Have you at one time or the other been caught in traffic jam, then watched angrily as the gridlock grew worse because impatient road users senselessly rushed upfront to unleash more confusion a few blocks ahead? Maybe you have experienced standing patiently on a queue, only to have someone else walk all the way from down the line to usurp a place way ahead.
Or perhaps, you were on a queue when suddenly one person creates a fresh line and you hear others echo your frustration by angrily shouting ‘ no bi line be dat o! Perhaps you may have experienced traveling on a dual carriage road that suddenly turns into a five - lane road when a police/army checkpoint appeared few meters ahead. It may be that people are all lined up at a filling station waiting for fuel and you suddenly notice some people circumventing the queue through the ‘exit’ gate when you got there a few hours ahead and sat sweating in the scorching sun to wait for your turn. I am sure at one time or the other you must have had it up to your neck with the craze driving on our roads and openly cursed at another road user just to get all the frustration out of you.
Have you ever cooked a fresh pot of food only to suddenly discover that electricity is out of reach for the next few days? Maybe you pay your electricity bills on estimate basis and only get value for your money less than two weeks in a four weeks cycle. It may be that for you to get to work during the rainy season, the roads around your neighborhood requires a JamesBond type of vehicle to swim across the overnight rivers that develop after each rainfall. Perhaps you have once traveled interstate and found yourself stuck for hours in traffic because a truck fell so many hours earlier across the road or a vehicle got stuck in a big pothole in the middle of the road. How about the most recent sight of someone using the street corner, gutter or roadside shrub as his private restroom to rid his system of human waste? That one is usually a disturbing sight especially when you sit to eat immediately after and houseflies cheerfully come visiting. What about your last shopping experience in our markets where you ended up buying low quality items at a value twice the price of the real deal? Let’s not forget the substandard food and medications in circulation and the frustration that goes with discovering that your life means nothing to some unscrupulous importers of fake products. When was the last time you felt fear about sending your children off to school in today’s Nigeria? How often have you read or heard about corruption and senseless abuse of public office by political office holders? How do you feel anytime you realize that nothing seems to work in this country? These are all experiences that leave an unhappy feeling with us
Now ask yourself….when was the last time you traveled by public transport on our roads and watched the commercial vehicle driver, maneuver traffic in a highly unconventional manner by driving against traffic or creating a fresh lane to navigate traffic jam? How did you feel when you noticed the vehicle conveying you was moving and making progress while others were stuck at a place? I have lived that experience and can compare it with the time I found myself at the driver’s seat stuck in traffic… but your feelings may be different from mine. What about while walking or traveling in a vehicle and it felt so logical to wind down the window of the vehicle and push all the refuse onto the street? Think about the last time you stood before an ATM machine to check your credit balance and left the scene with more paper on the floor than you actually met it. Any thoughts on how your young domestic help must have felt the last time you discriminated between them and your own children? Can you remember the last time a child under your care got the brunt of your anger over an incident in which you could have exercised more control all in the name of parenting? Think about the last time you verbally or physically harassed someone you had some level of power over yet felt angry when someone came right back at you with the same treatment. In this era of infectious disease outbreaks, consider how sensitive you have been about hugging, touching and shaking people’s hands while rarely washing your hands after toilet use. How have you used the little power you have at work to be of assistance to people you come in contact with?
So what is the point behind this exercise? The point is to draw our attention to the different ways we fail to live up to the tenets we so much want others around us to live by. It is to enable us see that accountability is not restricted to public office alone but applies to the private too. Our leaders in their highly corrupt ways have set this country on a collision course with poverty driven violence but we cannot rid ourselves of all blame in the part we have allowed the politicians to push us on. Our country is the way it is today because we have all unconsciously allowed it to be so. We need only to pause a while in deep reflection to realize that the power to change our destiny as a nation does not lie in the ruling class or politicians but in each and every one of us. Nigeria will not get better except the individuals who make up Nigeria get better in the way we manage ourselves as individuals and the little space we have some level of control over. If everyone of us decides to change three things we do that works against public good, this country will experience positive change in leadership because all manner of election malpractice that puts corrupt leaders in positions of leadership will no longer thrive – We will vote with wisdom too.
It is so easy to blame the government for all of Nigeria’s woes including those problems that are personal to us as individuals like throwing waste across the street and in gutters. Of course government needs to wake up to it’s governance responsibilities but to what extent can government clean up the environment after us or manage every driver on the road if we refuse as individuals to discipline ourselves ? We all need to change our orientation and that of others on little things that can help move us towards the ideal country of our dreams. Change is not easy but usually starts with the individual and gradually moves to the collective. Every one of us has to make effort at changing the negative in us in order to be able to collectively hold politicians accountable. Nigeria cannot change overnight but we can start planting the seeds of change today. Change requires confronting the uncomfortable in us and dealing with it in a positive way. It requires sensitivity over the unconscious in order to be conscious. Change can never come except we, individually, begin to live and mirror the change we want to see in our country.
Imagine a country where everyone made an effort to dispose waste properly. We would at least have fewer diseases, a clean environment and spend less on medical bills. Imagine a Nigeria where every motorist observed traffic rules… traffic will definitely not vanish overnight but at least, discipline on our roads will guarantee some measure of movement and safety. Imagine a Nigeria where by holding oneself accountable as a father, mother, youth, worker, we could collectively live the change we desire and hold our politicians accountable to the mandate we give them..
The next time you find yourself in a traffic jam, think twice about driving senselessly to block the road. When next you notice someone pushing dirt on the road, dare a little to talk the person out of that habit. Whenever you are in your office or at home, try to pay more attention to events around you as security should now be everyone’s business. Change starts with one step… it may not happen in our lifetime but that does not stop us from trying. …The dreamer dreams on as it is only from dreams that reality takes shape.
Nkechi Jane-Frances Odinukwe is a legal practitioner and gender activist, based in Abuja.