CULTURAL CHANGE III

The ‘Otokoto’ saga was resolved just recently. A young boy got missing unknown to his parents until the police arrested a man with a bag and they found a freshly severed head of this young boy still dripping with blood. After interrogation and investigation; it was discovered that the people who ordered the killing were people who are considered rich and powerful by society.

Just a few days after their conviction, another person was caught with a human head. We can’t place a figure on the number of people who have been killed for ritual purposes in the nation. Now assassinations are becoming too frequent. The question is, “Why do we place such a cheap value on human life?” One of the negative traits that we must deal with in our culture is cannibalism and ritualism.

The rate at which human beings are killed by fellow human beings in this part of the world is horrible. We need to love ourselves and our neighbors in this country. Love could be defined as the appreciation of value. God placed a great value on us. If we continually place a cheap value on human life and we confess that we love God then we are liars.

If we place any value on God then we will place value on man because every man is an extension of God. Anyone who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar. The revolution we need is not an armed struggle but that of love. The self-esteem of an average person in this part of the world has been battered. Slavery and colonialism have compounded the problem and we need to help our people to discover their true value.

The starting point is our attitude to people. Love is the platform for Cultural Revolution in Africa. The mere sight of the deprivations and devastations in Africa should trigger compassion and a drive to help people around here. It is disheartening when you hear that people die cheaply. A newspaper recently reported research carried out at a University Teaching Hospital.

It was discovered that 73.7% of deaths that occurred in that hospital could be classified as PTD – Preventable Traumatic Death. In other words, about 75% of the people who died should not have died. This grieves me. Our understanding of love and the expression of human value is not just going to be by words of mouth. The best way to influence human beings is by showing love. Nigerians will change if they see why they should change.

If they see that it is for their own benefits. We must move the country to the point that we affect the enforcement of life-protecting legislation. What we have done with the seat belt legislation is a step in the right direction. We need to look around our nation and continent and find ways of alleviating the hardships that our people are experiencing. Another subject we need to deal with in our culture is our belief in sorcery and witchcraft.

In Africa, sorcery and witchcraft have been used to maintain the status quo because society is ruled by fear. People around here live in fear. An average person is afraid to move on; afraid to build a new house or to paint it, or to buy a new car because there is a witch out there in the village ready to kill them if they achieve anything special.

There is an adage in Yoruba that could be translated, “If your yam is big, you use your hand to cover it while eating.” We have packaged fear into proverbs and adages. We sow seeds of fear forgetting that the blessing of the Lord makes us rich and adds no sorrow. Witchcraft and sorcery thrive on strongholds programmed into the mind. It is in this part of the world that masquerades are used to threaten people.

We use the fear of “ojuju Calabar” (masquerade) to threaten our children in order to get them to do our bids. We need to disabuse the mind of our children from now on. We tend to use negative events to reinforce witchcraft and fear in people’s hearts. There are people who died whose deaths were attributed to the powerful enemy or unseen forces. This registers fear in the heart of the people.

This is also reinforced by proverbs. “The witch cried yesternight, the child died this morning. Who doesn’t know that it is the witch who killed the child?” Once you believe that it was the witch who killed the child, you will be afraid of the witch. But unfortunately, may develop an unrealistic approach to life.

Have you considered that the child might have died of Cerebral Malaria as a result of lack of proper medical attention? There are several people walking about with high blood pressure who don’t even know. They have never checked their blood pressure before. If they fall dead, we will accuse witches. We lay too much at the feet of fear and witchcraft.

Of course, the devil and witches are a reality, but our faith in God should tell us that God is a bigger reality than the devil. Because of fear, people in Africa don’t try to control life because we have put the controlling powers in the invisible realm, and believe they are overwhelming. This is a big lady. We have to take responsibility for our future if we hope to move this nation from poverty to wealth.

So I say to you if God is for you, who can be against you? Go ahead. Set your goals, reach for the best. Do your best. God will do the rest. You will succeed. And…

Nigeria will Succeed!