The curse of hope

A lot in the affairs of man rides on the crest waves of the four-letter word, hope. We talk of tomorrow because of hope. If there is no hope, tomorrow holds no promises for us. Hope is the reason we strive; it is the reason we trust our political, religious, and business leaders. And it is the reason we are disappointed, misled, cheated, fleeced, and led astray by them.

Politicians market hope in our tomorrow because tomorrow holds out the promise that we will climb higher on the ladder of success and social importance. As a highlife musician once put it, poor man today, big man tomorrow. You do get the drift of what hope means and why we trust tomorrow will be our time.

Religious leaders market our hope in the hereafter. Hope is the reason religion is so important in our lives. Hope tells us that there is paradise where there is no suffering and no rich or poor. There, Lazarus will not feed from the crumbs that fall from the table of his master because he will have no master. Paradise is a land of equality and the land of eternity. It beckons but no one is in a hurry for the gate.

We have reasons to celebrate hope. Our lives are meaningless without it. But hope is like the economist. It has two hands. On the one hand, it is a blessing. It has the capacity to push us forward; to encourage us to do more so that tomorrow the sun does not peek in our lives, it shines and shines brightly.

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On the other hand, hope is a curse and a tyrant. Hope attaches itself to a promise and invites us to invest our trust in it. In a circular reasoning, promise attaches itself to hope. Promises are elusive. When they are unfulfilled, as they often are, hope adds another four letters to itself: hope-less. Think of it this way. Today was the tomorrow for which hope offered the promise of something better. 

That tomorrow is now here but nothing has changed. The promise of tomorrow was broken. So, here we are: the price of bread has gone up, not down; the sound in your pocket is not the muffled sound of lots of Naira but the squeaky sound of emptiness; the colour of ink in your bank account remains red; and the sun is not shining because the sky is overcast. It is the curse of hope.

We are driven by hope to believe that puny man has the capacity to effect a fundamental shift in our personal circumstances. Hope tells us to trust and put our fate and the future of our children in the hands of a politician who offers himself to lead us – selflessly, of course. Hope permits him to raise our hope in his ability to deliver on his promises.

We stand on the threshold of a new beginning on December 31 of every year. This is January 2024. It is evidence that we have passed through the annual rites of passage in human progress in which one year yields place to another. When the grandfather clock strikes the hour of midnight, we usher in a new year. A new year is forged on the anvils of hope; old things have passed away; the vista of a new beginning opens up before our eyes. In the ritual of politics of hope, our governments at national and sub-national levels unfold before us the many beautiful colours of a new beginning. 

The ritual begins with the annual budget detailing what the governments will do to make our lives less brutal, less short and less of a daily struggle and grind. New roads will replace footpaths; the seasonal stream infested with water borne diseases will be replaced with potable water; the herbalists will be replaced by doctors trained in the modern science and art of curing illnesses; the ramshackle primary schools will find their places in the history book of the last century; we will be secure in our homes, on the roads and in our offices. We feel the tingle of a new hope in our hearts. 

In January 2023, we stood on this same threshold and entertained the same fond hopes of a new beginning in our individual lives and the life of our nation. We felt the same tingle in our hearts and listened to the soft voice of hope. It was the year of transitional general elections with the prospects of fundamental change of guards in the seats of power across the land. Hope told us that the change of guards would mean much more than new faces on the coins of our political history. It is the business of the ballot paper to periodically mint a new set of messiahs. Hope told us to have hope. We did, as indeed, we have always done in a system of human and resource management in which hope is less than more. 

Hope is our opium. It lulls us into a false sense of progress, even in a developing country where the arc of that progress bends in the direction of the whims and the caprices of selfish men and women who wield political power. Hope accepts no responsibilities for the failure of promises. It does not apologise for the failure of government to turn the footpath into a modern highway. It accepts no blame for the mindless societal violence and the cheapening of human lives. It accepts no blame for the failure of leaders to lead or when the keepers of our common treasuries help themselves to their contents. The opium of hope births furlong hope in individuals, societies, and countries. Still, marketing hope is fundamental to human and resource management. 

In his 2024 budget speech, President Bola Tinubu marketed not just hope but a higher variant of it. He offered the nation a “Budget of Renewed Hope; a budget which will go further than ever before in cementing macro-economic stability; reducing the deficit, increasing capital spending and allocation to reflect eight priority areas of this administration.”

Hope, renewed hope. The journey begins again this month.