A WELCOME RELIEF!

“Time was 12:15 am. Suddenly the storm broke amidst thunder and lightning. Could it be rain? Forcing ourselves out of sweet slumber, we came out with kegs and buckets to tap from the free gift of Mother Nature. The pots and potties were not left out: anything that can hold water must be filled. Not even the dreaded cold and catarrh could deter us from ‘saving’ against the dry days”.

This was a scene that played out sometimes ago in the polytechnic town of Iree in Osun state, South West Nigeria. Four years after, the situation has barely changed. If wishes were horses, students and indigenes of the town would gallop down the valley of desire wishing the dry season never comes. Pipe-borne water provided by government is usually in short supply or may never run ‘till further notice’. The wells are usually dried up. Bore-hole is no options- it is either not available or damaged. This is the fate of most rural communities in Nigeria.

“The dry season is often termed ‘passion week’”, an anonymous source relayed. “For one, we are yet to come to terms with the scorching heat not helped by frequent power outage, a recurring national shame. There is also the choking dust, since the roads are bad. The scariest of all is the trials of water scarcity”, a source submitted.

The scourge of water scarcity confronting most rural communities in Nigeria knows no gender, when it gets to its peak, both males and females trek past thick forests in the middle of the night to get water from rock edifice or river. This is an ordeal because it is like climbing Olumo rock or Mount Kilimanjaro without the intention of adventure.

About 63.6 million people in Nigeria do not have access to safe drinking water; this was recently made known by the Country Representative of WaterAid in Nigeria, Michael Ojo.  To say that lack of access to potable water is appalling of a nation is stating the obvious. Water, sanitation and hygiene are human rights central to the attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

 Unavailability of safe water may not only lead to the outbreak of diseases like cholera diarrhoea, dysentery, gastro – enteritis, infectious hepatitis, hook work, guinea worm, scabies and other parasitic infections especially on children. It may also underpin education, health and livelihoods for overcoming poverty.

There is no gainsaying the fact that water is a necessity for a clean and healthy environment. In this age of climate change, a call for aggressive action to prevent this scourge is a call to action.

BEGGARS MENACE IN OAU

They sometimes swarm around like bees. They move in two’s and three’s- a troika comprising of a mother and two children. The sight is not uncommon in the society but when they tend to be normal visitors in a citadel of learning, then taking a second thought is not out of place. Their sing song may be different but their tune is parallel. Same tale, same refrain, same rhetoric!

 Just as men are in sizes, they also come in categories; old men, young men, young women, old women, adolescence and even toddlers. These are unwanted guests on the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, (South West Nigeria) campus, who are daily becoming members of the university community. 

They come with endearing tales of how life has dealt mercilessly with them and their poor victims can’t help but dip hands into the pocket to ‘bless’ them.  Some claim accidents, a few hold the supernatural world for their fate while many blame the harsh economic conditions.

There are young women who will want money to settle bills of their children’s upbringing. There are old men who will want to pay hospital bills. There are young men who claimed to be sacked bank workers whose mums are on the sick bed. Some are stranded and they “quickly need money” to transport themselves to town. For the young boys, they need money to eat or pay examination bills. The list is endless. If one is to go by the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish novelist who said that "everyone lives by selling something”, it can then be concluded that the act of begging is a trade.

 “Given the rate at which they are growing, they may soon stage a rampage”, says Ife Idowu, a 400 Level student of Industrial Chemistry.  “One of my fellowship members was praying at the sports complex when a woman approached him with a food flask claiming to be hungry.  He was on the way to get her the food when she called him back and showed him an empty can of coke and asked him to get her one in addition to the food. Your guess is as good as mine; he was exasperated at her reaction. She was a different beggar, one with a choice”.

At times, many of the beggars who parade the campus often have the audacity to disrupt classes. They come into lecture halls kneeling and begging with sympathetic eyes.  For their sakes, lectures can be disrupted as class reps are asked to pass a collection bag around for them. Some even come into class at night when students are reading.  “The same faces still come with the same tales.  Sometimes, they may be so daring that they come into the halls of residence. I remember a teenager with a baby strapped on her back begging for drug money”. This is the submission of a 400 level student of Crop Science who craved anonymity.

