By Dan Amor
Even as the River Niger surges still along its wonted path to its
dalliance with the River Benue and the consequent emptying of the passionate
union into the mazes of the Delta, and, thereafter, into the vast, swelling
plenitude of the all-welcoming seas, it is Nigeria, our Nigeria. True, Lagos is still Lagos ; Abuja is still Abuja .
It is, indeed, injury time in a new country under a new democracy, our
democracy! Yet, everywhere you look, things look pretty much as they always
have been. Still, the sway of buffoonery and unintelligent greed; still the
billowing gown arrogance of the supposedly powerful, the surface laughter of
the crashing rivers celebrating the disquieting crisis of democracy, the
riveting appearances of things. Splendid is the current! Yet, into the heart of
the average Nigerian pop uninvited intimations that we live today in the cusp
of a new age, a new country and a new democracy.
Alas, it is a new era. But in
the lull between the passions and exertions and excitations of our workaday
world today, at these times when the body yields to repose and the mind nestles
in shades of quietude, it hits you: it is the dawn of change! But, what manner
of change is this? From better to worse?
*Buhari and Tinubu |