SIR: A breed of intelligent specie cannot flounder forever in blunder of the existential conundrum. Our society crumbles before our eyes like a castle being swept away by monstrous flood. The wealthy among us scuttle to the safe grounds of America and Europe for shelter. Only, warm bloodedness of our nature struggles to settle in the frigid culture of the West. They wake up to the realization that there is no place like home. Our love and dignity as a people are embroidered in the tapestry of our extended family system.
Survivors trapped in the country engage in a do or die battle to move to higher plains of society. They erect monuments for their status. Titles, degrees and honorarium plaster their walls and flood their shelves. They float their arrogance on the slippery assumption that the nation’s riches are plenty and spilling over. Lack of economic opportunity stagnate many families in the pond of poverty.
If only we could use our common sense to address our common good. Bundles of the country’s money stashed in one man’s warehouse will not double his happiness. Instead, it will be a cause for sleepless nights for him watching over the loot from the attacking guns of scavenging neighbours. Our land has enough resources to provide immensely for every man and woman in our society. The faces staring blankly at the ceiling after dropping down on the floor at the end of each day searching for sleep on growling stomach shames our pride as a nation. It is a scandal of global proportion.
Politicians build tall and electrified fences to shield themselves from the menace of intrusive wolves bearing down for their stake. Youths use animalistic force to push for their share from the looters. Paradise according to biblical text is supposed to be an open and luxurious garden where all inhabitants have abundant of everything to live happily. Tall and electrified fences impress a horrific state in one’s mind of the like of maximum security prisons where callous souls are bound in misery.
A tree that refuses to bow to the force of the wind will be broken. We are a people imbued with a noble history and a present catastrophe. Our bowl is full with experience. We can map the path from our tremendous knowledge that will lead us to a successful existence. Our reason for survival drives the imperative that it is not in our best interest to continue to indulge our base senses. Enemies of change will be banished by the force that necessitates change. We are an intelligent breed that will not go into extinction for the sheer notion that we own the capability to salvage ourselves from destruction.
I believe there is hope for the downcast Nigerians. In a perverse way, most crooked elements end up being the biggest philanthropists historically. The flourishing public institutions in America today, museums, libraries, parks and other recreational centres were founded at the turn of the 20th century by the same tyrannical entrepreneurs who exploited the masses. I do not believe their humanitarianism came out of their compassion for the suffering poor. They reached the peak in their quest to accumulate wealth and discovered the surplus was suffocating their lives. As a consequence of the futility of their obsessed greed, and life in general, coupled with the hostility of the aggrieved masses, they found resolution in giving the money back to improve society.
The promise for Nigeria with her enormous resources is that the same forces tearing down the country will be instrumental in building it back up. The message should be clear to all leaders wheeling power with impunity, the fire you start will bounce back and consume you. Use your strength judiciously for the bigger good of the greater majority. You will be praised and not despised by generations now and ever after.
- Pius Okaneme,
Umuoji, Anambra State.
