Do you even look at their faces?

I am at the stop lights. As soon as my car came to a stop, a mob swarmed over my car and the cars around me. I looked around, and I could see all kinds of representation of the citizenry of Nigeria plying their trades briskly while keeping their eyes on the “soon to be green” lights. Usually, to prevent unwanted attention, I would just either look straight ahead or busy myself with my phone where it is safe to do so, but today, I ventured to look at them one after the other while I also wait for the light to turn green. Different strokes; I was waiting for the lights to quickly turn green so I can drive off, and they are silently begging the lights to stay on red for a few more seconds, to see if they can either quickly conclude a sale and not have to sprint after their customers while trying to get paid for what they have sold.

I kept looking around. I saw a woman on a wheel chair, holding a baby of about a year, being pushed by a boy of about 11 and in time, because I was looking at them, they came by to beg for alms. I waved her on. She looked into my eyes, and into my car, and at my wife and children at the back, and she nodded, then moved on.

I looked at her in the side mirror as she tried her luck with the vehicle behind me. Something caught my attention there; I could  see the occupants of the vehicle busy eating something, not sure what exactly. They didn’t even bother to look at the party around them, they just stared straight on and continue eating whatever it was they were eating.

I turned my attention to the others around me all either trying to sell something or beg for alms. A boy selling chewing gum and sweets; another one selling CDs, yet another one selling date seeds. I saw young boys and girls plying all sorts of items for trade. I saw some of them tired and weary, under the hot sun, and I could imagine that they probably have not made any money all day. I started to think about them; how will they eat tonight? Where do they sleep? How do they survive? Who are their parents and where are they?

My stop light was still red; so I continued to look, and wonder. I realise that a lot of the women and girls begging for alms were from a nearby IDP camp. Their own homes had been destroyed, either by Boko Haram fighters, or herdsmen, or via communal clashes or natural disasters. They are now in the capital city, herded into a camp, and with no one to provide for them, they all have fend for themselves. Most of them probably have lost husbands and/or fathers. Some of them will never see their homes again, others may never see their parents again. Most of them will probably never go to school again, or learn the trade they were learning, or farm the farmlands they were farming before evil uprooted them from their lands.

Eventually, the light turned green, but the deed was done. Something in me had been stirred up. Hitherto, I found that I had never looked at the faces I see at stop signs eking out a living; or at bus stops wearily waiting for buses that will never come; or along dirty backwater streets in the slums around me where the open veranda is the sitting room for everyone until it is time for them to pile into the small room that will serve as the bedroom for maybe up to 12 people!

I realised that I really don’t see them. Not that I don’t see them; but I really don’t look at them; I don’t look into their eyes; I don’t try to unravel them; I don’t try to know where they are coming from, or what pains they are going through, or what hope or hopelessness they carry! I just look past them or look through them! They are the people of the streets. The silent, faceless, nameless, sometimes hopefully hopeless people that form more than 85% of our population.

Not all of these people are on the streets, a lot of them are around us in our homes. The gateman with 5 kids on 20k a month; the housemaid who is only a little older than our own first child; the gardener where we have one; the driver, the washman, and a host of people that service us, the well to dos or pretenders. They come into our home, carrying their troubles; their sick parents; their unpaid house rents; their damaged psyche; their fading hopes. Yet, we expect them to serve us, we expect them to behave, and we expect them no to be affected by the affluence we display.

From that day at the stop lights, I decided I will start to really look at them. So I started, and what I found shocked me. Where I can, I also started to talk to them more, and what they told me amazed me. Some of these people have gone through the most challenging life you can imagine. They live under the poverty line; they live a life that you would not imagine people still live. Their faces are usually a mask that hides the real person, but once you begin to go behind the veil, you will see frightened faces; faces that betray anxieties about the next meal, the next rent, the next job, etc. You will be exposed to lives that are on the edge; ready to tip to whatever side will assure them of their next meal or desired state of comfort. You will see hopes dashed, dreams killed even before they were born. You will see generations of a family railroaded into poverty, hopelessness, illness and disease.

I wish I didn’t start to look at them, but If I didn’t start, how would I have seen that there is desperation in the land? How would I have seen that many people are barely surviving? How would I know all these?

All over the country, in the cities, and towns, and even in the villages, the story is the same. It doesn’t matter which part of the country you go; it is the same story. Nigeria has abandoned her people to the harshness of our economy. People are finding it difficult to live; to survive. Children are dropping out of school daily never to return; morality is at an all-time low; crime is at an all-time high; the people are already pushed beyond the wall, and in desperation, people are turning on themselves. It’s becoming a jungle out there in our cities; people are desperate, and desperate people do desperate things!

Unfortunately, most of us don’t see these people. They are fixtures on our highways, same as the traffic lights. They are silhouettes at our roundabouts; our bus stops and in our alleys. They are part of the façade as we drive down the highway through the slums of our cities and towns to our suburbia. We don’t care to look; we don’t care to imagine.

We employ some of them, and pay them wages that our kids will blow on a hot Sunday afternoon at ColdStones, yet we almost work them to death. Their transportation fare alone takes more than 60% of their salary, and they have to wake up at 4am to get to work, leaving at 9pm to go back home. In all these, we still don’t see them. To us, these people don’t exist outside of the starched uniform and the plastic smiles they have to put up before us.

We never tried to look at life from their perspective and wonder how they actually survive? If we fail to see them, or look closely at them, we will see nothing. We will feel nothing for them. We will assume that they are fine, but in truth, they are not. Except something holds him back, a frustrated man is a top candidate for evil. When he flips, he decides to get rich by all means or die trying. He sees nothing else but his quest for wealth and anything that stands in his ways way.

Our countrymen need help. We need to start helping more. I urge you to find the how and the who, but we must help them to stand on their feet again, we must help them go back to their life, we must help them to go back to school. We must give them hope again. We may argue it is not our responsibility, or we may argue that there are too many of them to help, but I urge you to start where you can. The first step is always to look deeply into their eyes and ask, “How are you doing really?”