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Man is a monstrously creative beast. He uses everything and everybody as he wills. How that pans out depends, fifty-fifty, on whether it’s the human man or the animal man at work. By the way, is the beast man tilting the balance?
Let’s look first at the head side of the coin. Man had deployed every part of his body to transform something as simple as football. The game has become, at one fell swoop, a zillion money business, the religion-toppling opium-of-the-people crowd-puller as well as the world’s leading unspoken language. However, this piece is about the one most double-edged part of the human body; the one that functions head or tail: the mouth.
With the mouth, man has made the most impact: communicating, teaching, blessing. Unfortunately, with it too, man has brought untold misery: destroying, cursing, killing. All the fighting, all the mindlessness, all the hate holding the world captive is a function of the misappropriation of the mouth. How can something so useful be simultaneously so useless?
The mouth was designed to be less -to do less. That explains man’s two eyes, two ears, two legs, two hands and two whatever else versus just one mouth. Nature always wanted man to see and dream more (hence two eyes); to hear and believe more (hence two ears); to walk or run more (hence two legs) and to work or support more (hence two hands), etc. Conversely, nature always wanted mankind to show oral moderation or restraint per time.
If you needed any lecture on why one mouth, there you are. Alas, no contest, the human mouth is the one body part that clearly oversteps its boundaries and mandate. The mouth overeats, overdrinks, overtalks (read overrants), overcurses, overlicks (it overlicks even no-go areas). Just what has the adult mouth not sucked?
The mouth of man is as silly as man himself -if not sillier. It conveys defence-melting sweetnothings albeit in deceit 99.99% of the time. It is the same mouth that accounts for an alarming majority of -if not all- breakups, divorces, wars, etc. In every strife, the mouth had/has not just a finger but also a hand.
The mouth is the most peculiar part of the human body. It can function independently of the entire set-up. It has ears, mouth and hands of its own. When it’s not satisfied with what it has heard, the mouth can in its mind fine-tune it to what it wants using its hands to add some salt here and some pepper there with a view to ending up with a fabricated, twisted imitation of intention.
The good news though is that, man -if he wants- can internally and externally contain both these oral excesses and its repercussions. First of all, man can and should learn to shut up. Second of all, man can and should learn to exercise class, maturity and wisdom vis-a-vis cock and bull stories. Man can and should put himself in the place of the person being targeted, before reacting.
The following three true-life situations teach how to keep the mouth in the backseat where it belongs. A lady had taken an oath of loyalty but sensing she had been cornered into servitude confided in a friend, plus including having in the process lost two great relationships. That friend then guided her through healing, forgiveness and reconciliation. Believe me, that same lady later went back to her slave master(s) to report that ‘the good Nigerian’ tried to convince her to desert them!
Another one: this time about a Nigerian governor -somewhere in the deep South- who’s given to never giving publicly. A so-called elder statesman needing medical support came to see this governor, got it in cash, which he cleverly (as you’d come to understand) gave to his driver to take to the car but while leaving the governor -15 minutes after- runs into a close friend of his heading to see the governor. He asked his friend to thank the governor for his intervention, right? Wrong, he did something worse than an abomination: swearing he was leaving with nothing, he hurried off with “but, you know this governor never gives.”
Meeting the governor, the friend mentions the staircase encounter and makes to lend his voice. Wordlessly, the governor brings out his phone and dials the man. The speakerphone conversation lasting just 10 seconds is another proof that the human mouth is foolisher than foolishness. ‘Your Excellency, show me one person who receives money gift and goes about that same moment to announce it!’
Okay, I get the face-saver. But, why ridicule the giver plus? Why must the mouth of the head that knows it got the gift still speak to deceive the eyes that didn’t see it? How more evil can the mouth be?
The same governor had another experience didactic enough for this context. A very senior person in his administration told him dangerous stuff a local government chairman purportedly said against him (the governor). That same instant, the governor invited his chief of staff and narrated what this senior official said the council chairman told him an hour earlier in his house. Five minutes later, the chief of staff called up the council chief only to find out the latter had been out of the state a week.
Both men hatched a plot, instantly. The following day, back in the state, the accused and chief of staff appeared in the governor’s office, complete with airline tickets, to and fro. Again, the speakerphone conversation shamed the devil. Dear human mouth, but why?
Every time I think about the monumental havoc the mouth has caused humanity, I fear that nature might wake up in another two millennia and give man just half-mouth or none at all. Man can do without talking, right? That would reduce by as much as 99.99% the ubiquitous rancour that keeps our otherwise beautiful earth permanently on edge, right? And, the way sign language is gaining momentum globally, it can be said that nature has already activated the millennium of prepping, right?
Truth to tell, man must wake up and do something fundamental to tame the mouth and its tiny but powerful engine -the tongue- before both connive to terminally destroy humanity. The ears and the mind of man must unlearn, learn and relearn how best to react to the mouth and its frequent concocted ejaculations. Enough of believing wholesale all that the mouth vomits. All can be lies or jokes taken too far.
God bless Nigeria!
The Topfaith example
Last Saturday, I had the honour of being chairman on the occasion of the valedictory ceremony for the 20th set of graduands of Topfaith International Secondary School, Mkpatak, in Essien Udim Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. I always learn something whenever I visit the college or its new tertiary arm. This time round, I learnt many things.
First, the way the proprietor, Dr. Emmanuel Abraham, loves his community and race and work. You could see that in the location, in the headtable, in the water served, in the workforce, in the quality he evinces. I am grateful I served as chairman.
While I commend the board, management and staff for such great event, I also congratulate the 201 graduands on the milestone. In particular, I celebrate the valedictorian -Master Valour Mbre Inyang- even as I wish him and them a successful future. Finally, while it was nice to see personnel of an American university and other foreign bodies travel down to scout for students interested in studying abroad, my prayer is that Topfaith and others shall soon grow and make it possible for Americans and other Westerners to also come here to Nigeria to study!
