Last week, I argued for the conclusion that every new year is our creation. It is not an invisible spirit from an ethereal world.
Today, I want to suggest that in addition to creating a new year, we also make it what we want. In other words, what it is in the end, is what we make it to be. This simply extends the notion that we are the architects of our fortune; and it applies to many things in nature.
Surely, there are natural events which have been determined to be beyond human agency. Rainstorms, floods, landslides, hurricanes, tsunamis are supposedly forces of nature. We also know, however, that much of what nature has turned out to be in centuries of industrialization and decades of technology-driven economies has to do with human agency run amok. Think climate change.
Specifically, relevant to this concern is the matter of flooding. Is it pure nature behaving badly, or does it also have to do with human bad behavior? Look around you as you read this piece. Is the ground around littered? Can you see nylon food wraps? How about pure water satchels? And plastic water and soda bottles? Did all this fall on the ground with rain drops? Or they are carelessly dropped and dumped by human beings deprived of a sense of responsibility? And since these tons of litters cannot self-dispose, they are helped by rain to block whatever is left of our already poor drainage system. Flooding is inevitable in the circumstance. Then, of course, we blame nature or government for our self-inflicted woes. Or we curse at the year!
A most intriguing constant at the end of one year and the beginning of another is the phenomenon of prayer and prediction for a happy new year. They have been woven into the fabric of our sensibilities that it is unimaginable not to have them as part of the ritual. Prayer is our wish for the fulfillment of our hearts’ desires. Prediction satisfies our urge to not be in the dirt regarding the future. They both supposedly deal with the spiritual realm to which only the spiritually endowed have access.
It is foolhardy to begrudge genuine claims to spirituality of which there are many. At the same time, however, genuine spirituality does not deny the importance of certain foundational principles without which prayers are in vain. Thus, as spiritual as traditional Africans are, work, for them, is an antidote against poverty. They will not indulge laziness while praying for wealth. Now, we have a different mindset that prioritizes the miracle of stupendous wealth with no corresponding effort to work hard. And some men and women of God cheer them on.
Individuals make the year for themselves, to their happiness or misery, in a variety of ways. Of course, no one deliberately sets out to pursue misery. But as the wise ones teach us, no one plans to fail, but many fail to plan, and failure to plan is a certain precursor to failure.
Take the case of a student who fails to plan her time and resorts to cramming borrowed notes an hour before a major examination. Under normal circumstances, failure is the assured result, followed by a shattered dream. To rely on prayers in such a situation is to unreasonably test God. If a good education still ranks high in the ladder of long-term success, our student may be on the road to long-term failure. There are numerous examples around our neighborhoods.
But the circumstances are not always normal, and to the detriment of the system and a nation that is shortchanged in the end, it is this anomalous nature of our contemporary circumstances that such a student and many like her bet on with confidence. Think examination malpractice. Think sex for grades. Think parental collusion with miracle centers. And you have the nightmare of a nation held hostage and cornered at every front. Without paying serious attention to all that individuals engage in which places the nation under stress of negative development, we pray in vain for a happy new year.
Only a mischievous reading of my argument this far would suggest that I am against prayers. Far from it, I am aware of the power of prayer. But reliance on prayer without hard work is futile and it is a shame if our religious leaders fail to point this out at every gathering of the faithful. For, it is clear to me that many of them are great examples of hard work and smart thinking, which makes up a disproportionate part of their success. It is this that the followers should make serious effort to study and emulate, subsequent to which prayer is in order.
With a nation of about 200 million, a greater percentage of who profess one faith or the other, and multiple thousands of houses of worship, which make prayer their key, we should wonder why we still have the terrible statistics of armed robbery, kidnapping, increasing terrorist attacks, and political tumult.
The nation makes the year for herself through the instrumentality of individuals, officials, and institutions in a variety of ways.
An undeniable principle of prayer effectiveness is that we must be the enablers of the success of our prayer. This is what we have not done in our national life. We ask men and women of God to pray without ceasing for the country. But when we and those who are in public service and their active associates fail to do our part with diligence and integrity, we embarrass the God of prayers.
As politicians, civil servants, security agents, educators in high and low places, doctors, nurses and matrons, customs and immigration officers, police, judges, contractors, oil marketers and market women, drivers and house-helps, and many other groups, we are all implicated in the disappointment of unanswered prayer. How so?
Let us reference here just the totally unimaginable in this sordid and messy state of affairs in which corruption has placed our dear country. A house help defrauds his master by inflating the cost of food items bought from a local market and keeps the change. It is perhaps the slightest sample of our national malaise; but it has its tap root in our conflicted culture of ostentatious living and runaway greed for luxury beyond our means. Our young house-help learns the art from the grown-ups whose stock in trade is an irresponsible and nonchalant display of unearned wealth every day of the year.
A National Assembly member who has fallen out with his state governor recently told his audience about the boastful rant of the latter who bragged of having such a stupendous wealth now that nothing can touch, and he is therefore fulfilled. The same governor confessed that he rode into office with huge help and funds from diverse sources. If he wasn’t sufficiently wealthy to fund his campaign for the governor’s seat, shouldn’t we ask how, after four or at most eight years, he now boasts of a bottomless wealth? Yet we keep praying for miracle for the nation to develop.
The National Assembly (NASS) is the Naira guzzler of the republic, and it has also proven to be the retirement hub for state governors. With little accomplishment by way of meaningful legislation, it has not led by decent example in the matter of modest living. To make 2019 work for every citizen, NASS members must look in the mirror and ask probing questions: what is true public service? What sacrifice does it require of me? How can the institution to which I belong contribute to the rediscovery of national values?
How shall we make 2019 work? For a start, we can make 2019 a year of new beginning for the nation. That it is an election year is a plus. That the election comes in the first quarter of the year is a blessing. If only citizens as electorates are well informed and they know what the nation must be for their individual hopes and aspirations to be fulfilled, then we can look forward to the future with confidence.
Happy New Year!
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