HAPPY INDEPENDENCE NIGERIA, BUT...

ANNIVERSARY EDITION

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. ”…Nelson Mandela 

I have a dream!

Literally, I had a dream, and believe it or not, it was as real as can be. What has my dream got to do with you and perhaps life generally right? 

Remember! Rev. Martin Luther King Jnr. had a dream a long time ago, and of course we might as well collectively agree that despite how unlikely it was for it to come true, it has very well come to fruition.

His speeches widely acclaimed as eloquent and inspiring, though ambitious and unlikely, eventually lived up to its creed, bringing illuminating colour to the co-existence of once feudal “races”. 

I don’t blame you if you are remotely interested in knowing whatever dream I might have had, like it matters-ish, just as the modern youths would say. However, you know the drill, patience has it’s perks.

“Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery”…Wayne Dyer

Apparent Slavery

October 1st 1960 is to Nigerians just the way July 4th 1776 is to North Americans. A breath of fresh air, and a deep sigh of relief from foreigners that colonized your land, and also had the guts due to their evident possession of superior war equipment, enslave your people and even shipped a large population of your people, both grand fathers and mothers to their lands far away across the deep blue seas.
It ever hurts us for a different race to lord over you while they violate and humiliate you, constantly giving you the impression that you are way inferior, hurting your ego and virtually killing both your self esteem and the apparent weaklings among your lot. Keeping in mind the saying that if you are not used, you cannot be useful, I then gently ask, in all of this, what have we learned?

“When we were children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind”…Patrick Rothfuss

A whole new view

You will surely agree with me that Africans are generally nice people, especially when there is enough to eat and other material stuff are around to satisfy the inherent lucid fantasy they crave. 

Africans have also generally moved on, not necessarily because not all of us are quite familiar with history, but we also have this attitude of who cares so far you dedicate your life to the struggle for survival, although in all of this, there is one thing we did miss, we let our guard down.

“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know”…William Wilberforce

Modern Slavery

The western guys are either very smart or we gave them the impression that we’re stupid, which of course technically makes them smart still, only smarter by the way. How can we still under-estimate a bunch of people that spent a lot of time and resources, and also risked their lives to come all the way to Africa to enslave us, and then freed us? If you think about it critically, you’ll find out that there is definitely a much bigger plan in the wraps.

Have you ever been tempted to take advantage of a naive person especially when you realize he’d probably just get hurt and won’t actually die, of course you’d go for it like a boss. This scenario is kind of like that.

These guys make you feel that you don’t amount to nothing, thus beating you up psychologically. They carefully rob you of your self-esteem, trust me this is a well thought out plan, with they having in mind your naivety and innocence. 

Then they play good cop, bad cop, running to your rescue when you’re neck deep in the water which they meant to drown you in, then you cannot do without your (feigned) hero.

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone”…Oscar Wilde

It's The Wisdom Age…Baby

Maybe you should google the transition of ages, where you’ll find that man started to exist from the stone age when rocks were struck together to make red fire, then unto the agrarian age when man accidentally planted a seed that grew to be a fruitful tree, and on to the manufacturing age and then the jet age where information travels at the speed of light.

Now we are in the wisdom age where the smarter economies and world power exploit the rest of the world to replicate the more recent of the ages such as industrial, in order to add to their bottom line and maintain their complacent lifestyle having completed the apparent viscous cycle and have climbed to the top of the food chain.

Tell me why would a country like Nigeria ever need loans from economies that hardly ever directly produce anything? They just manage the resources of other nations. Maybe you should google Nigeria as well. She’s the most populous African country with an estimated 170 million people. One of the largest producers of crude oil, great soil for farming, greater weather to relish, smart people, virgin lands and economy, future growth potential etc etc

It's a brain wash, a reversal psychology of a kind, and all we are doing is watching all our wealth go away like we have no use for it.

We have let religion, pride, hate, envy and foreign culture over-shadow our very lives, only for us to embarrass our ancestors, come on guys, we can do better than that.

“The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable”…Seneca

Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

Did I mention that I had a dream earlier? Oh yes I did!

Is it a cause for worry and much concern? Perhaps, but we need not fret, rather it has however become more imperative than ever that we became more pro-active.

I have a dream, several dreams actually, that we will eventually emancipate ourselves from mental and physical slavery and our folks abroad will come back to their roots.

This is actually possible, but we have to be sincere with the work in our hands, and with fingers crossed of course.

We need to work hard, embrace emotional intelligence and build our self esteem by believing in ourselves and also searching up knowledge by we ourselves for the pure intent of benefitting mankind. Trust me, it is possible, and interestingly, it is up to us. 

Happy Independence anniversary Nigeria, you shall surely be great again.

Thanks for reading.

Akin Abimbola. (akinzogee@yahoo.com, akinzogee@gmail.com)

                          Twitter: @akinzogee

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WHATS UP?

“Of course I talk to myself, because sometimes I need expert advice”…Buggs Bunny (Whats up Doc?)

