₦airaland Forum

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TOPIC:FAMILY
GENRE:FICTION/SHORT
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*I DON'T KNOW*

It was a day like any other day, except today was different, after the hectic classes and the perpetual cramming, I got second position. I knew that meant death for me, as my father had threatened me severally, saying he would disown me and kill me after. My dad sent me to school after the incessant begging from my mother and him repeatedly saying, "she will pack to her husband's house the moment she grows breasts"
He eventually agreed and had the phrase "if you're not the best, you're not worth the rest" engraved into my brain tissues.
This was my coat of armor, I wore it day and night as I studied, I barely ate; I had turned to skin and bones before my mother's eyes.
All this only to have my right stolen from me because I couldn't afford to bribe the teachers like Rhoda, Chief Okoro's daughter.
Getting home, I had already accepted my fate, my dad was outside our two bed roomed bungalow, I silently handed him the result.
He said nothing, just walked in, brought out a whip with my mother directly in tow, started whipping me, all around the house, to the rooms, till I couldn't run anymore, all the while my mother was screaming for mercy. He kept beating me, I saw black spots, I was going unconscious, when it suddenly stopped, my mother had pushed my father and his head hit the bed frame, he was bleeding!, and he wasn't moving.
My mother immediately took action, she told me to start up a fire, burning our refuse at the backyard, I dragged my weak and aching body to the backyard, poured petrol and started a fire. She dragged his body into the fire, our neighbors weren't around, they had gone to the city for easter, and it was quite a common practice burning our refuse.
We stood side by side, watching as his body burnt, wondering what we had done.
My older brother came back from the farm in the evening all smiles, chatting on about how he got extra money, because the madam liked him, but I was too preoccupied with numbness of mind and the pain I felt all over. Suddenly, my brother stopped and asked us;
"Where's Papa, I haven't seen him since I got back."
I was too shocked to say anything, but my mum replied on time saying;
"I don't know, he hasn't gotten back from the farm yet"
© *Nikemi*
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CORRUPTION IN THE COMMON PLACES
I've refused to be captivated by the gloomy gold of unspeakable deeds conspicuously laded on the high places. I stand to be myopic if you say so, but critically, palpable darkness has enveloped the bottom of our mountainous nation, but my people are busy in the merry-go-round of parade for the rotten goodies at the top. Let's come home a bit, charity begins at home. We can't all be there! If the top is bad and the bottom is nothing to talk about, what then are we doing? Our knife will be falling flat if tossed up thousands of time. I have not seen where two wrongs can make a right. If the light can't be ignited and reflected downward from the top, we can start from the bottom where we are. In essence, I'm saying, why do we try removing the bit of corruption from the eyes of our political friends while we have a bunch in ours.

Trust me, I'm not trying to defend anyone here, but I'm wearing the shaded glasses of justice to use the blade on our skin and make us see how it feels when we use it against others. We all get decaying wounds hidden underneath our cloaks, but when the air blows and exposes others, we laugh at them and forgot ours. Let's take it together and stop the hide and seek game. The weight of corruption is too enormous than to bite a chunck at a time, so I will only refer to some. However, what's important is to accept the bitter truth and swallow it with humility. The entirety of the society is wallowing in the pool of decadences, but we don't feel it since we already dignified ours, therefore, the ember keeps glowing in a vehement force and hurting us alongside. This is a truth we all know, but who will be so humble to agree that the huge dung collectively gathered by all is what we call corruption?

The same civil servants who reduce age and refuse to retire will blame Buhari for his second term ambition. Yahoo guys will come out and cry that the police men are extorting them illegally, but what do they do? We accuse the management of misappropriation, allow us to form a committee that will protect the right of the people and test them with little money. They will fail. What about the student Union that beaks bottle and fight shamelessly on money? And the same student that just condemned such act openly will secure bedspace for three thousand naira and sell it for One Hundred Thousand naira. Yet, only the government is our problem. What about those that hoard petroleum just to cause scarcity and make people buy expensively? but the same people that condemn it will be found doing black market. Please, who are we deceiving? We say our politicians falsify money documents, but what do we call those that change answers when they check their friends own in exam hall? Are they not the same sin? You will only see "A pastor impregnated his church member...", can we claim it doesn't happen from church members too? But no one will talk about that. Actually, I think our problem is not our leaders but those that blindly see corruption passing underneath their nose but kept searching for what is never lost.

