Garden Variety

Garden Variety
I have recently discovered that my kryptonite is mediocrity / incompetence. Unlike Superman, I have more than one in typical mortal fashion. Anything average, standard, common, ordinary, unexceptional, it just does my head in. It irritates me, it’s like being hammered across the head in the same spot for 3 days without end. Unfortunately for me I happen to live in a city, a country that celebrates mediocrity.

“Oh Fashola fixed a road that had craters larger than those on the bomb stricken roads of Afghanistan, he is such a great governor”. Excuse me... let me not talk sha, but...
“Oh I was stopped by a police man and he didn’t greet me with “Aunty do weekend for me nah”.”
“I went to the hospital and they had a steady power supply for the 3 hours that I was ‘admitted’ there”
“Ah can you imagine I drove past a state school and it had all its windows in tact”
“Would you believe I flew in from Abuja and my flight left on time, and on top of that I now got to Lagos and the conveyor belt was working”
“I left my passport at MMA immigration desk, and when i noticed a week later, I went back and it was still there.”
“O ga o, petrol queue no dey this last few weeks” ....errr we are amongst the world’s largest oil producers
.....Sorry guys, but in case you aren’t privileged enough to know, or you have been living in Lagos sized bubble, all these things are GARDEN VARIETY.... There is nothing special, nothing good, nothing to write home about all these things, they are mediocre, they are what we are to expect as the barest minimum. I see NO reason why we should celebrate them. I really don’t.

Garden Variety Politicians: Your state governor (no names, no states) may be way ahead of the curve when compared with other states, because he is delivering 15%. However he is responsible for every person that dies in a public hospital, or on a state road, or due to a fire ambulance not arriving on time, or to an electrical fault, or for every child that goes without an education becomes an armed robber and meets an untimely death... and when you put it like that that makes him no more than a serial killer. I’ll give credit where credit is due, but I think we need to start stretching our expectations of our politicians, and demanding for what is constitutionally our right!!!! If the Governor only wanted to deliver 15% he should have taken a job as an office secretary.
Garden Variety Security Officers: If you are wearing one of those hideous black uniforms, it is actually your job to ensure that the rest of the population are secure from antisocial behaviour, acts of terrorism, road traffic offences, and so on (actually embarrassed I just used that phrase – and so on). I will not celebrate you, if you stop me ask for “my particulars” and neglect to ask me for sonme Azikiwe’s (Naira notes, like Benjamins – u get?). If you want to beg, there are tons of plastic eva bottles floating around the Lagoon, help yourself to one, get some fairy (what’s the Nigerian version sunlight soap or something) and join the crop of people that are washing cars on Akin Adesola.
Garden Variety Educational System: I think I am being very very kind here, because Garden Variety is quite generous. Our educational system is beyond useless, the teachers cannot pass the tests that they set the students. This is just not acceptable, why should anybody accept this. Education is the bedrock of society, if this fails (which it has), everything thing else will fail (which it has)
Garden Variety Healthcare: Again, very generous. Hospitals are constantly on strike, other state hospitals are making cutting edge medical discoveries, mean whilst we are jumping for joy at the fact NEPA didn’t take light during an operation.

I’m not putting Naija on blast here, but it troubles me deeply that we are so blinded by the mediocre, that we can’t even see we need to expect more and demand more. What we celebrate is quite frankly not worth celebration, and we are hindering national growth by accepting the mediocre we have as the best we’re gonna get.

I promise my next few posts will be more light hearted than these last few with political undertones, but I think it is important to realise that we all have a part to play in the development of Nigeria, and what better time to say it than the run up to voters’ registration. Your vote gives you a voice, without a voice your expectations are impotent.

Xoxo.