By Chimaobi Ikeanganyia
So they were born in this “jet age”, I am a child
who has slept for 270 days in the subconscious after which nature activated the
conscious mood in me through birth. I was never given the chance to make that decision.
I just came like that, as I was denied this decision-making opportunity. So, I
was denied my place of birth, mood of birth, fate after birth mother (surrogate
or otherwise), father and even my future. To complicate it all, I was given an
empty slate named brain, which shall depend solely on another human being
(mother, father, guardian) to nurture and impact the fore-knowledge required to
live a life. My lamentation is not the mere fact of denial of the choice because
other lesser animals were equally denied such rather it is about the procedure
and manner which my empty slate is nurtured through daily life experience. I
cannot but just live like that because that is all I live to know, and believe
and afterwards pass the knowledge down to my offsprings. Of course, I remain a
Nigerian child and the future of this great nation depends on me as a unit and others
of my kind.
Nigeria is a 53-year-old mother, a mother with “children”
one can never undermithe influence a mother seldom exerts upon her child from
post natal (1960) to adolescent age which will subsequently lead the child
through adulthood. What a great influence! To access the future of a nation
(Mother) one has to understand the welfare and psyche of her citizen (child)
and as regards to the Nigerian condition, I am disappointed to say that the
future is a virile uncertainty.
It has been a discouraging and disappointing nineteen-year
experience, to live in a nation where your birth certificate has the propensity
of accepted forgery, where the value and quality of education you get depend on
the financial muscle of your sponsors (if you have one), where there is no hope
given to that child in the street by the nation (mother) itself where there is
no job security except for the most pampered child (Upper Class or government
office holder), where you cannot move safely on lands (because of bad roads), nor
on air (because of faulty plane) nor even on rail, nor with full confidence on
your safety. You have to struggle your way through life by personal provision
of all these, where there is also no health security for those who cannot
afford the huge cost, where the plight of the masses is a conditioned breeze to
its government, where justice is meant only for the rich: a nation filled with
selfish leaders from birth, a nation where peaceful co-existence have never had
a place among tribes and even regions; and a nation that does not know the
number of children it has. Above all, it is a nation where someone would always
complain.
I write for that little child at home, in the streets, hospitals or elsewhere and unless Nigeria (the mother) ignites an affective desire for her child, unless her leaders live in solidarity with the tears of her citizens, that child will always and for generations afterwards remain the ENDANGERED SPECIES.
Chimaobi Ikenganyia is an Undergraduate student, Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan, Nigeria: +2348077278929, chimaobi.ikenganyia@hotmail.com.
Edited by Kay Bello: +2348037298557, theconsciencenews@gmail.com
