The great Gomorrah and its sister nation did not fall to ruin because they experimented with the fiery coals of decadence: they fared worse not because of the degenerate and festering vices that crept into the crevices of their soul; the mistake they made was to have repeatedly scorned the voice of reasoning and employ the service of the astute sidekick, self-justification. They set their paths on the threshold of disbelieve and forged ineffaceable bonds with nonchalance. Justice will triumph and reason would surely have its moment; by the time the merrymakers decided to pitch their ride with sanity and heed warning, the band of salvation had wheeled off: they were left to eat their own shit and such is the lot of any society that forgets that karma strikes with measured patience. Be it money like in the case of the formidable Sparta; misleading conceit of devastating proportions ingrained in Ancient Rome, or the deceitful Trojan horse: a case of folly manifesting as trust or eagerness at victory…every superman has his “kryptonite”… the weak point of an entity would serve as its only ally in the test of strength: a platform for an historic defeat.
Such fate lies in wait for the country of prospects, Nigeria, a colossus of abundant resources, blessed with the necessities and fineries of all mod cons, an entity gracefully entrenched in plethora of resources, a cynosure caught in the vision of envying nations. With a physical geography that reaches beyond the edges of any comparison in all ramifications, thriving in the superfluity of enviable resourcefulness imaginable; the supposedly giant of Africa lies prostrate with corruption. And like a fading juggernaut torn with friction, corruption takes over. Worse still is the shuddering realisation of the gorgon twins: self justification and denial eating with vigour and such drive into the fabric of its existence while laying timed bombs for the not too distant future.
In the old Japanese tradition, a Samurai or even the Shogun would wilfully commit Hara-kiri certainly not because it was a thing to be trifled with or, in the least coveted. The esteem placed on the societal value systems entrenched into the totality of their beliefs outweighed any other inner desire. The homage paid to the bushido required strict devotion to its code. Such were deemed acts of valour and respected even though it resulted into deaths. This cuts across other ancient civilizations where you see ideals like Pietas, Frugalitas being giving uttermost reverence. It evokes little wonder why such empires became great throughout world’s history. Nigeria couldn’t remain the giant of itself not to talk of being the primus inter pares in Africa; and in hushed circles sinister jeers like “Nigeria being the snail of Africa” is constructed. These derogatory and belittling tags are not products of irrevocable wrong turns made several times throughout the poor and terror filled history of the country, neither are they the proclivities of jealousy filled oppositions we only happen to see; they are the results of self-centred, goal blinded and opportunistic tendencies wrecked on the feeble structure of the country, albeit such Machiavellian machinations are ignored under the pretext of the competitive nature of the world—everybody wants a slice.
A careful understudy of the animalistic dispositions showcases man as the only animal that can live on friendly terms with its prey before it eats it. After much pondering, I asked myself why a predator would privilege this modus operandi over the seemingly alluring tactics of catch and grab. Then, leviathan’s distant cousin Megalodon came to mind. This gargantuan aquatic predator wouldn’t attack a prey head-on, but dive underneath and hit with ferocious force the underbelly of its prey before shearing of its fins regardless of the fact that it weighed tons over any other aquatic animal during its time—a typical case of the wily and scheming predator. Men have been known to favour this tactic over any other since the inception of time, but when the those in power begin to manipulate their positions to extort and fraudulently carve their paws into the treasury, they not only become Iscariots, they share the same trait as Megalodon and nothing is as debased as oppressing the weak. Back then in ancient times, knights who protected the realm would never fight an unarmed man or attack him from his back, it was against honour; but here in the black world honour seems to have a headless personality with a strange countenance or is somewhere sleeping it off in oblivion. Our leaders take what they can get and if that means coveting the single ram of the biblical poor man, they do it with abundant impunity. Our political leaders are shameful men, who have soiled the meaning of ruling with their leprous hands as much possible as they can. Gone are the days of enlightened absolutism, where ruling was seen as a social duty to the people. Nigerian senators as annoying as I personally find it would request for a jaw-breaking sum of 2.5 million naira to get their butts back from their various pleasure spots overseas, to attend to the billions of loan in naira the president wants to procure from foreign sources, just because the president was unable to present this before the annual senatorial vacation. Now I personally do not indulge the deceiving albeit justifying maxim that the end justifies the means but, I believe when the reason stated by the president is to use the money to effectively combat the unholy and ludicrous insurgent eating away the peace of the nation in form of the hideous and painfully hypocritical group called Boko Haram, all hands should be on deck. It’s no surprise really, that the response of the senate members would tow that line; the love of money had always been our invincible motto in this part of the continent cum sum of our ideals.