Angels won't come from heaven to rule us. The society will keep producing what we are adding to it. This is the reason we have successive liars and thieves in the seat of government. If we want to kill corruption, we start with individual, then home, society and finally the country. Stop looking for what is not lost, corruption is in the common places...check your pocket.
MARLOO

WHAT CAN CAN'T DO, CAN CAN DO
....Does this really make sense? Yes it does

That poster really caught my attention! No doubt that it does same to you, this is a political poster that offers a bid for pity, consideration and acceptance. But then, the text is as empty as void itself. The author should be a motivational speaker. To, me the text lacks all senses of action. Anyway, I love to see people using language in this kind of beautiful way as this confirms to me that language, really, is a carriage of ideology. But should I fold my arms and allow people cheaply falling into the trap? No!

A colleague of mine, Gbolagade Taiwo has made it easy to understand, put APC to replace the first 'can' and use PDP to replace the second 'can'. Then, the statement will be clearer thus: what APC can't do, PDP can do. Yes, very correct. But while I'm not interested in what the text appeals to portray, rather I'm focusing on the intrinsic value of it. So, I won't take the replacement as it will only cushion the hazard of the text and make it more deceptive.

Let's face it, the expression has two nominal "can", one in the first part of the sentence marked off with a comma, and the second at the other part.
Thus:1) what CAN can't do,
2) CAN can do
Please, first note that the middle can't & can are both verbs while the initial "CANS" in capital letter serve as the subject. Also, have it in mind that the meaning of can, generally (either as verb or noun) is CAPABILITY. So, both the subjects have something in common whether it represents PDP or not, that's capability. Therefore, either you replace the first can as APC or vice versa, the point is, both CANS are the same set of people who know the right things, have the ability, but will never do it because of their selfishness. Obviously,
The meaning of the statement is that: "what someone who is capable is incapable (or being made to be incapable) to do, then someone who is also capable has the capability to do it." But this doesn't tell us the second CAN will do it. It only repeats what we already know. Read the text again and you will get it.

Sincerely, the above text only presents our leaders or representatives as people who are not ready to take action, but rather blame others and appeal to our sense of pity to accept him/her without giving any offer. It's like saying black is black or White is white. The text is just giving only information about the prowess of our leaders, which they have failed to deliver or not ready to do. For this reason, I've only seen the campaign poster as a scam to brainwash the readers...

MALOMO TUNDE EMMANUEL

sinaj:
They have the belief that Nigeria is an oil producing country, hence they shouldn't work, but be given all they want in life for free

What does this mean? How did he come about it
Nigerian youths shouldnt be likened to his kids that dnt work but recieve everything in life for free.

Frm the way they loot money without conscience, I doubt if their 5th generation will evn work for money

He should make jobs available first nd see if the youths wnt jump at it

Btw u must be high to open this kinda thread Op Is as if you want the souls of those that died during dat immigration exercise to hunt you this night for spewing this rubbish

that's how some ppl will still fail after seeing an expo...try and reason please

CRITICISM ON PRESIDENT BUHARI'S SPEECH:
"We have a very young population; our population is estimated conservatively to be 180 million. More than 60 per cent of the population is below the age of 30. A lot of them have not been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria has been an oil producing country, therefore they should sit and do nothing and get housing, healthcare and education free.”

COMMENT
As a critic, I've taken my time to objectively study the statement of our president, and therefore, coming to the conclusion that the statement wasn't intended to hurt Nigerian youths but to correct some beliefs and orientations. This is not just a claim inspired by bias nor generated from sentiment. Rather, it's from a comprehensive study backed up with some linguistic evidence. This can't be done without some realistic cognitive references though, since language and society are inseparable and mutually inclusive.

To start with, the first sentence of the president's controversial excerpt above, graphologically, doesn't end without a semi-colon which literally suggests that the other parts of the statement is a buttress of the preceding one. "We have a very young population: .." semantically, the affirmative sentence suggests that, WE, Nigerians, have not just been populated with young people, but the intensifier (very) places it beyond the average level. Also, an affirmative statement requires a prove, and that has necessitated further explanation which logically, probably, makes the president assert some facts about the population that it is conserved that we have 180million of people, and sixty plus percentage of the whole 180million Nigerians are below the age of 30years of age. the first sentence was never in isolation, therefore, the other parts should be seen as the continuing effort to complement the preceding one.

