Nigeria: From romance to realism

Promise Adiele

It was a Monday. As I walked into the class that morning, my steps carried between them renewed optimism to teach, a vocation that revitalizes and continually lubricates my creative impetus.

Remove teaching and research from my daily menu, I lose the inspiration to be professionally accomplished. Entering the air-conditioned, large class, I took a glance around to ensure that all the students were present. It was a full class, and they were all there, no vacant seat.

Their void innocent eyes, comfortably accommodated by their equally innocent faces, fixed on me searchingly as though I owed them a duty. Yes, I owed them a duty – to teach, to direct, and to impart knowledge.

After the initial introduction and a revision of the last topic, I announced authoritatively “this week, we will be studying the Romantic Period in English Literature.” Hardly had the words left my lip that the whole class erupted in cheers.

The students giggled, many shifted uncomfortably, the boys looked up with expectations, and the girls looked at me questioningly. I could easily identify with their surprise and expectations.

The problem is the word ‘romantic’. I didn’t blame them much because I also reacted the same way when in my 300 level in Unilag, one bright afternoon, Dr Chimdi Maduagwu (now a Professor) came into the class and made the same announcement. The Romantic Period was a full course in Unilag then.

Romance is a welcomed topic for students any day. But just as we were all disappointed back in the day when Dr Maduagwu started teaching the Romantic Period, I was quite sure that my students will be disappointed. Romance in literature is not the romance they were all familiar with.

I was sure they will be disappointed. Romance in literature has nothing to do with emotional adventure or misadventure (as the case may be) which admits new victims every day. Romance in literature is not a boy meets girl, a man meets woman story.

It is not Mills and Boons. It is not a love story. It is a more serious exalted, endeavour in literature. It is a period in English Literature that spanned through the 18th century which was characterized by the use of fictitious characters and the belief that imagination is superior to reason in literary engagements.

Among other things, the Romantic Period emphasized the glorification of nature, the gothic and the supernatural, and the deployment of fantastic, unbelievable scenes that were inconsistent with reality. In reality, romantic sensibilities can be delineated positively or negatively but with events in Nigeria, no one is in doubt that the negative complexion of romanticism is daily valorised in our country.

And so dear reader, when I got down to business and started teaching the Romantic Period and all the appendages, excitement in the class gave way to gloom.

But as events unfolded, the students came alive once again especially when two romantic writers, William Blake and William Wordsworth were introduced.

Teaching their poems “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” and “The World is too Much with Us” marked the turning point in the class.

In recreating literary romantic ideology to analyse Nigeria’s contemporary issues, I am interested in how fantastic and unbelievable elements have now become a part of our reality.

Disturbingly, they do so with consistent immediacy. Recently a video trending on social media showed an unidentified sick and bedridden man, a public officer who, unaware that there was a hidden camera in his hospital room, carried on with his healthy life.

According to the voice-over in the video footage, the man was to appear in court following allegations of fraud and financial misappropriation. But to save himself from the long arm of the law, the man decided to shamelessly feign sickness like one who had fractured his ribs, a broken neck, and a dislocated hip.

First, the video footage showed him in his hospital room charging his phone, applying his body lotion with relish, and generally carrying on as a fit and healthy man.

The next day in court, a paid make-up artist had done a wonderful job on him. The man cut the image of someone who had survived a plane crash. He could barely climb the stairs. Every part of his body was bandaged.

His crutches could hardly help him as he was ignominiously assisted by paid accomplices. Any judge seeing him in that state will surely pity him. He was such a pitiable, sorry sight.

The video footage did not show what transpired in court, but it captured the same man in his hospital room after court proceedings. In his hospital room, he immediately removed all the costumes of deceit.

He was once again a healthy, fit man. Shockingly, this same man was seen praying in a particular style associated with a certain religion. He was not praying alone but with other people, perhaps thanking his god (yes, god, not the Almighty God) for aiding and abating criminality.

As 2023 beckons, Nigerians must be awake to those who have in the past defaced the country with mud and slime. It will not surprise anybody that the originators of the health scam will become part of the voices of reason in Nigeria towards 2023.

They have planted a seed which will naturally germinate and grow. Henceforth, those who are charged to court will become ill, their vital organs will fail them, and the importation of crutches will boom to aid a putrid practice in the country.

If anyone knows or remembers the character in that trending video, let the person speak up and let the man be brought to the book. If he is not brought to the book, it follows logically that he has a god-father in the power hierarchy who will ensure his protection.

Ordinarily, one would think that this kind of scenario belonged to the romantic era in English Literature. It looked like fiction, a work of imagination that cannot find a place in reality.

But here we are. It is real, happening in Nigeria. It is one of the many cases of absurdity that have characterized our reality in Nigeria. Events and scenarios which were hitherto thought to belong to the realm of romance or imagination are now daily realities in our country.

When men commit fraud, they shamelessly devise a health challenge to escape the law, broken necks, fractured ribs, broken skulls, spiritual attacks, deaf and dumb, epilepsy and many others.

In some cases, they arrange their kidnap just to evade the law. In this way, many fraudulent public officers have escaped justice and still escaping.

I am minded to mention names but the muse restrains me from doing so because mentioning names will not serve the purpose of the essay but on the list are former governors, former senators, former DG of government parastatals and many others.

I am sure Nigerians are duly aware of those who have originated and transposed romantic sensibilities to the domain of reality.

When an allegedly corrupt person is charged to court and he enacts dramatic scenes of health infirmities to escape justice, what should the state do or what has the state done?

In addition to their corrupt charges, to attempt to deceive Nigerians and compromise the legal system is in itself a crime and should be punished. That the originators of this health scam are still walking free is an obvious indicator that the state has done nothing to checkmate the gradual slide into the romantic era.

When accused, fraudulent people device this dubious means to escape justice, the state should deploy all legal and medical apparatuses to investigate and validate such claims.

Even when medical reports are presented, they should be verified and ascertained. Failure to do this means that the state or its officials are complicit in this kind of fraud and many people will embrace the health feigning tactics to evade the law in the future.

Gradually, like many anomalies, this kind of tactics will become a part of our already bedridden identity praxis and our country’s descent to reproach will continue unhindered.