by Mark Anthony Osuchukwu

It’s a sad reality to be a Nigerian living in Nigeria.

If the Bible was to be written today, being Nigerian alone may send you to hell or somewhere worse. Call me unpatriotic and I may need you to tell me which sane person wastes a rare currency like patriotism on an expired ware like Nigeria.

My geography teacher once stood before my entire class to tell us how blessed Nigeria is and how we cannot experience natural disasters like earthquakes, tornadoes and flooding.

I have been asking people for that teacher’s number so I can tell him that he was right after all. We don’t have natural disasters but we have national disasters.

The entire system her is flawed, hence, leading to this flood.

Last week, I saw pictures and videos of people paddling canoes on the streets of Lagos. People practising breaststroke and butterfly stroke on the streets of Lagos that turned to swimming pools. It is the government that let the water expand its business from the ocean to the streets. Embracing people with its cruel arms.

They chase water and think water is cowardly like fire. You chase fire and it goes. You chase water and you think it will let you take its land without going to court?

When you want to fight nature, be prepared. Very prepared.

I heard they have ‘removed’ bar beach. Wherever they kept it is not my concern. My concern is that they should be ready to battle water.

The Lagos state government from the beginning to this moment should cover their faces in shame. A state as big and industrial as Lagos can set up drainage systems under a tenure or two at knowing that Lagos is close to the ocean. But no. They don’t care at all. The federal government that knows that if anything happens to Lagos today Nigeria may as well be cancelled from the map of the world are ambassadors of complacency. They are failures!

Doing absolutely nothing except misbehaving euphemistically.

They may want to prove the Bible wrong when God promised the world that he won’t destroy with water again.

The whole of last week was a mock destruction.

If rain should continue from where it stopped last week, more lives, properties and businesses will be lost.

Lagos state generates the greatest revenue for the ‘giant of Africa’ yet, they don’t care about important things as drainage systems.

Ambode has been working during the dry season. This rainy season is not his mate. I am not blaming him for not fixing these things. I blame myself for being Nigerian. I blame the occupants of the island. It’s their fault not that of the government.

We’ve blamed the government for years but nothing is happening. Maybe we should try blaming ourselves for ever being in a position to trust these men and women who in their good works don’t mean well for us.

I am no prophet but more lives will be lost if care is not taken. This is not a God forbid matter. Listen, I am not a person that practices blind faith. Reality is never a feel-good pill. Swallow it and look for Fanta to rinse your mouth.

A country that can’t give you ordinary light cannot give you life assurance because they are not sure of anything. Nigeria is powered by uncertainty.

It is more painful that some other parts of the country are passing through the same issue. Uyo, Suleja and some other parts that we haven’t seen on the internet.

Ordinary rainfall is causing this havoc. I wonder what will happen the day snow will mistakenly find its way to Nigeria and ‘knack’ us for one day.

There has never been a futuristic government. A government that thinks of ten years from now or at least five. Never!

They only think the present. That’s why we are presented with such aftermaths of sheer madness practised by our politicians.

Well, our work is to talk and nag. Their work is to keep abusing us with impunity.

I am utterly sorry for the victims of this national shame. I hope they forgive the government.

To the non-victims, let us hope that we remain only victims of ‘being’ Nigerian.

Peace and love to you all.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Mark Anthony Osuchukwu is a young writer and critic who doesn’t respect himself.