The caption of this essay “May our road be rough” is what I wish Nigerians including myself as we go into 2019. The originality of the imprecatory title is not mine. The patent is traceable to the fertile and rigorous mind of famed school teacher and radical humanist, Dr. Tai Solarin of blessed memory. In his 1964 New Year day essay titled “May Your Road Be Rough”, the iconic schoolmaster and founder of Mayflower School, Ikenne, did declare, “May your road be rough”.
Expecting that his readers would be shocked and turn their fingers round their head and snap them at him as in “back to sender”, he quickly added the following, “I am not cursing you. I am wishing you what I wish myself every year. I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this year, may there be plenty of trouble for you this year! If you are not sure what you should say back, why not just say “same to you”? Solarin was a hardnosed thinker who neither saw the world through rose tinted glasses nor romanticized it as a stretch of rosemary. He knew that roses have thorns. He saw the world for what it is which is what we make of it. No wishes and hopes when actions are not deliberately geared to elicit good.
Every New Year in Nigeria, and may be the world over, is usually a time for prayers, wishes and hope. Pastors and politicians, family and friends, all join in the ritual of prayers, wishes and hope. Prosperity, success, peace, health number among the wishes many hopefully express and expect. Yet, their actions pull the scale in the opposite direction. This has been the case with Nigeria and Nigerians. Every New Year, people pray for everything good and do nothing in the direction of realizing it. People make resolutions without commensurate efforts to keep them. Yet, they expect things to change for the better. We want great result without working hard. We hope without exerting ourselves. We anticipate great harvest without putting our hands to the plough.
Nigeria’s problems are in our inability to rise to the challenge of genuinely confronting our foibles individually and collectively. Rather than confront our weaknesses headlong we seek solace in prayers and wishes of Happy New Year. To the discerning, all those prayers and wishes aggregate a will o’ the wisp if they are not matched with action. Something cannot come out of nothing. Hence we need to match our prayers with action. Prayers are essentially wishes and for what is anticipated to materialise, concerted and deliberate efforts must be made. One cannot plant cassava and expect to reap yam. A third class effort at scholarship cannot yield a first class result. It is for this reason that many a new year wish do not come to pass. Nobody prays for failure, poverty, accident, death, robbery and other acts incidental to existential hardship. Yet, these negative indices of human existence daily confront and define us. The problem is not in our praying or not praying. The problem is not in our wishing or not wishing. The problem is in our not matching our prayers and wishes with deeds. I do concede that faith, prayer and hope are essential to our spiritual and physical survival, but this is conditional. We must exert ourselves towards realising what we hope for.
In spite of the many prayers and happy New Year wishes pouring forth from Nigerians since 1914, the nation and people have tottered. We are now just hanging by the precipice. 2019 opened with an avalanche of prayers and wishes from pastors and politicians. Side by side those prayers and wishes are exhortations to the downtrodden to be patient, dedicated, sacrificial and hopeful. Only the poor are encouraged to imbibe such attributes. The corpulent pastors and triple-chinned political dealers have grown beyond complying with such virtues. Buhari, Osinbajo, Atiku, Obi, Saraki, Dogara, Wike, Seriake, all were joined in dishing out lavish New Year admonitions to the masses. Be more prayerful. Be patient. Be hopeful. Make sacrifices.
If only Saraki or Seriake could just for one day imbibe what they told the masses. If only either of them could exchange one of their cars, just one each, for those of my buddies Ogheneakpobo and Eyankwaire. Then they would know what it means to sacrifice. If only Dogara or Osinbajo could abandon the coziness of their Abuja home in exchange for a room in Orogun just for one day then they would know how much sacrifice we are making.
As we go into 2019 Nigerians have a choice to make. We are not likely to fully realise the benefit of that choice right away, but it is going to be a step in the right direction. That choice must compel us to jettison wishful thinking and hope anchored on nothing. 2019 is election year and we must discern between progress and retrogression. This year’s election should be the elixir in the march towards national retrieval. We must act and anticipate result. But till then, may our road be rough, very rough!
END
Be the first to comment