Rag Days In Shattered Hearts Of Nigerians

By Taiye Olaniyi

Sometimes we get from phenomena considered pedestrian to reach noble height of idealism.

Such is the case with " Rag Days" as associated with alms begging, the need, necessity, fun, its gimmick and the nonsensical dosage of such in human life.

We were at one or the other a dramatis personnel in alms begging be it in the mind costume or the outer of it in tattered rags.

During our childhood days in Offa in the early 60s, many of us youths used to copy-copy the Hausa blind beggars chorusing after them " Wa dele layo babiaaallah..." , and similarly twisting another song to say, " Owo to fun mi jaguda ko le ri gbe" translating to " the alms given no thief shall ever dare to steal" indicating the fun, pranks and children’s meaningless jokes over serious matters.

As we advanced in age from mere naughty playful children growing into teenage circles we became encircled into the initiation of adult life in the tertiary institutions especially the universities we attended.

My friends at the University of Ibadan and Son of Man at the University of First Choice, the University of Lagos got initiated into the mystery of " Rag Day" without truly understanding the why we had to tear our shirts and trousers, though without exposing the central workshop lest we completely are tagged" Aro Jaja" .

We romanticised into alms begging in tattered rags to appease the academic ancestral injunction of 1864 European academia that while striving to be “Worthy in Character and Learning," every university student must learn the spirit of raising fund for charity purposes as Rag Day indicates in its meaning "Raise and Give".

Sipping from this noble chalice of " Raise and Give," the Rag Day if not spanning a weeklong alms begging spree, had participating students mostly freshers or new intakes moving in droves and as human tributaries begging for coins and currency notes while kind Nigerians dropped whatever could be afforded inside clay and metal containers which then served as mobile ATMs .

The fun aspect of it was as spectacular as the mission to be accomplished because anything good has elements of mishap, guys laying ambush and landmines for ladies with bulky buttocks, the "Ikebe Supers" of this world.

The philanthropists smiling and giggling at ladies before following the due process and a number of the coerced alms beggars in the spirit of rag day ending up to slake their thirsts and fill their esophagus with part of the remains to be interred at the Students Union Office.

Honestly Son of Man never partook in road diversion of the proceeds from the Rag Day alms begging but as for lookery and touchery my friends and I were "for everybody and few bodies" .

Do not say I told you, one of the students union leaders 1979-80 was alleged to have padded his pockets with some of the Rag Day proceeds and on his way to the eastern part of NIGERIA had an accident and got his femur broken by Chineke.

Rag Day celebration equally have their seamy side, "An act of ragging: especially an extensive display of noisy disorderly conduct, carried in defiance of authority and discipline" such as we do witness when law making by lawmakers and the assemblage of legislators put legislators to breaking of jaws and heads, tearing of expensive clothes into tatters and rags most times over fiendish and mere earthly mundane issues.

The epoch making Greek Athenian jaw-jaw and intellectual debates from which sprouted decent democratic processes are in NIGERIA of today attenuated in padded dividends, demonization and demonic political balkanisation and structural agitations all leading to mere personal gains by few but earthly powerful elements, the cartels, the cabals and now carnivorous kidnappers and ritualists.

So, from helplessness our ruggedness for building a virile nation is transplanted with hopelessness caving into shattered hearts and bodies entombed in rags.

Sermoners though preach we live lives of pious prophets of ages past, yet in their parades and attributes equally steal in the name of God thus turning the houses of worship to the den of thieves.

Unjust judgements in the judiciary go further as an invitation and invocation for the descent of the Lord's Day of Darkness that looms round the corner asking for our penitence before raptures erupt.

This message as admonition is captured for our reflection in the holy Bible, Joel chapter 2:

"Turn With All Your Heart"

12. Therefore also now, says the LORD, turn you even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

13. And tear your hearts, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and relents from sending calamity.

God Bless NIGERIA.

Taiye Olaniyi, a retired postman lives in Lagos