The Nation Newspaper

Tag: empathy

  • ‘The blind need empathy, not your money’

    As part of the activities to commemorate the White Cane Day, Federal Nigeria Society for the Blind (FNSB), Lagos, screened eyes for over 100 commercial bus drivers and others at Ojuelegba in Lagos at the weekend.

    White Cane Day is marked yearly to serve as a reminder of the essential humanity of visually-impaired persons and the consequent need to ensure they get the public support they require to live independent, happy and meaningful lives while giving back to their communities.

    The Chairman, White Cane Safety Day Committee and council member of FNSB, Mr. Yinka Akande said: “Since 1964, it has been commemorated yearly. Our centre started observing the day 13 years ago and we are the foremost organisation, which celebrates this, and we are happy to draw public attention to the needs of the blind.”

    He said bringing it to the motor park is very strategic, and some students have told us overtime that they have problem boarding buses because the drivers and the conductors are not sympathetic towards their cause. He noted that the eye screening is targeted at the drivers because many of them have failing eyesight without knowing.

    Advising the public, he said: “When you accost a blind man, don’t look at him as a lesser member of the society, you have to understand that everyone has their own talent that God has embedded in us. The fact that a person is blind does not mean he is any less a human being. So, we should accord them their humanity and we should also assist them.”

    He added that they are not asking for financial assistance, but that they are only asking for assistance in terms of orientation that will make their migration very easy. “Blindness can come to any person at any time. Most of them were not born blind, but went blind later in life and it could be as a result of not treating glaucoma well. They need your empathy, they need you to accommodate them and they don’t need your money.”

    Akande called for equal respect to visually challenged persons as they would do to any other members in the society. “So, we are telling people to give them an inclusive society,” he said, adding:  “We have the disability act, but it is only in Lagos State. We want it to be replicated at the federal level so that other states can key into it.”

    Continuing, he said: “Beyond the law, we want to conscientise people because, laws are only binding when you have the moral force. So, we are trying to educate the people on the needs to see blind people as equal members of the society and we are also going to try to use the legislature to give it some legal backing, but without the moral, the legal backing would just be like a dead tree law. So, we are working on both sides to ensure that the society become more sympathetic and empathetic toward the blind people.”

    Member, Board of Trustee FNSB, Chief Olu Falomo, said the essence of this day is to sensitise the public about the white cane. “Wherever you see someone with a white cane, realise that that person is visually impaired, try to be of assistance. It is only in Nigeria that I have seen that people don’t care about the blind, and we have been doing this for the past 13 years, sensitising Nigerians about the White Cane, about the plight of the blind,” he said.

     

  • Back to compassion and empathy

    You would have to be stone-hearted not to be deeply moved by the following story that appeared as the tailpiece to deputy editor Lawal Ogienagbon’s column for this newspaper on July 26, 2018.

    Titled “Agony of a dad,” it captures the lack of compassion, the cold application of rules that admits no exceptions even in the most compelling of circumstances, with which the bureaucracy in Nigeria is shot through and through.

    At the center of this tale is a distraught man whose wife and only daughter suffered hideous burns in the Otedola Bridge tanker explosion of June 28.  He had spent N4 million on fees in a private hospital in Lagos where they were receiving treatment before he transferred them to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) in Ikeja, Lagos.

    Persuaded that they could receive yet better treatment abroad, he sought to fly them out.  Money was apparently no problem.  The problem was that his daughter’s passport had expired.   To get it renewed, officials said, he would have to take his daughter, third-degree burns and all, to the Passport Office for electronic capture of her biometric data.

    That was the law, they told him. There was no alternative.

    That was the story the distraught man took to an assembly of transport operators convened by the Lagos State Ministry of Transportation at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre at the State Secretariat at Alausa, Ikeja, to figure out the actuarial implications of the disaster and their responsibility to the victims.

