In Nigeria, when you say the village people are at work, it connotes that some invisible evil people are at work to ensure that the odds are stacked against you. Or as we say, the witches from the village have activated the destroy button. This belief that the witches from the village are the root cause of some obvious problems is not unfounded. There are indeed self-proclaimed witches who have testified of the havoc they have wreaked on their victims. There is indeed evidence of voodoo activities where a padlock has been used as a tool to lock up a victim’s fruitfulness in any form.
The fear of being a victim of these witches and babalawo drove people to church in the hope that the church will spare them from being victims. The church took advantage of their fears to further propagate the fear of witches and wizards. They are told that the witches are indeed on the loose and to be safe, they must be in church seven days a week, give most of their money to the church, fast all year round in some cases, climb mountains, visit the man of God that can set them free and even slave it out for the man of God all in the search of freedom and prosperity.
So far statistics show that Nigeria is a 26 per cent poor nation. A figure that is not woeful but can be better. The question is can our religion get us to rank between one per cent and five per cent poverty index in the world? In what way can we topple these village people behind our woes? And how effectively can our religious leaders get us out of this quagmire?
It is important to note that village people syndrome is peculiar to the Eastern, Southern and Western parts of the country. The Norther people are mostly Muslims and their culture doesn’t take into cognizance the existence of village people. They are very communal and see poverty as their destiny and do not actively pursue a quest to get out of it. Perhaps their enemy is the city people, the elite Northerner that strategically keeps them poor so they can be oppressed and controlled to do their bidding. Indeed the Northern part of the country is the poorest region in the country. The prevalent culture that mandates girl child marriage and deprives the girl child of education creates a cyclic pattern of poverty and their city people don’t see anything wrong with that. The last time I checked, the man who advocated for education as a necessary tool for the development in the North was deposed as an Emir.
From the city people syndrome to the village people syndrome, here goes a tale where I had felt the village people are against my progress. I had relocated to Lagos state from Kwara state and getting a job was tough. Every job opportunity that I almost clinched was taken away from me for an unexplained reason. I became very poor and broke, in a city where I had no family relative. I had written a copywriting test many times and each time, I prepared well enough and each time I was told that I did not pass it. I became dejected and I convince myself that the village people are behind my repeated failure.
Being an information maven, I decided to attend an advertising school and, the very first class of advertising school, I understood why I have been failing consistently. Even though I have been reading advertising books that are as gynormous as a building, I missed out on something foundational in copywriting and hence my repeated failure. It occurred to me that the village people were not at work but my knowledge gap was my undoing. And guess what, the next copywriting test that I wrote, I passed it. Not only did I pass it but the South African creative director was very proud of me. I worked as a copywriter for six months before moving on to an even bigger job appointment. And it has been like that since then. I narrow my knowledge gap and boom I get the opportunity I want.
So it is very easy to blame the village people for our predicament when indeed we are our own worst enemy. It is easier to point accusing fingers than take responsibility. Because when you finger someone as the cause of the problem, it absolves you of any fault and you can sit back and let the world lynch the villain. What that also cause is that it shuts down the brain from thinking of a solution. And when you have a population of people that can not problem-solve, you have a population that is mentally poor and economically poor. It is not the village people.
The CFA Project