Last week Richard Mofe Damijo fulfilled one of his dreams. He pierced his ears and wore a pair of earrings. Some days earlier Naira Marley had shared one of his dreams on social media. He said, “I am still gonna have sex with mother and daughter together one day sha”. On reading his fantasy, my first reaction was that “this guy has started again, sharing the unsharable”. Many of us have fantasies, dreams, and heart desires that would demonize us in the eyes of family and friends. Some of us chose to pursue our fantasies, others enviously reprimand the few who are bold enough to share or live out their dreams or fantasies. But the more I thought about Naira Marley’s fantasy the more I realize why we need not just a new national constitution or nations, but a new personal constitution.
A few days after Naira Marley shared his fantasy, a daughter and mother volunteered to take part in the manifestation of his fantasy. This confirmed my fears about the deeply deplorable state of mind of most of us in Nigeria. Today, parents nudge their wards into advance fee fraud. Parents in some states actively participate in the recruitment of their daughter into prostitution in Europe. Cultism is now so widespread among youths that if it is a disease, it would have claimed more lives than COVID-19. Religious leaders across the board shamelessly assume the role of public relations officers for Nigeria’s most corrupt government and their officials while also constantly smiling to the bank with each courtesy call. Little wonder we are where we are today.
In a nation where the youths are preoccupied with all forms of sexual debauchery and their elders are still thinking of ear piercing, you can guess where their priorities lie. When their contemporaries in other clime are in a race to send humanity to planet Mars, code the next multi-billion dollar app, set up studios that would help create movies like Black Panther, we are still concerned with mundane things. Individually, we are a manifestation of our dreams and fantasies that are actively pursued. China is what it is today because its leaders were preoccupied with poverty eradication and world domination. The United States is again leading the Space race because an emigrant from South Africa dared to fantasize about setting up a human outpost on Mars and the government has policies passed by men and women to empower his fantasy. We would continue to be at the mercy of educated and uneducated illiterates like Buhari and all who supported him in 2015 and 2019, if we don’t change our minds from the mundane to the modern.
Ata Ukuta, Editor – www.towncryyers.com