Do you watch action movies as avidly as I do? I sincerely hope you do. While there are many, many misguided Kenyans who were left cold by The Equalizer, in which Denzel Washington killed dozens of Russians in increasingly violently creative ways, I couldn't help but marvel at how exciting it was, at the push of a button, the flick of a switch or some similar narrative device, to snuff out the life of a Bad Guy. The movies were brought to life on the streets of Paris in three days of terror last week, which were memorialised by the largest rally of anti-free-speech despots ever held.
The videos of the murderously brutal assault on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris and the hostage-taking of a kosher supermarket a few arrondissements away could have come out of the minds of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, producer and director, respectively, of extremely enjoyable violent action movies. The aftermath too, recalled the television action series 24, in which Jack Bauer, the protagonists, hunts down the terrorists and despatches them with extreme prejudice, much to the approval of his superiors.
What I found notable was the degree of press coverage that the three days in Paris received, and the global reaction by world leaders, when at the same time Nigeria's Boko Haram had stepped up its war by massacring 2,000 northern Nigerians in its quest to build its own Islamic state. There were no online videos of the murderousness of Boko Haram. Other than token words of condolence, the world largely ignored the brutal massacre. You can bet that there won't be a Paris-like assemblage of despots in Lagos to stand in solidarity with the government of Nigeria.
Nigeria is truly unique. It is exceptional in Africa. It has one of the most vibrant economies in Africa, one that seems to thrive despite the prevalent official corruption of the federal and state governments. Its entrepreneurs are the envy of the continent, its footballers are world renown. It has the largest movie and television industry in Africa. And despite Ebola, Boko Haram, 419 scams and drug kingpins, Nigeria is the light that shines on Africa, not the still-segregated South Africa or the army-run Egypt. Nigeria is what Africa aspires to become when it grows up.
There are many lessons to be learned from Nigeria, despite the official global cold shoulder. Kenya, however, seems to be learning the wrong lessons, encouraging rampant graft down to the smallest administrative and political unit. We are permitting pro-violence Islamists and organised crime militias, as well as drug kingpins, to rise and thrive. It is only a matter of time before Kenya is facing an odious global reputation for Islamist militancy, runaway violent crime and being a hub in global narco-trafficking. Wait! That moment is now!
We have been regaled by stories of how civilised people behave by some of the great and the good of this fine nation. It is time someone showed them that among the great and the good are to be found some of the least civilised beings on God's Green Earth. And that is OK. We were never going to forge Proper British Traditions in a century; it took the United Kingdom more than 400 years to accept the benefits of good dental hygiene! In the period between the laying of the first rail tracks in 1897 and now, we have somehow managed to hold together a country made up of close to a hundred ethnic and sub-ethnic groups without resorting to military juntas, or succumbing to failed-state status, though we have come close once or twice.
So, chin up. We have our own Boko Harams and, thanks to the mysterious seventy-seven Chinese in Runda, the makings of our own 419 scams. Our drug problem is growing at about the same pace as Nigeria's did in the 1990s too. Political violence is the norm rather than the exception. And graft, petty and grand, makes us brothers and sisters. Perhaps, following the Nollywood script, it will not be long before we start bragging of how many yachts and super-yachts we own, how many Ferrari and Bugatti show rooms are opening in Kenya, and how many Nigerian girls are ensnaring Kenyan oil tycoons in order to pay for expensive skin-lightening procedures performed by celebrity dermatologists in the United Kingdom.
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