    The crowd listened in hushed silence, the tension heightened, I gather, by the distraught man’s refusal to disclose his identity or to have his photograph taken.

    He was not asking for financial help, the distraught man.  He was there to solicit Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s help to move the Passport Office to take their equipment to LASUTH for the biometrics, since it was not possible to transport his daughter there in her condition.

    The Commissioner for Transportation, who stood in for Ambode at the session, asked the distraught man to see him privately after the meeting.

    I do not know how the meeting ended.  I hope the Governor acceded to the distraught man’s request, and that his wife and daughter are now abroad receiving the kind of treatment they could not get in Nigeria.

    Ordinarily, the distraught man should not have found it necessary to seek Governor Ambode’s intervention.  The supervising officer of the Passport Office should have been vested with discretionary powers to waive, in exceptional circumstances, the law mandating a passport applicant’s physical presence for biometrics.  Plus, the equipment is portable and can function just about anywhere there is an electrical outlet.

    But in Nigeria, nothing is ever ordinary.

    The system operates on the assumption that exceptions will be abused.  Therefore, it admits none, not even on the most compelling of reasons. To render the system impermeable to corrupting influences, they enact rules that drive frustrated patrons to the criminal embrace of syndicated hustlers operating a parallel system that delivers quickly, and with the minimum of fuss.  You pay the fee, and you get the document – almost any document — and it is just as good as the one issued by the bureaucracy.

    But because the system admits of no exceptions, patrons are forced to devise all manner of schemes for obtaining whatever services they require.  And the more unlawful, the more assured.

    Apparently the distraught man, bless his innocence, had never heard of “Oluwole.”

    The whole thing is self-defeating.  Government loses vital revenue and erodes citizens’ faith, shaky at the best of times, in the system.  Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world to require a passport applicant’s physical presence for biometrics, an anomaly in this age of information technology.  But the requirement has done little to curb the fraffick in Nigerian passports

    The United States Passport is probably the most valued in the world.  To obtain it, you have to sign the application form in the presence of an official; yet, it remains the world’s most trafficked travel document.

    The point is that the kind of stringent controls I have been describing rarely work.

    Yet, illustrations of their application abound in Nigeria.

    Issuance and renewal of drivers’ and vehicle licences should be routine.  But the officials vested with the authority have insinuated so many obstacles into the process that motorists and vehicle owners are often forced, after an interminable wait, to seek these documents from touts who care nothing about driver competence or the condition of the vehicles plying city roads and inter-state highways.

    The high volume of road accidents and the mounting death toll are attributable, at least in part, to the ceding of this vital function to touts, by the very officials entrusted to safeguard it.

    To ensure that nobody can vote at multiple centres, restrict movement on Election Day from home to voting booth and back, shut down the airports and seaports, lock down the country, and virtually place the population under house arrest.

    Otherwise, some people can vote in Lagos in the early morning, drive to Abeokuta to vote two hours later, fly to Kano to vote around lunchtime, hop to Makurdi to cast yet another vote, and land in Port Harcourt just before the polls close.  And they can do so in numbers large enough to subvert the popular will.

    The loss to the economy from this misapprehension is incalculable.   I say nothing of course about the disruption to arrangements long made, contracts long sealed, and to the rhythm of life.

    To take an example from the banking sector:  Because of the high level of money laundering and other syndicated crimes in the system, depositors are required to obtain a Bank Verification Number (BVN) that will help officials keep track of customer transactions.  To obtain the BVN, depositors have to report in person at banks or designated centres to register, within a specified period.

    Patrons who fail to furnish the BVN before the deadline have been warned that they stand to forfeit their deposits, on the presumption that they are money launderers.   No account is taken of the inconveniences, the costs, and the risks to which depositors residing in far-flung places have to subject themselves to register for the BVN.

    And yet, all manner of technological tools are available for verifying the identity of depositors in the comfort of their homes, or without requiring them to travel far from wherever they live. When banks and other institutions fail to avail themselves of these technologies, they unwittingly retard Nigeria’s digital advance.

