HOW LONG SHALL WE LIVE WITH THIS BURDEN?

Again, with gallivanting bravery, I am taking you to the boxing ring of logic, to the floor of people’s parliament, to the graveyard of the people murdered during #OccupyNigeria and the ones murdered by the resilient monster called Boko Haram. In my past engagements with you, I have written with unalloyed respect, with a mind nurtured with the grease of culture, and with the belief that in a tolerating world, your best teacher is your arch-enemy. I know I am your arch-enemy in the parlance of logic and rationality for we are on two extremes with no comparative advantage. I doubt however, if you are taking me as your best teacher. So today, I won’t drag you outside my domain of respect. As usual, I will jive without recourse to disrespect.

But I have been sent on this errand again. I have been sent by a people wobbled in perpetual tears, by a people in continuous dance to the rhythm of bombs, by a people whose souls have been murdered by fear, by a people whose daily bread has become weekly bread, by a people whose hope has been confined into the abyss, by a people in dire need of a pacifier, by a people who are helpless in the face of their enemies, by a people groaning under the armpit of your policies and by a people who mistakenly gyrated to your killing pretence in 2011. I have been sent to ask you questions, to remind you that you have told us to live with our burden. Now we want to know when this burden will end. So for how long shall we live with this burden?

They now cuddle themselves in pains. They wake up everyday into nothingness. Their lives don’t worth your attention anymore. You gallivant with your presidential entourage as if everything starts and ends with copy and paste condolence speeches. They have accepted their fate which you have subjected them to, to live with the burden of blasts till there are no materials to make bomb again. They are already used to it, tears don’t stop cascading, pains have found solace in their lives and they sob everyday as if they are in hell. It will be unfair for them to go to hell again after the life in Nigeria. Since you are the most powerful and they are the most powerless, they have humbly resolved to ask you questions, questions hovering around their continued existence as a people, questions shooting forth from the roots of their agony, of their melted future, of their cries, of their fear, and of their murdered souls. For how long shall we live with this burden?

This is the story of a people whose tomorrow has been consumed into the past, subsumed in the music of bomb blasts, grilled in the rubbles of their livelihood. This is the story of a shattered people, of timeous imperfection, of decisions made in error in 2011. The sad story of the happiest people but with a deep hole of sorrow dug in their heart by their deadly neighbours. Their enemies are challenging them to their face, informing them of their impending death. Yet they are languishing in the wilderness of destitution, drowning in the pool of leadership mediocrity and suffocating in the power play of greed. No help in Yonder! What is their sin against you, the Otuoke star? Why have you decided to remove their shield from them? Why have you widowed them and turned them childless by your tactlessness? Who will impregnate them again for the fruit of the womb? Who will wipe the tears of the bereaved? They will no longer be chuckling to the caresses of their spouses, for the touches of their loved ones have gone with the wind of sorrow. This is the story of your voters, the ones who defied the scorching sun to fill the ballot boxes. For how long shall we live with this burden?

You have told them that they should not worry, that all will be well, that you are winning the war. The more you slip with these base slogans, the more the fury in the evil mind of their neighbour terrors. Your condolence speeches have earned them more sleepless nights. Your speeches don’t placate them; instead what they get in return is higher pitch in the sound of blasts. Each time you speak to console them, their family number reduces. Each time you offer your drab speech, they are visited by blood suckers. Each time your mouthpiece is active, they are sure of aggravated agony. This is the story of a people in need of a savior. The hazy memory of Madalla comes to mind again, when you said that they should bear the burden till it fizzles out. But for how long shall we live with this burden?

Their hopelessness has given them two options -you as a burden and terrorism as a burden. While the latter is in your control, the former is in their control. Since there is no end in sight as to when the latter burden will fizzle out, the former burden seems to be the best available option for them. They will bear you as a burden till your time is up. Since you will fizzle out in 2015, it is a thing of joy to know that there is an end in sight for you as a burden. This is the resolve of a people that is thirsty of exemplary leadership. Now they are crawling through the desert, no water to drink but they have made recourse to sand. It is going to be a ballot revolution waiting to be detonated, for we shall live with this burden till 2015 when the final whistle will blow forth.

It is me, Follow @obajeun