As a lad in those days, I cherished listening to stories which my late father used to tell us almost every night after the supper. We used to pay an undivided attention to the stories as they're being told. This is because after the story, the old man, in his usual doings,would ask us the lesson(s) we must have learnt while the story telling was on going. Anyone, who wouldn't be able to tell at least a lesson learnt, would be adequately punished for that. So, we got no option than to maintain total silence.
In one of such stories, he told us on how a barefooted man was attacked by a group of armed robbers on his way back home from a journey. He said that the man, having sighted the robbers, he quickly dropped a parcel in his hand towards the robbers direction and took to his heels. As soon as the robbers sighted the parcel, their attentions were drawn at it thereby stopped pursuing the man. Unfortunately for them, the parcel was securely tied. By the time they were able to loose the parcel, the man was nowhere to be found. To add salt into their injuries, what was contained in the parcel was a human Feces. What's a double loses.
Gone are the days in our country Nigeria, when no one is being discriminated against based on one's religion affiliation. No one would say, 'I'm a Muslim', so I have nothing to do with the Christians. Or that 'I'm a Christian', hence, I have nothing to do with the Muslims. We were all together, fighting the same course. We were together, eating in the same plates, living under the same roof, with our two eyes, all closed. No one is suspecting the other. A situation whereby the father is a Muslim and the wife is a Christian. And vice versa. When the children decide the religion they were to practice between the duo without any intimidation from either of the parents. When both the Christians and the Muslims were attending any of their religion festivals without any act of discrimination. When the preachings of the Muslims were not intended to attack the Christians, and those of the Christians were not meant to attack the Muslims. When their were religion tolerance on both sides. When nobody was particular about the religion of who the governor or the president is. It's quite unfortunate that all these virtues have eluded us.
Since the time that I became so conscious of what happens around me, I have came to the realization that religion has been the successful weapon that our 'modern' politicians have been making use of to divide us as a nation. Unlike our founding fathers, like Alhaji Amadu Bello, Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, to mention but a few, who saw Nigeria as belonging to all of us and not to some sections of the country. That was why they worked tirelessly to build a country of their dreams. History even had it that the late Malam Aminu Kano and Malam Waziri Ibrahim didn't have a house of themselves here in Nigeria, let alone having mansions abroad.
As earlier said,our so-called 'modern' politicians have really studied us so well that Nigerians are religion bigots, especially the Masses. These are people who never know what even the elementary principle of their faith says. For example, ask any of them to open to a portion of the the Qur'an, or a passage of the Bible, one would be surprised that he might not be able to do so. These are the ones, who through their unguided utterances, would be inciting those who share their faith for their political ambitions.
Just like the story told above, the armed robbers stand for the Nigerian Masses, the parcel stands for the two main religions in Nigeria, Islam and the Christianity, where the man represents our 'modern' politicians, who never loved the Masses for anything other than to get their votes and later dumped them to their faith.
Unfortunately, the Masses failed to realize this. Instead of them to come together as a united force against the forces of oppression and intimidation, they've allowed the issues of religion difference to divide them, as the saying goes: 'United we Stand, divided we fall'.
It's a fact that, there's strength in unity! For example, if a stick of broom is used to sweep a portion of ground, and later, the same portion of ground is swept using a bunch of brooms, reasonably the time spent would be far less than when using a stick of the broom. Also, the comfortability cannot be underestimated !
For our dear country Nigeria to be as the founding fathers wanted it to be, there's need for the Masses to speak with one voice. They should not allow the religion issues to divide them, having realized that, that's what some of our 'modern' politicians are using to win their political ambitions.
The greatness of Nigeria sorely depends on the unity among the Masses.
United we Stand, Divided we fall.
God Bless Nigeria !
April 11 at 5:15pm · Privacy: P
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