    Consider, finally, the matter of policing the country.  It is feared that if each state is allowed to run its own police force, as is the case in every federation, the force will be used to persecute the political opposition.  That has happened before in Nigeria, and could well happen again.

    But instead of making laws to curb and punish such abuse, constitutional provision is made only for federal only.   Now, is the unified police command not often used today to persecute political opponents?  Or is it the case that persecution by the federal police is to be preferred to persecution by state police?

    Even in the best-ordered societies, laws, rules and regulations will be abused.  That is a fact of human society.  But since they are made for people and not the other way round, they must admit of exceptions, and must be executed with compassion and empathy.

    It used to be said that Compassion and Empathy are Africans.  It is time to reclaim them in the making of public policy.

     

    Correction

    In my column for August 14, I mischaracterised the PDP as the majority party in both Houses of the National Assembly of the Second Republic.

    That status belonged to the NPN.  The PDP did not exist then.

    I regret the error.

     

  • Death of empathy

    The president is sick, with not a few fixated with morbid tales and ghoulish fancies.

    But what is clear here, even in every mortal’s helpless surrender to the uncertain certainty of death, is the death and burial of empathy.  That is a roaring shame.

    In formal creative prose, you were taught — at least Mr. Pius Omole taught his University of Ibadan students, among whom was Ripples — that you knew the true character of a man, when the man was in crisis.

    Nigerians — the entire Nigerians or just the over-exposed ultra-minority that ride the media crest? — are in a crisis of empathy.  The picture is a flint-hearted, contemptible, and graceless rabble, with nary an iota of human compassion.  Sad.

    Now, rigorous presidential health comes with the presidential territory.  That is why a section of the 1999 Constitution talks of the possible incapacitation of the president; and how such emergencies could be resolved.

    And yes: the ghost of the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua presidential debacle (God rest and bless his gentle soul!) still hovers over the polity, where some players, back then, tried to hide the state of health of the president, for their own selfish ends.

    Many say that experience has made not a few hyperactive in their quest for the latest news on President Muhammadu Buhari’s state of health.  Once bitten, after all, twice shy!

    But like anything Nigerian, where even routine things pass through grotesque ethnic lens, a quest for accurate information about presidential health soon peters down into savage nastiness, with even the cream of the media swooning in its orgy!

    Yet, things need not be that way.

    In neighbouring Ghana, President John Evans Atta Mills died in office, just as Yar’Adua died here.  Before then, he was ill, though the illness was so well managed that the president never faced any harangue as Buhari faces now.  Yet, the Ghana opposition could be as cantankerous as any, particularly during its early evening radio talk show belts.

    What then was so insensate?

    When the president passed away, the whole nation collapsed in genuine grief — and not just the cant and hypocrisy of the politically correct.  Had the president survived, he would have been nursed back to full wellness by the enduring love of his people.

    The enduring picture of Ghanaians, during this trying period?  A noble, caring and compassionate people, soaring high even in their low grief, on their common humanity.  Just wished someone could say that of Nigerians, with the present hysteria over Buhari’s health!

    Still, those who insist President Buhari and his handlers should come clean with his health status have a point.  If anything, that would follow the constitutional dictates over possible incapacitation.

    But a demand to conform with the constitution is one thing.  Crass insensitivity by mocking, heckling and gloating, en route to that demand, is another.

    Besides, there is a crucial sociological angle, which many appear to happily ignore.

    The law is clear on full disclosure of presidential (and gubernatorial) health.  Yet, the sociology of the polity jumps at secrecy, in such delicate matters.  Even standard medical convention preaches tact and caution, when it comes to the individual’s health.  Hence, the confidentiality dictate.

    So, even in the case of the president as complete public property, where does the law end and where does sociology begin?  Even with that, does the medical code of strict confidentiality have any role to play, in going public with the president’s health?

