© Numero Unoma
I always fall in love with these parlances that emerge from our indigenous languages in Nigeria. They kinda go hand in hand with our trad threads, which we increasingly see crossing cultural borders nowadays. For instance, Abuja is full of aspirants, political and otherwise, proudly sporting babban riga and a not-too-shabby kube, even though most of them are not Hausa or of northern descent. To be frank, I understand the kube thing. Which man would say no to the gift of a few extra inches. Errrm…I think you may have taken that the wrong way, my dear. We’ll let that slide, shall we.
Anywayyy, hocus focus!
What I was getting at is this whole concept of ‘emi lo kan’. I love it o, in some strange way, but tbh I can hardly believe that it is actually a political slogan for real, lol! I mean, pinch me somebody, what are we talking about here, a child waiting for their sibling to let them have their turn on the PS5 they just got for Christmas? Seriously, when a presidential candidate can use ‘emi lo kan’ as their political slogan and that’s okay with everyone, then surely that is symptomatic, if not emblematic of the problem we have, and the people we have become, wouldn’t you say?
‘Emi lo kan’ seems to be the standard theme that cobbles together the entire Nigerian political timeline since independence, which explains how we still have the same bunch of either unscrupulous or incompetent (or both), now ageing and decrepit agbayas, who mulishly and consistently refuse to take the right path, either for themselves or for the country.
You cannot tell me that walking a path of self-enrichment and -agrandisement, while being surrounded by wretchedness, abject poverty and the attendant ever growing desperation (and population), could be deemed to be a good move. Are you blind, or are you missing a faculty? (Naturally, these just might be symptoms of old age, for all we know.) Instead of being tunnelvisionaries, they choose to be blinkered asses. And the masses? Hardly better, they are like obtuse mules who no longer get beaten with the stick, because the pain might make them kick out in retaliation. Instead, the stick has been benevolently used to permanently dangle the eternally unreachable carrot in front of them. And so it is that in the true spirit of an ever imminent ‘emi lo kan’, they plod along on weary hooves toward that perpetually elusive carrot before them.
My dear, there is nothing democratic about ‘emi lo kan’ o. Your turn to do what? Good? Gerrarra here! Which good is that, chop? Oho, you want to chop the carrot, that’s right. Then when you finish chopping you will now qualify to join the plutocracy, abi? And what is the track record of the plutocracy in Nigeria? To flaunt and taunt with their wealth. And of course to be immediately forgiven for their flagrant transgressions by the foolish masses, who do the forgiving in the hopeful ‘knowledge’ that one day be one day…emi lo kan. Because when my turn finally comes, me too I don’t need anyone to come and be telling me anything about morals, ethics and scruples. Not to mention human rights and wrongs. So let me just ‘gba nkiti’ for now, biko. Until sha, emi lo kan. No be so?
I used to argue that Nigerians are tenacious, and while some of us undoubtedly are, the majority of us are just plain feckless. Full of loud opinions, but lacking the spine to act decisively, the pride to proceed on principle, or the shame to do the right thing. Every security man sits at his gate post reading The Richest Man in Babylon, in between letting in abusive Ogas, with an obsequious ‘Anything for your boys?’. Ask them what they want to be, they will tell you a billionaire. And they ain’t talking Naira, they thinking Petrodollars. My friend, you haven’t made a million, that’s how you want to jump to a billion. Some of them want to be Femi Otedola or Dangote…or Elon Musk, even Baba Warren Buffet. Then there are those who want to be Jay-Z or Ye. They can tell you rich people’s net worth, but they don’t know Nigeria’s GDP. Others wish to be Wizkid or Burna Boy. You know, young money and all dem tings. In fact those last two need to think of updating their names, now that they will both become 33 and 32 respectively on July 2nd. It’s time for you Kids and Boys to grow up and distance yourselves from the plutocracy that continues to oppress all the rest of your peers. You may now have attained international fame, and kudos to you both, but please do not compare yourselves to those who come from functioning societies, like the ones you love to do collabo with, people like Tinie Tempa, Drake, Chris Brown, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran and Lily Allen. Never forget you come from Dystopia, so that when you throw your weight around noisily and senselessly, like tone-deaf braggarts, then you not only reflect and echo your callous and vacuous loser-leaders, but you perpetuate the fundamental vulgarity of ‘emi lo kan’, because when your turn came….what did you do with it?
Meanwhile the rest of you sheeple, the ignorant masses of olodos out there, who believe that God is looking for egunje, as though He were human, indeed Nigerian even. Instead of investing your tithes in building schools, hospitals or communities, you give them to plutocratic pastors who toss a hollow promise of ‘emi lo kan’ at you, even as they flaunt in your sheepish amen faces, how rich you have made, and keep them.
None of us is entitled to ‘emi lo kan’. Both individually and collectively we must methodically put in place the necessary building blocks prescribed in the roadmap specific to whatever it is that we wish or choose to attain. Forget short cuts and cheat sheets, and get with the program. Roll up your sleeves and get doing. And by doing, I mean take tangible steps toward reaching a goal. First one step, then the next, then the next, and so forth. Some of those steps are sacrifices. Join the queue, it is there for a reason. Join it, don’t jump it. That’s not acceptable.
On the other hand, if you choose to just wait for ‘emi lo kan’, then sure, go ahead, knock yourself out with boot licking and brown nosing, as you live life by the maxim ‘Get rich, or die slowly trying’. Like the ladies who think that doing plastic surgery is a solid investment with a good ROI. Or that doing a potty-party in Dubai is a passive income. Pun totally intended, sorry o. Oof, scratch that image!
If there’s anything to be learned from the devil, it is perseverance. One cannot credit him with patience, since the worst of eternity already is his. The devil is the grand master of ‘emi lo kan’, and each of you waiting for your personal ‘emi lo kan’ moment is a devil. Or certainly an agent of the devil. Ok then, a disciple. Nobody else waits so enduringly for their turn to delight in the spoils of doing evil. The only queue Nigerians will patiently wait in is the one for ‘emi lo kan’. And even then, some try to jump it. Be warned that even if you finally make it to the front of the ‘emi lo kan’ queue, there is no guarantee that your ‘reward’ will exceed or even equal that of the person you envy and venerate. Or that your punishment will be less terrible.
The Pakistani poet Ehsan Sehgal once said that “Tiger watches and hunts; whereas, hyenas wait and wait, for their time, to reach rubbish left by the tiger; similarly, the fools wait, not the wise ones.”
Surely ‘tomorrow’ must be the oil that keeps the lamp of hope burning for the ‘emi lo kan’ brigade. So let me tell you something about tomorrow.
There are some things that transcend colloquialism and slang, such as the manner in which we name our children. One name I particularly love is the Igbo Amechi (Onyeamaechi) or the Yoruba Tani (Tanimola) which both share the profound meaning ‘who knows tomorrow’. These two names convey the fundamental message of memento mori, and serve to remind us of our mortality, our ultimate lack of control, and importantly, our need to consider the future consequence of every action that we take today. Granted, they also invoke a spirit of eventual success, a bit like with the proverbial stones that the builder first refused, which later became the cornerstones. But here the emphasis is on the realisation of value, not of entitlement.
One thing I do know is that there’s always tomorrow, whether we get to see it or not. The relationship between tomorrow and ‘emi lo kan’ is that in order to see ‘emi lo kan’, you have to see tomorrow. However, seeing tomorrow does not guarantee ‘emi lo kan’. One thing seeing tomorrow does guarantee though, is karma, so be very careful what you undertake in the name of getting to the promised land of ‘emi lo kan’.
Toh, sai gobe!