Ayengti And The Politics Of Suffering

Dear lovely people,

You seem as surprised about the things that happen in this country as Ayengti sitting here with me. To tell you the truth, I am as overwhelmed as ever before to find that you are surprised. But Ayengti, let me ask you, why is it that after five decades of liberal thinking, the suffering and grief in the Anglophone communities become worse? Where else in the world have you seen a country in which the governed know nothing else but undeserved suffering at all levels? Don’t you know it is common place in this country for a child to be born in a neglected health center with unthinkable infrastructure, no equipment and half-baked medical staff? I have seen pregnant women travel over 50 kilometers to go for antenatal consultation.

My God! Ayengti, so you don’t know that there are children in this country who travel lengthy distances and some crossing dangerous lakes to study in the most precarious situations of infrastructureless schools and half-backed PTA Teachers. In situations of luck, a child is taught by a teacher who studied under the right system but if you are as unfortunate as Anglophones in this country, you get taught by teachers who knows nothing about your educational system.

Of cause Ayengti, should you brave it all to the University, you are reduced to more or less a beggar because not only are you to face an educational system you know nothing about, your peasant parents are peeling off their skin to afford the exorbitant cost of housing and school needs. To make ends meet, some university students like Nchangwin engage in prostitution for money while the guys like Nebashi join gangs or get introduced into homosexual networks manned by some of the bigwigs in the country.

It’s curious Ayengti that in the midst of all these atrocities, it is said that the proletariat have no justified reason to complain and should you decide to make your voice heard by exercising your legitimate inalienable right, you become extremists mostly manipulated by individuals said to have selfish intentions and who don’t want national unity especially in diversity. Of course these same extremists become patriotic nationals when they come begging you for your votes so they can be maintained at the summit.

I must tell you Ayengti that the concept of pregnancies with infinite duration have become the best strategies used to keep the masses on the waiting bench, think of the decentralization process that has been in gestation for over two decades now or should I mention the Yamende – Abakwa road? What about the Abakwa ring road? I am sure you are thinking of the Victoria deep seaport too and the list continues.

Back to the growth path of our children Ayengti, you certainly know that if you come out victorious at the end of university studies, you are plunged into an entire new world of job hunting that by itself is a vicious spiral where you have a proliferation of sexually awarded jobs and outright corruption with money. Well, it goes without saying that in most case scenarios, you end up a bike rider, taxis driver or bayam-sellam. I know many Master degree holders who serve as housekeepers not because they love the job, they have no choice. Of cause some get hooked up with more chains in the name of micro-entrepreneur loans. Loans that can only maintain you as a vulnerable hand-to-mouth citizen.

By the way Ayengti, should I mention moral decadence and evaporation of values? Do you know the destruction that bike-riding has brought onto our youths? Have you taken note of the quality of taxis we have in this country? How many times to you go to your bathroom just because you entered a taxi?

Now tell me Ayengti, is this the reason why you were created, were you born to play second fiddle to group of overzealous undermining bourgeoisies? What exceptional thing did they do to remain glorified as masters while the rest are permanently enslaved? Certainly the God that we all serve was not part of that kind of plan for your life.

God reminds you and I today as he did in the days of Jeremiah and the others “I know the Plans I have for you, plans to prosper you” and plans to make you an overcomer. You’ve got to take your destiny into your hands, you have to rise up to the challenges, the injustices, the oppression placed on your path to growth because it has become a duty and because nobody is more of a citizen in this country than you.