Reaping The Whirlwind that we sowed!
(From my archives - the article was written on April 5, 2021)
Our elders say that the way we lay our beds is exactly the way we will sleep on them.
Robert Ingersoll told us that in nature, there are neither rewards nor punishments, only consequences.
Many religions affirm that we shall reap exactly what we sow.
Our people in Ghana are reeling, literally, not figuratively, over the tragic news of two teenagers (16 & 17 years old) killing a 10-year-old boy for money rituals.
From whichever angle we look at it, this is a tragedy of epic, even staggering, proportions!
A classic example of societal FAILURE! At all levels!!!
Our children should be in schools or at vocational centers to learn a trade, not plotting to kill and get money quickly.
We are in more trouble than we thought possible when we have eighteen-year-old children with nothing on their minds other than instant, unearned wealth.
What do minors want to do with instant wealth?
What type of parents will welcome a 17-year-old boy flaunting money?
We all have to share in the blame for failing our people. Not only have we messed up with their past and present, we have corrupted their future, and, alas, irredeemably so!
What did we expect when we gave licenses and allowed people to set up television stations with absolutely no clear guidance on content?
Why do we pretend to be shocked that our children have turned to killing monsters when all that they watch on our televisions are every manner of ritualists telling people how to get instant wealth through dubious means?
This is not only on the radios and the television stations; our highways are littered with posters and billboards filled with advertisements that should never be allowed in a sane society!
The pastors led the way. The Imans soon joined them. The so-called traditionalists also chimed in to peddle their own version of absurd money-making schemes. These Charlantans adorned themselves in weird-looking grabs and pretended to double the money, and our people, even the highly-educated ones among us, lack the elementary critical faculties to ask themselves the simplest of questions: Will these pseudo-money-doublers be peddling their trade if, indeed, they can double money?
We see all the evil things around us, but we pretend that they do not exist. We close our eyes, ears, and noses to the putrid stenches that engulfed us.
We did not make it our business to ask why we crave freebies the way famished hyenas crave juicy bones. Why do we like to have unearned wealth?
All this while, the Ghana Police Service watched unconcerned as people, very brazenly, broke the laws.
Most unfortunately, there is a National Media Commission that regulates the media. Members simply collect their allowances and do nothing.
After all, our motto is Freedom and Justice. I still don’t know why we refuse to add the word ‘responsibility’ to it! How about self-discipline?
Hypocritically, whenever the shit hits the fan, we wake up from our self-induced somnambulism and begin to wail: what a tribulation!
And why haven’t the Parliament invited the IGP and the Chairman and members of the National Media Commission to come and justify the salaries plus the emoluments they receive from the state whilst they watch as the laws are breached with brazen impunity?
©️ Fẹ́mi Akọ́mọláfẹ́Farmer, Writer, Published Author, and Social Commentator.
My latest book, From Stamp to Click (it’s still a hello) is published and is available online at:
https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/from-stamp-to-click-its-still-hello
How to order it: https://www.africanbookscollective.com/how-to-order
My book, “Africa: A Continent on Bended Knees” is available on:
• Amazon
My other books on Amazon:
• Africa: it shall be well (Get a FREE Chapter Here)
• Africa: Destroyed by the gods (Get a FREE Chapter Here)
You can follow me on Telegram via this link: https://t.me/+AAcRr0htFc9lNDQ0
On VK: https://vk.com/fakomolafe
Kindly subscribe to my Substack here:
HTTPS://femiakogun.Substack.com
The Persian physician and polymath Avicenna or Ibn Sina (980-1037) wrote a philosophical allegory ('Hayy Ibn Yaqzan') according to which every human being is repeatedly harassed in the course of his of his life: a gossipy muddle-head who mixes the true with the false - harassed from the front; an aggressive type from the right and a greedy type from the left. But there is always an old man a little to the side; he calms and and shows a way out (i.e. the 'right way') - if you ask him!!! The three troublemakers symbolize the recurring problems in life.
But many problems are also self-inflicted: the troublemakers can manifest themselves from outside as well as internally.
And in the meantime even preferably virtually: with the help of modern media, they are at work around the clock. The old man, on the other hand, symbolizes the traditional texts - with the solutions. So there is no help, if you ignore the traditional texts.