life is a shifting tide—unpredictable, volatile, and ever-changing. One moment, we are secure in the warmth of familiarity, and the next, cast adrift by forces beyond our control. This fickleness is both the burden and the beauty of existence.
At its core, the fickleness of life is the silent reminder that nothing is permanent. Fortunes rise and fall with startling speed; relationships flourish, falter, or fade. Health can wither overnight, and happiness, once certain, becomes elusive. We make plans only to watch them unravel. We build only to rebuild.
But it is precisely this instability that gives life its vividness. Without uncertainty, there would be no urgency in our days, no sweetness in our moments of joy, no meaning in our endurance through sorrow. The precariousness of it all teaches us gratitude—how to hold the present gently, how to love fully, and how to grieve with grace.
We often rail against the capriciousness of fate, forgetting that change is life’s only constant. Perhaps, then, the wisdom lies not in resisting the wind, but in learning to sail with it, finding balance not in stability, but in flexibility; not in control, but in acceptance.
In the end, life’s fickleness is a call not to despair, but to live, deliberately, courageously, and with deep reverence for every fleeting moment.
Life, in all its mystery, is as fragile as it is fleeting. One moment, there is breath, movement, and hope; the next, there is silence. The recent Air India tragedy, a heartbreaking reminder of how swiftly life can turn, has once again shaken the global conscience. Lives full of promise were extinguished in an instant. Families shattered, futures erased. And while the world mourns, reflects, and questions the fragility of our existence, one cannot help but notice the deafening silence from certain corners, particularly from Nigeria’s corridors of power.
In a just world, tragedy unites us. It stirs empathy, ignites reform, and awakens responsibility. But here, in the heart of a nation blessed with intellect and abundance, we see a different response, indifference. Not because the loss isn’t ours, but because we’ve been numbed by the failures of leadership. While people perish, while the air trembles with the sorrow of others, Nigerian politicians and public office holders remain consumed by the familiar games of greed, corruption, and reckless self-interest.
The fickleness of life should inspire humility. It should urge our leaders to act with compassion, with urgency, with a deep sense of service. But instead, it is business as usual: misappropriated funds, bloated contracts, cosmetic projects, and empty rhetoric. Hospitals remain ill-equipped, aviation safety is compromised, emergency response is slow or non-existent, and yet, luxury convoys and foreign bank accounts flourish.
It is a cruel irony that those entrusted with the care of a nation seem the least touched by its pain. They build walls around their privileges and leave the people exposed to every uncertainty life throws their way, no safety nets, no safeguards, just the raw, brutal unpredictability of existence in a broken system.
The Air India tragedy is not just an Indian sorrow. It is a human sorrow. And in a world where our fates are so fragile, so intertwined, it is unacceptable that Nigerian leadership continues to operate without empathy, without reform, and without accountability.
Life is fickle. That much is certain. But what is even more tragic is when those who are meant to protect that life do not care until the calamity is at their own doorstep. And even then, history has shown, they rarely learn.
Not quite anyway. At least, we saw the viral video wherein boisterous Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), was overheard praying for his life. Caught in a near mid-air disaster, Wike, in his rattled gravely voice, bound all the bindables and cast all the castables.Who could have imagined that anything could shake Wike, who has been embroiled in multiple battles and remained unfazed!
Some might have thought that God would not hear his prayers. But He did. Perhaps, to teach him some lesson in humanity. That was why he overruled his overzealous aide. Wike would not have any of that. He gave testimony in church, thanking God for saving him.
When Nebuchadnezzar was riding roughshod in Babylon, God had to reduce him to a human monkey. For seven years, he ate grass until God showed him mercy. He returned and confessed that: ‘there’s no one like Jehovah’.
This makes me to remember a similar encounter I once had on the Italian airspace. I was returning to school then. Our New Delhi-bound flight had taken off from Paris to Aeroporti d’Roma (I hope I got the spelling right) to pick up more passengers. For whatever reason we changed flights to Alitalia, which a Zimbabwean priest I had met in Rome told me meant, ‘Always Late in Time, Always Late in Arrival’, because of their shoddy management.
This manifested soon after takeoff when fire started billowing from one of the wings of the aircraft. Thank God we hadn’t even left the airport’s vicinity so we had to land. Before then, the bedlam aboard the aircraft was great. Everyone was calling on the same God they never believed in. Strangely, I was calm, only thinking about Nma Ezi, my loving grandmother. However, to the glory of God, we were all safely evacuated through the thick smoke by gas mask-wearing officials.
So, I understood quite well the trauma that turned Wike into a prayer warrior. But I don’t know how much Wike, and other Nigerian politicians had learnt or are willing to learn from that encounter, and life. Their god is their belly, political office their altar while the mass of Nigerians are for burnt offering.
Daily, Nigerians are killed like fleas but the government appears unperturbed with eyes trailed on 2027. Sadly, votes don’t count in this country and that’s our problem; the reason they do not care if we all die. The result is already written. So, why bother about irrelevant voters?
Who would ask them what they made out of the mandates previously snatched, whether it was in 1999, 2015 or 2023? Would it not be better for them if the citizens’ mouths were tarred in the red earth before they wisen up?
Do they care whether we eat or starve? In a country where the minimum wage is less than a bag of rice, those who seized the country by crook and stealth pocket billions every month. Yet the EFCC looks only regales us with tales of the trial of unfortunate petty pickpockets, leaving those that have stolen the central bank to buy their way to freedom.
Like their compatriots in the forest, the BANDits in the power sector have continued to milk Nigerians and compel us to pay excessive bills for darkness. Nobody speaks for the masses. Nobody can pay our random and, so, we remain shackled to misery, scorched by the sun or drenched in the rain of sorrow.
How many more must suffer or be killed before change becomes inevitable? How many tragedies must pass unnoticed before conscience awakens in high places? In a world where tomorrow is never promised, we cannot afford leaders who are unmoved today.
However, whether they accept it or not, we all have our equal portions in the red earth below. When it is time to go, nobody’s stolen billions can say otherwise. Everything shall be left behind for carefree progeny to squander. Such is life; so fickle so temporal. Only the wise understand it.