May We Wake One by One
A very good friend of mine used to say that prayer to me. I was quite perplexed the first time I heard her say it. ‘May we wake one by…
African Skies
A very good friend of mine used to say that prayer to me. I was quite perplexed the first time I heard her say it. ‘May we wake one by one.’ We were about to go to sleep, in our over-populated room in Moz Hall OAU, Ife. As a southern-northerner my Yoruba was functional, but colloquial south-western usage still held me back. So I asked her what that meant. She said if all goes well, everyone wakes up at their own time — one by one. However, if there is a disaster in the night, we all wake simultaneously in response to it. So it is a prayer against disaster. I laughed at the time. But ever since then the prayer has become more meaningful. Like the many times when fires threatened to engulf our halls of residence at night, and the time when we were awakened by gunshots and running feet, or the many, many times we were awakened by candlelit processions to commemorate the lives of dearly departed students; or outside of school when we were awakened by raiding, or thieves, or just angry people.
‘May we wake one by one.’
So it seems that our Nigerian lives are defined by disaster. But they are still lives, human lives, with all the attendant human needs, desires and cravings. And it is the marrying of normal with peril that defines Nigeria. The combination of the modern trapping and age-old death. The universal quest of love that culminates in a marriage that could be destroyed by an accident so fatal that we could see the smoke from several kilometres away. Watching ‘How I Met Your Mother’ only to be interrupted by a brutal home invasion. Studying Donoghue v Stevenson and duty of care, sweat-dripping onto your notes, and then the Student Union bosses forcefully disrupt your class on the pretext of a boycott. Students taking a video of a public lynching and murder of other students on the very latest Android phone. Knowing that no matter how expensive your Jeep is, each time you enter into it, you may never come home, because the roads are bad and the police are trigger happy.
‘May we wake one by one.’
This is why our stories matter. Even if the world is not listening. These stories are for us. In Nigeria, violence is normal. It is expected. My father had a game plan for how to respond to a home invasion. We discussed this very pragmatically. Because in Nigeria, the question of a home invasion is not ‘if’ but ‘when.’ It is believed that 95% of women and girls in Nigeria have been subject to at the very least some form of sexual harassment. I would like to know the 5% and their secret. Almost everyone has encountered police brutality, everyone would have come into contact with abuse of office. These are things we don’t talk about. We do not talk about how our souls die in the face of constant violence. But we pray.
‘May we wake one by one.’
May we wake, before it is too late.
Originally published at folukeifejola.wordpress.com on October 8, 2016.
In hope. In love. In solidarity. In Power. Forever