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Yesterday, I woke up to see a 3am missed call from Uduakobong, a friend and brother I haven’t seen in three years and counting. He works in one of those prestigious (I think) establishments whose workers on a good day never introduce themselves with it. Although I can second-guess and somewhat understand the reason they don’t, I always am intrigued by the response, ‘I work for,’ say, ‘the Presidency’ when if someone went there I would neither be found nor known. That plus the untold feistiness in the DNA of the federal agency occupied my mind as I hastened to return the troubling call.
Did he run into trouble on one of those sickening operations of theirs? Was someone I know in trouble? Was it me? He hardly calls, and even so never at such unholy hour.
He picked up the call on the first ring. The level and quality of his voice and the niceties he readied for exchange assured me there was no cause for alarm. When he told me what the matter was, we laughed over it. Then, as such conversations go, we moved on to catching up.
When it got to a senior mutual friend, our chat produced something I thought was profound enough to provoke this piece. Sometimes, most times, bad things happen to people near us not for us to poke fun at such victims but just so we learn. I know how much we love to gossip but I don’t suffer fools gladly; not today. I am not telling you anything about the man that Uduakobong and I discussed.
And, you don’t need to know him to learn from his movie-like real life experience. Young or old, rich or poor, black or white, politician or ‘apolitician,’ be careful, extra-careful, every day you wake up and find yourself here on earth. I say ‘here on earth’ because I don’t know whether you would need the quality when you die and go wherever; having myself not died nor been there before. But, seriously, everybody, especially when at the top, must exercise uncanny restraint or care in speech and action.
Just as Abraham believing God was counted for righteousness, a rich or powerful person’s restraint can be counted for humility, for obedience, for faith, for respect and for love, etc. Human beings must realise that life aces are not in our hands. We must never speak or carry on as if we manufactured ourselves or own the very oxygen that enables life. We must never strut about as if everything begins and ends with, by, to and for us.
Furthermore, we must learn to listen every time life offers advice. Everything must not be about us. We must not think let alone believe that we know it all. The way this thing called life is wired, we must resign ourselves to the fate (sorry, fact) that even at the height of our glory, the poorest man or woman or child wallowing at rock bottom may be the one with the talismanic saving grace for you!
At this juncture, something else that Uduakobong and I alluded to should suffice. No human being should be completely stupid. If you don’t have what I call top wisdom, please do not lack its bottom version. I remember growing up in Cameroon; how tax collectors applauded those who ran away successfully when they couldn’t pay their tax but mercilessly beat up defaulters who couldn’t pay and -’double wahala’- couldn’t run away fast.
That’s one lesson from my childhood I shall never forget. If I am no good up there, I should be an expert down here. If heaven caught me red-handed or unawares, I would immediately make amends and go with the flow. God forbid that God would move against me (clearly to teach me one or two things); only for me to fight on like a stupid fool! (emphasis mine)
That moral is deep. Wounded ‘big man,’ know when to stop fighting; know when to allow God be God; know when to enjoy what you are meant to endure. Otherwise, you double or multiple your shame and prolong your punishment. Uduakobong and I concluded by praying for the mutual senior friend of ours, to for once understand the something that God wants to teach him.
I hope Uduakobong doesn’t get to read this closing part. Knowing the mutual friend as I do, I think ours was and may remain a forlorn prayer but if God transformed Saul to Paul, what can’t He do; what prayer can’t He answer? Learn, man, learn: to be human, to be humble; to listen, to live by the Golden Rule as well as to surrender when nature chastises. God bless Nigeria!
That Nigeria-Cameroon AFCON round of 16 game
Right on the heels of our national football team surviving that pulsating scare by perennial foes, next-door Cameroon, someone wrote something online that I found quite sweet, even if too hyperbolic.
“Our Eagles are super again,” is a patriotic caption apparently written while the orgasm attained during the victory over the Indomitable Lions lingered. I share in the sentiments of the writer, and congratulate the Super Eagles.
However, seeing how Bafana Bafana of South Africa outclassed hosts Egypt to emerge as our next opponents, I cannot live in those sentiments. In fact, if our boys seek to be in the semis, they must neither defend as ragtagly nor play as lacklustre as against Cameroon. They would be truly super with more surefootedness at the back and some organisation and leadership upfront.
Nigeria, please, pray for our Ministers of God
The church is under attack, the same way the church had set out to place the world under attack. So, is the world fighting back, the way they say corruption is doing in Nigeria?
Or is the church the architect of own attack and even if or not is the church learning anything from this experience? Whatever, let’s all rise and fast and pray for this cross to pass away in no time!
