WHAT IF YOU COULD CHOOSE WHERE YOU WOULD BE BORN? PART 2

I can pick up vibrations from a television set in a nearby room. I hear an advert where the names Asa, Wole Soyinka, and a host of others are mentioned, and then the advert ends with the words “good people, great nation”. How come I have not picked a single positive vibration since I changed realms about 9 months ago? How could that advert proclaim this country as a great one when every single vibration I have come across in 9 months tells me otherwise? What exactly is responsible for the disparity between what their leaders trumpet daily and what really obtains in the streets? Corruption? Complacence? Cowardice? Curses (maybe generational)? Funny how all these words start with ‘C’.

Wait, what does the future look like for me in this country? Education does not seem to work; there are no roads, potable water, or any such thing as basic infrastructure; public health care is terrible; social security is a foreign idea; the government is not popular and does not seem to realize it; the president is ailing, and I wonder how they expect a sick guy to heal a sick nation; the list could go on for a few more pages, yeah - pages. I think I really have to take a second thought, before I commit my future to this country.

Hey, I can pick other vibrations from the television set again. It is about a country called Ghana, and even though I tuned in quite late, I pick the last few words – “Championing African excellence”. Well, from what I have heard in the other world, and from what my scans of their minds tell me, Ghana really just might be it. They have paid the price in the past, and methinks they are enjoying the fruits of their sacrifice now. At least, their life expectancy, at 60 years, is higher than Nigeria’s, at 48 years. In the same vein, the infant mortality rate is lower, at 5 deaths per a hundred births, and they seem to be actively taking steps to lower that. I wish the same could be said for Nigeria, but at times the way they act – you would think they were out to increase the mortality rate...


I think I am sure what I will do. I will die here, and go back to my former realm. I will join the queue for Ghana, if at all I must go to an African country.

It’s a pity that I raised my mother’s hopes – after she has waited for years, but I’d rather go where there is hope for my future than stay here out of sympathy for a woman I have only known for almost 9 months.

As I withdraw from the infantile body that has housed me these past 9 months, I feel a pang of regret at the pain all these people will go through. Imagine - they will go on with the surgery, only to bring out a lifeless body. In fact, my friends back there will think me a coward, there goes the C- word again, but I’d better be called that and go somewhere where’s there’s a future for me.

Time out, Nigeria. Ghana, here I come.

You know, it’s a great boon to Africa that babies don’t get to choose where they’ll be born. I bet almost every baby would choose some prosperous country and throw in wealthy parents for good measure. People like Gates would probably have a few hundred children, because they would come running in droves. I cannot imagine a baby choosing to be born in Somalia, or Ajegunle, and I wager you can’t too, if you are not being sentimental about the issue. Don’t get me wrong, these places aren’t evil or something, it is we, people, like me and you, who by our action – and/or inaction, have allowed our environment to become what it has. Hey, listen up; it’s not too late yet. The future of Africa is up to Africans. Do you believe that with me?

Let’s give a future to our youth. Let’s give them a better country than we had growing up. If we join hands together, and stand for what is right – even in the darkest night, we will transmit this Nation, not only not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.

You wonder where to start from? We sure will not wait till we have a million people ready to march on the government houses screaming bloody murder. We can start by standing for the truth as individuals, in our own places, and by following our hearts. Let your conscience be your guide, except it is dulled and scarred already, and in this event – you could use a renewal.

Are you with me?