Corroborating her claims, Adurayemi Ositelu, a final year student  in the department of Medical Rehabilitation sees the menace as something that is becoming unbearable.  “Sometimes you see small children among them. There was a Sunday I was coming from church and an okada (motor-cyclist) man had to shout on three kids who were begging people coming from church for money. The effect of this is not good on the society. This means that we are not teaching the values of hard work and sincerity. This will subsequently amount to bringing children up as rogues”.

In a university that prides itself as being “for learning and culture”, then one should expect a modicum of order and moderation in this regard. It is said that a beggar who begs from another beggar will never get rich, whether there could be a curb to this menace; only time will tell.

LETTER TO MY CHILDREN

                                                                  LETTER TO MY CHILDREN

I know it looks like I’m in a hurry to carry you in my arms and nurse you. I know it may sound as if I’m not placing my priorities right by aiming to have you at a time when I am not yet done with the preparation to usher you into my world. These notwithstanding, I feel it impertinent to drop these lines. I know that you will have lots of questions to ask about our country. Truth is that we are guilty, and I am no exception.

You will want to know why every Nigerian is a prime suspect at international airports around the world. Why deviant behaviour is common among my peers should give you worries. The rationale behind our universities not making the list of the 5000 best in the world may appear weird to you. Perhaps the most poignant question you may ask is the part I have played to correct the misfortunes that now plough our country?

I will tell you the truth because there is nothing to lie about anyway. I am thrust into a world where I have to pay for the sins of my fathers. My society is one where the ‘word’ peace exists at the last page of the dictionary. Think Boko Haram and other senseless crises! I can’t sleep at night due to the noise from the generators. Do you know that sometimes when the neighbor’s generator develops a fault, I feel a tinge of happiness because that means less noise, but that may be short-lived as gunshots take over as robbers’ raid for survival.  These robbers are usually young people like me who have allowed themselves to be victims of what the country has turned. It may sadden you to know that some of my peers cannot afford to pay the fees demanded by higher institutions. They have been turned into the dregs of the society and they engage in violence acts of retaliation.

I sometimes have to queue at the bus stop for God’s knows how long as I wait for a vehicle to convey me to my destination. There is always a story to tell each morning at the bus stop: if it is not fuel scarcity, it will be the area boys or the police mounting roadblocks to extort motorists.

The other time as I sat down with my roommates, we could not explain how money flies out of our hands. Ours is a federal university reputed to be the most prestigious and cheapest in the land. Our lecturers don’t exploit us by forcing us to buy ‘handouts’ as is the norm in other institutions , but we sometimes need to buy recommended text books so as to build up on what we  have been taught.  Our challenge has always been how to live by our means. The question you might ask is: “how come your leaders folded their hands and watched while inflation ate this deep into the economy?

My dear ones, to be candid with you, we never had leaders in the first place, even when we practice a system of government called democracy. What we have now is self-appointed leaders who rig themselves into power. Perhaps when you grow, you will read about a state called Ekiti, a city of intellectuals yet shrouded in the brick of poverty and underdevelopment. The rerun election that was conducted in that state in the year 2009 showed to the world how Nigerians failed democracy. Can you imagine that even a then 74 years old grandmother, Mrs. Ayoka Adebayo, the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, could not match her worth as a Christian with a clear  conscience as she succumbed to pressures to declare fake results. She was lost on the kind of courage Ernest Hemingway defined as “grace under pressure”.

My children, you are the generation yet to be born. You are the ones who will reap what we are sowing today. Your future depends on the decisions you make today. We are the ones who are supposed to clear the path for you so that you can tread smoothly without hurting your fragile legs. I will continue to do all I can within my power to ensure that you meet a good life. But, please, pray that we will get leaders before your time: leaders are what we lack now.