Like humility, loyalty is one virtue that suffers the most abuse. Just as the most arrogant think themselves the humblest, the most disloyal think they are the most loyal since the dog. Gather here all of you who think you are the best thing since ice cream. Are you, really?
That short poser is the crux of the matter. Whoever you are, whatever you are and wherever you are, pray that the day never comes when your bestness is tested. Well, not exactly that, because your claims of being the best in academics, in sport and in allied non-integrity-related areas are necessary and periodic. The best that you should pray never to be tested for is as it concerns loyalty.
Please, pray that prayer, even if you can’t. Declare a fast. Pray in tongues. Ask heaven to keep away such evil day.
I am sure you all understand why this one prayer is essential and urgent; 99.99 per cent of us and of them shall fail the test. In fact, most of us had failed, are failing and shall continue to fail the informal test of loyalty. Incontestable proofs abound everywhere you turn.
Look around families: blood has refused to be thicker than water. Look around business partnerships: people not only bite the hand that fed them, they also go ahead to steal from or destroy or even kill that Good Samaritan. Look around the office: who is not overthrowing who? Look around the places of worship: who has not betrayed who?
If you are a Nigerian or live in Nigeria, please don’t look around Politics Nigeriana. You may easily puke, coming face to face with how those guys have reduced loyalty and disloyalty to toys. These players have made loyalty a tenure virtue. You don’t get that, do you?
Don’t worry, I am here to break things down -just for you. Nigerian politicians have made loyalty a plaything. They play around you as the most loyal as long as you are in public office and are servicing that loyalty. As soon as your tenure is about to end, let alone when it ends, they discard you like a sucked orange.
What this means is that loyalty has always been in acute short supply. Which must be the reason most sharp political office holders insist on oath taking. However, even these shrine visits and performances have not brightened the chances of loyalty. In politics, our people have remained as itinerant, as pedestrian, as transactional, as selfish and ultimately as disloyal as loyalty can never be.
With this understanding, you can now look around the polity and see things for yourself. People are in Party A today: please don’t come back there overmorrow looking for them. You won’t find most of them as they would have concocted a reason cogent enough to back up their crosstitution. Even the people you find in Party B migrated from somewhere -and the beat goes on.
Everyone understands these things. Everyone plays the game. Loyalty to one master or one friend or one party has been made to look like a foolish weakness instead of the brilliant strength it is. This is no laughing matter.
This is no laughing matter because a people who find it difficult to be loyal to man find it impossible to be loyal to country. Exactly why Nigeria is easily the global headquarters of disloyalty (read unpatriotism). I apologise for saying that about my country, but can that statement provoke us enough to start loving this beautiful nation? Let’s arise and obey Nigeria’s call, today.
That is our national target. We want to be ready and confident to pray this particular prayer of loyalty. We don’t want to fail on the day that our loyalty to country is tested. We declare that in spite of and despite our abominable, unpatriotic mistakes of the past, we are loyal to Nigeria forever.
On an individual level, we swear going forward that we shall stand one place -as we say in Nigeria. From today, we shall work to become a better sibling, a better spouse, a better friend, a better partner, a better colleague, a better human being. We shall show loyalty to those we owe it no matter the cost. We declare that we may indeed be guilty of many vices but henceforth, disloyalty shall never be one of them.
We want to be ready for loyameter. We don’t pray never to be tested for loyalty. We want to be tested. We are loyal people.
We shall never doublespeak. We shall always speak or stand up for the truth -or shut up in shame instead of lying aloud and publicly. We shall never be loyal to evil, falsehood, hate, mediocrity, name them. We shall forever be loyal to loyalty while allowing the company of disloyalty to dishonour disloyalty.
We shall never dishonour our family, our teacher(s), our mentor, our helper(s), our boss, our leader, our friend(s). We shall remain faithful to those who are faithful to us as well as to those we say we love. Nothing (not money, not power, not promise) shall ever be strong enough to make us disloyal even for a nanosecond. When the enemy dangles the ever tempting apple, we shall scream at the snake, ‘get thee behind me, Satan.’
Granted, loyalty almost always goes unrewarded by mankind but we must realise that the loyal person enjoys so much natural appreciation. For example, joy. For instance, peace. A loyal person is permanently joyful, peaceable, protected and never afraid.
On the other hand, Mister Disloyal is permanently at war with himself much like Prof. Ayandele’s atomistic society. He evinces no joy, no inner peace. He seems per time to be at war with self and with others. Above all, he’s constantly plotting to prove his loyalty because that’s the only way he can be trusted and accommodated.
Bosses, leaders and such other people at the top who are the major recipients and if you like, beneficiaries of loyalty, must try to make the virtue a more attractive brand. Let they themselves also stand up to be counted for loyalty by being loyal as well to their loyalists. Loyalty is like respect: it is reciprocal. Reward loyalists when and how you can; grant them access; meet minds with them regularly; reassure them from time to time and no matter how busy you think you are, explain things, decisions, direction, style and roadmap to them.
The above may seem simplistic but that’s how to oil loyalty. When loyalists are given a sense of belonging, they hardly go astray. Look around, the best loyalists wandered off the fold when the shepherd cared more about winning new converts than about taking care of those already in the bag. The bestie who became or would become worstie is not necessarily a disloyal person!
You may ruminate on the foregoing to internalise it. Loyalty matters are deep. They are spiritual. Loyalty is not slavery.
Loyalty is give and take. Those who take and take and take but never give are disloyal and therefore deserve no loyalty. Loyalty is love, patience, sacrifice, understanding, humility, service, generosity, faith -please add yours. And, change the prayer point if you think yourself ready: Loyalty, I am ready for the test!
Are you truly ready? If you are not, please continue to stay in your small corner, praying the other prayer and fasting the fast. Don’t be in haste to cross over to this lane meant for those of us who had long readied for the big test. Loyalty is the test of life.
God bless Nigeria!