Two issues would be critically examined in this outing today. The first would be Prof Greg Ibe as an exemplar of the Black Race. The other would be whether we ever manage the exodus from our country at all.
We begin with the first: the man Prof Greg Ibe. By now it ought to be very clear to all who are genuinely concerned about the place of the Black Race in world affairs. The challenges buffeting the Black people and their very poor placing in global rankings has nothing whatsoever to do with our stars.
Put another way it has nothing whatsoever to do with God-ordained fate. If it were to be so, the Black Race wouldn›t have had the privilege to be the leader race in civilization at a point in time. Many of the young ones don›t even know that in recent history the Black world was equivalent of what Britain and America after it became for the world.
It was either the Abysinian culture or Egyptian civilization. Then just a bit of Red Indians. Like our struggle to enter western countries today, the other races tried to come into Africa to live and study.
They took our dress code, our writing, science and technology. I nearly forgot to add literature and agriculture too. The aborigines who we see in Australia and the original land owners remind us the extent of the Black expansionist conquest. Up from the fringes of Saudi Arabia through Iraq into far Asia were black territories. The black man lost it. As legendary Bob Marley sang in one of his songs, “don’t ask me why.”
We lost the whole of North Africa to Arabs on a rampage. The push hasn›t ceased. It is still on in very veiled forms. Egypt and not Greece invented democracy, Greek philosophers came to Egypt to learn and to return to amplify but history written by agents of invaders attribute democracy to Greece and the European world. It is very important to highlight that until the early 18th century humanity wasn›t differentiated by body pigmentation. There was nothing like colour, everyone was just part of humanity. But like already observed, the Black people lost it.
The problem is in human capital development, nothing more. We pursued pleasure at the expense of skill acquisition and the expansion and search for new knowhow. We developed hatred for organization. We detest rigour. Yet these are the fundamentals for the positive transformation of any human society.
But we leave the act of painful recollections of what has grown to become a terrible past and dwell on a future that still brims with hope! For the Black man it is not finished. Our deplorable situation is not only redeemable, our chances of turning out the leader race is open and wide.
This is where the likes of Prof Greg Ibe come into play. He is an exemplar of some sort. Well trained, relatively young but very talented. He drew away the style in vogue at his time to actually work for his success. In that act is an instructive story tailor-made for a society like ours. It is a big lesson that good and successful achievement can only come through hard work.
We all know that one of the key factors that can bring down a country very fast is «wealth without work.»
Greg Ibe is stupendously rich but one can hardly see that about him. He is just like the man next door. This is another lesson in character and personality management.
We all know we don›t manage ourselves very well, especially in public places. It is more so when we run in delusional self worth propelled by wealth derived from no work.
One of my colleagues in the pen profession calls our very rich people «idle rich people.»
Prof Ibe isn’t of this class. His mindset and sectors in which he invested are proof. He builds schools, not in urban centres but very rural areas, where there are high intellectual and facilities deficits. Education is made available to thousands whose parents can hardly afford to pay. He gives scholarships. He builds hospitals and places them at the reach of the low people.
He lives with them. I can hear someone say “class suicide”. No, it is a responsibility. True image of God. Being blessed, And in turn becoming a blessing. He is not on anybody’s throat just on his lane, a credible race of life.
Why is he receiving a notice from here? Simply, we have got a country but yet to create the kind of people that should occupy it. Development experts speak so much about the human factor. This is it. Prof Ibe is a beacon of hope. His attitude and drive offer us rich lessons. Someone asked somewhere very recently as: “Every year the country gives out awards, others just for getting into positions of service get the highest honours. How come we have such a high number of awardees and our country turns out very underdeveloped?
Exodus Management
Exodus means mass movement. Most times it takes place at specific periods of the year. When we have religious festivals we all know the number of citizens that pour into the road, airports and sea just to move from one point to another.
In sane climes arrangements to decently manage general traffic as well as ensure safety are manifest and clinical. Not so in our case. We don›t see efforts to cover the bad portions of our highways, no towing vans along the roads and no medics. It is just ordinary citizens and God… Perhaps, roadblocks in the day time that disappear once darkness begins her reign. HMMMMMM!