Peeking ahead... BLEAK

Often, the thought of a better tomorrow provides the spur to keep one going through hardships and turbulence. The knowledge that a time is coming when all these will end and will be consigned to the past, only a memory to be visited sometimes, makes you resolved to go on. Such thoughts evoke a determination to stay the course, keep going, until the certainty of victory causes a cessation of the 'aluta'.

In the case of Nigeria, however, the situation is different. Where is the better tomorrow to look forward to going to come from? Is it from Benin Republic, that's even now gaining from the brain drain that is education in Nigeria? When will all these end? When will that time come? 2015 has already been compromised in our very before.

Where's the determination to stay the course? Where, the guts to keep going? The die is cast, there shall be no victory to assert for the common folks, for those without linkages (nay, 'connections') to the common till, for those with no one with a hand on the National Cake. Nothing to lighten the burden because when you look ahead, the bleakness stares right back at you, unblinking. Dark. Foreboding.

Look around. The dramatis personae are already spoiling for a fight. The consternation of political stars are already aligning for the epic showdown. The personages are not secret. Look closely at them all? Where's the Messiah among them? Yes, we shake our heads collectively with the stark realisation. There is no such person. We shall be the collateral damage when this fight is done and dusted. Or children, the bloody drumsticks for the battle soundtrack.

The Messiah has probably not been born because among these self-serving individuals, we see none to bank on, none on whom we can depend for the salvation of what could have been Africa's proudest nation and the jewel of the Black Race. They have made it clear: their first and final interest is selfish. And in doing so, they have successfully raised a nation of selfish people. Absolutely ingenious.

What this implies is that even the next generation that may succeed them, if they allow (since most of them have been around for as long as the memory stretches) will not be any different, worse maybe. The quest for the materialistic at any cost is behind all the crimes reported in the dailies perpetrated by the youths. They want riches, not by hard and sustained effort, but RIGHT NOW. So, even tomorrow is not guaranteed. Nothing, at present or in future, is there to lighten the pain of today's hardship. Nothing. Colour me obstinate but don't even get me started about praying.

Pessimism? Realism? Desolate-ism? Call it what you want. The stark truth is clear. The aluta will CONTINUA unabated for a long, long time to come. UNLESS...