Michael Jackson as a metaphor for the Nigerian child

Most times, you are at once bemused and deeply saddened by their very sight. Bemused because of the innocent and childish determination with which they undertake this gruelling, energy-sapping journey. Saddened because you know that, sooner or later, the sheer stress and arduousness of this daily routine would inevitably become a very painful experience that […]

Most times, you are at once bemused and deeply saddened by their very sight. Bemused because of the innocent and childish determination with which they undertake this gruelling, energy-sapping journey. Saddened because you know that, sooner or later, the sheer stress and arduousness of this daily routine would inevitably become a very painful experience that will gradually turn this quest for education into a very tortuous endeavour that many may not ultimately see through. This is because, as is the case in many parts of Nigeria, the child has to trek long distances to get to school. In most cases, this is after having gone to the stream (which is also a long haul from home) to fetch water. Then they may end up taking little or nothing for breakfast before setting out. For these little innocent ones, life becomes a burden even before they set on its difficult and perilous path full swing.

This illustrates the social and economic conditions under which the child struggles to obtain one of his basic rights–education. The child has to trek long distances, even cross rivers in some instances, to get to school, go on empty stomach and suffer many other deprivations not because Nigeria lacks the resources to build more schools and roads, provide potable water, etc. It is because leadership has consistently lacked the will to channel our enormous resources into projects and programmes that will benefit the generality of the people. Although we are all victims of the system, the child is most affected because of his vulnerability—he is still physically and psychologically supple and impressionable. Therefore, he needs all the love, tenderness and extra care necessary for him to fully bloom into a well rounded individual. But in Nigeria, we have, willy-nilly, connived to forcibly squeeze out the pleasures, innocence and bliss that naturally form the essence of childhood out of our children through acts such as child labour and prostitution, exploitation, denial of basic rights such as education, recreation, balanced nutrition, etc. And because, as William Wordsworth rightly pointed out, “the child is father of the man”, adults that grow out of this system are very likely to be hollow as they lack the very essential mental and psychological juices necessary for nurturing the man.

Now, enter the Michael Jackson exemplar. Because childhood is a very critical stage in human development, it has dominated most discourse relating to the life, times and death of the King of Pop. Because of Michael’s larger than life image, the issues that have been thrown up by his demise are as widespread as they are varied. These range from parenting, child abuse, drug abuse, child psychology, to political leadership and its responsibility to the people; and even materialism.

For me, Michael Jackson symbolised man’s innate ability, out of the sheer strength of will and uncommon determination, to attain excellence in his chosen field of endeavour.  At his

best, he was simply some mythical god of song transmuted by a trick of fate and fluke of accident to the present. And if the test of great art is in its ability to endure, to be timeless, then Michael Jackson’s music is great because his lyrics, delivered in that shimmering, bold voice, suffused with deep pathos, will continually draw tears, captivate, thrill and inspire the world.  

However, the saga that was his personal life can only be fairly judged by time. If anything, it is its discordance with the ordinary dude’s idea of a normal lifestyle that may confer on it a measure of glorious notoriety. A recluse, he would rather live with a chimpanzee than human beings. But whenever he had to suffer the company of humans, he preferred children. His enclave, the Neverland Ranch, was a huge children’s playground in the manner of Disneyland. The height of his outlandish behaviour was his transformation, through plastic surgery, into a white man of sorts: overnight, his skin changed to alabaster white (although it has been argued that he had a peculiar skin ailment), his thick black hair was retouched and re-conditioned into long and wavy strands; while his once broad African nose was chiselled into a caricature of the Caucasian beak. Some attributed this unusual obsession for transforming himself into a white man to a deep-seated loathing for his colour and his Black parentage and origin.

Nevertheless, the explanation for Michael Jackson’s relatively queer lifestyle is buried deeply in his past—his tortured childhood. It is common knowledge that a human being’s childhood is the foundation upon which his entire adult life is built. In the light of this, it can be safely said that it was Michael’s father who squandered his innocent son’s youth. Aside from the abuse Michael and his siblings generally suffered in the hands of their father, Joseph, the deprivations and psychological torture inflicted on little Michael, on account of his being a child prodigy, was stifling and debilitating, to say the least. Because he exhibited an unusually exceptional talent, which set him apart from even his older brothers, a lot more was demanded of him. As it usually happens in the affairs of men, it was his extraordinary gift of singing that would gradually drag him to the precipice of a tragic end.

To the father, his son’s genius offered the easiest way out of the crushing poverty and social backwardness that were the lot of the black folk in the United States at the time. Therefore, he ruthlessly exploited him without regard for the poor boy’s psychological needs which were very critical for his later adult life. So, while other children were playing baseball and other games in the park, building sand castles on beaches, going on vacations with their mums and dads, little Michael was behind closed doors rehearsing for the next show, recording chart-topping hits or on stage singing and mesmerising the world. Suddenly, the child was cruelly catapulted onto a stifling stage to contend with merciless adults, whose eyes were set only on the profit motive. Sometimes, he would stand behind the windows of his confinement and enviously peep at his peers on the streets having fun and simply being the children they were supposed to be. At such moments, he would weep bitterly. Of course, he would rue his God-given talent for bringing him so much sorrow and pain.

Therefore, it was only natural that Michael turned out the way he did. Throughout his adult life, he would crave that childhood that was so brutally snatched away from him. But because it is against natural laws for an adult to revert to childhood, he automatically became a human being oscillating between the mental states of childhood and adulthood. In short, the deprivations he suffered as a child stunted his emotional growth and turned him into a perpetual child unable to face the hard life that is the outcome of the human condition.

Sadly, I see parallels of the Michael Jackson saga playing out, in a much deeper way, all over Nigeria. As gleaned from the allusion to malnourished village children trekking to school, the girl-child holding the stick for the blind man, etc, only a few Nigerians can be said to have not been victims of one form of exploitation, abuse, deprivation or another. At the national level, the Nigerian elite, with very few exceptions, has consistently failed to harness and utilise our own natural ‘talents’, oil, and other natural resources, for the general good. And I dare say, because a large part of the elite class has experienced the sort of childhood deprivations they are now meting out to present-day children, we are all victims and perpetrators in this dangerous game of exploiting and depriving the child. This has precipitately degenerated into a most horrifying vicious circle.

To that extent, could we say, therefore, that most of us, going by the fact of our squandered or bungled childhoods, are more or less dysfunctional human beings? Could this, perhaps, explain our phenomenal predilection for kleptomania and materialism (to make up for the crushing poverty and penury we suffered in childhood), rabid selfishness (we cannot return the love we never enjoyed), dishonesty (we have been conditioned to believe that this is the only way you can get through in life)? In that case, could we, just like the late Michael Jackson, still be essentially children mentally? This may possibly explain our lust for puerile pleasures to make up for the ones we were denied during childhood. No wonder, we have turned the socio-political and economic turfs of our country into a virtual children’s playground: our own Neverland Ranch.

Hope is not lost, nevertheless. If we must reverse this terrible trend in order to attain the much sought after greatness as a people and nation, we must return to the Nigerian child all the pleasures and rights that naturally go with childhood. If not, we shall continue to have a country of perpetually discontented, brutalised, hollow adults with the mindsets of toddlers. No, not those innocent, humble, God-fearing ones that Jesus exhorts us to suffer to come to Him. We, with a few exceptions, are self-destructive, lustful, conceited, self-centred, perverted children who always harbour grudges against our forebears and fatherland. Sad.

Gyang is a personal assistant to the governor of Plateau state