What impact does Valentine have on Nigeria?

On Wednesday, Nigerians joined people from across the world to celebrate St Valentine’s Day. As it always is with us, the commemoration, when put on a scale, is likely to have outshone that of any space of human congregation anywhere in the world.  That is the way we are, when we get introduced to any idea or event, we take it far beyond the imagination of their originators themselves!

A couple of years back, for example, a federal university collaborated with one of the biggest banks in the country to “reduce” the incidence of HIV infections during that year’s St Valentine Day’s celebration. They planned an event and made condoms available to students of the institution in abundance such that they could sow their wild oats without the fear of any negative harvests.

That was a totally new one. I could not resist taking a quick reverie back to my days in the university; I came back with no memory of any elaborate celebration of St Valentine’s Day. But things have since changed significantly over the years, Youths began to get more daring and adventurous towards St Valentine Day, they organise activities and gain sponsorships from corporate organisations. To catch the attention of the youth, more and more brands struggle to key in to the St Valentine Day’s opportunity year in, year out. Valentine became a season that you cannot but notice.

I agree that the recent economic downturn has greatly limited the otherwise superfluous investments of resources, energy and time into marking the Lovers’ Day. But we are an essentially flamboyant people, so even if we cannot go all the way like we would a few year back, men, women, girls and boys still found ways to display an overflow of goodwill towards one another on Wednesday.

But how much of the sentiments that we see on such a day truly reflect the essence of St Valentine? For me, this country would be far better than it currently is were Nigerians, leaders and the led, truly conscious of the imports of the kind of love that St Valentine and the major faiths that we practise in the country profess. But do we even care to know?

Valentine’s Day is in memory of a Priest who worked against the decision of the Roman Empire to outlaw marriages among soldiers. This was because Emperor Claudius II, who was fighting many wars, wanted a strong army, but a lot of his men did not want to be soldiers.

The Emperor assumed that men refused to join his raids and conquests because they wanted to stay at home to be with their wives and children so he decided to cancel and outlaw all marriages! He reasoned that if men were stopped from getting married, there would be neither woman nor child to distract them from the all-important duty of fighting for the state.

But this Priest felt it was important that men got married. He thought that this would save them from the temptation of living with women without being legally married, a sinful act by his faith. So, he decided to do what he thought was right. He would gather people who were interested in getting married in a secret place, far away from prying soldiers and join them in matrimony. For a while, it was a jolly good ride for him and his accomplices but the day of reckoning came fast. He was soon caught in the act! When Roman soldiers discovered his illegal activities, he was arrested and brought before Emperor Claudius.

The priest made a good impression on the Emperor who thought he was a well-spoken and wise young man. Rather than harm the priest, the big man wanted him to have a rethink about his faith.  He encouraged him to stop being a Christian and become a loyal Roman citizen, who would conform to the laws of the land.

But the priest swore that he would never deny his belief refusing all entreaties from the Emperor.  He even dared to sell his Christian faith to the almighty Emperor!

The audacity infuriated Claudius and he ordered that the priest be sent to prison until he could be executed.  Some accounts claim that while he was in prison, the priest performed a miracle by healing Julia, the blind daughter of his jailer, Asterius. The jailer’s daughter and his 44-member household were said to have been converted and baptised into Christianity.  Before his execution, the priest was also said to have written letters to his close friends coveting their prayers and signing these letters by writing “Remember your Valentine.” This good priest was believed to have been executed on the 14th or the 24th of February in the year 269 A.D or 270 A.D.  Some two centuries later, around 498 A.D., Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as a church sanctioned holiday in honour of a man who was martyred for the protection of the sanctity of holy matrimony.

Now, although St Valentine did a lot to guard the institution of marriage from attack and ultimate destruction, his life symbolises more than the conjugal or filial. Valentine was true to his calling, he did not have to know any of the people whom he joined in matrimony, the thrust of his actions was from the agape love that he had for men and women, for the peace of their souls here on earth and their ultimate union with God in the hereafter. Such selflessness, such unbridled love and passion for the welfare of others are the exact things that Nigeria and Nigerians need at this time in our history.

If we would allow the lessons of St. Valentine to enter our souls, our leaders would desist from the egocentricity that governs their hearts and leads them to the appropriation of the collective interests to their own. Those elected to govern us would not reduce national interests to those of their families, community of origin, state of origin, political party, ethnic group or religion. Nepotism would be far away from us were our leaders aware of the most basic requirement of love and leadership. And that would have saved our country from extant turmoil wherein most ethnic groups in the country feel used, abused and abandoned. If our leaders knew the meaning of love, they would have operated with unveiled sense of fairness and justice which would permeate the land and give everyone a sense of rightness.

And the average Nigerian citizen who sees nothing but an opportunity for uninhibited frolicking on St Valentine’s Day would have paused a little and purged themselves of that sense of me, mine and I that rules our lives from the home, unto the streets and into our offices no matter how low or high they are.

If we allowed love to get a hold of our heart, we would not, even if we engaged in all the indulgences of February 14, go back to the marauding of communities and shedding of blood that have become an everyday occurrence in our country lately. The lives of other people would be of more importance to us, we would respect the rights of others not just to live but to live well. We would work together to make the country a better place for all of us to live in. At the messy juncture where Nigeria is, love, undiluted and unconditional from citizen to the other, is the only thing that can save us; but do we understand that even if we just celebrated the memory of an emblem of such hopeful affection!

Twitter @niranadedokun