School is on strike. Our professors are once again resorting to the muliply failed idea of not going to work until they get what they want. Well, for the past two decades, I do not think that they have got what they want. Why would the politicians ever care for the plight of today's youth? Their children are abroad studying alongside the children of the white man. The same white man they connive with to bring this country to its knees
I do not know how long it would take. The strike, I mean. Last stime it took seven months and just as I thought I would either kill myself or someone in my family from boredom and frustration, ASUU balked and gave in; in the interests of the students. At least, this time, we finished exams just before leaving. I do not know what I am going to do with myself for the next few months.
As at this very moment, I have no job and my book has not been accepted for publishing. I have refused to loose my mind at the prospect of being broke this summer and jobless. At least I have a home to go to. I will just have to compete with Tawa, the housegirl for her pay as I will be doing a whole lot of most of the kitchen chores and supervising the house. I will become the housekeeper and she will be the maid and my mother will be in housewife heaven. I think she is going to be preoccupied with a lot of parties this summer. So many of her friends' children are getting married and as many of her friends are wives of politicians, I will be given an opportunity to see my country's money being squandered at will.
The last wedding I went to took place at the Adebayo House on Allen Avenue. There were over six thousand people in attendance, including Tinubu, some governors and ministers. we only saw the parents of the couple for a few minutes; long enough to get our picture with them taken to be put on BOS, in Ovation, Citipeople and Expressions. My mum was so happy to see herself rubbing shoulders with the "rich and famous". I do not know what my father was thinking.
I always wonder what he thinks about most of his colleagues when he sees them living the way they do. I know I always wonder what changed. I remember as a little girl, watching them secretly meeting in our house after Abiola was arrested, trying to form a network to get him out, the truth out to the people and return the president elect to his rightful position as the leader to the country. These men that I am talking about, now have third and fourth wives, all of whom are at least a third of their ages. The only news one hears or reads about them is at social gatherings.
These were men that as a little girl, I aspired to be married to. Men who would speak eloquently about the country's problems and profer solutions on the spot on what to do about them. Some of them were arrested for their public opinions on the military government and the escalating levels of corruption in the society. Now they had become the figureheads of a dying society, of a people gone so far astray that I sometimes fear that one day, our greed will wipe us off the face of the earth.
I do not ever discuss my thoughts with my father. Our relationship is a strange one. He would be so disappointed if he knew half the things I had done. As a woman. As his child. But what am I to do.
The society has left my father behind in his OLD ways of thinking. His ways of thinking cannot apply to the society today. Not when he thinks with the mind of a graduate of a british university from a time when our naira was ywice the dollar and equal to the pound. When our leaders had the training to assume their positions and execute their duties. From a time when the black mind was celebrated as superior to the that of the white man. A time when we as a people planned our lives. A time before oil.
Now, he sends his daughter to school in an environment where her association with the most powerful around is what will guarantee her survival and protection. Something that her father cannot do.
I will return home for the strike. I will return to my father's house. I will return to the old man with the old ideas. To the man who still believes that hardwork and honesty are the two keys to success. To the man who married a woman who wants so badly to be a social butterfly. To the man I call father.
I will return to my father's house because thanks to the government, that is the only place where there is a decent human being left. Maybe I will be able to retrace my steps to my innocence. In my father's house.