The New Elites

You know us when you see us. Our velvet skin, imported clothes and shoes and original leather accessories perform their intended function of covering the lines of stress, pallor and ajepakoness* which may have been inflicted on us during our childhood days growing up in the suburbs of Lagos or in the smaller towns of the country or any of the villages scattered around.

We are mostly in the employ of the giant telcos, big oil firms, international manufacturers or the rising Nigerian banks. These organisations have helped supply the funds and resources that polished us to our new outlook. Our air conditioned offices, cars and homes ensure we experience limited exposure to the rays of the Saharan sun beaming from above and as such, the production of melanin in our bodies is reduced to a level far below its production capacity.

Our kids try their best not to engage in conversation that will require them to speak their mother tongue so that they can be defined as tutch, oh sorry, I meant refined. Well the kids are not to blame, not with our effort to ensure they don’t attend any self acclaimed Nigerian school. The more the school bears descriptive words signifying non-Nigerian, the merrier for us.

Our annual family trips take us to privileged societies across Europe, U.S.A, South Africa and now even Dubai. When last did we attempt a visit to the village? Oh I forgot, a trip to the village would desecrate and degrade our Facebook status.

Many of our parents were raised in the villages but only few of them if at all any lifted a finger to lift up the standard of living in those villages. We seem to be doing the same today. We’re living better lives but our communities are not. We’re enjoying life’s best but the 36 states of Nigeria and the FCT are not. We have been liberated from the shackles of poverty but the country remains tethered.

Let us not tow the ignoble paths of the generation ahead of us. We can better the lot of our fatherland if we apply our newly refined status and acquired resources to the benefit of the commonwealth of Nigeria and refuse to answer to self only.

*Ajepakoness can be interpreted as being crude