    In the hullabaloo that accompanied President Buhari’s medical tourism to Britain, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo made a point: Buhari himself would tell Nigerians about his health.

    The president did when he came back: how he had never been that sick all his life; and counselling Nigerians to shun self-medication.  No previous Nigerian president ever went that public with his health.

    So, those who claim to be unaware of the president’s health only speak the half-truth.  What is not public knowledge is exactly what is wrong with him.  The onus is on his medical team to divulge, with requisite tact and decency, according to the laws of the land, and the dictates of their profession.

    But public office and public property aside, President Buhari is only human like the rest of us.  He cannot give life. Neither can he take life.  At this juncture, only common humanity rules — not the pauper, not the rich, just the human.

    So, to those who play God pontificating over another person’s health, with such brutal zeal, just remember: Buhari is your president.  But he is also another person’s husband, father, uncle, cousin and even neighbour, all bound by intense family ties.

    Pray how do you sound to these fellow humans — some brute?

    Just think about that!

     

    Gory harvest

    First, the comet of DAWN.

    The Omoluabi, of iconic portraits,

    even mien and temperate heart;

    Cohabiting a furious temper

    To develop his native West.

     

    Did he figure death would dawn so fast,

    Conflicting another’s birthday:

    Birthday bliss, death-day blues,

    Leaving the celebrator winded —

    to laugh or to cry?

     

    Then, an Iroko of the native theatre,

    Hardly de-leafed, yet reaped,

    Neither the ripest fruit condemned to saddest,

    as our bard WS decreed;

    Nor the hard and sour, turned happiest.

    Just brazen victims,

    of the Reaper’s grim illogic.

     

    Then, outrage of outrage,

    On the Sabbath:

    Serubawon, serubawoned!•

    Now, all life at Iwo, a sparkling, gurgling eternal spring;

    Then, dead as mutton, in his native Ede!

    Death finally clamps the heart of one,

    who put others’ hearts quaking with fear!

     

    Death, be not proud,

    Once cautioned John Donne,

    He, of metaphysical poesy.

    But today, death is done with  Donne,

    metaphysics and all!

     

    Death rips, reaps, barges, smacks and roars!

    He, who would dare him, is not born.

     

    Yet, sweet memories, are death to death!

    As calm water, in easy quiet, swallows a roaring fire,

    So do sweet memories, with abiding pleasure,

    kill the pangs of death!

     

    To you fallen trio, be consoled.

    Death brags, with nothing, but your empty scalp.

    Rest well.

    Always, in our hearts, you live!

     

    • Serubawon, Adeleke’s political street moniker (Literally, Yoruba for “freeze them with fear”).

     

    Olakunle Abimbola,

    For Dipo Famakinwa (50), Olumide Bakare (64) and Senator Isiaka Adeleke (62), eminent Yoruba sons, who died within a three-day interval.

     

  • Always show empathy, urges cleric

    The Senior Pastor of Kingdom Light Christian Centre, Pastor Jummy Olagunju, has tasked Nigerians to always show empathy, mutual respect and value for human life as it remains the major panacea for a better society.

    Olagunju said this in an interview ahead of the church Praise Arena and Empowerment programme holding at Le-Real Hotel in Lekki, Lagos. He said that it is evident that the poorest nations of the world are the countries where human lives and human worth have been devalued and are not treated with respect while countries that are developing are countries that respect and appreciate human worth.

    He lamented that we live in a society where workers’ salaries are being owed for years and pensioners die after long queues in quest for their gratitude and public officers care less.

    He said it’s nothing but genocide when people are owed wages and denied their legitimate right.

    He noted that some countries developed not because they pray or fast more than Nigerians or they attend church services but they apply most of the key principles of Jesus and they make it to be a way of life.

