Bimbi's Mind

     I used to pride myself with the fact that I had never seen a dead body before. The time that I almost saw one was when my father died. He had an accident on his bike, the bike which he used for his business, to ply that Incompleted road the government had been constructing for six years. They said it happened in the middle of the night, his bike was hit head-on by one of those local trucks that didn't have headlights. I could imagine his body mangled up covered with sores and cuts. I didn't go for his burial, I didn't cry for him.      My father drank too much with the little money he made, rather than going for his burial, I chose to go to school. That was 3 years ago, I have since dropped out of school. I dropped out because I hated the place. I hated the teachers telling us we would not make it, I hated it when they called us animals whenever we made noise, maybe we would have been quiet if only they took the chance to teach us well. The...

        Welcome to Nigeria, where class is as important as the food you eat. Welcome to Nigeria, where your class in society determines the quality of air you breathe. Welcome to Nigeria, where your class would determine how you would be treated, and spoken to. Welcome to Nigeria, where the classless do not get jobs, where CVs are just formalities to avoid unnecessary questions. Welcome to Nigeria where traders tag different prices depending on how you are dressed. Welcome to Nigeria.            Mr A once told Bambi about his experience sometime ago in a western state. He parked at the side of the road and tried to open his door when a middle aged man who was walking past was hit by the car door. In a dramatic western fashion as they are known for, the man stops as Mr A tries in futility to beg him. He turns squarely at Mr A as he asks him in rhetoric that "was it illegal for people without cars to walk? Can I ...

In a third world county deeply rooted in culture as nourishment, where we carry our culture on the satchel on our neck the way a freshly harvested tuber of yam carries humus sand. We see culture as what differentiates us from the white man. It does not necessarily make us better because deep inside, we envy them, we envy their progress, their precision in behavior and hygiene, the colour of their skin and even their hair. But we, because of culture, we feel we stand higher than them in the hierarchy of morals. And we revel in it. We revel when they come to our festivals and as a result, we put on more of a show. Our masquerades flog harder. Our women move with more vibrancy. To show we take culture more seriously than them, and to rub it in their faces, that they have no culture to call theirs. The same culture we revere has left us behind the rest of the world in the usual fashion. We have witnessed struggles for human rights over the centuries. We have witnessed the figh...