Let’s go back to the primordial age of my memory, where memories are fragmented; short clips filmed through a potato, approximations of feelings, maybe more than a little unreliable.
I am three, or maybe a late-two and sitting on the couch with my mum and the neighbors. The neighbor’s kid (TNK) is about a year younger and not all the way potty trained. He pees on our brown carpet.
This is probably annoying to the grown ups, but not completely terrible. A hazard of having really young children. Plus the carpet is brown and hides stains very well. TNK then squats in his puddle of pee and pats the sodden carpet, and then licks his palm.
I don’t know why I thought this was the coolest thing ever and wanted to join. My mother somehow knew what I was thinking- maybe she saw the twitch of my leg, or my eyes light up or some other tell you have to learn so your tiny crackhead doesn’t kill themselves- and told me to sit my ass down on the couch.
I don’t remember much about the scene, but I was frustrated, even if I didn’t have the words for it. I felt caged. I wanted to pat TNK’s piss puddle and lick my palm, goddammit. Give me liberty or give me death.
Now what if I had decided to risk a spanking or a flying konk by disobeying my mother? Or maybe while they were distracted, cleaning up TNK, or getting the carpet shampoo, quickly sliding in there and soaking my palm in the wet carpet.
I would have felt victorious. On some primal level I would have felt like I won. Even now, decades later, I would have remembered the feeling of satisfaction that I got to do what I wanted, rather than the frustration that I couldn’t.
You know what though? I would have been feeling satisfied, feeling almost triumphant that I got to lick a fellow toddler’s pee.
I tell this story because in this election period, in my country, there are people who are rabid supporters of one person, or the other, not because they are good leaders or have great plans to take Nigeria forward, but because they want to win. Or they don’t want others to win.
Politics should be beyond this. Can we stop this fucking nihilism? People supporting certain candidates who have nothing to offer but the Spring/Summer fragrance for Eau de Failure do so because they truly don’t believe it matters. If it mattered, they would vote with sense or some form of self preservation, but since it doesn’t, they vote to win, because ultimately that’s all they know they will get out of it. The feeling of crushing their ‘enemies’
But at the end of the day, what exactly have they won?