  • Corporate empathy

    Governor Ambode turns his birthday as a score against cancer

    The importance of corporate Nigeria to show empathy for the lives of the average citizen came into play last week during the birthday celebration of Akinwunmi Ambode, the governor of Lagos State. Rather than devote that day to the ritual vanities of drinks and food and other features of a jolly afternoon, the governor turned it to an adventure in kindness.

    Cancer was the fulcrum of the day, and the governor reified the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) as the beach head of the campaign. Those who attended were some of the mainstays of corporate Nigeria, including oil, construction, power and financial world.

    Zenith Bank founder Jim Ovia, who was announced to have parted with N1 billion to procure  cancer diagnostic and treatment equipment, evangelised this sort of kind heart from the world of business.

    But the CECP reeled out a slide presentation that demonstrated the depth to which the dreaded disease had eaten into the tissues of our health, and how many Nigerians die by the hour from such culprits as prostate, cervical, colon, breast, lung and brain cancer.

    The facts are chilling. What is more chilling is the ignorance that pervades the Nigerian society; such ignorance that compels some citizens to hide under pious and superstitious covers to deny the danger that confronts us.

    What is more daunting than these: 14 Nigerians die daily of prostate cancer, one dies every hour of liver cancer, and colon cancer snaps a Nigerian every other hour. Only one out of five Nigerians survives the disease.

    The advent of medical technology has made it possible for Nigerians to now understand that cancer, once seen as a western worry, has come to stay as a malignant burden on us. Poverty and the absence of even the rudimentary capacity to tackle the disease make us especially vulnerable.

    Other than the profusion of data from the CECP, the afternoon featured two key testimonials, one from a victim of incipient breast cancer and another with the early stage of prostate cancer. Both said they had treatments abroad, and both detected the disease early. They are now cancer-free.

    There lay the value of the afternoon. Governor Ambode said the point of his birthday was to rally the corporate titans to buy mobile diagnostic centres in his own domain of Lagos. Speaking with the ambition of giving each of the 57 local government areas a mobile centre, he however kicked off the modest drive for three mobile centres.

    Leading the campaign, he moved from table to table and pledges came from quite a few of the companies. They manifested glorious ostentation in unveiling their contributions to the noble cause. Although the governor wanted three, by the end of the event, at least four mobile centres were achieved.

    The mobile centre is expensive. Each of them is estimated at about $600,000 and, by the official exchange rate, amounted to about N100 million. Access Bank, the Chagouri firm, Alakija, some chieftains of the oil and power sectors pitched in generously in this all-important fight against the dreaded disease. We must note that in 2014, NIgerians spent $200 million to treat cancer abroad.

    The reason the corporate giants yielded some of their profits for this fight hinged on the governor’s enthusiasm. He applied the soft power of office. This is significant. Power of political office has great potential for public good. Doing good to the vulnerable among us is one of the high points of such virtues.

    The other reason was the pathetic story of the many Nigerians that die by the hour, and a sense of fragility of a system that lays itself bare before the aggression of the disease.

    We must also say that the platform of the CECP highlights the milk of human kindness that already exists in the corporate world. This negates the somewhat universal sense that our companies live only for profit, and lack a sense of civic empathy.

    We have seen companies do good in this country. But we must state that they have been more concerned with the public relations value of such open philanthropy than the essential benevolence of doing it. Hence, we have corporate bodies more willing to disburse money for civic engagements that play up the profanities like dance, music and festivities rather than causes like education and health care. We appreciate though that some have devoted some resources to education as we see in the light of literature. More needs to be done.

    Recently, the Labour minister, Chris Ngige, asked the banks to desist from further firing of their workers. As we have stated recently, it may be overreaching his hand for the minister to slam such a peremptory order. We also note here that corporate bodies must see themselves as an integral part of the society, including its sorrows, its sicknesses, its tragedies. Therefore, it must play a role in lifting that society out of its many melancholies.

    Companies need the society to thrive and profit.  They rely on the infrastructure, resources, security, government policies and popular goodwill to make profit. They are therefore investors not only in the material prosperity but also social well-being.

