By Rilwan Muhammad
The realisation that I’d be 60 today didn’t even jolt me until I saw my children (Nigerians) in green and white T-shirts, some of them with ‘customised’ facemasks loosely placed about their face, ready to celebrate me at 60. Now that this corona virus has overstayed its welcome in my land, many of my children harbour the idea that one is only making an ass of oneself by wearing facemask. No wonder the fashion of wearing it is now for reasons other than protecting self from this little virus that has entered my nose and prevents me from sneezing freely.
It is not even this corona that disturbs me now, it is my children, the big ones that live and enjoy life in my capital house Abuja…did I ask them to celebrate me?
Let me tell you why I don’t like all the furore and the jubilation. By the way, that is the thing with bearing many children that you can manage and control. While some of my children are celebrating me today as I turn 60, many of them are just raining abuse on me. Had I known, would I have born them?
In 1901 I became a British protectorate, and that was when the white people began to exploit me. I don’t even want to have that recollection, it is nothing interesting. These days when I sit my grandchildren down for a folktale and myth, I deliberately skip the aspect where I was made to go through the mill by those white people.
Before 1914, I was not my whole self; a part of me was way apart from the other, but I was enjoying it all the same. I didn’t tell them I needed to be made in one piece. Even then, I had many children. You know I’m very fertile. Some of them in my northern land had their laws and all that was required of a sane clime. I nodded my approval when they told me they needed Caliphate system of government.
That continued until when Sultan Muhammad Attahiru was killed in 1903 in Burmi flying the Islamic flag against British domination.
It was later that my brave sons started fighting for me to be freed from the shackles of colonialism. I’m still thanking Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Nmamdi Ezikiwe, Aminu Kano, Awolowo, Anthony Enahoro and the rest of them. Now that I’m getting older, my faculty of recollection is gradually losing its efficacy, that is why I’m forgetting so many things.
When they fought fearlessly, I was paroled from the colonialists prison in October 1st 1960 under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth.
Three years later, they said it was time I became a republic. I didn’t object it. Azikiwe my bright son was made president and Balewa my beloved son prime minister.
And so they continued to look after me. They made sure I had all I needed, their penchant for helping and developing their siblings in my other lands is still a thing of celebration.
Four years before my Independence, oil was discovered in one of my lands. I was famous for my stable agrarian economy but the narration was later to take another dimension. I told them they shouldn’t play with food, they refused to listen and so I began to have problem feeding my children. After the Civil War of 1967, I had to summon all my children whom I assigned to look after my lands. I told them they should initiate agricultural policies and programmes so that none of my kids would come knocking on my door in the naked night crying for hunger.
Yakubu Gowon initiated National Accelerated Food Production Programme (NAFPP) in 1972, which saw the coming of Agricultural Development Programmes in 1974. Obasanjo inaugurated Operation Feed the Nation in 1976. Shagari came up with The Green Revolution. Babangida initiated Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure in 1986. I feared Babangida would not listen to me, but he did.
When Obasanjo came back under the civilian rule because my children complained they didn’t want the military rule, I forced him into launching National Special Programme for Food Security in 2003. Jonathan introduced Agricultural Transformation Agenda and my Buhari is still battling to make things work under his Agricultural Promotion Policy.
It is now that I understand the real problem of having many children. Look at the trouble! All the policies were only to provide food on the table of my family. Now I’m not even talking about children, it is grandchildren and great grand children. But since they all want me to call them children, so be it.
My problem now is, my own children whom I bore are losing faith in me. It sickens me.
These days I’m not getting sound sleep. Anytime I recline to have some rest, the realisation that good number of my kids are going to bed hungry jolts me and sleep eludes my eyes, that’s how I will wake up and sit on the edge of my bed in utter pang of discomfort.
Even I who bore these children that you now see and regard as big and influential, I go to bed without eating, sometimes. How can a caring mother eat in peace when some of her sons and daughters are not getting what to eat?
These days, our children do not listen to us. Look at what my children across my 36 lands are doing! It is annoying that many of them are not doing enough, and that is why the pressure is way too much for my old son that looks after the whole me. But I’m not vouching for what Buhari my son is doing. Me, I don’t know what is wrong with him. My old friend advised me to take this Buhari to a ‘traditional healer’, that it was not for nothing that he is behaving this way. I didn’t want disappointment, I just went straight to a local traditional healer without his consent and got some amulets that confer protection against evil, but when I gave them to him, he scorned at me and threw them away. That’s why I left him to his own devices now.
Now that I’m receiving goodwill messages on the occasion of my 60th anniversary as independent mother, I’m just getting vacillated between bursting into thunderous laughter and yelling a cry. Me, everything of me is just done against my inclination. Can you call this independence?
This corona that you talk about, if I were left to manage it my way, would I have shut down the country and throw my children into penury? Those people are still dictating how I steer the wheel.
Those friends of mine that we got independence together, are they not all prosperous now? Look at what they are producing, how the quality of life of their children is, how strong their economy is, how good their education is, how…how…how…I don’t want to talk about it.
I know it is an internal issue, but I have to say it. Amongst my children, there are good and there are bad ones. The few privileged ones I have now are not as those I had before. All they care about now is to amass wealth at the expense of the less privileged ones.
That is why I myself gave up. I’m fed up! My own children no longer listen to me these days. Why shouldn’t I forget about my existence then? I do not blame those who think my anniversary at 60 shouldn’t be celebrated. They are my children, I feel their agony. They are not being treated well. My gaining independence didn’t translate into impacting positively on their lives. I’m weak. I’m helpless. Those assigned to do the domestic chores have betrayed me and I don’t have the strength to force them to change.
Since I was told I’ll be celebrated today as I turned 60 as a free, independent mother of Africa, what reason have I not to appear in my best attire even if I have crises inside me!
Rilwan Muhammad can be reached via reedwandk@gmail.com 07061124918
