THE ONE WHOSE FACE IS VEILED

I sit in the bus, en route to Ibadan to deliver an assessment to my
boss. Tears besiege my eyes, big though they are. Big tears preparing
to experience gravity; who dares defy? Yet you could not see on my
face any signs of lacrimation… We Nigerians are masters of
concealment, maybe even deception; deceit even; we’re modern-day Mona
Lisa. Veiled as our faces are, we suffer and smile, we beat and smile,
we are beaten to smile; yet there is one suffering one cannot smile
through… As I endure the journey (what’s there to enjoy? the
potholes on the expressway? the preacher’s convictions pounding in my
ears while the true culprits are yet to be convicted? the local girl
acting ‘touche’ two seats away?) I think back to a time long before
now. A time now long ago; a time long before men hawked…

In the tradtional African setting that ours used to be, men where
breadwinners, women were homekeepers, children were just happy to be
children. There was plenty of food, concrete security, and no, as the
preacher just said, “bribery-corruption” or not so much as a billionth
of that which we now witness. The preacher easily attributes the
modern-day Nigerian situation to demons: demons govern all: greed and
selfishness, the very things that brought us here. Yet I know better.

Our men hawk for lack of jobs, our women die of AIDS or suffer in
contentment, our youths are delinquent or unemployed, and lately, our
four-year-olds spend eight hours in school! All for greed and
selfishness? I beg to differ. Our companies are dead or moved to
Ghana, our ports are congested, yet our Port Authorities ask for
bribes: Pay N120 000 or your containers won’t be cleared. To send
goods into Nigeria is a daytime nightmare for the whole world knows
that our ports are the messiest and our Customs, the greediest! The
whole world knows, save our President who seeks to empower them the
more.

As we enter Ibadan, Nigerians sprint to sell their meagre wares to us
passengers, yet Nigeria is never good at the Commonwealth Games nor
the Olympics. Greed and selfishness. For in Nigeria, neither ascension
nor recognition is not by qualification, even qualification is not by
qualification. It is by self, then relatedness, then by familiarity:
it’s ‘all man for himself’! Each man caters first for himself, then
for his family, then friends, then neighbours; however unqualified
they are. It is no wonder then that the best companies in Nigeria are
owned by strangers more often than not. No wonder that a group of
people can unilaterally recognise an individual as the Father of the
Nation. No wonder that the same Federation that threatened to sack
Keshi else impose a foreign technical adviser on him quicly changed
skin, chameleons, that they are, and threw dances and songs and
coughed out swallowed funds once he won.

It is rather incontrovertible that any group of Nigerians in general
deserves to be heard. But not just to be heard, but to be listened to.
Alas we find ourselves under rulers whose acquired (?congenital; as we
say in Medicine, “query congenital”) partial deafness prevents them
from perceiving subtle pleas but not blatant threats. Rather
unfortunately, the hospitals in Nigeria are unequipped to treat such
conditions. A situation well testified to each time any of our rulers
goes overseas for treatment, or admits their relatives into the
National Hospital, Abuja. Alas, we’re the one whose face is veiled.

In weddings, the bride’s face is veiled until the groom acquires the
authority to unveil it, usually after taking his vows. I thought
little of this until I realised that in those Indian societies where
the bride pays the dowry (as the groom pays the bride price in our
society), it is the groom’s face that is veiled. It therefore stands
to reason that the one is face is veiled is invariably the one whose
price is paid; after all, he calls the tunes who pays the piper.
Little wonder in Africa where the groom pays, he is allowed to have
other wives, polygamy; while in those parts of India where the bride
pays, she likewise is allowed to have other husbands, polyandry.

The one whose face is veiled. Ours is a democracy where the
legislature seeks immunity even as the executive misuses it. Where the
President will have to be dragged to visit a Benue State that he will
not declare unsafe for civilian residence but will nevertheless avoid.
Where our judiciary is accused of laziness. Where the First Lady is in
fact a First Dame, and all those things you very well know. Where a
political party is formed overnight to frustrate the opposition. Where
the ruling, nay, lording, party forms its own Governor’s Forum. Where
our treasury is deflated and our Naira is shamed just so their loots
abroad can acquire interest as well as value. Where schemes are made
to retain power rather than empower the populace. Where a chameleon
Federation is expected to cater for the Eagles, Green, Flying Or
Super, and outrage escapes each time the Eagles are in effect
chickens. Where assasinations go unsolved as clashes of interest go
unresolved. Where all that changes is nomenclature, not attitude, not
strategy, not personnel; and we’ve had the same ruler since the early
years of Tafawa Balewa’s tenure save a few times.

It is therefore unarguable that our face is covered. That we are
indeed paid for, or perceived to be. That our rulers, the piper
payers, will not but call the tunes, as long as we allow them to have
other interests, as long as we do not call them to account and hold
them responsible. As 2015 approaches, we must make sure that we are
given freely in marriage to the man, or woman, we love, for gone are
(or should be) the days when youths are forced to marry a particular
person, and gone should be the days when the Nigerian populace is
sold, face veiled, to the heightest bidder, or crook, only to become
lording husbands, rulers, “Flat narrow pieces of plastic, metal, etc.
with straight edges, that you use for measuring things or drawing
straight lines.” Alas, short rulers that they are, poverty cannot be
measured with them, nor can un-education; yet they are too crooked to
rule straight lines. Isn’t it then safe to say that these rulers are
useless?

In the mean time, one can only hope that our veil is removed, or rent
in halves as the one in the Temple of Jerusalem, or that our husband
falls in love with us as some enforced husbands have been reported to.
That those responsible for rearing the Boko Haram become a rarity in
our land as well as our affairs. That the god who raised The Dame from
the dead may cure all the deafness, ineptitude and/or apathy that
afflicts our rulers and their cronies and their lords, the
piper-payers cum godfathers cum cabal.

Ayk Midas Afowoolukoyasire is a penultimate-year medical student at
OOU/OOUTH, Sagamu, Ogun State.