedroom as reasons why he lacks the moral high-ground to organise a protest.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time. This is where we are. We are the generation of Nigerians that have to live through the errors of heroes past at the worst possible time. The man in the twitter video has eloquently explained how we are supposed to have power but more, we might never have this power. While you can and should hope for better, it might just not be there for your taking.
Ben Nwabueze once said — Obasanjo emerged as a dictator because people and institutions like the Supreme Court and National Assembly failed to check dictatorship. The rot in this country can only be cleansed by blood. Today, we might have reached the point of no return in Nigeria and no amount of public protests, peaceful or violent might get our voices listened to. Nigeria is in a state of suspended animation — We have sophisticated power lines and fancy appliances but the electricity doesn’t work most times. A critical look at what Nigeria is presents a shabby production of a Zombie apocalypse.
We are the future, stuck in the past unable to move forward.
There is no bigger picture anymore.
Somewhere aroud the protest venue in Abuja, people are paid $2 to join the protest and make it a pro government protest. What next? The original passionate voices of pain and desire for a better tomorrow are drowned and this statusquo progresses for a couple more months or years as the current government looks for ways to secure votes and enjoy the cool breeze of power for just a little longer, the only trickle down from their policies entering the pockets of people with affiliations to the government.
