The Lesson from the ‘Danfo Girl’
Whichever way we look at it, in both the public and private sectors, our society is in dire need of leaders with the character of that ‘Danfo girl’. Will they please stand up and be counted?
On Tuesday night, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) assisted the arrival of a charter flight carrying 160 stranded Nigerian migrants returning from Libya to Lagos. It was the 64th of such charter flights since the beginning of the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration programme that has seen to the return of 12,652 Nigerians since April 2017. Speaking at the occasion, the Head of the EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ambassador Ketil Karlsen said “migration should happen out of aspiration, not desperation.”
The precisely is the point being made here in Enugu where I arrived on Tuesday to attend and share perspectives on my book, ‘From Frying Pan to Fire: How African migrants risk everything in their futile search for a better life in Europe’ at the workshop organized by IOM Italy and IOM Nigeria in partnership with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). Nigeria, according to EU statement yesterday, “is a source, transit and destination country for women and children victims of sex trafficking and forced labour in the forms of prostitution, domestic servitude, begging and sometimes trafficking in human organs.”
While I continue to reflect on how we came to acquire such notorious reputation and the desperation that now pushes many of our young people (both the skilled and unskilled) to believe they have no future in their own country, I depart Enugu this afternoon for Umukor, Nkwere, Imo State to attend the burial of Lady Bernadette Ucheju Azodoh, the late mother of my pastor, Dr Evaristus Azodoh. And from there tomorrow, I move to Amii-Akabo, also in Imo State, for that of the former president of the Pan-African Parliament, Hon. Bethel Amadi. Incidentally, it was at Amadi’s service of songs in Abuja on Monday that I got a news alert on the passage last Saturday of Pastor Tokunbo Olorunnibe, our beloved National Head Usher at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
Given the doom and gloom I see all around, including how some ‘special units’ of the police are now populated by killer gangs who terminate the lives of innocent citizens without any provocation and the gruesome murder of five of our soldiers by a Boko Haram faction, my heart is too heavy to write this week. But going through my old columns, I stumbled on a piece I wrote in November 2014 with the title, ‘Lessons Beyond the Tears’. On a day such as this, I commend it to my readers again.
I have taken the liberty to edit the foregoing story, but I have not added anything to the content nor have I distorted the message. While it was published on 19th November on the NTA News website without attribution, a Google search reveals that it was actually written and published on another website a day earlier by a Mr Roy Ofili. What I find rather interesting is that all the people who have commented on the story cannot see beyond the proverbial beauty and the beast and the fact that even roughnecks have their moments of introspection and sanity. I can see more in the story but there are certain assumptions we must first consider.
The first assumption is that the society failed the boy. In this context, we can look at the role of government. The question therefore is: How many of such young people that populate our society today would end up at the motor parks or similar stations in life due to no fault of theirs? The second assumption is that the conductor was probably brought up by parents who did not consider the education of their child important enough to make the necessary sacrifices as some of our equally deprived parents did. Unfortunately, our society is today replete with irresponsible parents, especially among the menfolk. Many of them are no better than sperm donors who father children they don’t care for, leaving the women to bear the burden. It is therefore little surprise that many of such children end up as motor-park touts or
Finally, we can also assume that the conductor probably had the opportunity to go to school but wasted it. So, we can argue that the fault was not with his parents, in which case he was just another wayward child and we have many of them in our society. That then explains why the conductor was shedding what must have been tears of regret. He knew that having a decent and pretty girl like the one he encountered in the bus as a wife required some years of preparations and enormous sacrifices. But there was no way to rewrite the past.
Yes, those who were consoling the conductor that all was not lost also knew what they were saying; after all, the boy could join politics, beginning as a thug and graduating into perhaps becoming a godfather of sorts with support from the motor park – a financially rewarding endeavour given the career trajectory of those politicians whose memories we should preserve. The conductor could even end up in the National Assembly where his dexterity at throwing punches or jumping fences could come handy! But if we are honest, those passengers must know, like the conductor himself knew, that it would take the special grace of God for him to disembark from what was easily a bus-ride to a purposeless life.
Today, there are also many of our yesterday’s men who are living in regret of what might have been because of the opportunities they squandered when they held positions of authority. The roads they didn’t build, the hospitals they neglected, the schools that collapsed on their heads and the many compromises they made in the course of seeking or retaining power. Unfortunately, it is not them alone who are bearing the consequences of those choices; it is millions of our people that have witnessed a nation with so much promise unravelling before their very eyes.
However, for those who believe in the power of redemption, we can also assume that the story of that hapless conductor did not end at the motor park. Having realised his mistakes, he probably decided to take responsibility for the past and make efforts for a better future that was still within his reach. After all, it is never too late to embrace a more productive approach to life. As it is with individuals, so it is with nations. There is no doubt that Nigeria has squandered its riches and mismanaged countless opportunities and potentials. But as late in the day as it may seem, our country is not a lost cause.
Finally, let us come back to that beautiful girl who did not see a conductor but rather another human being. The girl in the story represents the ideal leader: the one who does not relate with citizens on the basis of status, ethnicity or religion; one who gives everyone their due; one who believes that even a conductor deserves to be treated with respect and dignity and one who would fire the imagination of the seemingly hopeless (in this instance, with a simple peck), that could mark a turn-around in their fortunes.
Whichever way we look at it, in both the public and private sectors, our society is in dire need of leaders with the character of that ‘Danfo girl’. Will they please stand up and be counted?