I WILL KEEP SILENT... LOUDLY!

This has been happening for a while now. It is outside my nature not to react to injustice. My parents taught us to speak out and it did not matter that you were a boy or girl. It has caused me a bit in some cases, but who cared. I stood up for my male colleague whose promotion was long overdue, became a pariah in an office where everyone was a pastor or a pastor’s wife but engaged me not based on intellectual abilities, but on my ethnic identity. I fought back at every point. Don’t asked me which time in my life this happened. It simply happened. 

I believe it goes way back to a time when there was a student demonstration at the University of Ibadan -1989. As a graduate student, I stayed off campus and was unaware that the school had been shut with anti – riot policemen all around the campus gates. As my friend and I got close to the gate, we were accosted by a policeman who shouted at us to kneel. I asked why and his answer was to hit me with a Baton and another shout “kneel down”. The hitting with the Baton continued until my friend already kneeling pushed me down. Then he left us, and the day was saved by my friend. Injustice is my greatest foe and I prided myself with speaking out loudly.

Things have been happening since 2020 - the year Covid visited the world that made me rethink, or is it that am just tired of fighting? I remember the incident vividly. It was at our Estate, one in Lagos Nigeria touted to be the paradise by the Lagoon. It was not given that name for nothing; built by an Israeli company, home of the rich and powerful. It has rules and regulations that made it almost like a world of its own within Lagos. Fines for urinating on the streets – an act unimaginable in most countries, no smoking sign at the park and so on. This particular evening during the lockdown, I was taking a walk with my nephew, when I saw this young man urinating on a tree and his friend conversing with him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As we passed, I said quietly “you are not allowed to do this”. Then the pellets of insults started from him.. unprintable and too crimson to share here. Few metres away, were the security men at the gate. I was relieved to see them, you know, the way a child sees his mother after an ominous threat from a bully at school. I told them what the issue was; this was their job not mine. Guess what? The security men backslapped hands with this person even as he continued the insult. One of them whispered to me, madam abeg go. This is how he behaves. My nephew whispered; aunty let us go. This man may have covid. He is not wearing his mask. That made sense. We walked away but I still felt angry. 

Another example, before you wonder where am taking you to was even recent. A young lady dropped her children for catechism at the church but parked at a no parking area with the sign “danger” because of the transformer. She not only parked there but succeeded in blocking the road and causing an unusual traffic that Saturday morning. Extremely unapologetic, she threatened not to move her car because people berated her. At this point and very irritated, I told her she certainly had no home etiquette and she barked back at me saying the same thing. Wait for this, walked through the gates of the estate I noticed very long lines of people trying to come in through the visitor’s gate. The lines reminded me of the South African apartheid situation when Africans stood in long queues for everything. As I entered through the resident gate, I asked the security men why visitors mostly workmen had to wait for a long time to get in. As we discussed, a policeman came to me and said Madam please go your way. I tried to explain to him that I lived in VGC and I was trying to see how to help resolve a problem. He got angrier … Madam I say leave this place.. obviously I had my jogging trousers and tee -shirt, I could possibly not live here. He said Madam if don’t leave here I will seize your card, I see you are trying to help people with your gate card. I suddenly felt confused -it was almost as if I was at a police station trying to report a theft case and then am accused of stealing my own things. I said see this guy oh! That even made him angry. Ehn, you are calling police officer a guy he said. Okay am coming to take your card. I said oya (ok in Yoruba) come. (My local instincts took over) I was only worried now about managing my irritation. What will I do if he tries to wrestle my card from me? Luckily some intervention or perhaps someone whispered to him that I was a resident then he stopped. After that day, I decided it was futile speaking up. it will only get me insults and rile up my anger. Adopt a dignified indifference. I began avoiding areas that will make me irritable. Try and avoid the park if you can so you don’t find people smoking by the non-smoking sign, riding bicycles on the pedestrian part clearly marked no bicycle riding, ignore people who have mounted badminton nets on the grass that has been lush for several years, thanks to the maintenance fees of residents. My policy will be see nothing, say nothing 

Then Ukraine happened. Every day I heard the news, Anger and pain stirred. Why should a sovereign country threaten to attack another? Why should the world go through another tragedy after struggling to get out of one not even completely? Who will save the children, the aged once the shelling starts? What would you tell wives and children who will lose their fathers and husbands in a war they know little about, because a shirtless man tired of riding horses and mauling tigers in front of cameras just need to draw blood for his entertainment? How far will powerful men go? Will that give him the eyelashes or help grow his eyebrows? Who will bring back home several Nigerians who in pursuit of education and not able to afford US, Canada or the UK, have found affordable schools in Eastern Europe .. including Ukraine.

Then I remembered. the passage of the Holy Book. Be still and know I am God supreme above all the nations, supreme over all the earth. Pope Francis and I believe other world religious leaders are calling for peace prayers. Let us be the megaphone to call people to this unified prayer for peace. Speak out for peace. The world needs it.