As time happens to all resolutions and all things lose appeal, teachers do not rely on receiving their rewards in heaven no more… to make it more interesting, they devices ways of maximising their stay on earth. At least is not the holy bible that said the meek shall inherit the earth, so what if one becomes a tad bit aggressive? Besides, we are in the days of the jackal and, the patient dog surely would get no bone. the aim to them becomes making lemonades out of life’s sore lemons, and with these they become overly obsessed, carrying around them an air of moral justification forgetting sometimes life do throw oranges into the mix—everything becomes sour—which place does the maxim the end justifies the means then fits in. How do you explain the case of people who have been trusted with the sacred duty of producing intelligentsias who should one day be called leaders of tomorrow, without them actually passing the torch of knowledge? These derelicts remiss on their duties and to top it take disciplines they are ill-suited for, are they jack of all trades? Nobody knows it all, but to speak up would be to speak against the divine unction…talk about wrong idiosyncrasies. The last industrial action opened the eyes of many, yet some still decided the walls of ignorance were their own promise lands. The moral stand of some solely rest on the sickening justification that if the governing arms could undertake to gulp half of the nation’s budget of which, there is only one word to describe “sickening gluttons” , why shouldn’t they (teahers) dip their hands into the cookie jar. I only smiled in disgust when I heard of an academic instructor relating to his students how he got paid during the period of gloom while students were left deciding what was left of their pitiful existence—Come to think of it the world billionaires are drop-outs, talk of Bill Gates, Armancio Ortega, Larry Ellison and a host of others, maybe the option is to leave colleges for these ambitious teachers; and then I wonder what they would be inheriting probably empty pews and marker pens—but of course teachers are not restrained to walls of institutions alone: TEACHER as I have used it here encloses the full realisations of the word in terms of semantics. At the end of the affair a whole bunch of hocus-pocus coloured the day: cups of tea emptied, smart pats on the back, gentle taps on the head and a few fat envelopes traded pockets. Everybody smiled without any clue as to what really transpired. In short, majority of the populace, especially a good number of those they claimed to be fighting for where made high ball in lost weeds.
The Nobel Laureate W.S said “woe betides the man who keeps silent in the face of tyranny” and another whom I can’t seem to remember said something like “to everyone has been given the will to want and the power to take”. The aforementioned pithy quotes sum up the entirety of human interpersonal relationship down to the core of the intrapersonal ones. And what makes it more interesting is the fact that various meanings could be extracted from them to sooth different motifs. Either ways, as citizens and students of knowledge, which ever social construct we deem ourselves to fit in, lets us know that we choose our own destinies. The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 did not occur with people sulking their fingers and hoping for a better tomorrow like the disillusioned despot. Matters were weighed with deadly decisiveness. We can choose to be prisoners of our own selves or like the Jews of Sobibor turn things around for our persons, snatch victory from the paws of tyranny and extinguish the oppressors of freedom in every form. Because like they say the history of any society is the history of social struggle, struggles from the government as chains, from our torch bearers as wardens of captivity and our individual person as the walls of confinement, for we all in each infinitesimal blink of silence murder our essence bit by bit before that final death.
