Why Canada can’t humanize a Naija

When Canada finally returns me to Naija, my adaptation back to hell would be a tortuous eternal process. My big problem here is that this country spoils me rotten and makes me feel snatched from the only jungle worth ranting about. Boko Haram has killed 65 people in Ngazai district of Borno but ministerial screening […]

When Canada finally returns me to Naija, my adaptation back to hell would be a tortuous eternal process. My big problem here is that this country spoils me rotten and makes me feel snatched from the only jungle worth ranting about.

Boko Haram has killed 65 people in Ngazai district of Borno but ministerial screening is more important. For the past two weeks, For two weeks now, Canada has been gripped by uncommon kind of insecurity. Two pubescent boys, Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky are suspected to have killed three people, an Australian man and his American girlfriend, then a Canadian. Canada has mobilized its security to take them in before they could kill another victim. The search extends beyond 3,000 miles radius. It includes the Royal Canadian Air Force, the provincial police, the RCMP and volunteers. Just for three people dead! All news outfits are on it, every hour! Nobody has mentioned the dead in Ngazai at the sinnate screening in Naija.

Using heavily equipped squad cars, K-9 and real drones, the search in Manitoba is tedious and unrelenting. These Canadians are not joking. The authorities are living nothing to chance. They hold periodic press briefings, reassuring residents and citizens alike that they their security is paramount and shutting down entire towns where necessary.

As a visitor here, the word that so often crosses my mind is – indulgence. I am careful not to join the infractions that are dubbed insouciance here. They include the bashing of hydro authorities when a tornado hits blacking out parts of the country during a severe winter storm. I listen to, watch and learn as municipalities, law enforcement and social services work round the clock to provide needed assistance. I compare that with how Abuja or Maiduguri responds to the insurgency in Borno, Yobe, Zamfara and elsewhere.

I am Nigerian. I am unshockable. I have a gas barbecue grill. If it comes to it, I could boil hot water for a bath during a power outage. My spoilt Canadian hosts even forget that their phones could be charged in their cars! I am not one to complain that the bus is five minutes late or to call 911 over a lost phone. I am Nigerian, I am unshockable! I even recently learnt on YouTube how to generate electricity using a magnet, a spark plug and a bulb!

Canadian kids don’t know power failure. They don’t shout – Up Hydro if it happens, they’re likely to call 911 in great panic. Their elders don’t excuse governance failure. They’re unforgiving of failed politicians. Party leaders don’t fall on each other to take in a failed politician; they avoid them like the plague. Swing politicians are not beautiful brides to be canonized when they cross the floor. The political indulgences of Naija are alien to the Canadian. Their politicians behave themselves in public and are wary of how their private conduct might jeopardize their careers.

The Canadian police gets bad rap for doing its job, but not for kicking, slapping or molesting suspects or law-abiding citizens. They cannot be mobilized to do the bidding of any politician no matter how highly placed. Nobody in uniform abuses the privilege of his or her uniform. You can trust a person in uniform. The people in Manitoba are calling in to give clues to their security agents if they sight the two suspects. Their clues are treated in confidence and acted on. You could bike, walk or drive through a military barrack without harassment.

Canada indulges this Naija for eight years, but the Naija in me cautions me to remember the nation that raised me. So, the air force has joined the search for the two suspects believed to be armed and dangerous. These boys are not called herdsmen! The colour of their skin is not mentioned in mainstream news and social commentary. Their sad parents warn them to surrender. They could trust the Canadian system to get to the truth of any matter devoid of political meddling. I feel indulged and indulgence spoils the Naija in me. Rights consciousness could be my death.

Two weeks ago, Shia protesters were on Abuja streets rallying against the illegal incarceration of their leader, Sheikh Zakzaky. The protesters are right conscious, like their Hong Kong counterparts, but they carry no arms. Yet, they supposedly killed a senior police officer, and a journalist on duty. That is the official rap. The dead officer was backing his colleagues when the incident happened. The bullet hit him in the back of the head. No autopsy was performed. No coroner’s inquest. He was rushed for burial according to Islamic rites.

The Canadian in me tells me it was a case of friendly fire. That’s because I’ve been brainwashed for nine years by Canadian justice system. Canada has done this to me? It raised me not to blame the Shia for killing an officer with placards and slogans?

In 2019 Naija, women can’t air their underwear in the sun for fear ritual trophy hunters. People can’t stroll for fear of human parts harvesters. The Naija in me laughs at the wastage of deploying so many resources to searching for two armed teenagers when my home government excuses banditry and negotiates with terrorists while its law enforcement kills peaceful protesters. Only the life of a big Naija politrician could elicit a little concern, not those of Zamfarians or the 65 killed in Borno. The 65 dead in Nganzai didn’t make headlines anywhere except in foreign media. The perpetrators have returned to base, to celebrate their victory against us. But Canada is searching for two dangerous individuals.

I hear my country’s attorney general-elect excuse crash disobedience of court orders, a human rights violation as excusable in the elitist national interest. So, I find it repugnant seeing Muhammadu Buhari and/or Yemi Osinbajo showing up among global heads states and governments? I laugh when they scout for investors to the land where human life means nothing. I am a Canadian visitor stridently resisting being humanized – and I’m not even sorry!