by Jibunma Anthony-Spinks
In ancient Greek folklore, it is believed that if someone dies on Christmas Day they would go straight to heaven because, according to them, the gates of heaven are thrown wide open every Christmas by Dionysus, their god! Here in Nigeria, one could easily guess that the gates of heaven must be securely locked on Christmas Day. The reason is self-evident. In spite of the hardship in the land, no Nigerian wants to die at all, let alone on Christmas Day! If you tell a Nigerian that he’s going to die, he will tell you that you don’t know what you’re talking about even if he’s at the verge of death! Yet, a couple of times, you come across a man, most likely his family’s breadwinner, walking along the road absentmindedly and talking to himself; he’s so absorbed in his misery and he starts to cross the road without knowing it. Very often he almost gets knocked down by a moving vehicle! Apparently, economic hardship in the land is taking its toll on many families. Curiously, the statistics from the federal authorities often tend to suggest that living conditions are improving. How they arrive at these wonderful figures beats the imagination.
An Igbo adage says, “If a deceitful man digs his own grave and goes ahead to bury himself in it, his arm will stick out.” So, no matter how much the economic experts in Abuja downplay and sugar-coat the hunger in the land, the tell-tale signs are out in the open for the whole world to see.
Looking back memory lane, when last could one say that the citizens of this country enjoyed what could actually be called merry Christmas in the real sense of the word? How many households can afford a decent Christmas meal of fried rice, chicken and salad with a bottle of chilled wine or even Coke to wash it down, just as we used to enjoy it when Nigeria was Nigeria? Nigerians wear the shoes of hardship and they know where it pinches them. An antelope that survived a gunshot to the head need not be tutored on how a gunshot sounds. All you need to do is get yourself into the odyssey of embarking on Christmas shopping this season, then you will learn that khaki is not leather! Worse still, in the past, one could draw a line between rich and poor families during Christmas because while the former celebrate extravagantly, the latter go about theirs in low key. These days, the rich also cry!
The problem is not so much the seeming inability of the federal authorities to fix the bleeding Nigerian economy as the simple fact that, as Fela said, most citizens are suffering and smiling instead of speaking truth to power. If a snake fails to utilize its venom, little children will use the snake as rope to tie firewood. As long as oppressed citizens remain timid, self-indulgent and docile, they will always be taken for a ride by the oppressors.
In the midst of excruciating pain, hunger and suffering that characterized the period, the yuletide of 2023 witnessed what became known as Plateau State Christmas massacre in which almost 200 Nigerians were slaughtered with over 500 injured by Fulani militia. That was just as bad as it could get. By the grace of God, this year’s Christmas will not see bloodshed but except God Himself intervenes, it is certainly not going to be funny in many homes.
Could it be said that Nigerians are the architects of their own misfortune? Then, William Shakespeare was right when he wrote in The Tempest, that “hell is empty and all the devils are here”. Otherwise, why, for instance, would a trader ‘rebag’ one bag of rice and sell it for the price of two to his fellow human beings as is now common during yuletide? What makes some Nigerian business owners and tradesmen think that they can outsmart God in the month the birth of His own Son is celebrated? Why would cash suddenly dry up in Nigerian banks during Christmas? Why would the woman that sells ‘abacha’ at a high price blame the hike on foreign exchange and dollars? What has foreign exchange got to do with ‘abacha’? A landlord would turn the new minimum wage into maximum agony by tripling his rent even before the new wage is implemented. Bandits walk the streets with AK-47 in broad daylight and do whatever they like and get away with it. Herdsmen destroy farmlands and feed their cattle with crops cultivated by their fellow human beings; and if you challenge them, they’d say the whole of Nigeria is their father’s property! Some disingenuous petrol stations would manipulate and reconfigure their metres to rip off their customers. Not a few Nigerians, including school children, would spend their Christmas in the den of kidnappers and terrorists. Watch out for pick-pockets, ragamuffins, gluttons, touts, Yahoo boys, quacks, car snatchers, husband snatchers, money doublers, fake ‘iron condemn’, ‘one chance’, false prophets, evil spirits, rapists, highway robbers, kidnappers, thugs, fake boyfriends, fake girlfriends, fake uncles, fake aunties, fake in-laws, fake native doctors, witches and wizards – they are all honing their skills for a bumper harvest this Christmas! They’ll all celebrate Christmas in full gear at the expense of their fellow human beings. What they fail to understand is that the same Jesus Christ whom they claim to be celebrating is watching them closely.
So, the point here is that apart from the much-touted leadership failure, some of us are wicked and greedy at our own individual levels. The Christmas season, as we know it, is one of the most venerated times of the year around the world, celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike, and it is supposed to be one of the happiest times of the year. Families exchange gifts, food and drinks and take their loved ones out to fun places in town to have a good time. Children and wards look up to their parents and guardians to buy them new clothes and shoes for Christmas. Unfortunately, the season has become a period for gnashing of teeth because of harsh economic policies, avaricious greed, self-inflicted poverty and hardship, insecurity, prohibitive tax and tariff, and man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. But at the end of the day, one thing is clear: he who digs a pit this Christmas shall fall into it.
*Anthony-Spinks writes from Delta State Public Procurement Commission, Asaba.
