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When the chips are down, there are no guarantees whatsoever. We find that blood and love can fail. Faith and trust, too. Relationship and goodness even.
When the chips are down, loyalty is tested. Answer is questioned. Smile is frowned at. Joy is sad.
When the chips are down, no king, no queen, no subject, no historian in power and just nobody remembers yesterday’s loyalty. Opportunistic sycophancy can win. Would you rather you were loyal all through or wait for the right time to be? Is such self-serving, timed smartness loyalty?
When the chips are down, we see, hear, say, do or experience the unexpected, the unthinkable, the impossible. So, dear people of God, please, slow down. All the aces are not in your hands. Even if they were, an extraneous power is responsible for how the heart pendulums in their application.
When the chips are down, you find out too late that sometimes -most times, really- nothing you do or not do really matters. Loyalists shall remain so even if you always treated them poorly. Traitors shall float away with the faintest tide change, even if you all along gave them heaven on earth. You yourself shall always, always make kindergarten mistakes -of judgement, of leadership, of reward.
When the chips are down, hard work is what the boss says it is. Lieutenants who put in honest work watch in vain as all the reward goes to eye-servant colleagues. While the fresh insider strolls away with the crown, long-term insiders inwardly curse but outwardly applaud wearing a smirk. The lesson is that length of service and quality of service are not in the same class: quality dwarfs length!
When the chips are down, your eyes are clear enough to know who was who all the while. You realise the boss you betrayed or were ungrateful to, was the best of the pack. Too late, but at least you are in a better position to compare and contrast, having crosstituted to someone as inhumanly all-knowing, self-centred, inaccessible, unfeeling and cold as they come. What better blessing can betrayal and impatience and ingratitude attract!
When the chips are down, the foregoing could create in your mind a picture of someone you know. They are too many of them around, posing as angels. So, please, hold tight on to your boss or leader or spouse or friend or helper. Don’t go chasing shadows: the greener grass yonder is only a mirage.
When the chips are down, some -if not most- bosses soon discover to their chagrin that the staff or aide they toyed with or accused at every turn and eventually fired was not only their pivotal Man Friday but also fundamental and indispensable. Almost always, such bosses curl up in regret or go on a replacement spree that hardly ever ends well. Human beings should learn what I call PUN. Sssh, not that: this PUN is short for Patience, Understanding and Nobility.
When the chips are down, truth shall out. Light outclasses darkness. Good overcomes evil. These might take forever to happen but the knowledge that it eventually shall, willy nilly, is the mental talisman we all need.
When the chips are down, you discover that you have been fighting life battles like a dead fool. You played your lovers but fell for your haters. You fed enemies but starved your foot soldiers. You squandered manhours and manpower on nonsense.
When the chips are down -and you are still alive- you come into reality all by yourself. You get to see and know, in full, who fooled you, who used you, who plotted the graph. Be angry all you can then, but be smart enough thereafter to make peace quickly and move on; because you also used others or so they believe(d). People shall always talk; people shall always allege; people shall always plot.
When the chips are down, you find out how silly you have been. You look back and wonder whether you were you all those years. You imagine the shameful lows you sank to or the desperate highs you overreached just to achieve or acquire some things that made you feel good -alas, momentarily. How empty the mansions, how useless the flashy cars, how tasteless the other sour fruits of your greed suddenly become!
When the chips are down, you come face to face with the real nature of the animal called man. The same person who bowed and trembled at the mere sound of your voice is no more moved by even your very presence. The bowing and trembling was not for you; it was for the yam and the knife in your hands. Please write a book so your successors learn -if they would!
When the chips are down, man -every man- only cares about self. For nearly 99.99% of us, it is self first, self second, self third, and the beat goes on until the last spot that we may grudgingly allow for others. Even if another did us 80% good, we would forget that on the day of justification; choosing instead to remember the 20% bad. It’s human nature to denigrate the man who hired you for nine years but excused you to give the last year to someone else or the other who worked for you for nine years but moved away on the tenth!
When the chips are down, man is left -perhaps- with just the spouse and children. Perhaps, because most often than not, the spouse doesn’t stay on and only one child out of say four, five, six or more is restrained by the bloodness. Wife moves against husband, and vice versa the same way child(ren) and parent(s) trade unfilial or unparental tackles in public. We can only wonder why our world is wired like against traffic.
When the chips are down, you see the nakedness, the futility, the emptiness, the folly, the tragictory of life. It all ends in death, where nothing adds up physically speaking. In life, those who should follow lead while those who should lead follow. We must wonder how and what those who sit outside, above, watching the earth see and think of us (its occupants).
When the chips are down, we see the lie we have lived all along. We suddenly find that those who spoke the truth and got punished are our last men standing. Those who lied and were juicily rewarded had since moved on to live and lie another day. But, shall we ever learn?
When the chips are down, another takes your place. The vows, and plans, and promises are easily and conveniently forgotten and broken. It is not their fault, just as it wasn’t your fault. Welcome to inside life.
God bless Nigeria!
•Postscript: This is dedicated to
President Muhammadu Buhari, State Governors and all other top Nigerian public officers who shall be out of office next year!
