Odoh Diego Okenyodo
In my circle of friends, just 10 are normal human beings; and when you take me out, that leaves only 9 others. I have some nerdy ones and some who reside in the cellars of an insane skyscraper. I will tell you a story to illustrate how abnormal one of them is.
One day, I was hosting my secondary school alumni in my house. I sent the Google location, posted the full address in the WhatsApp group, and even sent SMS messages to some Lord Lugard colleagues amongst them, those guys who never have data or who still use Nokia 3310. Many of my classmates arrived on schedule but some were losing their way to the house forever and ever.
That was when my most ‘unwell’ friend took the phone and did what brought everyone straight to the house. He commanded into the phone, “Wait! Ignore all those other instructions. When you get to the roundabout, count 23 speed bumps; after the 23rd one, turn right. You will see a gate on the right. Go straight in. After three speed bumps within the estate, turn left in to a street. Drive for one kilometre on that street then turn right, then take first turn to the left. Third house, black gate.” I had no leftover food due to this.
From then, I became aware of how nonchalant I had been. It seemed like I didn’t know the way to my house. He who came for the firstime using Google Maps still paid attention to the number of speed bumps and the specific distance he drove. It took a specific degree of madness to pay attention to such ‘unnecessary’ details. And then I noticed why we are very wasteful and unable to manage stuff. We don’t count. We don’t measure. Some cultures even say it’s a taboo to count the number of children one has.
Whenever I fuel my car, I make sure I fill the tank and, to know how far that full tank would take me, I reset the odometer (yeah, I know it sounds like the scale that measures the quantity of Odoh in every human; I am measurable like sand). As I move around, I know my fuel tank should take me about 400 miles or about 600km, something like Abuja to Otukpo or Abuja to Kano. And my car travels about 3000 to 4000 km before changing oil and oil filter. All these allow me know if my car is beginning to consume too much fuel or if my activities had gotten too much and I need to cut costs, or even check my health due to overworking.
This is why project managers live with the dictum, “If you can not measure it, you cannot manage it.” If we do not know how much waste we produce and dispose of, how do we manage them and their effects on the environment? How many rolls of nylon bags are being produced in or brought into the country a given time? What quantity is sold every day? Should we increase or decrease the quantity available? What is the quantity of fuel being consumed every day in each state? These are numbers we should easily get because fuel is sold at central locations. In the FCT, for instance, I doubt that we have more than 1000 fuel stations, and even if we do, fuel is dispensed to stations from depots in trucks and proper records should reveal a lot about what we are doing to the environment.
The Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC) does give some statistics of number of automobile traffic on roads every day, and this is commendable. We need to extend those figures to make more meaning to shape policies, particularly those on the environment. We probably do not know how many people clean the streets and that they mainly comprise of the indigenous peoples of the Federal Capital Territory who are very poorly paid and left without protective equipment. They sweep the streets and highways while drivers high on adrenaline whizz past , almost knocking down many of these women. In fact, motorists do knock these workers down and kill them. But, how many of them suffer this fate and who pays for these crimes? We don’t count, so we don’t know what to do about them.
Our propensity to always live for today is sickening. We are sick. And we don’t know. We don’t seem to want to know. The Nigerian parameter for judging what is right is expediency. This is making every space become a jungle, because of a lack of conscience, and we need to take many steps back to redress some missteps. We are not too far gone to remedy our situation, even in the Niger Delta.
Individually, let’s start taking stock of things. Let’s measure what we spend on anything. How many people are coming for your event. How many would need food. How many are fasting (or ought to be placed on a compulsory fast). How much food do we pay for and don’t eat at 5-star hotels and restaurants? How much do we spend on mobile phones and air time? How many TVs do we have in the home and do we leave them on when we are not watching? Instead of leaving the water running while we brush our teeth, ask if a cup of water is adequate for brushing your mouth and how many seconds it takes that running tap to fill the cup. That gives you an idea of how much wastage you cause while running water as you brush.
If you do these things, I hope I have been able to convince you to become a meticulous or nerdy person like my friend who counts speed bumps on the way to his friend’s home. May you not be like those who have been saying Nigeria has 10 million children out of school for 12 years now, despite excruciating poverty, corruption, and population displacements due to insurgencies. May we learn how to count and measure. (How many words were this article? I guess you would say 734. That’s wrong. Try again.