It
is with a sincere but bewildered heart that I announce to you that my
love for my fellow countrymen is waxing colder by the day. I remember
when the charred corpses of the 2,000 Baga victims surfaced on the net.
Many of us would have mourned and made a better spectacle if it was our
N2,000 that fell into the drain.
Where on earth is Baga? Is it in Nigeria? Do people exist there? Honestly, we could not be bothered.
It
(just like many of us) was not always like this. I remember in 2013
when the #ChildNotBride hashtag was trending. I was genuinely moved. I
pictured a young girl scarcely out of her playpen, being launched like a
rocket into the realm of matrimony. I pictured a hoary man rolling over
her; I understood that her chances of escaping the VVF and leaking
urine like a faulty faucet for the rest of her life were very slim. I
was moved, my sympathy was provoked.
So, I
joined the bandwagon of other concerned citizens as we convened at
social media platforms and held e-rallies, brandishing our e-placards:
“She Needs A Pen Not A Penis”; “Early Marriage Robs Children Of
Opportunities”, etc. I even endured the dispirited debate between Stella
Damascus and Ahmed Yerima. But like all topics that trend, the end is
inevitable. So, just like Coke left open for too long, that topic
fizzled out.
Then, 256 girls were abducted by Boko Haram. That
was when I realised that the contagion of Sympathy Fatigue had caught up
with me. I was more thrilled to see Hollywood stars hold up their
placards and lend their voices to our plight. My feelings were more
like, “Wow, so these people know my country?” My favourite was the
United States’ First Lady, Michelle Obama, and the subtle anger on her
face, staring down Abubakar Shekau and his cohorts to
#BringBackOurGirls.
I saw pictures of Diasporans holding rallies
and events in their countries of residence, in honour of the missing
Chibok girls and I surmised that perhaps, only outside the shores of
this country can one truly feel sympathetic about the plight ailing it,
and that most people living in Nigeria who lent their voices to this
cause did so out of how fashionable the hashtag had become. I even
learnt that a night club had a party themed, #BringBackOurGirls, where I
imagined beer glasses were raised to toast to the missing girls.
Sometimes,
when I caught myself being unsympathetic, I would reprimand myself
thoroughly. It could have been my sisters, it could even have been me,
sitting for the WASSCE quietly one moment and the next moment the exam
hall would be stormed by masked men shepherding us into wagons to be
sold in distant lands. So I would hold a minute of silence for the
girls, but 30 seconds into it, I would be looking for where to charge my
phone.
I am not the only one with Sympathy Fatigue. The
virulence of this affliction is very high in Nigeria. Our sense of
camaraderie is comatose and our milk of human kindness has calcified
into stalactites of indifference. Something has eaten our conscience and
here are reasons why I think we have become blasé and indifferent.
Many
things have been abducted from us even before the 256 students and they
include our rights to proper education; our rights to basic amenities,
security, and proper health care. We have asked and asked for these
things to be brought back to us, till our voices have grown from hoarse
to silent. Two hundred and fifty six girls were carted off and we were
demanding their captors to bring them back, but how long did anyone
think their memories would linger? They are gradually being forgotten.
As
for the massacre in Baga, the only people who would be genuinely moved
would be those who have known the victims personally. Those to whom they
would not be mere statistics. The others can only tweet and write poems
for them and get on with their business.
I read people accusing
the CNN of giving the incident poor coverage and how it bestowed more
attention to the Charlie Hebdo victims, how it had shown the world again
that white lives mattered over black lives. And I ask, if the lives of
our fellow countrymen do not matter to us, is it the white man that
would leave his burger and cheese and come over here to organise a wake
for the victims? If our President hasn’t beaten his breast and mourned
at the tomb of victims, is it Barack Obama that would wear sack cloth
and pour ashes on his American head for the dead in Nigeria?
I
watched the state burial of the policemen killed at the Charlie Hebdo
incident. You could see the solemnity, you could feel the passion, and
you did not need a Christiane Amanpour to report to you that somebody
special had just died.
I do not know what would fan the dying
embers of patriotism into flame in our hearts, what would make us “do”
something to ease the plight of others because it appears to me that
everyone in Nigeria is either running his own autonomous community where
he is the king and chief dictator or he is thinking of how to whisk
himself out of this place by fire or by force.
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