SO MUCH THINGS TO SAY: Refections on an Election Day in Nigeria -By John Chibuzo

Today is election day, everyone is at home. The lonely neighbourhood is busy once again. The voices of playing children can be heard piercing high into the ever blue sky and lustrous clouds that reflect the glow of this happy morning sun. So today is perfect — at least to me. Though it doesn’t seem like an election. I don’t know why. But this is very unlike the last election a year ago where everyone was so vibrant, moving up an down, that the polling units were already filled up long before the electoral officials arrived. What has happened this time? Maybe it’s because of the government magic that was conducted the last time by that old magician. No one has the strength anymore to go and stand under the hot sun for hours to vote for people who won’t think of their ghosts after climbing the rotten throne. But I don’t want to dwell on negativity on this bright morning. Not today, we still have about ninety days to dwell on that.

This is why I have chosen to play old songs on my mp3 player. I normally do this whenever I am happy and free, not having to ponder on work or on the chaos that has engulfed this world. So I with my guitar, sit outside on this wooden bench at the veranda, gazing with wonder at the rocks covered with green shrubs and yellow sun flowers under the blue sky that stretches to the ends of the earth. In these kinds of times — rare times indeed — ideas often flood into my small head and mind, like how beautiful the earth is and how we never stop, at least for once through our busy and confused lives, to ponder on this. To ponder on the beauty of Jos to begin with, and how the gigantic rocks undulate round the city as though in an eternal dance: the Tiv dance. You won’t understand because you have never seen Tiv dancers in action!

Oh and back to the music playing: just bliss! A rhumba song titled ‘Chicotte’ by TPOK Jazz from Congo just finished playing. Wonderful solo from the guitar and the saxophone. I particularly liked the saxophone solo, though too short, it sounded like a wail, yes the wail of Lumumba. Now I am sad. Why did I even have to mention that martyr Patrice Lumumba? When ever he comes to mind I can’t help but think about the kind of leaders that have tormented Africa for the last sixty years including his own countryman, Mobutu Seseko. Well I better digress at this point before my short talk metamorphos into a bitter rant about the failure of African leadership. Achebe, Soyinka, Ngugi, Giwa, Brutus, Okot and a thousand others have done this but look at where we are today. It’s a shame. Keeping quiet is not the best solution, but at least it is a sure way of maintaining one’s sanity in an insane continent, or better put, in a continent where sanity is increasingly becoming a rare commodity. Oh I hate to admit this but when I think of Lumumba, the good man, and when all the Judases of African politics begin to haunt my fragile mind as a result: Mugabe, Amin… some good names also prop up in my mind too you know, names that I will definitely mention to my children. Names like: Sankara, Mandela and Kamma. Did you expect me to mention Azikiwe, or Awolowo or Bello? If you thought so then you need to visit your history books again!

Now Bright Chimezie’s ‘Because of English’ is playing and yes I am dancing. You cannot resist the wonderful beat I promise! Wonderful symphony of African guitars, drums and trumpets. Bright Chimezie is the king though others, especially those from Anambra, would argue that Osita Osadebe or Oliver de Coque is, those from Imo would say Oriental Brothers and all the Enugu people would say it’s Mike Ejeagha, after all he is the one trending online. What of the Yorubas down west? I don’t think they would mention any of these names. You would hear them call names like: Fela, Sunny Ade, Ebeneear Obey Victor Olaiya and so on. So you see, even in a little thing as music — which is meant to be a source of enjoyment and escape from the numerous troubles that plague us as a nation — Nigerians, particularly Igbos and Yorubas would always infuse tribal sentiments into it as well as into any other thinkable thing in the universe. Two months ago, I could not help but nod my head in shame as I scrolled down social media and saw how myopic Igbo and Yoruba youths — who are going to be the future leaders of this country, who are supposed to be more preoccupied with ways in which they can develop their lives and their country— argue shamelessly about who was superior between Achebe and Soyinka. One facebook post stands out in the ocean of my memories where one fellow called Achebe a ‘mere storyteller’ and another post where an Igbo man named Soyinka ‘a stooge of western imperialists’. When I ponder on these things, I find my self shivering with fear. What is the future of a nation or country (country not nation is a more befitting title) where the young people are so tribalistic, ignorant and blind not because they lack education but because their minds have not transcended, not even to the level of the various degrees and paper certificates they possess in their dusty drawers and cupboards. Ngugi tried to decolinize the minds of Africans, I say detribalisation is far more urgent and necessary and would even be more beneficial. This is really saddening but like I insinuated earlier on, I  do not intend to criticise but to just ponder on the beauty of Jos on this wonderful election day.

