SCARS
SCARS
C(2018)
CHIBU NDUBUISI 29/01/2018 WEEK 5
“The
wound is the place where the light gets in” RUMI
Peace be with you.
Scars all reminds us of an experience that altered our views,
understanding, perceptions of life and either ushered us into more extreme or
balanced understanding about life.
In his classic political thriller book “Power Politics and Death”, Olusegun Adeniyi notes that the scars he had
to contend with, was that as media spokesman of late President Yar’ Adua, and
at the height of the president’s ailment
he was denied access to his principal. On his own part, he made the error of
addressing the “Acting President” Jonathan as Vice President. In his
submissions he notes that;
“In light of the fact that Yar’Adua was brought home invalid, which I
didn’t know at the time, I agree it was wrong for me to have addressed Jonathan
as VP; I should have addressed him as acting president”.
The author decided not to hide his scars as a presidential
spokesman. He went further to correct himself by saying that “I accept responsibility for that error of
judgement and feel deeply sorry about it”. This
is what I expect from the government of the day to accept responsibility for
their failures and brings fresh heads and hands to help stir the ship of state
rather than trading blames.
I want to stand on this acceptance of responsibility to commiserate
and console all families of all those who have been killed brutally, callously and unjustly in
Nigeria as a regard of lackluster policy initiatives.
Have we not lived long enough in the valley of
despair? Have we not lived long in the valley of tears? Have we not lived long
in the valley of indifference of our common humanity? When will our healing
come? Lose your scar and you lose your
story. Frank Sintra averred that “don’t hide your scars; they make you who you
are”.
The pains and agony we are all experiencing in Nigeria now are
messages and signals. We must understand the writing on the wall that in
leadership no one knows it all. We must not ignore the calls geared towards directing,
fashioning and working out a way of building a free and just society. It is a
collective work.
In his 2017 TED talk Jonathan Sacks notes that;
“We have
fallen in to magical thinking when we believe that electing a particular strong
leader will solve all our problems. When this type of thinking dominates, we
fall for extremism on the far right or far left”. The
solution he averred is that” when we move from the politics of
“ME” to the politics of “ALL OF US TOGETHER” we discover counter
intuitive truth that a nation is strong
when it cares for the weak, that it becomes rich when it cares for the poor, it
becomes invulnerable when it cares about the vulnerable”.
Peace be upon you.
Read more @chibundubuisi.blogspot.com
Comments
Post a Comment