By Tola Adeniyi
Listen, I’m talking to you. You, I mean you. And as I talk to you I’m also speaking to myself. It has been very difficult to get mankind change its ways, especially the species called Nigerians. And on a larger scale, Africans; human beings planted on the African continent by the Almighty Creator. We had thought that by violently removing greedy politicians who routinely mess up our progress, their replacements would be different or do better. No. Efforts were made to reform the electoral process and improve on the recruitment criteria for new leaders, such efforts were rendered useless by arrogance, nepotism and impunity.
Newspaper articles upon articles, video clips upon video clips, preaching upon preaching in churches, mosques, iledis, and open gatherings could not change the stubbornness of the locusts who continually rape us in the open. And yet we know that unless we succeed in changing the mindset of our people, all of us, nothing would ever change.
Are you listening? You and I are hereby invited to face the reality of our existence, its ephemeral nature, its transiency. And above all the end of each and every one of us so that it could be drilled into our skulls that we have all been chasing shadows by the way we live and the stupid attitude of stealing what belongs to others to satisfy our own selfish ego and our immediate families. And boyfriends and girlfriends!
Now listen. We all are the recipe for dinner in the grave. Yes, dinner for maggots.
The moment we are lowered [euphemism for thrown] into the grave, an alarm goes out to maggots and worms that dinner is about to be served. And they arrive in droves and make their way to the open entrances. From their experience, they know that their ‘food’ comes with mouth left ajar. Most human beings leave their mouth open as they exhale the last breath. That is the first spot maggots rush to. Invariably, depending on the degree of decomposition, the place is usually wet, very wet with saliva or whatever liquid, dripping out. That is the stage you and I are in the grave.
Sooner than later, your grave becomes a battleground for maggots and worms as they scramble for juicy spots in your nostrils, eyes and ears, before they journey forth to the watery brain. The brain, I was told, don’t ask me by whom, is the sweetest part or portion of the dinner.
Let us all be conscious of this damn reality and ask ourselves why we should continue to steal, silly stealing the way accursed Nigerian politicians do. And why families, friends and relations should continue to pressure their members who stole the stool they sit on, or appointees of the same men and women on stolen stools.
We just have to change our ways and attitude to public office. Whatever the position you are holding, remember that sooner or later you are a mere dinner for maggots. And that is if you are lucky to die in a circumstance that would provide you decent burial and allot a place for you in the grave. If you were to die by a plane crash into the sea, various types of fish would feast on your mangled or burnt body. Or you perish in a desert where vultures are ever present to tear your body into pieces before your remnants are taken over by maggots and worms.
All these crazy material acquisitions are not worth it. You and I don’t need them. Of what benefit are the big houses hidden somewhere in Europe, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates and in North America? These are properties you hardly visit in a year or even two years! And you say you are saving them for your children, born or unborn at the expense of millions of other people’s children you deliberately deny opportunities to better their lives. You glorify in making other children beggars, labourers, servants and totally uneducated so that such children would continue to wallow in unspeakable poverty and ignorance. Think about it and search your conscience. Don’t tell me your conscience is dead. Conscience does not die. It may be suspended temporarily, but it is awake and tortures you throughout the night such that you never have sleep. And you know it.
All the children whose future you have destroyed by your selfishness, greed, and arrant arrogance have their own Spirit heads like you and their Spirit heads will hunt you and your children and generations to know end. Believe it or not, the law of Karma is immutable.
Look at yourself in the grave again. Look at those maggots and worms. Do you see your mansions around them? Do you see your limousines and private jets around them? Do you see your seat of power? Do you see your girlfriends and boyfriends lurking around there? Of course, those ones, fair-weather, had relocated to other buffoons like you.
It should begin to dawn on all of us that nobody cares about where you lived or when you lived but HOW you lived. And nobody cares about how much you earned but how much you GAVE while alive. Nobody cares about how much you accumulated but how much you SHARED.
We should stop our attitude to life. We should seriously change our Mindset if we genuinely want an end to the rot that had enveloped this contraption called Nigeria. This country, or whatever is now left of it, can only be redeemed by a change of attitude, a change of Mindset. All the things which make us steal, irrationally and shamelessly steal, suppress and oppress others are really not important. Believe me.
When you break other people’s heads, steal ballot boxes, impose yourself on other people and indulge in a life you do not deserve, and you know that you don’t deserve, what exactly is going on in your head?? Ask yourself again.
Meanwhile let us stop using euphemisms, fanciful words to describe what’s going on in Nigeria. We should stop using words like corruption, money laundering, misappropriation or such pretentious words. What’s going on in Nigeria is massive stealing. Pervasive roguery. Daylight robbery. We steal votes. We steal judgement. We steal ballot boxes. We steal positions and posts. We rob other people of their legitimate entitlements. Stealing is the word. Those stealing us with unprecedented impunity and think they are smart and clever are thieves and rogues. Let’s call spade by its name!
In the Yoruba country of yore, before the pink-skinned marauders came with their hypocrisy and selective laws, when thieves and rogues were caught, they were paraded round the community and banished.
There are some of us who don’t believe in hell or paradise, but we do know that no one leaves this world without suffering the consequences of their deeds on earth.
We, all, are moving corpses on our way to be gnawed as dinner by maggots. Inescapable!
High Chief Tola Adeniyi, former Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the old DailyTimes of Nigeria Plc is a syndicated columnist and an Elder statesman.