    The effort of Governor Ambode should blaze a sublime trail for other states. Lagos State is a big state, but others must face the incubus of this dangerously modern disease.

  • A nation without empathy

    A nation without empathy

    On 12th February 2014) in Borno State Boko Haram killed 60 innocent Nigerians and carted off 24 young girls without any trace. On January 27th 2014 no less than 70 innocent Nigerians were murdered in cold blood by Boko Haram in a series of attacks in Borno and Adamawa states.

    On January 14th 2014, at least 50 of our compatriots were blown to pieces by a Boko Haram suicide bomber in the heart of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. Not too long before then they attacked an army barracks in Borno, killed 200 soldiers, carted off the wives and children of our military personnel and burnt the barracks to the ground.

    A few weeks prior to that, numerous schools were attacked and hundreds of our children were either shot to death, hacked to pieces or had their throats cut and blood drained. Consequently many schools have been closed down in Borno and Yobe states respectively.

    A few weeks back, no less than 160 of our soldiers were killed by Boko Haram in one skirmish simply because they ran out of bullets. Worst still, it has been generally acknowleged that the Boko Haram fighters are better equipped and better supplied than our soldiers. Goodness me….what a mess.

    Finally, no less than 130 churches were burnt down in Borno State in 2013 alone and the Catholic Church alone lost 53 churches out of that figure. All in all Nigeria has lost almost 8000 innocent civilians to Boko Haram in the last three years and that includes women and children. It does not however include the vast number of women that have been captured and kidnapped by them and that are now being used as sex-slaves.

    All this and yet some complain about the fact that I recently wrote that we have a ‘’President without balls’’ who is simply incapable of facing the challenge of Boko Haram. Given his accursed weakness in the face of what is undoubtedly the greatest insurgency and rebellion of our time since the civil war and given his inability to behave like a real Commander-in-Chief and to properly engage and crush the enemy, I do not regret my choice of words (or title) for that celebrated essay. As a matter of fact I ought to have gone much further because our President deserves far worse.

    As I wrote in another contribution almost one month ago, ‘’the problem that we have is the President himself- a President who prides himself on his own weakness and incompetence . A President who is as confused and as clueless as the comic character called Chancey Gardner in the celebrated 1970’s Peter Seller’s Hollywood blockbuster titled: ‘’Being There’’. A President who has abdicated his responsibilities, destroyed his own political party, divided his own country, alienated his own friends, humiliated his own mentor, abandoned his own people, brought ridicule to his own faith, cowers before his own officials, betrays his own governors, scorns the international community and breaks his solemn oath to protect and defend the Nigerian people. A President who does not even have the nerve or the guts to call to order any of the numerous aides. That is what you get when you vote for a man who never wore shoes to school’.

    It is no wonder that President Goodluck Jonathan has been endorsed for a second term by a motely and hitherto unknown group known as the ‘’Witches and Wizards Association of Nigeria’’. As my good friend and brother and the Kakaki Nupe, Mr. Sam Nda Isaiah, recently wrote in response to this rather strange ‘’endorsement’’ from an equally strange group- ‘’the devil is a liar’’.

    Each time a precious soul is snuffed out and a life is cut short by Boko Haram, whether that person be a Christian or a muslim, or a northerner or a southerner, it takes something away from our collective humanity and it wounds our nation’s soul. Worse still it diminishes us before the entire world and confirms the fact that our country has been turned into a human abbatoir and slaughterhouse where, no matter how many innocents are butchered, no-one really cares anymore.

