NIGERIANS, COME LET’S RETHINK THE WAY WE GIVE GIFTS
When we say: “Gifts can kill you kpata kpata,”
we mean gifts can cause the loss of lives as events in his essay reveal. Gifts may create enemies
for you, particularly when the receivers feel they are God’s gift to you and
you owe him a gift of your own. Some of our people have a dreadful horrifying
sense of entitlement. An entitlement is when the person being given the
gift feels he/she has a right, power, prerogative, or claim to the gift. Our
Nigerian relatives need to be cured of the DOE. This DOE is not the Department
of Education. It is the Disease of Entitlement.
If you don’t believe it, ta!k with neighbors of
Mr. and Mrs. Romanus and Christiana Odo, residents of Majidun
Awori Area of Lagos . Christiana stabbed her husband Romanus to
death on Christmas Day, 25/12/2016, in the Ikorodu area of Lagos because he did
not provide the gift expected of most Nigerian husbands. He did not give
Christmas money to the wife and mother of eight children for the family
December entertainment.
Why are we overseas Nigerians so gullible
(stupid for a better choice of word) that we feel compelled to give away our
wealth to people who do not merit our bleeding hearts? Why do we give way away our hard-earned money
to please people who don’t like us to gain what they don’t have? Hey, Nigerians, listen carefully. We oughtn’t feel
guilty for being in America and working so hard for every US dollar we send
home to seemingly dependent parasites we call relatives who don’t appreciate
our efforts. Let’s rethink. Let’s make it crystal clear that, although we
believe in giving gifts as acts of love, yet is cannot and should not be done
haphazardly or in a stupid way. We are not on this earth solely to cater to the
demands of so-called family members who may be overly demanding of our time and
hard-earned material resources.
Our people can be contemptuous, meaning
disapproving, disdainful, scornful, sneering, or unappreciative . They show no
gratitude and often are unthankful. For example, after A gave a gift of 100 Naira to B, B
shoved the gift back to A and said: “No, Oga. I don’t want the 100 Naira, but why
can’t you give me 100 dollars to be changed to Naira in black market?” As of
today, one US dollar is equivalent to 480 Naira in black market, and 100 dollars equal 48,000 Naira
Hey Nigerians, look here! We cannot let folks
back home dictate to us what gifts to give as though they were divine-right
monarchs. Hell! A beggar has no choice, does he? Our begging folks back
home make us feel guilty that we are enjoying overseas while they are suffering
poverty. Tough luck! Whose fault is it? Nigeria is not a poor county, and our
folks are not poverty-stricken. Poverty is a choice of attitude and selection
of mindset. Our relatives are manipulative suckers (motherfuckers) who waste
resources, competing with the Joneses and expecting us to serve as their OBFN
(Overseas Bank For Nigerians).
Consider the case of Mr. And Mrs. Odo. The
abominable housewife was such she had been accusing
the husband of spending his money on women outside the family and neglecting
her and her children. While the wife was busy bitching and picking a fighting
with the husband, the man dropped N1,000 on the floor, but the woman said the
man should go to the market and get ife oriri (Igbo for things to
eat) himself with the amount, which she said was tiny and would not get
anything worthwhile. vanguardngr.com/2016/12/woman-stabs-husband-death-demands-christmas-cooking/.
A gift or the lack thereof can create havoc in
any Nigerian community. Consider boko haran fighting over demand for the gift
of apiece of arid land to set up a shitty enclave. They want to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria and the
introduction of Sharia law. Boko Haran movement has killed over 2,000 Nigerians, and uprooted 2 millions from
their homes. The Delta Avengers are willing to give their lives for the gift of
a few acres of polluted earth. The Christmas gift is something to be
contumacious, meaning openly mendacious, false, rebellious; fretful, quarrelsome,
or unreliable in matters concerning gifts.
Talking about killing a spouse for failure to
give a gift, can you fathom a Nigerian okorosimite (Idoma for Christmas)
without the chicken or the Easter family dinner without the usual osikapa
egheleghe (fried rice), egusi and okra soups? Can you imagine having egusi soup
without okporoko or pepper soup without ox tail or nkwobi (cow feet)?
It is easy to understand why a woman could kill
her husband because she feels entitled to a gift, though her reasons are
morally bankrupt. In her shallow, uneducated mind, the killer is saying: How
do I a big Nigerian femme, sweetie for the bedroom, a woman of timber and
substance celebrate this Christmas and do without the nama (Hausa for
beef), osikapa eghelegwe (fried rice); isi ewu ( goat head), and
okuko (chicken) which I can turn into sweet mgwomgwo (pepper soup)? The
reports had it that Christiana murdered
her husband on Christmas Day, 2016, as
neighborhood wives were cooking .
Nigerians are obsessed with giving and
receiving gifts even when the country is going through hard times and
unemployment of youth is stringent, rampant, and in two figures. Children go
around asking family members and strangers to “gbaram Kristmas,” meaning “do me
Christmas,” or “dash me some money for this Christmas.” Do you ever wonder why asking
or gifts is as bad as demanding for a
gift and as despicable as urinating in public against the walls of someone’s
million-Naira mansion?