Think about it

Yes, whats up with you? Surprised at the question or just in its informality? Whatever, but really, I’d expect your reply to be “nothing much” or “I’m good” and some people will even take it as rhetorical, even if what I’m actually saying is “whats going on, right? Or you’re probably asking yourself, whats up with this guy, is he bored or confused about life as we know it? Well, again, its whatever.

But seriously, whats up really? Especially with the world, and perhaps with us all?

I for one definitely used to see life as a playground, playing my head away as a little kid, but all grown up now and I am made to realize that it is probably more of a battle field where you literally have to dodge bullets and bombs.

Thank God I’m a survivor though, especially thus far, wouldn’t you know that while dodging the bullets, I’m busy imagining that its just a movie? That is how far my attitude takes me, and with the many more people like me in this category, I do hope our optimism doesn’t kill us.

Whatagwan?

If you’re a Jamaica or reggae fan, you’ll surely agree that I’m pretty much saying whats up again or more like whats going on? And you’re hanging there like, “Get to the point buddy!” I hope I don’t piss you off with it though.

Now I’m serious, assuming we must analyze life, how can we start? A school of thought says life is complex, another says its simple, but I’d say it’s a blend of both. Just like knowledge, what you know helps you reason, what you’re ignorant of simply wanders past you.

For instance, what are the categories that the world is split into? From nature to psychology to religion to politics to science, take your pick because I very well don’t really know the parameters of classification, like it really does matter, or maybe it actually does.

I momentarily figured that universities emerged from the pooling of knowledge from different sources in as much as the diversity of learning actually emanated from a single source, life.

“A true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination”…Albert Einstein

The Power of Knowledge…and imagination

I graciously shared an article which I recently stumbled upon on Whatsapp which practically blew me away. The write-up actually opened my eyes to the impeccable relevance and the apparent potential of knowledge and it’s siting by using the state of California as a case study.

The article refers to California as the sixth largest economy in the world, despite just being a state in the United States of America. For the sake of plagiarism allegations that currently rock our world, I shall quote some excerpts without taking the credit. 

“It (California) has little offshore oil, yet its economy is larger than states in the US that are famous for their oil reserves, like Texas. California generates much of its revenue from non-oil products. It found a way to absorb and domesticate much of the intellectual output from its premier university, Stanford University, into salable products within its economy. As a matter of fact, much of California’s economy is built around Stanford University”

The writer went ahead to tell us that the presence of Stanford University birthed Silicon Valley, from Silicon Valley came Apple, eBay, Hewlett Packard (hp), Google, Cisco, Netflix, Facebook, Oracle, Tesla…and the list goes on. How cool is that?
This will make you reflect on what impact the likes of University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University, UNN and the likes have caused in their locations.

“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience”…Frank Herbert

Whats Life?

I wish I knew what life is, just like wanting to know what love is. Some folks try to define it in their capacities though, by virtue of their experiences.
Life is the most mysterious, beautiful and precious thing. It is the source and essence of everything, it makes nature worth it, but guess what, we all take it for granted most times, except when we probably encounter a near death experience, or when we feel the urgency to achieve when we perhaps have a time limit to prove a point that may never present the opportunity again.

Maybe this paragraph should have been titled “What is life worth?” Not that I can answer it, and possibly, neither can you, as we perhaps also constantly fail to define or discover who we ourselves really are.

Those that try usually spend their entire lives being evaded by it and regard their eventual achievements and consequential legacies as vanity, wishing they had lived more fruitful lives with family and friends rather that isolate themselves to unnecessary life of loneliness, mystery and perpetual hope which amounted to nothing.

What is life worth, for all its worth? A school of thought teaches us that life is what we make of it as it means different things to different people.
As one man’s food is another’s poison, thats how diverse our thoughts and beliefs are ranging from tribe to geographic location. Some believe life is a play ground, thereby letting their optimism enable see the bright side of people, events and life in general, letting a colorful fountain of ideas gush out through them, helping them inspire people. 

Those that believe the world is a battle field become stubborn and defensive, cause chaos by terrorizing the world and hope to dominate, but their selfishness violates the sacred laws that govern the earth, their ulterior motives which is obviously devoid of properly aligned leadership principles give in to gravity and fall apart and then to the ground like broken eggs.

So…whats up folks? Do we have to constantly lie on the bench of our contort zones, literally downplaying intelligence and giving room to mediocrity by appearing as good people who do nothing while the ignorant and bad guys tear the world apart with politics, greed and religion?
Or we’ll stand and fight on the apparent battle field which we have  by nature consequently found ourselves, or we’ll idle away and assume like little kids the world is a play ground after all, It's our choice really what life means.

Thanks for reading.

Akin Abimbola. (akinzogee@yahoo.com, akinzogee@gmail.com)

                          Twitter: @akinzogee

                          Facebook: Akin Abimbola

Did we make your day? Spread the word. 

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What did we miss?

What do you think?

Be grateful for being alive and let your content flow...

Sources: Google, Goodreads, WhatsApp, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Brainy Quote, Time, cnn, info.com