By Onyeka Nwelue

We are tired of living the way we live in Nigeria. We are tired of watching the old bullocks tell us lies every day. We are tired of Nollywood filmmakers thinking we don’t know anything.

We’ve started making changes. We’ve started standing up for ourselves.

But there’s just one place where we know we are weak and we are yet to get tired: education.

Our lecturers are still those old men, who don’t even come to classes again when they are supposed to come. They are the ones who ask their kids to check their e.mails for them, even their secretaries. They are the ones who can’t still recharge their phones with credit cards. They are those Professors of Computer Science who can’t use computers. Don’t even come with a laptop!

We only show that we are tired when we run away. To the US. Or the UK. Or even India.

But when it comes to politics, we’ve shown that EnoughisEnough. After that the politicians now realized that the youths are very powerful, so they have started approaching them and they will be used very well by 2011. Is this bad? Well, yes. Because we live in a country where everyone is poor, but never admits that, we easily become slaves to money.

We became tired of those manifestoes, when we realised they keep lying to us. They make promises they never keep to.

We have shunned them.

The young people (not that they are necessarily young) have taken over cinema, after learning the tricks of making good movies from Tunde Kelani and from Outside, because I agree with Segun Adefila when he said: “Good things in Nigeria always come from there.” True. So, The Figurine by Kunle Afolayan, Through the Glass by Stephanie Okereke and Ije by Chinaeze Anyaene all came after these filmmakers had to go and learn the trick from Outside. It’s a pity.

Last week, I went to the Theatre Arts/Film Studies Department of the University of Nigeria and asked the students what camera they would prefer to shoot with. Sorry. You will not believe this. They are yet to see cameras, talk more of touching them and even knowing the technical names. Pity that I live in such society and we are so arrogant of this country being the Giant of Africa when Timaya chose to shoot the video of Plantain Boy in South Africa, because his inferiority complex couldn’t let him do that somewhere in Nigeria.

This is random, because I have not had access to proper internet and I was in a hurry to finish this, before there would be a power outage. My laptop lasts, but I need to see V for Vendetta with it and if you’ve seen that movie, please remember what it is all about. Revolution! When a people agree that really they are tired, they say, ‘EnoughisEnough.’

Oluwapelumi