FEATURE ARTICLE

Otunba IlemobadeFriday, September 4, 2015
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MARRIAGES, WEDDINGS @ BELLS AIN'T RINGING ANYMORE

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t was a chilly morning in the picturesque mountain resort town, situated in the idyllic North of Austria in the alps. While the early morning moo of the cattle can be heard from afar, I took a glimpse of the sun coming through the misty cold winter day.

All alone in my small but cozy hotel room waiting; but salivating expectantly to be served my breakfast, suddenly a call came in breaking the silence and serenity, immediately the atmosphere in the room became charged, who could that be I queried.

When I picked up the phone I heard the voice of my friend Lawal, he was furious with a high pitched tone of anger in his voice, they have ruined me he exclaimed, calm down, calm down, I urged him and before I could finish my sympathetic sermonization. He started in a proselike mannerism vomitingly talking in tongues.

My friend: I need your help.
Me: How do you mean, what is the nature of the help you need.

All these in quick succession as I asked my friend and I listened attentively to his narrative, about how he took a loan from the Bank to finance his/their marriage/wedding celebration "BOS STYLE" in grand fashion, surprisingly a year after the amalgamation of both families, something untoward happened that now forced him into bankruptcy.

My friend: I am now in debt.
Me: How do you mean.
My friend: I lost my job and cannot service my loan.
Me: What about your wife.
My friend: She is not co-operating at all.
My friend: No person from her family called to sympathised.

At that moment I had enough, not really intrested anymore in his cock and bull story, anyway I was not in any position to give him any structural adjustment programme, so I quickly cut him off with the story that my supervisor was at the door and that I needed to go now, but not without a promise to call him back. But my bells ain't ringing anymore.

The crux of the matter here is that the story of my friend is like the narratives of Nigeria, a nation born out of amalgamation/marriage of diverse nations, solidified with a wedding celebration at independence, with pomp and pageantry extravaganza, coupled with the hope of good governance till death do us part, has become an harbinger of despair in recent times to the world, just like my friend Lawal the materialist nigeriana.

https://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2015/aug/181.html

The celebration was fantastic.

Nigeria: a sacred nation in the making 1960, a land full of milk and honey, expectations were highest, suddenly just like my friend, the narratives of sacredness summersaulted, tumbled down the high horse we were riding, because our sacred cow was being milked right, left, and center without nourishment and the land of milk and honey have become a pauperized bolder in the desert, with its skeletal shell susceptible to the vagaries of the weather.

Nigeria has become infested with corruption, Boko haram, infrastructure collapse, Environmental decay, dictatorship, banditry, ethnic cleansing, etc the soul of our once happy nation is now depressed because the bells ain't ringing anymore.

Our Aphrodite with the bosom full of milk of human kindness has become a theater of self pity, a monument of infrastructure collapse, political architecture that is rent seeking, the wedding was to make us be the beckon of hope in Africa for the black race, the Giant of Africa, how come we have metamorphosed into a Liliputian.

We are broke, we go begging/panhandling the international community for structural adjustment, we fool around with the cry of marginalization and ethnic jingoism, we engage ourselves in self delusion, when the bells aint ringing anymore.

This is a call for action, for a neo- renaissance, for the citizenry rebirth, since no person/foreigner would build our eldorado for us but ourselves, since the bells ain't ringing anymore for Nigeria, also the bells ain't ringing anymore for my friend.

WE HAVE NOW AN OPPORTUNITY IN @MBUHARI TO CHANGE THESE NARRATIVES.

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