By Dike Chukwumerije
I was a boy in Festac. You know? It was the estate the Government built in 1977 to accommodate participants in the 2nd World African Festival of Arts and Culture that held in Lagos. Those days when Pan-Africanism was still Nigerian. I tell you, it was not a bad place to be a boy, with its wide roads and scenic parks, all since covered by the dust corruption blows over everything in our country. But – I tell you – not even the thieves in our public sector, as adept as they are, can steal my boyhood memories from the vaults of my heart. You see?
I was educated in a Federal Government College. And my drama teacher in Form 1, Ms Ngurube, sowed an incorruptible seed. As did that travelling thespian, Funsho Alabi. The day he came to our Assembly Hall in King’s College. His was a solo performance. Ah! “AIDS is a disease that has no cure, but people don’t catch it if they try to prevent it”. Yes. I still hear his sing-song voice, up on that stage, part of a nationwide campaign. And when he left, he left an indelible impression on 11-year-old-me, of the sublime power of the Performing Arts. You see?
I did my undergraduate degree in a Nigerian public school – the University of Abuja. And in its library, by those dusty shelves, I first read the complete works of Homer. Yes. We did not have computers, but – in the midst of the overflowing rooms and toilets – there were lecturers who brought to life the judgments of Denning and Oputa, so that to this day I am a still a devout worshipper at the temple of the Rule of Law. You see?
Nigeria invested in me, like an irresponsible father trying to raise a responsible son. A thief, he taught me, ‘Do not steal’. A chronic user of nepotism, he admonished me, ‘Work hard’. A trafficker in tribalism and bigotry, he told me, ‘Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress’. And when I looked out of the window and saw him outside in the night in blatant criminality, he wagged a finger at me and said, ‘Read your books’. You see?
To some, this is a sign of our nation’s hypocrisy. To me, it is the desperate attempt so many parents make to raise children who will be different from them. You see? That the corrupt often hopes to give birth to the incorruptible. And the prostitute, to raise daughters who would never have to stand on the streets. Like this, I choose to be heir, less to their perversion, and more to their hopes. That in me, that desperate attempt to pass on the better parts of themselves, may live. Yes. Like this, I am Made In Nigeria.
The MADE IN NIGERIA Poetry Show
Date: Sat. 26 Feb 2022
Venue: Main Auditorium, Digital Bridge Institute (Fmr Nitel Training Centre), Kano
Time: 5pm
Tickets: N2k regular, N1k students with ID
First 5 people enter free! First 100 students with ID enter free! Courtesy of individual donors.
Culled from Dike Chukwumerije’s Facebook page.
