MINISTRY OF SURVIVAL

Nigeria has quietly established a new ministry.

Don’t waste your time searching the Federal Gazette.

You won’t find it there.

Neither should you ask the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

He may deny its existence.

Yet it is the busiest ministry in the land.

It is called the Ministry of Survival.

Every Nigerian is automatically employed there from birth.

No interview.

No aptitude test.

No letter of appointment.

No salary.

No pension.

Only daily confirmation that you are still alive.

The Minister?

Nobody knows.

Some say it is Inflation.

Others insist it is Fuel Price.

A few stubborn fellows swear it is Electricity.

The majority have agreed that the ministry operates under collective leadership because suffering in Nigeria is fully democratic.

Nobody is excluded.

The Permanent Secretary is Hunger.

His Director of Finance is Empty Pocket.

The Director of Planning answers to Hope.

Hope is the only civil servant who has worked overtime since independence without receiving promotion.

The ministry has departments.

The Department of Transportation specialises in explaining why transport fares rise before fuel prices are officially increased.

The Department of Electricity has abolished darkness.

It has simply redistributed it.

Those who enjoy four hours of light daily are now officially classified as upper middle class.

The Department of Education recently introduced a new curriculum.

Parents now study school fees.

Children merely attend classes.

The Department of Health has simplified medical practice.

Doctors first ask whether the patient has money.

Only afterwards do they ask what is wrong.

The Department of Agriculture deserves special commendation.

It has successfully convinced urban residents to become village farmers on YouTube while tomatoes continue to behave like imported jewellery.

Even yam now carries itself with ministerial dignity.

The Ministry’s greatest achievement, however, remains its Human Capacity Development Programme.

Every Nigerian now possesses at least one postgraduate qualification in survival.

The roadside trader has a doctorate in Inflation Management.

The commercial driver lectures in Advanced Pothole Navigation.

The pensioner is Professor of Waiting.

The civil servant holds the Chair of Salary Extension Studies.

His research focuses on one difficult question:

How can thirty days’ salary survive sixty days?

The answer has not yet passed peer review.

The unemployed graduate is completing a PhD in Hope Preservation.

His thesis has been pending since 2021.

External examiners have relocated abroad.

Government deserves some credit.

It has modernised the language of hardship.

Hardship is now called reform.

Tax is called sacrifice.

Borrowing is called investment.

Poverty is called resilience.

Pain has become policy.

Suffering has acquired official vocabulary.

One government spokesman recently declared that Nigerians are the happiest people on earth.

That statement is true.

We laugh because crying has become expensive.

Somebody also announced that the economy is improving.

Indeed.

Only yesterday, pepper negotiated a strategic partnership with tomatoes.

Onions have joined OPEC.

Garri has applied for diplomatic immunity.

Beans no longer answer ordinary greetings.

Rice now insists on protocol.

Even sachet water has begun behaving like bottled champagne.

There was a time Nigerians discussed inflation.

Now inflation discusses Nigerians.

Our wallets no longer carry money.

They merely preserve memories.

Meanwhile, government continues commissioning projects.

The people continue commissioning patience.

Government commissions flyovers.

The people commission prayers.

Government launches palliatives.

The people launch fasting.

Government inaugurates committees.

The people inaugurate coping mechanisms.

Some people still ask why Nigerians smile so much.

Simple.

Smiling is cheaper than therapy.

Humour has become our national insurance policy.

If laughter were taxable, Nigeria would pay off her foreign debt within one budget cycle.

Perhaps the saddest irony is that government has mistaken endurance for approval.

Because the people have not revolted, someone assumes they are comfortable.

Because markets still open, someone concludes prosperity has arrived.

Because buses still move, someone believes transport is affordable.

No.

The people are not comfortable.

They are merely experts in survival.

There is a difference.

The goat does not dance inside the rain because it enjoys getting wet.

It dances because there is no shelter.

One day, historians will write that Nigerians performed the greatest miracle of the twenty-first century.

They survived what should have broken them.

But history will ask another question.

Why was survival elevated into national policy?

A government should build prosperity.

It should not administer endurance.

The day Nigerians graduate from the Ministry of Survival into the Ministry of Dignity, that day the Republic would have discovered the true meaning of governance.

Until then, every morning, millions of citizens will continue reporting for duty at the busiest ministry in Nigeria.

The Ministry of Survival.

And attendance, regrettably, remains compulsory.