Talking about bribery, commonsense tells you
that bribery is a forced gift. Aren’t
you being forced to gift unwillingly after inviting a girl from interior
Nigerian village girl to America for marriage and she abandons you after you
have paid her way through clenched teeth to train her for the CNA (certified
nursing assistant) and then the RN (Registered Nurse certification)? You have
been manipulated to part with your money for the promise of pussy.
What did you do wrong to drive your CNA wife
away? Nothing. You gave her a gift, inviting her to America to provide you with
sexual stimulation and bear children just to carry on your unpronounceable
name. What have you done to deserve someone urinating against your
million-dollar mansion’s wall? You did nothing .
You have built a mansion as a gift to edify or
beautify a community and raise the property value, and now someone is urinating
on the works of your suffering, afflicted hands. But why? We want to know.
It is because you sent a gift in form of invitation letter and paid the
Delta Airline ticket for the village girl, and now she is leaving you for another
man. In your heart of hearts, you know the truth.
The truth is that you gave the wrong gift. You
are impotent and cannot fuck the village girl well because years of drunkenness
and use of marijuana have weakened your penis, and your sperm is like the thin
miri akpu (white milky water cassava is soaked in) rather than the thick miri
akamu ( corn starch). You dare not tell friends for they would laugh you out of
town after eloping with your village girl to show her how to fuck. Like
we said earlier, gifts are troublesome and sometimes can mess you up and even lead to your demise when you meant to do
some good. You cannot sleep well after giving gifts to relatives.
What sin have you committed that the neighbors
are tampering with your sleep and mosquitoes sucking your blood at Lagos?
Nothing. You arrived at Lagos, Nigerian, for a much-needed holiday. You
cannot sleep because you are being eaten as dinner by the ubiquitous mosquitoes
buzzing, buzzing, buzzing throughout the night.
In the morning, as you are about slip into the
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep with its attendant unconsciousness, the front
door bursts open, and here come relatives you never expected were still alive
and unkempt neighborhood children you do not care for. They are in the middle
of your parlor with one purpose in mind: to demand for the dollars you have
brought from America.
They say, “Dash us” ( give us gifts). Whichever
way you see it, my friend, you are besieged by a virus. A virus in no other
than a gift in the form of cola nuts, bottles of Budweiser or Golden Guinea.
Uncle Bankole saunters in unexpectedly, and you send Bamidele to the corner
store to fetch cold beer.
Demanding bribery is no different than asking
for a gift from someone under duress. Duress is defined as pressure, threat,
coercion, constraint, compulsion, or force. Giving gifts can kill you. You are
in trouble when you give, and you are in trouble when you do not give. What
then do you do? Like money, gifts are fungible in that they are not exciting
unless gifts leave your hands and go into the hands of some other person. Why
did Jesus tell us “it is more blessed to give than to receive”? Didn’t Jesus
create the gift virus with the Nigerians in mind when he was delivering the
masterpiece sermon on gifts on mountaintop?
Fights often broke out in many Nigerian
communities when we were growing up as little innocent children at Oturkpo or
Igumale. We were told it was the right thing to do on the Boxing day right
after the Christmas Day. We were young, misinformed kids, and didn’t know any
better. We believed that Boxing Day was a day to box your neighbors’ ear off if
gifts were not forthcoming It is believed many fights related
to gifts still break out today in many communities in today’s Nigeria.
How did the name Boxing Day originate? One school of thought says Boxing Day is a
holiday celebrated the day after Christmas Day.
The Nigerian Government often celebrates the
Boxing Day as a public holiday. What a remnant of colonialism! The Boxing Day
originated in the United Kingdom, and is celebrated in a number of countries
that previously belonged to the British Empire, Nigeria and Canada included.
Another school of thought argues that the
tradition began in churches in the Middle Ages when Parishioners collected
money for the poor in alms boxes, and these were opened on December 26, the day
after Christmas in honor of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
For many of us, Christmas is a time for giving,
and giving is good for the true giver as well as for the proper receiver. It is
advisable that one should know what to give, when to give, when to withhold
gifts, and how much to give in order to remain safe, it is not always the
man or woman who asks to be given deserves the gift. Sometimes giving can
come with fatal consequences.
A man on a monthly salary of N27,000 ($68)
asked his boss for N15,000 advance payment so he could travel for the
holidays. When the boss said she did not have the cash and advised the employee
to exercise patience, the man sneaked up on the woman at or around 10:30am and
stabbed her to death for not effecting a gift.
How many times have you sent your hard-earned
dollars to your folks back home in Nigeria only to regret or feel sorry
afterwards that you were foolish? Perhaps you shouldn’t have sent home
anything, not even a kobo. The receivers may end up insulting you. Some of your
receivers may ask: “Is this all you can afford from a big person like you”?
