It wasn't really curiosity that killed the cat; it was the car. Perhaps the cat got pretty excited chasing that fuzzy looking ball - which had captured its curiosity - across the road that it didn't notice the car coming along in a hurried screeching pace. So the cat died, with the fuzzy looking ball now well out of its reach, but fortunately, in the hope of a happy ending, cats do have nine lives, but we on the other hand have got only one. And in the reality of a not-so-happy ending, in Nigeria we don't even have lives to live. We survive; and now we have a fuzzy looking ball tapping along the horizon of time into a foggy destination, and it seems we have gotten our tails locked inside a cultural frenzy that keeps us hopping after the fuzzy looking ball, into a destination unknown.

We all know that in Nigeria, we don't have the luxury of vehicles crushing us when we miss our way. Rather, what we have here are freight trains; the creeping line of military dictatorship, the busy line of corruption, the speeding line of human rights violation, the crowded line of poverty, to mention a few (we have been limited by corporate privacy laws of these booming businesses), all crushing generations and generations of great Nigerians, both known and unknown, from the past to the present and on they are on their merry way to the future. How interesting is it for our readers to observe that most of these trains have already arrived at the future and some of them have begun a return trip back to the present hoping to crush generations trying to rise from the ashes of the past. And what are we doing in anticipation of the inevitable recurrence of this looming catastrophe of daunting astronomical proportions? We are having a party!

Yes dear reader, in the midst of this dreadful quagmire, we are having a party. Perhaps we are taking the whole positive attitude thing a little too far. We celebrate a future of which we haven't the slightest idea how it will truly be (well, intrinsically, many of us still believe we are headed for doom, but no negative thinking here). We celebrate a projection, an assumption of a future we have no blueprint for. And then we give awards to ‘successful’ individuals; most of whom have no idea or a plan on how Nigeria's future should be. Sadly, in this country, we are yet to understand that although a man may have achieved material success, praise is only due when he effects positive changes into his environment and the nation as a whole. How much of his success has he diffused into the society he lives in and buys his success from? And by such, we do not mean “birthday-ly” visits to the orphanages with gifts, food and money (well video-taped into award winning documentaries and covered by media houses or blogged about on our international grapevine: Facebook). No! We mean a proactive alteration of the present in order to lay the foundation for a future that can hold promises. Having a successful business or living a materially successful life cannot and will not do that.

Thus, The Future Awards is a fanciful parade of dull vanities. At its best, it is yet a well celebrated excuse for another gathering for Rice and Stew Very Plenty (RSVP) – a well rehearsed performance that thrives on the recognition of wannabe celebrity cliques and young Nigerians who are obsessed with becoming the Visible-In-Public (VIP). What are we celebrating? Have we achieved so much in this present that the future is the only “thing” left worth celebrating? We are yet to begin true democracy; have a transparent government that is truly for the masses. We are yet to have in place a system that truly works thus deleting from our ambitions the hunt for greener pastures. Country citizens do not have the right to walk the roads without having their rights violated by the same authority that swore to protect them. We pay taxes for non-existent government services; we trade everyday in a corrupt, biased business environment and return home to food left over by the movers and shakers of the country. Yet here we are, celebrating a future and giving out awards to immortalize the folly. We truly are lost in our merry chase of the fuzzy looking ball.

And just as if to drive the whole mournful message home, The Future Awards parades an array of respected Nigerians like Prof. Wole Soyinka, Prof. Pat Utomi, Dr. Reuben Abati et al – all in a frenzy to secure credibility for the awards. While we are not averse to such generous patronage by the older generation, we believe that more caution should be exercised in the way and manner today’s numerous youth ‘initia-thieves’ are endorsed. What we really need is a future, not a party about the future. We need to truly believe in ourselves as Nigerians, for those of us born in this generation never had the pleasure of being proudly Nigerian. Most of us may deny this observation, but it is true. Many of us never had that pleasure, neither the luxury nor the obligation of being proudly Nigerian. We speak with a foreign accent which is the confused mix of the brisk east American English, Queens English and Nigerian English accent. Many of us today claim to be proudly Nigerian, we shout it on media mountain tops, and we have turned the phrase “Proudly Nigerian” into a quality tag put on all products as if assuring standard manufacturing quality. But we all know that we are not. We all harbour the secret desire of migration and when we have free time, we all chase self-rewarding projects which is probably all the time. Nobody truly thinks of Nigeria as a future destination of peace and well-being. We have to change our present thinking and actions. Only those who become successful in doing that should be given awards, if at all we really need to party.