    Such matters no longer even make it to the front pages of our newspapers anymore and neither do our politicians or newspaper columnists even talk or write about it anymore. All that stopped long ago and now we see such atrocities as a norm that we must just accept and live with. We have accepted it as our ‘’lot in life’’ and, as our President said last year, we regard it simply as ‘’Nigeria’s contribution to the war against terror’’. Early in 2013 our President also said that he regarded Boko Haram as his ‘’siblings’’ whom he ‘’could not move against’’ whilst Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the erstwhile National Chairman of his political party the PDP, described them as ‘’freedom fighters’’. Can you imagine that? These are commendations from Mr. President and the then serving National Chairman of the PDP for Boko Haram barely one year ago. Jumping Jehoshaphat. It is only in Nigeria that a terrorist organisation can kill thousands of it’s citizens in the most brutal, violent and horrendous manner and yet the President and the National Chairman of the ruling party still feel comfortable and safe with calling them their ‘’siblings’’ and ‘’freedom fighters’’. What a terrible insult this is on the Nigerian people and what a bitter pill to swallow for the family members of all those that have been killed in the last three years by these terrorists. I really do wonder whose ‘’freedom’’ Boko Haram is fighting for, whose interest they seek to further and protect and what blood ties exist between them and our President. What a shameful and insensitive set of leaders we have and what an indolent and insensitive followership who are not prepared to call them to order and keep them on their toes when they make such outrageous comments and who have absolutely no empathy with or sympathy for the many victims of Boko Haram.

    The truth is that we as a people have lost all sense of compassion and decency when it comes to such matters and our feelings and conciences have become seared. To the majority of Nigerians those precious souls and compatriots that have been killed by Boko Haram over the last three years are just a number- they are nothing but distant names, from a distant place, belonging to distant figures.

    There is simply no sense of national outrage from our people about this insidious rebellion and about these brutal killings and vicious attacks and neither is their any sense of urgency on the part of our government to bring it to an end. Given the way we conduct ourselves one would not have thought that Nigeria is currently enmeshed in the most brutal war against terror in it’s entire history.

    Yet as we go on with our day to day business and act as if all is well thousands are being killed in the north-eastern part of our country by Boko Haram. There can be no greater evidence of man’s inhumanity to man when one considers our attitude. Such inhumanity and insensitivity to the plight of others has taken firm root in the Nigeria of today. What a monuemental tragedy this is. When did we, as a people, degenerate to this abysmal level of lack of empathy and when did we stop becoming our brother’s keeper?

    As millions of Nigerians join the world to celebrate Valentines day (today) and indeed throughout this weekend, please let us spare a thought and say a little prayer for those whose loved ones will not be with them on this day, or indeed on any other day, simply because they have been murdered or kidnapped by Boko Haram.

    May God heal their wounds and have mercy on them even as we grieve with them. And may God forgive our President and the majority of the Nigerian people for simply ‘’not giving a damn’’ about their sad and unfortunate plight. Happy Val’s day.

     

  • The empathy chasm

    The empathy chasm

    Mature abhors solitude. Several levels of bonding are needed in the cosmos to attain terrestrial harmony. Plants need the sunlight of the sun for photosynthesis.Animals and plants are interdependent for survival. Even streams are said to be cleaner when interlinked for mutual purification. The narrative of creation also harped on the value of community. That explains why God created Eve to make Adam realise the true essence of life through the instrumentality of community.

    But when man attempts to break this natural principle, he sets himself up for a quandary. That was the case of Raskolnikov, a character in Crime and Punishment by Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky. His acute poverty and insolvency made him to contemplate solitude, to be withdrawn from the company of fellow men and evade the travails of his existence. But soon, he realised his folly: no man grows outside the bounds of society. Man finds the essence of his being through his active involvement as a member of society.

    Like Raskolnikov, many people have been pushed away from society and forced to live in a world of their own. They have sight but they cannot appreciate the glow of the sun, the calm of flowing streams and the air that heals our fur. They walk on the streets like we do. But through their weary gait and grief-stricken eyes, you can perceive the tragedy of their plight, the tributary of pain that hounds them around, their shattered dreams, their dashed aspirations and their ‘’sorry joys and gaily-endured hardships’’, apologies to Balzac. To parody late 2Pac Shakur, they die to live. In reality, they are not living. They only exist.

