FAVE Number/Country

I have a favourite number. 

Problem is it changes too often.

Sometimes, it is 4. 

Other times, its 5. 

Today, they are two and neither of these two. 

They add up to another favorite of mine; 13. 

The goth that surrounds 13 makes it appealing. 

Some associate it with evil, or the diabolical. 

Basically, the unexplained. 

I laugh cos it is not every thing you can not assign an explanation for that is diabolical and not every such is evil.

These numbers for instance are not. 

Hard, yes but most definitely not evil. 

The explanation of what they mean may be exasperating but that is a choice each one of us makes. 

Some more than others cos some are in positions of authority and could have done things differently but they did not. 

They allowed greed, avarice, selfishness and poverty mentality guide their actions.

As a nation, we turn 13, ( nope, no error!) 5+8=13 and we do not act the sum of both numbers not to talk of them multiplied. 

We have been a sovereign nation for about 58 years but we act our national age of 13. 

A new teen who is just finding out or about to discover what should be our strength and how we should drive the narrative of who we are.

I will not start with education cos then I won’t be able to sustain what needs saying. 

Health….sigh. An even worse scenario. 

We have taken to training our population to aid other nations. 

Our resources are for loftier things like providing cars for Government officials who do no more than oppress their employers with the commonwealth thus our health professionals are busy studying to go and take up entry level jobs in saner climes where people value their population enough to ensure there is a steady stream of trained personnel to ensure their good health.

Housing is a priority in the sense that it is a good visual for campaign promises especially architectural models and tracts of cleared land and promises of access to funding for the common man (who is he?) to purchase housing. 

Not that houses are not available because when Senator X or Y get their constituency allowance for projects that they claim will benefit their people, the people who elected them to serve or to represent them, they use such monies to build palatial houses and then the left over is used to build housing that are substandard and build to house some hapless family at cut throat rates. 

Sometimes, karma steps in and the houses lie empty for a long time while young people have to find houses further and further away from their jobs cos empty houses being let at exorbitant prices that their non-living wages can’t afford lie empty in areas where they should live. 

That adds time to their commute making them ill but we are not worried about that…..yet.

Back to my favourite number, 13. 

Some say its evil. 

If it is, may it strike the ones who choose to hand out pittances to the Nigerian youth rather than empower them to change the business landscape. 

They form catchy phrases that mean you have won and hand some money out to a handful while ignoring the huge numbers that are restive. 

They fete those who are loud on social media, enable them to the point that they can’t even remember what they were shouting about (yes! This is a Sub! Dem Omojuwa dem…).

We celebrate Independence but our dependence index must be the highest in all of Africa if not the world. 

We buy everything from somewhere outside our borders except for our braggadocio. 

That one is home grown and is available in copious amounts. 

Never mind that he did not pass school leaving certificate examinations and has been found to have been trying to get same by dubious means, he will break into dance and address a press conference to claim his mandate that was stolen will be (by God’s grace) recovered. 

Or after enjoying the same godfatherism, lament that this is unacceptable cos he is no longer the anointed one. 

The cries of those who support the not too young to run campaigns who endorse their ancestor for another term. 

Will not even talk about the insecurity and the conspiracy theories all of which add up to number zero.

So, 13. 

Yes. 

Our emotional age as a nation is about that cos we are unwilling to take hard stances that will see our future improve. 

Its like when we as parents make choices that seem hard at first for the wellbeing of our children and then that time when they eventually see the end we hoped for and bask in the beauty we caused them to attain. 

Then, 58.

May our next Independence Day be one….indeed!