Guns, oil and steal

The pains of a failed Biafra still live and are spilling like the oil that drilled its demise. Sentiments of bitterness invade the discourse of ex-revolutionaries that now visit The Hague every few months to report to their employers about the state of the state deferred. Although ‘One Nigeria’ enthusiasts preach the good word of unity, their rhetoric is exposed in daily soap-opera-like headlines that crow the cock of sheets that recounts the tales of politicians pocketing unaccounted revenues. Meanwhile, poverty pimps cry crocodile tears for the poor and disenfranchised and call for ceasefires while the pot of pain over boils in equatorial heat of madness.

Wombs exposed to toxic flares never go full term. Mouths that fed off the land now have sores caused by the petroleum-poisoned soil. Hands strong enough to build new nations now carry black market guns as a new marketing scheme. And this tragic anatomy of the colonised, have eyes and ears that are distinctly aware of the fact that their reality is a nightmare. Over fifty years of fossil fuel extraction with nothing to show but CNN specials on sensationalised African gangsterism. Oil, oil everywhere and no healthcare system in sight. Na bi too much o! When the memories of Boro and Wiwa now go for the lowest price of $1.71 a gallon and names disappear in history books to be replaced by inflated Naira notes of the inane stock exchange. Dis stain no fit kommot easy.

Nigeria lives at the crossroads with a choice pattern between varying degrees of implosion or explosion. Joint task force of opposing interests make a mockery of the well-known irony of professed unity. Transnational pimps play puppet master beckoning zombie loyalists to walk towards the road marked ‘Explode’. As for road number two, the path of internal combustion, Sodom and Gomorrah are compatible metaphors for the Naija game board of kidnappers and robbers. As the rules of the game change daily, both the gun and the word burn fire from the oil flares that occupy the minds of the rich and poor… all players play with no sense of purpose and live devoid of destiny.

As citizens stall for time by trading Obama t-shirts at Christmas festivals in the go-slow of failed road policies. And as they wait for the second coming guaranteed in the prophecy that prescribed that things must fall apart before coming together, old men still drink palm wine and tell senior jokes under iroko trees. Weddings still occur as daily ritual. Elaborate funerals of accomplished elders still fill social calendars. And although the young worry about finding funds to bribe for school results, Nollywood takes notes from Big Brother and pacifies response… leaving the crossroads to be crossed on another day.

But to seize the moment! To steal back the time and use it to organise for tomorrow. To hop on another train that is neither interested in imploding or exploding. To disconnect the association between the terms ‘Niger Delta’ and ‘crisis’. To regain consciousness from the slumber of petroleum drunkenness. To remove the mark of the beast and rename it freedom. To not be jaded by the lies told about unity. And to want to go to heaven, willing to die first. This is the moment that hope restores in a land of the hopeless. This is the only form of unperfected theft that must be mastered. This is thee only way to get out of this mess.

* Chioma Oruh is a graduate student at Howard University in the African Studies Department with a focus on music and liberation movements. She is also a member of the African People’s Socialist Party and is one of many organisers for the upcoming African Socialist International North American Conference.
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