The old year dies. An old year dies. New hopes arise. Twenty-twenty-four will die in days. Never to return. It will go into the abyss. We shall not miss it. Or, most of us will not miss it. It will be remembered as the year of infinite hardship in Nigeria. A year of hardship in which, in his first media chat, the President, father of the nation said that he doesn’t regret his hard policies. The people are suffering. So be it. They will enjoy the fruits later. No words of comfort. So insensitive. So uncaring. In 1983, then governor of Bendel State, late Professor Ambrose Alli asked hungry, striking teachers whether they wanted him to produce money from his blood! That question sealed his fate. He was voted out at the next election, and the compassionate Samuel Ogbemudia became governor.
2004! It is the year we will never forget. It is the year of the triumph of the captors of the State. The year that some mothers sold off their children in order to feed. Or to raise capital and trade. Or just to survive. It is a year of full subsidy removal. It is the year when dozens died while queueing for the so-called palliatives. The year gas explosions killed many. The year in which bandits took control of parts of a state, while soldiers were busy killing innocent citizens in Okuama, Delta State. It is the year when bandits seized whole families. It is the year of slander, of defamation, and near-violent reprisals. It is the year of sudden deaths because of life’s pressures. The ebullient Onyeka Onwenu died while entertaining guests. What pains did she bear? It is the year where psychiatric wards were filled with patients. Victims of depression. It is the year of the price of rice killed the appetite. It is the year of silence from the House of Men of God. The priests have elected to stay with their chattels in brothels of dishonour while the Feast of death reigns over the land!
A year lasts three hundred and sixty-five days. Or three hundred and sixty-six days, when it bears the burden of a leap year. Why is a leap year the brother of drowning compatriots? Yet, sometimes a year could seem like forever. A year with slow feet drags us back. Or keeps us still. And we cannot afford to stay motionless on account of a slow year. So, the year must die. It I true that even a sweet year will die.
What gives life to a year? Things said? Things done? Things undone? A year is potpourri of events. What is not done is part of the spirit of the year. Some years are more powerful than others. They carry with them the power of change. Of fortune. Of failure. Of disaster. Of death. Of life. Of escape. Of exclusion and inclusion. The force of a passing year hits us in different ways. How it comes and from what direction, we are not prophets to tell. So, we grope. We hope. We plod on in hope that the new year will grow vegetables for us even in our dark days. What audacity! What presumptuousness!
Sometimes we are in a hurry to push the year away. A year that is bad, needs to go away. No one wants to live a permanent nightmare. A bad year kills the spirit. Only the strong ones or the ones favoured by heaven will survive. Those who arrive at their last bus stop will go no further. They will pass away with the spirit and temper of the year. Whose fault is it? The year? The managers of the people, that is, the government? Just providence? In times of an epidemic, it is bad for everybody, even if not all carry the virus. The fear of the virus is enough prison, as it happened during COVId-19.
A good man can die in a bad year. Just as a bad man can die too with the year. When a year opens its belly to receive your body into the abyss, your hands will be hanging from your sides. And the carriers of the carcass will proclaim how heavy the carcass has become. It is the way of life. It is the road which mankind has travelled on in aeons. Yet, we do not live in humility. We live as if we own life, as if it was not given to us, and that it can be taken away at short notice.
Yet, how dreadful would it be if we were to live in constant dread of disaster, of disease, and of death! Physical trepidation could injure the heart. Could traumatise one and lead to mental health challenges. The joy of living would disappear. So, we are wired to forget so that we may enjoy the little pleasures of this life. The tragedy or death of a loved one – family, friend, colleague, neighbour – reminds us with a jolt of our mortality, our frail being, our smallness in the mighty scheme of things. We are not different from animals in this sense. There was this Anglican bishop who used to urge politicians to visit the morgue once every year. In his view, that would sober them up for a while. Have you been to the morgue recently to view a loved one? Have you ever been to a morgue? How did you feel even in the most sophisticated and ‘poshest’ morgue? This call to forget and remember at the same time is one of the conundrums of humanity. How we walk the tight rope makes or mar us. Every man his fate, every man his cross, every man his sadness, everyman his death.
From the sobering morgue experience, we move to the burial site and immediately walt off to the party venue and dance away with zest and gusto, forgetting the dead, remembering only the living. And we have no apology for that. It is the way of life. It is the way of the living. To remember is to cry. To forget is to live on! Contradictory? Yes. The world is filled with contradictions.
Except we record the events of the year, no one remembers the year. No one can forget 2019/2020, the year of COVID-19! So, the year must give birth. Give birth to etches. Things to remember. Memories are the library of a dead or dying year. What memories do we hold about a year? The dying year 2024 took my closest sibling away. Wish 2024 never came. True that our paths bifurcated on account of social and religious frictions. Yet the bond of eternal brotherhood remains. It is the way of memories. It is the way of life. Regrets often come later, after the event, after the facts.
Reading this essay is no guarantee that the reader will survive 2024 and enter the belly of 2025. Those who left the earth on 25th December had high hopes. But providence had other plans. January 1st 2025 is coming. But will this coming be the going away of some? We are no prophets to tell! Only time will tell!
HAPPY 2025!
