Woodpeckers

Nigerians are naturally great critics except for the military era when fear ruled supreme, we are never the sort of people to understand or keep quiet when we don’t think things are going the way they should. 

I remember how my mother would warn me several times as I traveled to school by myself never to criticize the government in the bus or join anyone who does because one never knew those disguised as civilians who were really spies boarding commercial buses those days. 

Many people got arrested and some lost their lives for saying the wrong thing during the military era. Brute force commanded grave yard silence those days. 

Democracy gave us the right to speak, to express our dissatisfaction, sue the government and say whatever we desire regardless of how true or false that is. This is why people post all sorts on their Timelines and get away with it nowadays. 

We have freedom of speech. Freedom to lie. Freedom to make up stuff

Freedom to disinform. Freedom to embarrass and ridicule the government and fellow citizens just for the fun of it. 

I began to hear terms like "Why is Datti crying because we Insulted his father? We insulted Trump and he took it on the chin"

Wow!

Someone can tweet about the President or his wife and it doesn’t matter whether what was tweeted was true or false. We retweet and have fun at their expense but they must take it on the chin. 

It is freedom of whatever!

But many of us can’t take it when it is dished out to us.

Oh, we hate it. 

Did you notice that the Americans (democrats) started the cancelling culture because they can’t take what they dish out. 

They want to own the space and speak and they desire without anyone opposing 

them or saying Nay!

They came up with terms like "gaslighting", "patriarchal", "narcissistic" "bigot", "racist" "feminist", etcetera to trap naysayers and shame them in the public arena for speaking their mind. 

"Politically correct" terms were determined by them. They became judges of the 

public space. 

Suddenly you hear terms like "Rich white men" or "No coloured women in the picture" online in order to shame people who did nothing worthy of shame!

Take the new Nigerian currency for example, if it were printed abroad, it would cost us a lot and the economy would feel it. The government decided to print it locally. 

Granted that the printers didn’t do a perfect job but they can do with some positive criticism. We slaughtered them!

Our government used to import uniforms etcetera, now they built garment factories in Nigeria and make the garments here! We slaughtered them for it. 

Have you ever watched Indian movies?

India began to invent and produce their own cars and clothing and movies decades ago. 

Their stuff looked funny but it saved them from importation and strengthened their economy

We want Nigeria to be better but want to Import as much as we want even to toothpicks!

Nation building comes at a cost. We should all note that and be willing to build in order to grow. 

We should tone down the criticism and pay attention to the positives once in a while.

-GSW-