After more than two years of travelling through Nigeria, Trouble comes to these conclusions about the country, its people, ordinary and extra ordinary, its land beautiful and overwhelming, its prospects, dependent on prayers and on themselves. It is a wonderful land put together by the hand of destiny. If the British did not put a country together around the two great rivers of Niger and Benue, some other people would have done it. Nigeria was a country waiting to come into being, given the resources, which had gathered around its potential boundaries. Human resources and natural resources.

The first conclusions he has come to is that Nigerians love Nigeria not because of the quality or quantity of goods and services, or even the competence or lack thereof of those who attempt to provide these. They love Nigeria out of their own being, in relation to what Nigeria has made of them – because of family, because of friends and because of the sheer abundance of the land. They love the forest with its myths of tree types taking time during the night to visit one another, animals meeting to deliberate how to save the country, deserts begin their journeys to the sea to consult with the other natural phenomena to restore the country. The desert, like so many physical items of the country need not make the journeys if everything was fine. But they say all is fine when all is not fine.

The second conclusion is this. Our most loved and cherished currency has been devalued and counterfeited and in these two processes, assassinated. Today we are satisfied with managing, coping and trying when we speak of our poor goods and services. After all this is Nigeria. These are expressions of the acceptance and complicity with mediocrity. Someone who is coping with cooking without tomatoes by ignoring tomatoes, someone who is trying to make pounded yam out of pasta, walahi that person refuses to think of tomorrow. Someone who discovers that the medications that he had given to his relative in spite of which the relative died an unnecessary death and says this is Nigeria after all is nothing but a mediocre human being. Someone who calls his child one after the other you are fool, you don’t know anything, you are no good, what can one expect from you, look at your good-for-nothing father, look at your always-moaning mother!

Language describes our reality, language creates our reality, language reflects us in our reality. What we say to Hear, he hears! Hear, hear us!! What we say to Accept, he accepts. All those who are in charge of Acceptance, accept of us! It is because of this magical possibility of our language that we need to apply rigour; that we need to be rigorous about the language that we say.

The third conclusion is that it does not matter which political party is in power, it does not matter, which ethnic group is using power, Corruption is in control. Corruption makes the decisions. Corruption calls the shots. Corruption takes all the rewards. Corruption is everywhere! And therein lies the rub! Corruption is so pervasive that, like rain it benefits all of us. Nobody is left out. We hate it on the street but sleep with it in the bedroom. We condemn it in others but treasure its blessings in our hearts. Nobody can survive in Nigeria without the contribution of Corruption. Nobody can die either without the cooperation of Corruption. Corruption has become the defining issue in matters of life and death in Nigeria. We love Nigeria in spite of the pre-eminent position that Corruption has assumed in our lives and in our deaths. We dream of another Nigeria where Corruption would have no role.

That Nigeria, for now, is impossible. How do you stop hospitals set up to produce babies for sale? How do you stop wholesale and retail of human parts? How do you stop small time kidnappers and big time adultnappers? How do you stop the trans-Sahara and trans-Mediterranean transporting of adults as well as kids for employments of sorts in Europe? How do you stop parents doing exams for their children? How do you stop hospitals quitting buildings designated for doctors and nurses and proper drugs and operating theatres? How do you get fathers raping their daughters and sons killing their fathers? How do you manage a country full of all known and unknown crimes? Only Corruption can be so all-embracing as to carry out such a feat. We need courage, we need skill, we need strength to defeat the many crimes in our country. We have no doubt that we have the skill, we have the courage and we have the strength but we have not been able to call them forth. The courage is what we need to confront Corruption.

Corruption is a collective noun. We cannot confront it as single individuals. Corruption is like apartheid, a sin against humanity beneficial to some by the victimization of others. It was not fought singly. Like in the case of apartheid no two people agreed as to how to defeat it. But everybody agreed that it must be defeated. And at the end of it there was a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What is the truth of Corruption? How do we reconcile those who have been the beneficiaries of Corruption to the rest of us smaller littler beneficiaries? How do we forgive ourselves?

We love Nigeria not because it has been able to give us to eat and to live but because Nigeria gba wa l’aye! Nigeria permits us space! Space to do and to undo. Space to do ‘good’ and space to do evil. We will further our love of our country if we decide to do ‘good’ with the space Nigeria gives us. If we want goods and services, we must do good and provide services. Hallelluyah!