By Adekunle Adekoya

I DO not know if you’d seen any of the Internet jokes about life and living in our dear country, Nigeria. There are quite many of them, and those who crafted them may have had making the rest of us laugh as their primary objective. One of such jokes, seen on Instagram, showed a conversation between the person posting and one of his respondents.

“Poster: Why do Nigerians pray less when they travel abroad?

Respondent: Because 70 per cent of their prayer points have been taken care of by governments there.”

Let me add another one:

“Poster: What do you do for a living?

Respondent: Be there asking me what I do for a living. Do you think living in Nigeria is a small job? I live in Nigeria for a living. Leave me alone!”

Funny, right? Ponder the jokes and while you laugh, it becomes clear that there is depth of thought underpinning the jokes, if indications are anything to go by.

Living in Nigeria, right now, is a very big job. It is also a very hard job. On all fronts, the average man is ringed round by near insurmountable obstacles. One very cheap thing here now is human life, given the frequency and ferocity with which it is taken, in large numbers.

The experience of the common man, daily, simply shows that life has become “nasty, brutish and short”.

It is now a major struggle to pay school fees, pay rent, feed, and commute; prices are rapidly shooting skywards.

If the omens are anything to go by, things are set for the adverse trajectory … higher prices of petrol, higher electricity tariffs, return of toll gates and more are on the horizon.

 Is it not true that living in Nigeria is a big, hard job?

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It is impossible to stay home and not go hungry; work is a must. If you venture outside your home, there is, now, no guarantee that one will return in one piece and in peace. In the towns and cities, killer gangs are roaming around, looking for victims to use for rituals.

Travel from one state to another, or even within one state is now a high-risk venture; gangs of kidnappers, often wearing uniforms that confer state authority on people so clad spring from the bushes along the highways and take hostages for ransom.

The lucky ones are ransomed and rejoin their families. Others not so lucky have been dispatched to untimely, unmarked, unknown graves.

Worse is even happening. You may be signing your own death warrant simply because you’re of an ethnic group in a particular area at a particular time.

Now, many states are evacuating their indigene students from the University of Jos. Nigerians evacuating Nigerians from one part of the country to another? Have we become Somalia? Or Syria? Or Afghanistan?

I had cause, last weekend, to urgently seek attention for a medical emergency. As you know, doctors are on strike. The private hospitals in our neighbourhood weren’t up to the task. After working the phones, I was able to secure a berth where the patient was admitted, some 22 kilometres away from our neighbourhood. I shudder when I ponder what my experience would have been. What if I didn’t have a car in which I moved the patient from one hospital to another?

Must I have a car? In other countries where the power elite has a sense of responsibility, all I needed to do was call emergency numbers and an ambulance would arrive to evacuate the emergency.

Only God Almighty knows how many lives are lost daily simply because people we trusted to do good things for us have left us in the lurch, while the undesirables have taken over the public space, kidnapping, raping, killing and making life generally harsh.

Now, back to the joke about 70 per cent of prayer points taken care of by governments abroad. See why our people throng places of worship? Even there, the ministers and mullahs seem to be the only beneficiaries, living fat on tithes and other contributions by worshippers.

What a setup!

Vanguard News Nigeria