My children often have a saying when any one of their siblings are being ridiculous. ” Oya show yourself now'” all falling over themselves in peals of laughter. I did not understand what it meant for a bit.
But if for example they had all decided against going out and one of them decides she would escort me for an ice cream they would yell at that one. Oya show yourself. But after a while I began to understand it in the bigger Nigerian space as character. For example, if Mama Peter was a quarrelsome person and she had started to bristle over an inconsequential issue, those who know her would then begin to say; Mama Peter wants to show herself.
In other words, her character would soon come to the fore. Over the years I used to be so upset when I travel, and somebody uses a tar brush to paint me like some of my countrymen misbehaving all over the world. In fact one day, I was invited off the queue at a faraway airport somewhere in a less elevated country because I was wearing Ankara and my passport was green. Nigerians had majorly shown themselves in that country and now every Nigerian that went through that airport was a scam. The self-appointed showing of some Nigerians in Dubai, the UK, China and other European and African countries has led to many visa laws that has affected many innocent citizens who are going about their normal businesses in these countries.
Nigerians are denied credit and are deprived of concessions because some other brothers and sisters of ours have gone to show themselves in these countries
Nigerians are denied credit and are deprived of concessions because some other brothers and sisters of ours have gone to show themselves in these countries. These cousins of ours are propagating scams, some are high end drug barons while others are busy carrying the flag of advance fee fraud aka the yahoo yahoo phenomena. But this is the country that also has some of the most brilliant people in the world. It is we the people that produced the Amina Mohammeds and Okonjo Iwealas of this world and at home and abroad Nigerians have the finest minds. Yet we still show ourselves in all manners of places.
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Even the most brilliant of our kith and kin still show themselves much to our eternal chagrin. Or how do we define the various means we have devised to thwart the naira redesign policy. We have been showing ourselves in multiple ways. When I saw a story of someone who said he had gotten a new business as a result of the naira redesign policy where he got on the queue at ATM’s and sell his space to desperate citizens and would queue again at the end of the line making a brisk 3,000 naira per space. The story is further told about how he makes 21,000 naira a day by selling queue spaces. Whether it’s true or not I cannot ascertain but if it was not so sad it would be hilarious and ingenious. But it is not funny.
Many Nigerians who are beneficiary of massive fraud celebrate their benefactors as Sharp guys or a Sharp girl. We turn ourselves into crooked spaces and elevate it as how the world should operate at our whims and caprices and if they are not going well, we blame everyone but ourselves. The banks have let us down.
We hear some bank staff are showing themselves and selling 20,000 naira for 15,000 while others are taking personal 10% from anything you draw. In the meantime in the early days, one person was drawing half the money in the ATM with 5 cards leaving us plainer fellas with nothing left to draw. There are tales of banks shouting to high heavens about how they have no cash only for authorities to find new monies stashed in their vaults.
I have received 2,000 naira in 50 naira notes once when I showed up at a bank. No new notes and no old ones. A black market has sprung up for new notes and the stories across board is so bad as they are bizarre. No matter how well intentioned we always have a way of muddying the waters…showing ourselves. We have shown selfishness and disrespect for the work we swore to uphold.
How do you explain to yourself and to God how you short changed citizens, some who needed cash for hospital bills, some just to eat…you took out more than you needed…and in some instances somebody died because of your greed…There you have it.. Now bankers are scaling fences to avoid the wrath of their countrymen. Something in the air. My daughter describes the early massive withdrawal as acting like its apocalypse. Typical with us we left it till last minute and then started panic withdrawals. Something in the air…in the ultimate showing of ourselves. Hod help us all…Amen.
