By Edentu Oroso, Our Columnist on Wednesdays
A delicate balancing act is perceptible in nature. For there to be an ebb at the seashore, a corresponding tide must pan out offshore. In like manner, the perennial rains seek to balance the arid plains scorched by the waves of the sun in the dry season.The splurge of rain signals the sprout of new life on the vast plains.
Everything in nature seems to unfurl in pairs. Light and darkness, for example, are complementary elements. One cannot exist without the other. It takes the light to balance the darkness. For light to shine, the darkness must give way.
Death too is the harbinger of birth. A seed must die for it to spring forth from the bowels of the earth with life. As one soul passes away, another is born to balance the scale.
Just like light and darkness, what we consider good in human actions can only have meaning in the absence of evil. If there’s no evil perpetrated anywhere, then good holds no meaning anywhere. Good and evil are, therefore, Siamese twins–off-springs of the human heart, which is the breeding ground for all actions.
Puritans will glibly contest this notion, saying in the beginning there was no evil, only good existed. Then the pertinent question: where did evil come from? The answer is imbedded in what was created at the onset. Were good and evil inherent in the initial seed or soul?
Since nature abhors a vacuum, something that wasn’t part of its initial alchemy cannot be part of the ongoing human experience. So, the soul or seed from the pristine beginning must have had good and evil imbedded in the core of that experience or being. For an electric bulb to give forth light, both the negative and positive terminals of the switch must be on. It’s part of the balancing act.
Through its balancing act, nature teaches us so many intrinsic lessons for life is a school; and life’s lessons never end. It’s a continuous process.
So it’s safe to opine that Nigeria, a representative fraction of the cosmic thread, is a school of some sort. The citizens of Nigeria are all enrolled in the school of life. And for the fact that good and evil are integral things in life’s peculiar school, or the human experience, Nigeria too is a school where good and evil prevail. However, in Nigeria, the evil is consistent in its steamroller over the good. The balancing of the scale is never in sync with the harmony nature demands of all constituent elements.
We have seen more of the ugly or the bad in Nigeria than the brilliance or machinations of the good. Even in the arena of politics where the common good ought to be sacrosanct, the ugly rears its hydra head and obscures the light that tries to shine through the pitched darkness.
In the domain of politics, the scales tip in favour of the absurd. The good cannot offer a soothing balm without the bad nailing his coffin shut with greed and self-conceit. One thing is responsible for this. Conscience is dead at the corridors of power. Self-conceit reins on the heart with fierce and inordinate ego. This puts paid to the reel of conscience in the domain of progress.
Nigeria’s politicians are prioritizing personal gain over the country’s well-being, driving the nation towards economic collapse. They’re more interested in lining their pockets through brazen theft, deceit, and shady deals than in addressing the country’s dire needs. The focus is solely on self-enrichment, with no regard for the consequences of their actions. This self-serving mentality has become the hallmark of the political elite, pushing Nigeria to the brink of disaster.
The good appears long extinct from our shores. The evil has primacy in the affairs of state. On the scales, the masses are wailing and heading towards oblivion due to economic hardship, while top government functionaries are smiling with their filthy lucre and championing policies that are not people-oriented. And the groaning masses wait for Godot.
Even the owls hoot at night of the evil in the sphere. The crickets chant of the degenerate culture of the new slave-drivers, the winds howl of macabre times when fuel, the country’s pulse, has a vaulted reach no one can touch. The rivers sing of sad songs of flood from up flung Lagdo Dam, threatening millions of people, yet a callous government rests on her oars, complacent year in year out with deafening cries of the people’s anguish.
The school of good and evil thrives in Nigeria, where all citizens are students, experiencing both the sublime and the absurd. None escapes the harsh lessons, designed to balance our spiritual growth, much like raw gold refined by fire. Suffering, after all, enhances the soul’s development.
Evil flourishes through the passive energies of the students, while good waits in the shadows for its moment to shine. This dynamic ensures balance, reflecting the idea that every country gets the leaders it deserves, and why we should accept the current state of affairs without complaint.
So do not despair. We allowed the mass suffering by our choices…gleefully collecting bribes or stipends of 5k or 10k or 15k or 20k at the polling units from the greedy politicians. We mortgaged eight years of freedom for the momentary gains by that choice. So when the puppeteers start their racketeering manoeuvres on the spawn, the sad results are meant to balance the scales of our idiotic choices. Let’s then endure the hard lessons. They seem purifying and meant to edify our souls.
But our leaders or rulers forget the obvious: life’s transient quality. No one leads or rules forever. The legacy you leave behind in the hearts of the people would be the only mementoes you’d be remembered by. Not the mansions, not the stacks of stolen wealth, not the private jets or yachts, not the harem of girl friends or wives. Everything in life is transient – power inclusive.
Many billionaires have realized that wealth and power are means, not ends. Some have formed a philanthropists’ club, pledging to donate half their wealth to uplift the poor. This balances the scales of good and evil. Although they may have amassed wealth through questionable means, giving back to those they may have exploited is a form of restitution.
Money is one powerful tool we all need. Fame is one desirable thing in human life. Fame and fortune are a potent combo doubtlessly. Yet in the pursuit of both, one must balance the scales between that which is good and that which is evil. If you can’t differentiate where the lines blur, then you have mortgaged your conscience; and conscience is who you’re when no one else is watching.
Nigeria deserves everything that’s good. She has everything it takes to be great in the comity of nations. But our leaders must look in the mirror and see who or what stares back at them. If what they see is good, then the country is making progress. If what they see etched on that canvass are fangled hopes and chequered dreams of a people, filched by the fat bellies and pompous smiles of the men in the mirrors, then evil is on the ascendancy and the scales need prompt balancing for good to prevail.
Until the scales of good and evil are balanced in the school of life, every student or pupil in it is considered a failure. Leaders are students too in this school. And primitive acquisition of wealth to the detriment of the masses is evil.
