Nigeria is a religious country of the good, very excellent men and women, the bad, really bad, and the ugliest. We don’t do little, go to Kano on a Friday and during prayer time you are stuck, no movement and commerce temporarily comes to a standstill. With all the Hisbah, the amount of sin that is committed in that state “no be here.” Have you been to Owerri, the new capital of the gunmen unknown? On a Sunday, it is a ghost town, everyone is in church, but a day earlier in the same city that has as many churches as hotels “ha na agba akwuna, like nde Sodom na Gomorrah,” do not ask me what that means.
In my hometown of Langtang, home of the now depleting Generals, if you have an emergency, you are simply OYO. Every meeting in Nigeria is a prayer meeting, opening and closing prayers, and that is when someone is not in the spirit in the middle of the meeting. We pray to start, steal in the middle and close with a prayer, more often than not, if a Muslim prays first, we close with a Christian praying at the end. The irony is we say that God is God, yet there are Christian and Muslim prayers.
We pray in the church, in the mosque, on the beach, at the foot of the mountain, and on the mountain top. We pray before an exam, and still commit malpractices. Imans and Daddy GOs litter everywhere. Trust me, if I write on, I am bound to touch certain sensitivities; and in the best principles of “Do No Harm,” I shall keep quiet.
My countrymen love God. Ever seen us praying not to lose a match that we were ill-prepared for? After all, the god of soccer is a Nigerian and what God cannot do for us does not exist.
So, here I was in my inner chamber, popularized as the “Oda Room” by you-know-who, wearing my long robe that the Yoruba call Sultana, while here in the North we call it Dalabia, I do not know the Igbo equivalent, candlelight in every corner, of different colours. I chanted and danced around. Yes, like Prophet Jeroboam, of Wole Soyinka’s famed Jero Plays, I danced, with eyes closed, and spoke in tongues not known to me and asked the higher powers what was in store for Nigeria, the clouds I saw were misty, moving like this and like that.
Nigeria will not break, Nigeria will not fail or fall, because it already has. We are not united, but we are one in corruption, one in greed, one in maladministration and misgovernance. We are united in soccer too. And very well united in our religious and ethnic brinksmanship.
This nation won’t fail in 2022, neither will it fall. It already did since day one, whether 1914 or 1960. It won’t break because, borrowing from the words of former President Olusegun Obasanjo “near-saints and near-devils” will continue to conglomerate and govern us, whether in PDP or APC, they are the same difference.
So, the search for purposeful and accountable leadership and responsive citizenship with direction will continue in 2022. In 2022 the stealing will continue. More monies will disappear in all tiers of government. In 2022, it will be another year of strikes.
There will be an increase in fuel pump price or there will be scarcity of the product that we have in abundance, and we will have all sorts of threats. Energy tariffs will increase too. There will be probes and panels, investigations and enquiries. The various state assemblies will follow the lead of the National Assembly in probing and investigating, all to no avail. Just so we know, none of these investigations/probes will be people- or result-centred.
And as I saw probes, I saw committees: While the government will set up more committees, citizens will ask for probes. Men whose wives refuse to conceive will be probed and committees will be set up. So, in 2022, prepare, O ye Nigerians, for probes aplenty, both high and low-powered.
There will be witch-hunts, wizard-hunts and all kinds of huntings, as hunters will be hunted and some will be haunted.
My apologies to the Chinese, but, like their phones, expect plenty of noise from our politicians, a large number of them will make utterances without thinking, and Nigerians would follow suit, as long as it fits into our ethno-religious heads.
Apart from the prominent Nigerians that will die, scores of Nigerians will be killed by robbers, kidnapped by bandits and in one form of crisis or the other. From Kano to Zamfara, Rivers to Abia states, innocent Nigerians will fall victim in all sorts of rallies, and, sadly, no one would be held liable.
The herdsmen and farmers will continue from where they stopped, and Southern Kaduna and parts of Plateau will continue, and the army will need to change tactics, but we will continue to witness crises as conflict entrepreneurs up their game to thrive.
It will be the year of magic, plenty of government magic. The name for the magic is ‘necessity.’ All parties will partake of this magic. It is a matter of convenience.
As I was in my trance, receiving the prophecy I heard several songs, and I asked, “Lord what meaneth all these” and I saw the answers: Nigerian musicians will still make us proud globally, alongside our films, whether that of Emeka’s ghost coming back from the land of the dead hungry or a village in an epic movie with the Onowu trying to claim the kingship in 1781, having the princess using an iPhone 13. Our entertainment will not cease as our political leaders and office holders will provide comic relief, like transmission-transmission or www.dazol. Trust me, our leaders won’t keep quiet.
Whether we qualify for the FIFA WorId Cup or not, we won’t win it Qatar. Lies will be told in different facets, the citizenry will swallow them all, as cost of living will soar even higher. The rich will get richer and the poor get even worse.
Towards 2023, the year 2022 would be pivotal for Nigeria and Nigerians, and it may as well be just business as usual, a repeat of history: The fly says that one who is afflicted by a sore is the one whose father’s compound it will pass through. Would we see desired improvement in most spheres of national life? Only time will tell.
•Dickson is a development media professional; [email protected]