NIGERIANS: THE HAPPY -GO-LUCKY- PEOPLE?

NIGERIANS: THE HAPPY –GO-LUCKY– PEOPLE

I was tempted to use “the happy-go-lucky people”, instead of the ‘happy people’. But then, I thought about it for half a minute.

Here goes [replay of my thoughts]: “we can’t be ‘happy-go-lucky people’, we are not happily unworried or unconcerned. In fact, we worry and we are concerned because Nigeria is ‘Us’ and  there can’t be a ‘Nigeria’ without Nigerians”,  hence our ‘#occupyNigeria’ protest initiative; NLC strike; ASUU strike; protests on the streets; protests on Facebook, Twitter, BBM and other social media, not leaving out the broadcast and print media just when the Government gave us the ‘BIG BANG’ on New Year’s Day with the  removal of subsidies on petrol that caused the hike in cost of living.

BOTTOM LINE: WE ARE CONCERNED

The fuel issue is just one of the many things we have been through in just a couple of months. We have had and still have the Boko Haram Sect, or you can just call them ‘terrorists’ to understand the gravity of the situation- [i.e. the anti-western education sect], battling this already weak country- Weak in many areas, especially regarding its security.

So weak that even when the suspected mastermind of the 2011 Christmas day bombing – Kabiru Sokoto- was ‘finally’ captured, he was reported to have escaped a few days after while he was being transferred to another police station…blah blah blah. ‘Only’ God knows how that happened.

As if our problems are not enough. We still have the on-going ASUU strike that has lasted for almost two months now. And while students in private institutions have moved on with their lives, those in Federal and state institutions are stuck and getting frustrated. Hopefully, it would be called off ‘soon’, just as ‘Jesus would come back soon’.

And each day, we flip through the pages of our dailies, in search for some good news. Something to hold on to, even if it is as little as a drop, even trickles would be some luxury, all we ask for is a drop. But each time, we get disappointed and our hopes for better days dwindle. All we have left is our various beliefs and the undying NIGERIAN SPIRIT that keeps us being cheerful through everything.

In the midst of all the chaos/crises/problems/bombings and any other word to describe the pitiable state of this weak ‘giant’ of Africa- Nigeria, we just always have a way of putting smiles on our ‘ready-made’ sad faces. Despite the killings and deaths and scarcity and poverty and stagnancy and so on, we end up being cheerful- in one way or the other. We sometimes insult and use cuss words on the country and on the people behind the confusion or we make jokes out of the whole situation, one way or the other, we stay cheerful.

Hmmm … Don’t even know how to describe Nigerians. I should probably call them the ‘happy people’ or the ‘suffering and smiling ones’, but whatever words or phrases used, they are far from being ‘happy-go-lucky people’