Nothing we do or say now will change Nigeria unless it turns back from its present plunge. Nothing. “No spring changes the desert.
The desert remains; the spring runs dry. Not one spring, not thirty, not a thousand springs will change the desert..
.” That quote is from ‘Two Thousand Seasons’, a tumultuous novel by Ayi Kwei Armah. Remember he also wrote ‘The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born.
’ We won’t stop asking that this country be rebuilt on the foundation of its beginning. Nothing will shoo away the present birds of hunger and thirst. Not this government; not the next.
You don’t turn your back on your destiny and be well. Grandfather of Nigerian theatre, Hubert Ogunde, sang a prayer which must be the prayer point of those in power today: “If I have a good head, may I also have good legs (Bí mo l’órí ire, Elédàá jé n l’ésè ire).” Orí (head) is destiny; Esè (legs) are the tyres that propel destiny to its realisation.
Right there in the mix is ìwà (character) which helps man do what Karin Barber describes as “picking his way, aided by his Orí, between a variety of forces, some benign, some hostile, some ambivalent...
” If your head gives you a throne, rule well; do not let your character open the door to forces that blow off roofs. We become what we choose to become. I have two destiny stories to tell.
They are from the earliest times’ tray of knowledge. The first is about a serially failing young man who asked questions .