Back to my song. Bright is now singing — the song is actually a story — about how his English teacher, while he (Bright) was in school, warned all his students not to speak any other language other than English in class and how his teacher flogged him mercilessly for mistakenly speaking Igbo to Chinyere his classmate . He ends the song by asking who  would save Africa and Igbo language from ‘English’ which in extension means who would save Africa from colonialism and foreign cultural domination. Though it’s just a song, a simple song for that matter, it reminds me of something painful too — the mistake African elites made shortly after decolonization, which was to blame the west for all the ills that befell Africa while excluding themselves and all the atrocities the committed which played a huge role, even more than colonialism in bringing us to our current catastrophic state. Yes we need to save Africa from ‘English’ just like brother Bright has encouraged us to and we also need to preserve our culture. But we also need the English, the Americans, we need the Chinese as well as the French, we need our African brothers too: Ghanians (our lifelong enemy both on social media and in real life), we need the South Africans (not as customers for our hards drugs but as development partners)… We need the world to survive, we can’t survive on our own, not with these crop of blind and corrupt leaders, who are our new colonial masters.

Now Fela’s song ‘Beast of No Nation’ is playing. I need to change this song because after this one, the next will be ‘Sorrow Tears and Blood’. No, I cant afford to be depressed this wonderful morning. If only our parents listened more instead of dancing more to these infectious beats, maybe they would have taken better actions. But well, here we are. It is what it is. So to avoid been depressed by the evergreen songs of Fela, I will scroll down the timeline to the 60s, down to swinging Ghana! E.T. Mensah and Ebo Taylor! Wonderful music which I presume Nkrummah danced to. Ah, Nkrummah again? Sorry, no politics again. Next topic. But how can I continue to avoid thinking about politics and history when these are the very things that have shaped my world and continue to play a role in the never ending suffering of my countrymen and fellow Africans. Oh Nkrummah, if only you had stayed true to your vision and to your integrity. If only you had nurtured your allies like Sekou Toure to be more honest and futuristic in their thinking. Oh Kwame Nkrummah! Osagyefo and hero of the Ghanian people who betrayed them at the point they needed him the most. Well, I have said too much, perhaps even more than Ayi Armah Akwei or Kofi Awoonor another critic who got involved in politics only to do a little worse. Perhaps, critics are the future tyrants.

I have said too much already, more than I should have said but it’s election day: a day of change (as long as there would be no government magic this time) and the sun is shining so bright up in the sky, smiling at me as I strum this guitar along to the beats of Victor Uwaifo’s ‘Joromi’, and at the naked children playing outside with outstretched hands and expecting the rain with raised hands. I have observed and perhaps they too have, that whenever the sun shines too brightly in the morning, a heavy rain will fall later in the day. So I dust my dashiki of ankara lace and sing this song heartily — now that I am free and chanced — because tomorrow I will be back in the classroom to heal and revive the minds of young children while the soul of my country (not nation) and the soul of my continent dies daily. Let us hope on the children as we do all we can to make their future better than ours. In this daze of hopelessness, I will sing, as my goodbye, Onyeka Owenu’s  song in peace:

Never need worry

Let one love  set you free

One love keep us together

Living in the world is a struggle just staying alive

One love keep us together

Living in the world is a struggle just staying alive…

John Chibuzo is a Nigerian writer, literary critic, educator and multi-instrumentalist based in Jos city. His poetry and essays have been published in The National Scholar, Lolwe, Beyond the Pages, Opinion Nigeria, and the national anthology: Letters to the Union We Hope to Become. He co-founded The Excellent Magazine in 2024 and served as its maiden editor in chief. He studied English in the University of Jos where he served as the Plateau State Coordinator of National Association of Students of English and Literary Studies (NASELS).