Boredom is never a good place to be, neither is it a place of desire nor a place of attraction to those who labour for the gains, benefits, profits, surpluses or rewards of their hands, yet it remains a familiar place to be when labour is shed of its meaning and the labourer seeks salvation from the drudgery of working between the waking and sleeping hours. To be bored or not to be is a choice one makes to find that vacant room of self-absorption, of gloom, of indulgent preoccupation with one’s own interests, or to attain that state of being where one waits for oneself, that great moment of ennui when one takes time to explore or discover fresh ideas, walk on the avenues of thought to seek yesterday that is gone and tomorrow that is yet to arrive, or one looks for something of interest that one cannot resist once that state of being is attained. Whatever choice one makes, one either becomes the bane of oneself- the workshop of being where the devil frames every contemplated vice of the mind-of one’s emotions and interests or one simply becomes the one vice that is ugly and foul, to paraphrase Baudelaire.
In the weeks running up to the March presidential poll, I found myself in the quarters of boredom. At first, it wasn’t a good place to be; but as the seconds turned into minutes, into hours, and later into days and nights, I turned away from the lies politicians told unsuspecting voters to secure their inked thumbs to the avenues of thoughts and boredom became my motivating factor for seeking the tales of “the never born and never dead” and to uncover that “beautiful world” that TS Eliot famously attached beauty, ugliness, horror and glory to. In seeking “the never born and never dead”, yesterday that was long gone and the future that is yet to arrive, I returned to do the re-read of Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil and Eliot’s Wasteland. Between reading both masterpieces, I found a piece, titled, “Nigeria: Looking Beyond Electoral Promises”, written by a certain Obi Ebuka Onochie. I tried to turn away from it, but the opening paragraph held me back. This is it: ” in 1973, the then Nigeria Military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon went to Canada on a state visit. On that visit, something significant to both countries happened that is worth taken (sic) cognizance in our political decision today. The then Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau who had become of their best Prime Ministers of all times had a little toddler named Justin Trudeau. General Gowon…met him with his Prime Minister dad and shook the toddler’s hand”. I made a simple search for the photograph on the internet and subsequently saved it.
This week, the toddler, Justin Trudeau, was elected Prime Minister of Canada, having led the less fancied Liberal Party for two years. On hearing the news of Trudeau’s stunning victory, I fetched the photograph from where I stored it. Here it is: two years old Justin Trudeau standing on the blades of grass, the small geography of his right palm hidden inside the vast grip of the thirty-nine years old ruler of the most populous black nation on earth. A few minutes later, I tweeted the photograph with the caption, ” Circa 1973. General Gowon and baby Justin Trudeau in handshake. Today, Justin is the Canadian Prime Minister. Where are our youths?”. The tweeted photograph went viral within a few hours, notching close to a million retweets. The photograph is profound in two aspects. First, it points to that glorious past, that once-upon-a-time in our country when youthful putschists peopled our quarters of political governance. Neither the ages of the putschists counted for too little nor their experiences for too much during that period. Second, that Justin Trudeau could emerge Prime Minister of that powerful North American country two months to his forty-fourth birthday implicates and shames Gowon’s generation of the never dead- a generation that denies succeeding generations the exercise of real power that preceding generation never denied it.
That age does not serve as a bar to a nation of people seeking new ways of thinking and refreshing avenues of thoughts and actions, in order to confront the challenges of modernity and the complexities of state and nation building makes the triumph of Justin Trudeau at the Canadian poll more profound. Yes, experience in the job is as important as the vitality and the strength of character that youth offers. Like the mother hen, the experience of hatching its eggs comes with incubation- the sitting on the eggs. Inexperience cannot be used as a bar to attaining the highest political office anywhere, including our own dear native land. Justin Trudeau is lucky and he is truly lucky, doubly lucky to enjoy the providence of God and country and be saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the affairs of the Canadian state and his fellow citizens, not minding that he is the son of a former Prime Minister. This is beside the point, but I make it here for the sake of emphasis: if Justin Trudeau were a Nigerian, the grandees of the never dead generation and their hirelings would have reminded him of his age and his lack of experience. “Wetin your Fada forget for Aso Rock wey you wan go collect?”, they would have asked him. Here, too, dimwits would have rephrased the Jeremiad, “the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on the edge” as your father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, ate sour grapes and your teeth are set on the edge to remind him of the circumstances of his birth.
In spite of the narrowing of political opportunities, the youths of our country draw on the sad experiences of yesterday and the sadder experiences of today to map their uncertain future while still believing that “one day monkey go go market and im no go return”. Here is the breaking the news: monkeys that live in the banana plantation of our country will never go to the market in search of honey. Concluding, I imagine how my kindred-poet and good friend, Professor Pius Adesanmi, is feeling right now. That the forty-three years old Professor of English and African Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, renowned for the knowledge he produces and reproduces in and out of our public space, cannot have a look-in in his homeland while his peer, his contemporary, and his age-mate, Justin Trudeau, rules the roost of that country he has found intellectual fame and respect exposes the lie that “our youths are the leaders of tomorrow”. Will the self-absorbed and the never dead generation of leaders ever give up their tomorrows so that the Justin Trudeaus of our nation can possess today, so that the never born can have a rebirth? Will they ever be bored of power? Will they ever relinquish it? Time shall tell.
source-->Dailytimes.com.ng