On this blessed Friday and as the working-week winds down, I am puzzled. The puzzle stems from the news that 92 percent of Nigerians are unhappy. In actual terms, this figure has been arrived at, by the news report that only 8 percent of Nigerians are happy.
So, it takes just a little bit of calculation to arrive at the fact that indeed, 92 percent of our fellow countrymen and women are steeped in sadness-unhappiness. Still, and if I may reiterate but it was only in the recent past that we were regaled with the news that Nigerians were indeed the happiest people on earth.
When this particular news item about our happiness started to make the rounds, most of us had to do a reality check. That indeed, can this roseate situation be the case?
Something tells me that this bit of reckless optimism has since been replaced by a more realistic perspective. So the immediate foregoing may well explain the latest take that only 8 percent of our country folks are happy.
It must be noted here that Wole Soyinka in his latest offering has since lent his literary stature to this debate in his latest work titled: Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth.
So there you have it, Soyinka has seemingly negated the pessimistic contention that most Nigerians are unhappy. But watch it. This is just the way of novelists. Such is their artistic imagination that they have a way of saying what they do not mean. I do not know the technical name for this literary device. But this much is clear; it sets you thinking. And in the process, one gets jolted.
Incidentally, let me make a confession here. Although I bought the book; I am yet to finish reading it. But I have read all the reviews and the oral depositions of Soyinka himself. And it becomes clear that indeed, and as codified by him, Nigerians are unhappy people – despite the title of his book.
In speaking to this issue, my own personal observation is that it is easy to be chloroformed about realities in contemporary Nigeria.
If you live in one of those up-scale areas of Lagos; get your children ferried around in those fine cars and on a regular basis treat yourself to those exotic meals in the various swanky restaurants which abound in Lagos, chances are that you will be happy. But this happiness is likely to come with a certain level of insulation, which most of us are not aware of.
Let me illustrate what is being said here with one or two examples. You are on your way to get that visa at the designated place. In seeking to access the place, you are faced with a crowd of hustlers.
They are badgering you, offering you services that relate to your primary mission at that embassy. For whatever it is worth, those fellow country men and women of yours will on an average day, go home with say N5,000, which is really on the high side.
But understandably, you are not really thinking of these hapless persons. You are focused on getting that visa. But wait. Those people badgering you may never see the inside of an aircraft until they finish their mandate on this side of the earthly divide. That surely is one of the 92 percent that is not happy. Or take an incident like the relatively recent strike by the judicial workers.
While the industrial action lasted, there were invisible victims of this episode who did not get any mention in the media. I refer to those army of the deprived who make a daily living in the vicinity of our courts.
These are photographers, owners of photocopying machines, and the ‘manufacturers’ of affidavits. I had cause to pass by one of the courts and I saw this group of people-despondent, for, there was no market. I could not but wonder about the hardship that they had to undergo while the industrial action lasted.
Again take a look at the informal sector in our various tertiary institutions. Any time, there is down-time occasioned by the regular industrial actions in the universities; this translates into stark penury for those who are members of this informal sector. And of course, chances are that they will number among the unhappy Nigerians.
Even then, as a Nigerian, if you appear to have it all, a little thinking will jolt you into appreciating the searing and brutalising reality that many of our fellow Nigerians have to contend with. Now and then, I take public transport, sit in a corner to soak in the atmosphere.
The mood is always somber and grim. And for me, this is actually an isolated experience. Yet for thousands of people, that public transport; overcrowded, sweaty, and crunchy is a day-to-day reality for a lot of our compatriots in this land.
However, even as a member of the privileged class, if you elect not to have this kind of experience, chances are that through the various news items, especially the unfiltered ones, you are bound to be unhappy.
And if you think hard enough, even if you are privileged, your worth as a Nigerian is constantly being challenged and questioned, by some of those news items. Under the circumstances, can one really be happy?
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For instance, there was a news item to the effect that South Africa has decided to impose quotas on the number of Nigerians who will be given employment in that country. You wonder why and sigh; for this is a clear attempt at stigmatization.
But then, you think deeper. When a country’s labour force i.e. Nigerians decides to empty virtually wholesale into another country, then the receiving country has to take some action.
Or when the British High Commission decides to announce gleefully that it will take six weeks for them to process a visa for you. For the discerning, the mind goes back to the entire gamut of Anglo- Nigerian relations. Slavery, colonialism, and post-colonialism as well the attendant and forcible transfer of resources from here to there.
And yet despite the immediate foregoing, they look you in the face and implicitly tell you that you are not wanted in their country. So even as a member of the elite who wants to travel, can you count yourself as one of the happy Nigerians?
Even then, and in an overall sense, there is something very ominous and factually threatening in a society in which 92 percent are unhappy and 8 percent are happy. This is why, my charge to the latter, has been borrowed from the Greek writer who said: call no man happy until he has carried his happiness to his grave in peace.
And certainly, there can be no peace in a situation like ours, where 92 percent of the country is unhappy. The seemingly happy 8 percent are actually sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Better still, they are playing with fire!
