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10 Jan 2012
By
Adeniyi Omotope Zafaran
What we experience today
is no more a dream, be it pain or
pleasure, as it is a reality of our handiworks. We
saw the cloud when it forms, yet we enter and become
drained, who is to be blamed? More clouds are
looming as this is just the beginning. The major
lesson of our history class today is that we have not
learnt its lesson. We are yet to discover ourselves.
The leaders say fellow Nigerians; the
people say greatest Nigerians. The leaders campaign
and the people vote. The leader controls the
resources, the people generate them. The leaders enjoy
all facilities which are almost all unpaid for; the
followers languish in penury and almost pay for
everything. The present scenario is a vivid reflection
of the people. While the fuel saga rages, the people
or the touts amongst them go about constructing
illegal road blocks to extort money from fellow men;
others go about destroying properties and killing
innocent lives. One then asks the link between
subsidy and destruction.
It will be incisive to refresh our
memories with the statement of one of our great
scholars which rightly depicts our self-engineered
pathetic situation: "A train will move in the
direction the driver intends it to go. The passengers
are in his hands. They will go in whatever direction
the train goes. If they want to go in some other
direction, they will have to change either the train
or the driver. In the same way, human civilization
travels in the direction determined by the people who
control the center of power. Mankind can hardly resist
moving along the road by those who lead, if only by
virtue of the fact that leaders control all resources,
hold the reins of power and possess the means of
shaping and moulding minds and behaviour. They have
the power to influence individuals as well as social
system and moral values…If leadership is in the hands
of those who have turned away from God, the lifestyle
of that society drifts towards rebellion against God,
towards man's exploitations by man and towards moral
degeneration and cultural pollution. This in
turn, leads to a general corruption of ideas affecting
the arts and sciences, polities and law and justice."
[S.A.A. Mawdudi, The Islâmic Movement: Dynamics
of Values, Power and Change]
Our situations appear to have defied
prayers; after all we have been praying! One thing
debarring the potency of our prayer is action as
individuals. We must all live by natural values and
divine guidance. Then, we should ensure others live as
such. We must realise that it is only natural that the
future generation reap the fruit of the present
consequent upon the products of our handiworks.
Allah (SWT) will never change the
situation of a people until they change their
orientation about their existence. The future of every
society lies in our hands. If our councilors are free
to be paid for a service but fail to act and not taken
to account; it serves as an incentive for the next
person after him to do worse. This is same for the
chairmen, senators, Governors and others. It is high
time every constituency called back their leaders and
took them to task.
Life remains a struggle which
temporarily ends at death. The consequence of a life
well or badly spent lingers on in the grave and
culminates in paradise or hell. So, let there be peace
in the land which should be encapsulated in human
feeling in our relationships.
Dr Adeniyi Omotope Zafaran,
Director, Vanguards Academy, Ijebu-Ode,
Ogun State, Nigeria |
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