Circles and cycles

It is imperative to start with this truth. I don’t know the source but it says, sharpen your axe:

“Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job from a timber merchant and he got it. The pay was really good and so were the work conditions. For those reasons, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.

“His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.

“The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees.

“Congratulations,” the boss said. ‘‘Go on that way!”

“Very motivated by the boss’s words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing fewer and fewer trees.

‘“I must be losing my strength,”’ the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologised, saying that he could not understand what was going on.

“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.

“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”

Reflection:

“Our lives are like that. We sometimes get so busy that we don’t take time to sharpen the “axe”. In today’s world, it seems that everyone is busier than ever, but less happy than ever.

“Why is that? Could it be that we have forgotten how to stay “sharp”? There’s nothing wrong with activity and hard work. But we should not get so busy that we neglect the truly important things in life, like our personal life, taking time to get close to our Creator, giving more time for our family, taking time to read, etc.

“We all need time to relax, to think and meditate, to learn and grow. If we don’t take the time to sharpen the “axe”, we will become dull and lose our effectiveness.”

This brings me to my discourse, which is that Nigeria is one twisted maze that none understands. Those who thought they could soon get ensnared by the jumble and also begin to moon around as if under a spell.

We had good luck in Aso Rock but the luck was all but good, so Nigerians said. Then came the lanky General. Almost everyone sang Eureka but I was very sceptical. The man’s towering frame was so much he scared the daylights out of the luck of Aso Rock and hastened his departure through the orchestration of an equally skewed arrangement. Now, there are moves to bring back the forsaken good luck after the first attempt failed last year.

The country has continuously moved in circles, trapped in an unfathomable cyclic cocoon. What else could make us return to a jaded National Anthem scripted by colonial masters. What could make us yearn for the return of the good luck of Aso Rock we deemed unlucky. What could make even the citizens return hate for hate. Oluomo and his gang wanted the Igbo dead. Now Amaka and her gang want the Yoruba and Edo dead even from faraway Canada. If we all kill ourselves, where then is the Nigeria we are killing ourselves for?

Funny people! Was this not what led to the pogrom and eventual civil war of the 1960s?

Everyone is up in arms against President Bola Tinubu. However, I believe that Asiwaju can deliver. Nevertheless, it won’t be a walkover. He inherited a crushed country. He should have known that but went ahead because of the lure of power and fame, which he already had. Now caught up in the same oppressive circles, he surrounded himself with unhelpful aides turning his government into a circus.

Nigerians are fleeing abroad in droves, afflicted by the Japa (brain drain) disease that is fast robbing the country of future generations.

Every family wants to relocate without giving a thought for tomorrow. Almost all that relocate never return. Why would they return to a coarse soil like ours stripped bare by unconscionable ‘leaders’?

Everything is in disrepair. Our fathers and mothers now live inside a cage of despondency. Their children are scattered all over the globe, leaving behind mansions that are eerie and rundown. Sometimes, parents travel to see their children and grandchildren but rush home to die because they cannot cope with the strangeness, the cold and frenetic abandonment.

The children they laboured to train and even helped to Japa only hop in and bury their dead; that is if they have time to, and depart again, never to return…

Do our ‘leaders’ realise that the future of our country is being destroyed? Do they know that our heritage has been plundered? Do they care that filial bonding is being torn apart forever?

Like a drop of kerosene, this evil  gradually sipped into the fabric of family cohesion; nothing can ever be the same again.

Do the leaders think that by frustrating those that want to Japa, the problem would be solved? You cannot be oppressive and think you are winning. You cannot deny people their rights and think you are setting things right.

All you need to do is to make Japa unattractive through good governance; even those who have already ‘’Japa-ed’ would beg to come back home.

It is not as if our so-called leaders don’t know what to do. They are only slaves to the same curse of circles and cycles and driven by their greed and avarice.

Our salvation does not lie in rejecting Tinubu and inviting good or bad luck back. It is not even in Peter Obi or Atiku Abubakar or any of these alluring desperate steps and scheming. Our salvation lies in no other but embracing God.

We have become godless and resorted to worshiping ourselves, mammon and power; our skyscraping cathedrals and minarets notwithstanding.

When we gather inside the mosques or cathedrals, what do we tell God? It is not plausible for God to look at our hands stained with the blood of the innocent. God cannot look kindly on our tainted hearts either because of the filth of hate and malice therein.

If we want to break out of the endless circular and cyclic bind, we must forsake our evil ways and seek God’s forgiveness. Nobody mocks God. We have mocked God for far too long. It is time we recalibrated or be doomed.

This is time for the leader and the led to seek God in repentance. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Isaiah 55:7.

The season is ripe for the great reaper. We are all guilty and must  turn away from our evil evil ways. 

“A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:18-23.

We are inexcusable. Tinubu is neither our problem nor solution. So also shall the roguery political class avail us nothing. They need help even more than we do. Our hope is built on nothing less than Christ the Solid Rock. When you build on man, it won’t be long before it collapses on your head as we are witnessing in our land today.

Indeed, we need to sharpen our national moral axe. It has become blunt and muted. There is no hope for Nigeria if the circus goes on; if the interethnic hate is not tamed before the impending implosion.