    Today, we see lots of persons who are victims of this existential dilemma. Nigerian youths are described as “wasted” and other unflattering labels. At school, they lack a voice of their own and their hope of a better future is dampened by the failure of the system. In churches and mosques, we find adherents who are alienated from the pulse of living. So, we sympathise with them through endless and sometimes misplaced supplications. Is it enough to hand them a loaf of bread and not teach them to fish? We often forget that the morally vulnerable are part of a society’s social structure. That was the flaw committed by state bureaucrats in Aminata Sow Fall’s The Beggar’s Strike who employed brutal force to evacuate beggars from the city. But Coca Cola and Nigerian Bottling Company understands that developing an individual to paddle his own canoe is the best form of empowerment.

    So, they break the banks every year to give their fair share of sponsorship to the CAMPUSLIFE Project on the platform of The Nation newspaper. They knew that youths are the drivers of every prosperous economy and that through empowerment, they can rise above the tethers of their time and create the future of their dreams. They realised that when youthful energies are left fallow, they readily find expression in crime and unrest. So, Coca Cola and NBC have continued to foster a working template to develop Nigerian youths to become part of the bigger equation. That, perhaps, is the utmost expression of empathy.

    In The Empathic Civilisation, Jeremy Rifkin argued that wealth and class culture will continue to create divisions in a society but ‘’empathic extension is the only human expression that create true equality between people.’’ That empathy speaks so loud in the Coca Cola brand. They understand that shared values, empathy and experience are crucial to a winning brand just as air is vital to life. But how many firms in Nigeria support education-related projects? How many organisations adopt literary initiatives in their corporate social responsibility? The emphasis, of course, is always on the bottom-line. And that has been the greatest argument against capitalism. They tell us to dance. They tell us to dress semi-nude on runways and flaunt ‘’vital statistics.’’ They tell us to spend 91 days watching nude and amoral fellows all in the name of reality shows. True social cohesion would be elusive unless society appreciates the value of moral empathy.

    That empathy has birthed a family; a kin that helps one another to crack their kernels open, to find treasures buried in caves, peaks and abyss, to take space and succeed together. But again, that family was created by the late Mrs Ngozi Agbo. She demonstrated empathy towards what she called a ‘’distressed generation.’’ She did not sit in a comfy office, complaining about the situation. She did not get herself drown in leadership criticism. She knew she had to act. She knew that noble intentions are inconsequential unless they translate into moral action. Till she breathed her last, Aunty Ngozi dissipated her energy, resources and time to salvage the lots of Nigerian youth through the weekly pull-out.

    To be candid, CAMPUSLIFE has continued to open doors of boundless opportunities for all of us. Dayo Ibitoye who won the 2013 Nigeria Blog award (Technology category), Ngozi Emmanuel, Nigeria’s youngest lecturer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University; Ayodele Obajeun, Line Manager at P&G; Jumoke Awe, girl-child advocate and entrepreneur; Gbenga Ojo, publisher of Exceptional magazine; Nosakhare Uwadiae, Silverbird Television (Benin); David Osu, UN ambassador and a host of others who are doing well in their respective fields, all attest to the value proposition of CAMPUSLIFE.

    Coca Cola, NBC and The Nation newspaper have set an example on the premise that society thrives at its best when bridges are created for the young, vulnerable and forsaken flocks; that understanding that people have a lot to offer society but they would first have to be assured they are part of that society. Hence, through empathy, we offer a restorative balm to those people isolated from society, the Raskolnikovs of our time, those folks who look but find no meaning in stars, rocks and existence, those feeble fellows who require a push and pull, a longing for acceptance and the assurance that their miserable life counts. Only empathy could help us to connect those dots.

    •Gilbert, 400-Level, Foreign Languages, UNIBEN