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How God created man free but he -man- chooses to live in a cage, every day and everywhere, is something that sets my brain permanently on edge. One has tried to no avail to understand why anyone said to have been created by a loving God, and in his image and likeness, would abhor himself and his like this much. Man is a problem to himself and to others. Man has wired a system that puts himself and others in forever chains.
It is such a difficult job being a human being. Sometimes, you are born to a rousing welcome. Sometimes, you are born into rejection -even being dumped on arrival. Man hates self so much that innocence is no excuse.
Being born a human being and growing up so is one hell of a herculean task. The process of life grooming -childhood, education, work, retirement- is not one for faint hearts. Everyone plies this four-way channel, consciously or unconsciously, or both. The way the system has structured education, work and retirement, whether formal or informal, leaves man in what is at best a promising cul-de-sac.
Starting from when you can only crawl or barely walk, you hold so much promise but still you remain an endangered species. You could be stolen or sold off like some man-made commodity. Children are the most abused or the most killed demographics. This is so because those whose bounden responsibility it is to protect these budding adults are -almost always- too busy toing and froing in circles in the name of doing own fulltime job -their lives!
Still on children: in spite of and despite all that innocence, they are rapidly introduced into what one calls the corruptions of doing the work that life is. Their parents point out homes they should never visit let alone eat or drink in. There are neighbourhood children they cannot play with. Meaning, from the get-go, man is soaked in self-hate.
With time, he imports that evil incarnation into school, business, politics, government, worship place, name it. The result is what we live with: cultism, occultism, and the cataclysmic failure the human race has become in areas that matter the most. As if things were not bad enough, we introduced hypocrisy into the mix. Of course, princes and princesses of doublespeak and double-act soon become kings and queens of the game.
Those who play it otherwise, lose big time. The clean crowd is thin and beggarly, with only a tinier minority able to smell let alone touch power or the commonwealth. In fact, succesful bad people (whatever that means) are so ubiquitous, that being bad is now the new normal, the new fad. And, most of the hitherto few good people regarded as remnants of hope have either jumped ship or are on the verge of.
The earthly journey is a fulltime job. Unfortunately, you can neither do it from 8am to 4pm nor 9 to 5. This job is per second, and throughout the 24 hours of every day. If you over-sleep or over-relax or over-trust or are over-confident, you get overtaken, dethroned or even killed.
Being, and succeeding on earth as, a human being is no child’s play. It has nothing to do with religion or such other inane sentiments. Take a success criterion as fundamental as hardwork. Someone who should know insisted and is spot on: ‘hard work is what the boss says it is.’
What that means is that one worker could be rewarded for always smiling or telling stories while a colleague who achieves results is overlooked. Please, don’t feast too much on that one case of dissonance because in this midnight-to-midday-to-midnight natural employment called life, there are a thousand and one other cases that don’t add up. Imagine being part of a team that is the present day example of Prof. Ayandele’s atomistic society. Isn’t it silly to keep pouring water into a basket and -while we are at that- isn’t it even sillier to blame the basket for not being full?
Dear compatriots, why would a leader or foot soldier in one political party prefer a member of the opposition during a ballot or what they call empowerment? Why deploy such a one to gain advantage over or hurt own co-member(s) and invariably their party? This fulltime job called life could sometimes be so interestingly uninteresting and at others so uninterestingly interesting. Why would a man who feeds fat from one source connive with enemies of that same source for purposes of undermining the person who only deserves to be supported and appreciated?
There are more rhetorical teasers where those came from, if you don’t mind. Can any man at all make a seasonally disloyal man permanently loyal? Can any woman at all determine an end different from what God wants? Can any human being at all fix what nature wants forever unfixed as well as unfix the fixed?
Why then does man want to kill himself the way he approaches life? Plus, the ‘empty dream’ offers no guarantees -whatsoever. The fact that you side with your boss or father or friend to attack someone they disagree with does not mean you are going to be consulted let alone invited during reconciliation. Pray, you may even be sacrificed -alive or dead!
This then is a wake up call. Man, know thyself. Reduce the pressure on yourself, reduce your greed, and even if you can’t, spice your time on earth with a little altruism because at the end, that memory is the only eternal thing you leave behind. That indeed is all there is and might ever be to all the running around, all the plotting, and all the deafening noise on this makeshift shelter that mankind calls home.
God bless Nigeria!
No, Gov. Makinde, no
Yesterday, at least one national paper reported that Gov. Oluseyi Abiodun Makinde of Oyo State had said he won’t obey the Supreme Court verdict last Friday overturning his sack of local government chairmen and councillors. The ruling, which agreed that the tenure had elapsed, however, directed for their salaries to be paid. Since this is Nigeria, one understands what and what could be running through the fine governor’s head vis-a-vis the final court decision.
But, here’s the thing. There are some things some people should never ever say – no matter the temptation or provocation or attraction. Gov. Makinde should not have said what he said, if he said it.
His fans expect an immediate rebuttal or retraction. If the governor didn’t know, a segment of this country consider him a good enough reason for hope in tomorrow. He cannot and should not fall our hand.
