By Femi Morgan

The impression about migration abroad, for Nigerian immigrants, keeps being laid bare by the factors of social insecurities. Since the disparity in socio-economic conditions became a debate of survival, Nigerians keep finding means to annex a world that promises a better economic climate. However, the reality on the ground is not a question of slurring one’s countryperson. For that would mean an outright denial of the survivalist acumen the condition casts on us. But to face the fact that stares us in the face.

That Nigerians abroad put up with challenges slightly more beautiful but have the same political backdrop as it is everywhere in the world. And as such, an average person migrating abroad does so with some optimism of balancing a certain life fabric. As much as that can offer about the situation at issue, Oluseyi Albert’s GOD’S GIFT ON THE LINE is a satiric short story highlighting a dramatic aspect of Nigerians’ adaptation outside their country.

The short story is set in a work place. The protagonist, Eseosa (Ese hence), has a duty to attend to a customer’s complaint over some property dysfunction. The entire call session is a test of patience whereby the caller is impatient about the protocol of registering his complaint. But on the other end, Ese deeply reflects on this requirement to put up with customers with flawed ethics. What follows is a dramatic reality and what really happens and why.

Beneath the theatrical call lies one sociological situation. In the context of this story, it is the malicious presumption about white and non-white co-existence abroad. Definitely, to directly say white and black will reduce the reality to existing racial slur and its attendant dialogue. Be that as it may, one cannot dispute that background from present matters of concern. But the workplace scenario is another level of humanity sampling. This is evident in Ese’s audible reaction to the caller’s unflinching disregard.

Of course, there is no visual contact between the duo, but their dialogue is proportionately reflective of social perceptions and the precaution one may not be primed for in conditions where it is impossible to dissociate with the tendencies of regressive morality.

In such white environment, GOD’S GIFT ON THE LINE would be a story that interrogates cultural civilisation. That concerns aspects where ethics is excused where customer satisfaction is quite sacrosanct. Many times, this foreign initiative has proved to expose some inadequate fabric in sheer human diplomacy. And which the employee is expected to succumb to! It is therefore ironic that the whole concept of employee training and orientation in a typical white collar job setting has a huge part of it designated for managing poor customer feedback. Or maintaining a terrible emotional outburst as the case may be.

Consequently the employee finds certain personal life repulsions aggravated. This is some anomy of white collar jobs: the repression of one’s ethical standards to accommodate the inescapable poor relationship over the line.

For Ese, who represents young Nigerians working abroad, her experience is an attractive function of adapting to an environment whose cultural orientation is derived from the indifference of linguistic equity. That is, language plays an important role in how we see the world.

The use of language in the text obviously projects cultural contrast. For the caller, it is one that is laced with pomposity of right; but for the receiver, apparently hers begs moderation, modesty, humility, and understanding. But under the present circumstance, all of that comes secondary to an obligation. That obligation, the whole idea of it, becomes a touchstone of what the migrant submits to in order to meet the goals of their escape.

There goes the satire. A universal concern for that matter. Unfavourable work climate and realities threaten joblessness everywhere. But in the case of Africans, migration only serves the purpose of meeting the economic demands. And while cultural orientation fails in one place, social reality is flawed in another. Everywhere has a mutually interdependent anomy. What happens here as a matter of existential discomfort ripples elsewhere for quite the same incorrigible outburst.

There is not now anything absolutely incongruous about the ruins and damnation of our accursed evolution. Africans will find their ethos threatened where cultural temperaments are quite harsh and insensate.

A rich sense of art in GOD’S GIFT ON THE LINE is the use of irony in two contiguous patterns of story telling. To be sure, the short story as an art form achieves its depth from the economy of words that embed literariness.

The first sense of irony in the story is the title itself. It may be taken as an expression of anxiety for the individual, the protagonist. In the same vein, it wittily criticises the precarious condition of African (but Nigerians here now) economic policies that keep forcing citizens to confront a similar breakdown elsewhere in the guise of better remuneration. That alone makes for the centrality of thematic structures in the story. That is, it is the major theme under which several others are layered.

The second is the situational irony that occurs in the story (as the reader will find).But equivalent to that is the appropriate and artistic tone and mood that obtains in the story. The tone is sarcastic, just as Ese banks on sarcastic humour – another element of satire – to undermine the shortcoming of the cultural civilisation among UK customers – and by extension, netizens.

Her reaction towards the social cultural flaw is a response and reaction to the political flaw back home. So that in reading the story, it is unmistakable the monologue that points to internal conflict. And that is just another savoury element of the story: conflict between social culture and political reality. The mood is anxiety. From the titular clue and subsequent emotional flush in the story, the crop of young Nigerians, Africans, and Europeans are anxious about the regressing socio-cultural standards. A deep dent on industrialisation as well as the optimism of revolutionising these affected pillars. God’s gift therefore be the human currency indirectly

To that end, Albert’s GOD’S GIFT ON THE LINE is a criticism of all God’s children. It casts aspersions on the civilisation of the world from the perspective of failed industries and the escape route acumen of the work-famished youth population. It is this and related prospects of literary background that combine to make the story a relevant theatric of a generation looking back in anger.

Morgan is a laurelled journalist, culture influencer and publisher