Nigeria: The Divine Comedy- Pope Jay

For any genuine lover of verse, Dante Alighieri is not a name that ought to sound absolutely new. Dante was a traditional Italian artist who is prominent for his artful culmination; The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is a metaphorical account of the Alighieri's fanciful voyage through damnation, limbo, and paradise. The sonnet, which has propelled various other aesthetic works one of which is the prevalent Dan Brown's book; Inferno, is partitioned into three areas, correspondingly named the Inferno (Hell), the Purgatorio (Purgatory), and the Paradiso (Paradise). In each of these three domains the artist meets with fanciful, verifiable, and contemporary personages. Obviously, as the name of every stage infers, hellfire is loathsome; it is portrayed with a great deal of torment and agony and "horrifying displays of violence", the limbo is the home of cleaning; likewise described with some level of affliction. The last and last stage, which just comes after one has experienced all these different stages, is heaven.

There is no gainsaying in stating that Nigeria is currently hellish and Nigerians are suffering. Prices continue to rise by the day and Different employers (some state governments inclusive) have refused to pay the stunted salaries that serve as little compensation for their employees. I was chatting with a petty trader who usually took her wares to a secondary school in the area to sell to the students and teachers and I could not help but laugh when she told me she could no longer sell at the school because all the teachers in the school had started to sell these things themselves! Of course, the effect of the non-payment of salaries was trickling down already! Notwithstanding, with some of the fragments of hope I have left, I want to trust that Nigeria is simply experiencing the second stage in this her Divine Comedy and there is for sure light at the end of this seemingly dark tunnel. Yet, on the other hand, considering an alternative probability, we might still just be in the frightful stage requiring another to come and change this "change" before we appreciate any genuine purgation. Simply Saying!

Pope Jay