Others may say in sarcasm: “After all, it is
your duty to give me.” Sending the money home to Nigeria can have a boomerang
effect in ways that are unexpected and demeaning. The receiver my ignore you as
if your gift does not matter .You are expected to call to thank the receiver
for accepting the gift in the first place.
A Christian woman this writer met while riding
the bus had something to say about giving gifts that are not appreciated. She
believed that if the gifts come from God’s heart, it doesn’t matter what the
receiver does, says or feels after receiving your little gift. If the
giver gives the gift with a clean heart, and the receiver takes possession of
the gift, that is the end of the case. God blesses the transaction as He always does.
The woman and I got into a disagreement.
ME: Why bring God into this? The receiver
ought to say thank you or show some appreciation.
WOMAN: Appreciation? To who? And for what?
ME: Appreciation to me for spending my time and
money.
WOMAN: You are demonstrating pride by demanding
to be worshipped, to usurp God’s throne.
ME: I don’t understand.
WOMAN: There are things you don’t understand
about God and His ways
One day, Emmanuel, a classmate of this writer
called out of the baby-blue sky from Aba to say: “Send me dollars.” I simply
hung up the receiver and let the fool stew in his ignorance. It is
disrespectful and the height of bad manners to demand a gift from someone you
haven’t seen in decades just because you happened to share a classroom in
Nineteen-something.. Emmanuel didn’t camouflage his ignorance with small talks
about the weather in America or inquiries into my health or the wellbeing of
the children, or news of happenings in Nigeria.
“Send me dollars” is unexpected from a
retired bank manager. Perhaps his demand for dollars was made in jest or
moment of inebriation or drunkenness. Nigerians at home and everywhere drink
unusually large quantities of alcohol to knock them out of misery. The
Nigerians act out of obsession with being instant millionaires.
Consider the popularity of the South-East and
South-South Nigerian governors who pride themselves on building beer breweries
as a clever way to keep citizens so lethargic they are kept in the dark as huge
sums of money from the government treasury accounts are made to disappear into
private account. One is lethargic when one is so drunk as to be sluggish,
tired, weary, languid, exhausted, or lazy.
Whatever reason Emmanuel had in mind for saying
“Send me dollars” did not sit right with my spirit and would not sit right with
anyone familiar with today’s hard economic times. Here, in America, I work hard
for my dollar. I find myself picking up coins as I walk around gas stations and
shopping malls. I am looking on the ground. Gluing my eyes to the ground helps
me to pick up pieces of money people throw away. I have picked up enough
pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and even dollar bills to send some
Nigerians the sum of 100 dollars. It is
not unusual to come home with pockets bulging with coins
This 22-year-old Cameroonian, Joel Ludguo, who
killed his employer, is currently in police custody at the State Criminal
Investigation and Intelligence Department, Yaba, Lagos State, for allegedly
killing his boss, Miss Temidayo Adeleke for failure to make a gift. A man on a
monthly salary of N27,00 ($68) asked his boss for N15,000 advance payment so he
could travel for the holidays.
When the boss said she did not have the cash
and advised the employee to be patient, the man sneaked up on the woman and
stabbed her to death. .Neighbors said Adeleke,whose wedding was planned for
early 2017, met Ludguo at her church and brought him to live at her house. She
had been kind and generous to her help. She gave a gift of money and
accommodation and then paid for it with her life. http://punchng.com/cleaner-kills-boss-not-paying-salary-advance/
As we said earlier, the gift you give may not
be appreciated, or it may end up being your undoing defined as a downfall,
ruin, ruination, collapse, shame, or embarrassment. Let’s consider a few ways
to ensure our gifts do not hamper or daunt out peace of mind.
First, we oughtn’t give too many unnecessary gifts to children
in our households or home. Children feel spoiled and pampered with too many
unwanted gifts on each birth date, holiday, and special occasions. Some of the
gifts to give our kids are not even taken out boxes before new gifts arrive
knocking at the door. Children find it onerous and frustrating to take tabs of
and manage busy schedules of unwanted gifts.
Possible solutions to problems associated with
children’s gifts include: (i) make fewer
gifts; (ii) demand that kids perform some chores when they receive gifts, such
as wash dishes after dinner, clean their rooms or launder clothes, or pay for
some family utility bills with money earned from part-time jobs.
We conclude this essay with the same opening
paragraph. So we are compelled to give away our wealth to people who do not
merit our bleeding hearts? Why? Friends, I do not feel guilty for being
in America and working hard for every US dollar I send home to
bloodsucking parasites we call relatives. Let’s not let folks back home make us
feel guilty that we are enjoying overseas while they suffer poverty. Tough
luck! Nigeria is not a poor county, and our folks are not poverty-stricken. Our
relatives are manipulative suckers who waste resources, competing with the
Joneses and expecting us to serve as the OBFN (Overseas Bank For Nigerians).
Let them get off their lazy asses and do whatever they can to help make ends
meet, like plant gardens, raise chicken, or start small business from which to
make profits to be shared with us.
