The unhappiest people on earth?

In the last week, the so-called World Happiness Report snatched our attention from the things that matter – daily survival. Here we were, having fun, Sai Baba is back and at his desk, the Naira is responding to ICU treatment and moving to the general ward. Things were looking better, except of course in some parts of Lagos, Naija’s commercial nerve centre. Somewhere around that boisterous city that welcomes every dream but delivers few, residents of Otodo Gbame woke up one morning to discover they were homeless. Akshion governor, Ambode sent in the bulldozers and Otodo Gbame is history.

The last time the bulldozers went to work en-mass in Lagos was when it rumbled in a place called Maroko. When it left, not only did Maroko change its name, it changed status too becoming a haven for the nouveau riche. Who can stop Otodo Gbame from becoming Coconut Island or any exotic name that pleases the ruining class with a plot costing more than life itself? For now, Otodo Gbame residents are – not happy.

In Lagos, the driver, family and dependants of Dr. Orji the medical doctor who alighted from his SUV and jumped into the lagoon. That driver has lost his wage for or from the month of March and except he relocates or changes trade, there are chances he may be unemployed for a long time. In a society where myths and taboos are attached to suicide; who is likely to be known as the employer of the driver whose boss plunged into the lagoon. 

I know another unhappy man, he is my fellow Chevening alumnus, Madaki Ameh. During the week, suspected armed bandits ravaged through Benue (did I hear you say again?) yes. When they left, homes were left in ruins with the charred remains of their unhappy occupants. Last week, Ameh struggled to understand the carnage and why he could not share the horrendous pictures of the victims as sent to him by his friends. Ameh remains an unhappy man.

I know Maiduguri is picking up the pieces and has held a durbar recently, but most of the people of Borno are not entirely happy. There are thousands of them in displaced peoples’ camps. When the UN says there may be famine in some parts of Naija, it is people of this area and not Sai Baba’s spokespersons who could confirm or deny. These people used to have homes, and a semblance of dreams and hopes. The advent of Mohammed Yusuf and his successor Abubakar Shekau has turned their lives upside down. 

While government is happy to hush any attack in Borno, bombs are still going off intermittently and claiming casualties in spite of best efforts. The safest person in Borno is the one who is six feet under. The majority seem to be living on borrowed time, unable to fully live life and unable to make plans. But they are undeterred. During the week, the young woman Yandomah shared an encouraging video clip of young Borno school leavers crashing through the gates of an institution in their quest to buy JAMB form. If they survive to sit and get results, make it through school, they may think of happiness someday.

Oh yes, I almost forgot that the sinnate is not happy. They failed in their effort to commandeer Hameed ‘Netanyahu’ Ali, a retired Colonel and Customs boss to appear before them in uniform. So, what did they do? They passed a resolution in which they declared Ali unfit for public office. Ali is unfazed. According to unreliable sources, he was driving around Kaduna in a weather beaten jalopy when his boss, Sai Baba ordered him to coral the Customs. If Ali is unhappy, he has not shown it – he appears to wear a perpetual grin in all the pictures of him I’ve seen. Not so with Saraki and Dino Melaiye.

So, what’s so special about happiness? How do you measure happiness of a person not to talk of a whole nation? I have no answers to these questions. But the guys at the United Nations, owners of the global GPS of ecstasy appear to. When they positioned that machine this year, it rolled over and settled on Norway – a relatively Scandinavian nation less than the population of Lagos, leaving Naija 94 points behind. 

This was not what APC set out to do two years ago when it promised that the Naira would stand shoulder to shoulder with Obama and later Trump’s dollar. Nor what it planned when it promised a social security scheme to beat any such scheme in Africa. So, are we truly unhappy?

There’s a silver lining in this penumbra over global happiness. We may be 95 on the global scale; we are better than so many. We are happier than our favourite rival, the Ghanaians. What beats me silly is how the Libyans and the Somalians without a central government beat us to it. One could close his eyes to Algeria, Mauritius and Morocco but not these two. Perhaps our stravaging throttlebottom sinnators should pass a resolution barring the UN from reading our mirth-o-meter henceforth or threaten to pull out!