Photo credit: The Punch
It was the late Dr Tai Solarin who normally greeted people, May Your Road Be Rough, on the first day of the year.
His belief is in accordance with the Yoruba saying, O s’emu l’ogbe, o ‘t’oguro l’ofa, o gbe’nu sidi ope, ofe lo nro? That simply means one needs to make hay while the sun shines.
When we consider the state of affairs in Nigeria, it is not gain saying the fact that the common people who happen to be more than seventy-five percent of the population need their roads to be rough. If we just sit down to agree with the status quo, I know that we’ll not be helping ourselves.
What do the following personalities have in common?
Sadiq Daba
Raymond King
Stella Monye
All of them were crowd pullers on various fronts in those days. They served their fatherland, Nigeria, very well.
However, when Sadiq needed to be treated abroad, ordinary people had to contribute money for him to receive treatment. He was one of the brains behind, the master blaster, Cock Crow At Dawn.
Raymond King is also in need of medical help now. He used to be a goal tender of the famous IICC Shooting (sootin) Stars of Ibadan.
Possibly the most curious is that of Stella Monye.Stella is a songstress. She released the beautiful track, Oko Mi Ye, and some others. She was serving Nigeria in Abuja when her son had an accident. It was in 1999 and she didn’t collect any cash for her service. But she was glad to serve her nation.
Her son has been on the sick bed for seventeen years now.
Now, those are even popular people, let’s not toy with the idea of anyone of us needing such attention. That’s the reason why so many poor people die needless deaths.
And before we say anything, some people I don’t want to refer to as ignoramuses will be yelling, Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.
That’s great, ain’t it?
But then, there must have been some preparations your country had made for you.
I was discussing with some pals in my hood yesterday. And we were reviewing the year 2017. When we got to the area of electric power supply, I said cumulatively the power supplied was not more than fourteen days. Someone then said I had been too fair. To him, it wasn’t more than ten days.
Out of 365 days!
I don’t need to be talking about the state of even the most basic of amenities. We all know the respective states in which they are.
But, I need to appeal to you and I. I need to appeal to your personal gods, which is known by the Igbo as chi and the Yoruba as ori or eleda.
Please, let’s be serious about electing people who will go and represent us in various elective posts. We all know that government is all about who gets what. But if we fail to elect sane people, we will, as usual, have ourselves to blame. And we will hardly get anything for our efforts to save for the pittance they had given us initially.
I know that things are hard, but will the five thousand naira each we get from aspirants solve all our problems? Must we sell our collective future for another term of four years?
I’m pleading with us to look for those amongst us who are relatively honest and useful, as far as community service is concerned, for public service.
May your roads be rough!
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