Once upon a time, there was some guy in every neighborhood who got popular by being the strongest guy to fetch water at the public tap then, when he steps up with his enamel bucket, only those he knew and liked got water from his bucket that hung on the tap head, the rest of us loved him and admired him in the area and tried to get close to him for obvious reasons.

We used to stop and throw sticks at the mango fruit bunch on the tree and plucked both ripe and unripe fruits and sometimes if we were not so lucky, we made do with the not very ripe, we ate them there, and we used to drink water direct from the tap with our hands to the mouth of the tap and our mouths bent into our hands, if the tap wasn’t running, we put our mouths into the mouth of the tap and sucked the water from the tap into our mouths, we took turns to suck.

Did we die? Yes we died to the good old days that even then our parents were abusing the government of hardship, they complained that things were too hard then and screamed at us and beat us for breaking plates and glass cups. Things were hard! But almost every parent had a job and complained about their income, we had uncles and aunties that seemed to care about us and fed us anytime we went visiting.

Things were hard then, things have been hard since, things will always be hard!

Today, those hard days were the good old days. Abacha was called the worst dictator, Obasanjo was accused of being worse than Abacha, Y’aradua was blamed of being too sick and slow, GEJ was called clueless, here we are with PMB and his own share of names already. Things were never better, never has been, seems like it will never be.

Some individuals have gotten married in the midst of all that hunger, built houses and built businesses, bought more than one car and raised families. Things were hard, things are hard and things will be hard.

Every Nigerian seems to always have the best solution to our collective problems, yet the leader always seems like the only clueless one, but as soon as they die or leave office, they become the Saints among the best we have ever had.

Could the problem be the followers? Maybe, because we have never changed, we have always complained and always call the leaders names, we have always been the ones who pretend to vote, who watch the rigging and clap for the best rigger, who justifies their means into office with high hopes, we have always been the ones who defend our man because we come from the same ethnic background, we have always been the ones who do not take an intelligent man without money seriously because we have always sold the seats to the candidates of our chosen parties. We have always been, the same old Nigerians who are forever complaining after we bungle each opportunity to get it right.

Things have been hard, things are hard and things will be hard, just enjoy today’s hardship as today may be the good old days of tomorrow, you sef, just try and be hard small.