In the same effort, the president systematically digressed to another issue under the same topic of population. And that's the last compound-complex sentence presented to accommodate the enormousity of the huge sub-topic. If objectively observed, the last statement doesn't paint the picture of a lazy people, but a picture of some set of people who, even though they av the energy to work, would not do so because of their claim (Nigeria is an oil producing country). The last controversial compound-complex sentence has two main clauses linked with a conjunct 'and', while the last part is a subordinate clause introduced by a resulting adverb "therefore". And the adverb, therefore, marks the conclusion of the statement of the president with the two other main clauses serving as the premises. In the simpler term:
Premise1: A lot of them have not been to school
Premise 2: And they are claiming that Nigeria is an oil producing country
Conclusion/claim: Therefore, They should sit and do nothing and get housing, healthcare, and education free.
Let's be cautious at this point, before I proceed to the next clarification, something is still ambiguous in the conclusion and that is the "They" Mr president refers to. Trust me, i won't go beyond what we have in the text. So, the plural pronoun "they" used in the statement is an anaphoric reference item which meaning can't be suggested in oblivion of the previous sentences. Therefore, it prompted the question of who are the "they"? And necessitated a revisit to the previous sentences. And as I've explained in the previous paragraphs, the 'they' are the MAJORITY out of the 60 per cent population of Nigerians who are under the age of thirty. Now this implies three things:
1) The 60% of 180million (108million) Nigerians are under age 30
2) A lot of 108million Nigerians are not educated and claim Nigeria is an oil producing country. NOTE: A lot could mean anything from 60% upward. And that means assumably, the 60% of 108millions (65million) Nigerians out of 180million population are the " They " we are talking about.
3) We still need to get the percentage of the children out of the 108millions before removing the 'a lot'.
My claim with the above analysis is that the president didn't refer to all Nigerian youths as being lazy. In fact, youths age ranges beyond 30years of age...and not even all under the 30 ages are concerned, it's only those who are not educated and rely on Nigeria as an oil producing country.

Now, having clarified the "they" in the conclusion, there is still a need to objectively check through the content of the claim (subordinate clause) if it depicts laziness or not. Before I leap into the analysis proper, I will like to clearly affirm the fact that considering the three major division of Nigeria tribes: Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba, the number of educated youths varies from each other, as the educational terrain of Nigeria is sloppy, abandoning some other regions at the disadvantageous part. Therefore, the fingers are not equal. So, we should begin to look at things holistically as the president is grouping the "they" as Nigerians under age thirty, part of which are not educated and claim that Nigeria is an oil producing country.

Without digressing too much, the claim of the president is that, the above described people, want to sit down, do nothing, and enjoy housing, healthcare and free education. Linguistically, the implication of the claim is not that Nigerians, "they", are lazy. Let me Make it simpler, the structure of the sentence is basically, SVOA - Subject, Verb, Object, and adverb. The analysis is:
Subject ----They
Verb: SHOULD
Object(complex): sit, do nothing and get housing, health care, and education
Adverb: Free
With this, while the subject signifies the action doer, the verb is the action, the Object is the action sufferer, and the adverb is the manner of the action. You will realise that the most important thing is the action, if you never understand the action (verb), you won't get the claim of the president. Let me do a bit of explanation concerning the verb "should".

Should is a modal auxiliary which can function as the main verb ( when alone) or auxiliary ( when supporting a main verb).
I'm not teaching grammar here, however, I'm trying to raise the importance of understanding the verb in the claim so as to know the relationship between the subject, and other parts of the sentence.

SHOULD means obligations or future action (telling what will soon happen). E.g a) "I should be here tomorrow" it doesn't mean I'm already there. b) "I should finish the food" Doesn't mean I already finished the food.

Do check the statement again, the claim is never saying that "They" (subject) are already lazy, but that "They" /are obliged to or will soon/ sit, do nothing and get housing, healthcare, and education free.

In conclusion, the controversial statement of the president could be paraphrased to have meant that some Nigerian youths who are under the age of 30years want to be lazy on the condition that Nigeria is a petroleum producing country, and these people are even uneducated. And I think this is metaphorical to some people, probably the Eastern people following their constant claim of owing Nigeria petroleum. So, Nigerians, should stop washing the back of the cup, but objectively tackle the president on the content of his speech and not on prejudice. I submit....

BY: MALOMO TUNDE EMMANUEL