Killing us softly

IN a famous major musical hit by the Black American female singer Roberta Flack, she described a man as “killing her softly, with his song”. When one listens carefully to the song it is clear exactly what she means. When a change, be it painful or pleasant, is applied softly and persistently, it can easily have attained deleterious proportions before the victim realises it. When one looks at many things in Nigeria, one easily realises how things creep up on us and end up the way they are. Let us start with the irresponsible wastage of food at our many social events, official and private. The caterers whether out of ignorance or in order to charge their clients more, and more, serve far more food than any reasonable person can consume. This is in addition to plates full of so-called “small chops”. You only need to observe as you leave a social event how much food has been part-eaten or left uneaten on the table. Caterers normally negotiate payment due on a per plate or per person basis, so they really do not make more profit by serving embarrassingly large portions or giving persons who are all dressed up hard meat on the bone which ends up uneaten. I have seen many men in flowing robes not attempt to eat the full plates and large pieces of meat on bone served to them. As you look around you will see meat, fish and chicken floating in oil. Perhaps, one should not be surprised because the catering, or cooked food business, is one that Nigerians think anyone can engage in, as if, if you can cook you are a caterer. The person hiring a company to cater for his party often does not make enough effort to ascertain the credentials of the company. People often wonder why Nigerians are dropping dead these days. I suggest that our party caterers by their practices are killing us softly! What makes this situation worse is that these bad food serving practices also permeate meals served in many homes. These are many occasions when the sound of electricity generators echo in my ears even when no generator is on. My clothes often smell of diesel at the end of each day. We know that noise pollution can deafen while hydrocarbon fumes can and do kill, how be it, through cancer or respiratory, skin and blood diseases. We also ingest hydrocarbons through the soil in which our food is grown. The failure of successive governments, both Federal and state, to find a sustainable solution to our energy drought, but instead themselves encourage increasing use of generators and diesel, is a significant way of killing us softly. Why should any State House, Federal or state, have standby generators? Why should officials and directors of power companies have standby generators? They are all killing us softly! Their attitudes sustain the lack of solution to our energy problems. Have you noticed how mobile phone company masts spring up in our country? Many of these towers are very close if not on top of buildings housing people? What is the evidence that the bombardment of humans by the emission of these commercial ventures is safe for us to be so close to? Do any of our massively profitable telecommunication companies spend or plan to spend funds to find out? Of course, they will not unless their regulatory body insists. They are killing us softly! At school we were taught that “democracy is the government of the people by the people for the people”. That democracy was assumed to be participatory democracy. Is democracy participatory when the means of participating is unattainable by the vast majority, and participation becomes a game of restricted musical chairs when the same names change designation? This system ensures that so-called democratically elected persons have no consideration for the electors as they do not need them to be elected. They are killing us softly. Government is meant to be for us all. If and when you need to renew any license or registration in a government agency, it is not unusual to find that new requirements have been introduced to ensure you pay more and more to government, and without due notice or any apology. Should this be how citizenry is treated? The impunity which with governments do things and do not feel they need to explain or listen to those suffering under their impositions is amazing. They demand more and more and do so because we have given them mandate to rule us. Yes, to rule us, but not to kill us! One should also consider whether any bank in Nigeria does any banking? May be they do with and for the multi-nationals and big companies. For small companies, they show very little interest and give little support. Many ensure that the securities they request for an overdraft are akin to what they expect from large companies. Some even refuse to hand back your collateral when you have paid off capital and interest. Whose banks are they? Definitely not for the ordinary man or small companies. To make matters worse the Central Bank of Nigeria has allowed banks to participate in all kinds of investments after re-phasing through the use of holding companies. They are all killing us softly for private investors cannot compete with the massive funds of the bank. Banks own insurance companies, health maintenance organisations, and mobile phone companies, to name some things bank should not be owners of. Is there hope at all? People say a hopeless life is no life. From time to time, man sees the reduction of massive power, wealth and greed to near nothing. You would think that we would learn from this, but we do not. But we can refuse to be killed, in any way and insist that what should be ours must be ours. The lesson of history has been often that arrogance and thoughtlessness disappear, when we refuse to be killed softly! We continue to live in hope of a better tomorrow, but starting today.