Remembering The Decent Old Days

Remembering the decent old days Monday, 09 June 2014 00:00 Written by Simon Abah Category: Letters SIR: Today, not one person is exempt from being kidnapped in Nigeria: from babies to nonagenarians and up to centenarians. The recent case of an 80-year old Hajia Hawawu Bello abducted in Nagazi Uvete in Adavi Local Government Area of Kogi State as well as Madam Ogboro Dark, the 90-year old mother -in-law of the Speaker of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly as reported is fear-provoking. How did the state of affairs get this bad in Nigeria? I reminisce luminously about my boyhood days when I ran errands for strangers and for friends of my forebears and it was forbidden to collect a reward for these efforts. I was told to self-sacrifice when I ran errands for the aged. Respect for the aged was never negotiated; it was an entitlement. I recall when as a non-Muslim I went on best-wishes social calls with my Muslim friends on Sallah days and we called such visits, ‘Yawon Sallah.’ And they also went with me for ‘Yawon Christmas.’ Those were the days when we didn’t pay attention to the part of the country you came from, which religion you recognised and where the love for philistinism didn’t make us discriminate against each other. I reflect on my visits to my aristocratic Hausa friends and I could sleep in my friend’s house when it was too late to come home without sending a panic message to the family. I remember going on boyhood hunting expeditions during school breaks without a water jar and when thirsty I asked the men in the rural villages to offer me water and they instructed their wives in ‘Kule’ to prepare a meal of ‘Fura da nono,’ for me. They intuited how hungry I might also have been. I also recall running into many Fulani herdsmen in the plains; they were normal, meek and unassertive and they never revealed the vicious streak I read about daily in the papers nowadays. I remember when thieves were caught, they were undressed but not in their birthday suits, and paraded around in the city with songs of vilification, before they were handed to the police. Such stigmas lasted forever and discouraged them from re-engaging in such acts again. They were never beaten, never had foreign objects poked into their genitals like the publicised case of brutality by mobsters of the women caught stealing pepper in a market in Lagos. They were never rounded up and reprehensibly scorched like the four innocent undergraduates of the University of Port Harcourt in Port Harcourt in 2012. Oh! How quickly times have changed in Nigeria today. Children are interned at home now and can’t talk to strangers or run errands like I did. The environment is so unfriendly and our children are exposed to more risks, previously undreamed-of. I am left to wonder if they will ever enjoy this country. How can we come out of this retrograde bigoted quagmire of hate, criminality and discrimination? How can we come out of this retrograde bigoted quagmire of hate, criminality and discrimination. Collectively, it is essential that we begin to install the principles of chastity, goodness, endurance, uprightness, self-restraint, tolerance and duty to man and God. We must understand that service to man is service to God, and cease from the false supplications and sacrifices we make to God while, ironically, we leave our doors closed to humankind. Maybe Nigeria needs to look for humanity rather than nationalism, religiosity, tribalism and regionalism. Acts of kindness displays of integrity to make a difference, to be practised by all – especially those in government and religious institutions – are the answer to Nigeria’s numerous problems. • Simon Abah, Port Harcourt, Rivers State