THE VOICE OF REASONING

  WORKING TOWARDS A CHANGED SOCIETY
                                                 BY
                                      MBAGWU HENRY
Everybody thinks about changing the world but no one thinks about changing himself. Change with I regard as the breeze that brings about anything good or bad. Change which is simply to repent. To become different. To pass or make somebody or something pass from one state or form into another. That is to say that this change might be from good to bad or bad to good or even bad to worse, to better. It requires a lot of sacrifice to change from bad to good, but takes little or nothing to be bad. It takes a lot of time, preparation and planning to make a change for good possible.

Putting this in our country's condition (xxxx). Nobody wants to know the truth even when the truth is obvious. still our leaders are working towards a changed society by neglecting what is supposed and go ahead tackling the affairs of this our great nation from the top, that is,"straining at a gnat and swallowing the camel". Diverting from the real issue to trivial matter. Placing importance  to things that have little or no meaning.

Our leaders usually endeavor to slain a tree by cutting out its branches while its root is firmly rooted to the ground. Due to the leadership system  in this 'place' is corrupt, it has always brought about upheaval, discontentment and grief to the poor masses. The legislators who are supposed to be the mouthpiece of the people, lack discernment by virtue of their corrupt mind and selfishness. That's why I still respect Senator Chuba Okadigbo of the blessed memory. The perfect embodiment of a political scientist. A person sowed but did not expect to reap. Unlike the misrepresentation of those who are liable to making sure that the law which was made through or by them is upheld and anybody who fails to meet up with what the law requires of him gets his comeuppance (or an administrative punishment) no matter who for no one is above the law.

Well, "where two elephants are fighting,they say, the grasses suffer". Let the grasses here be the poor masses. Complain among themselves all the time, Buried their feelings when anticipated to cry it all aloud  and still in expectancy while they know that the messiah is not coming today. It is not fallacious if I say that the poor masses are 'somehow' the cause of government's objectification on its individuals because they kept sulked and pretended not to be keen and/or indifferent in the activities of the government.

OUR QUESTIONS SHOULD BE:

• Till when do we have to wait for this good leader?
• Do we have to do anything that will amount to this change for good?
• What is our state of mind?
• What price do we have to pay for this change and how much?   

Surely,we have good leaders or I'd rather, our past leaders might have been or they might have had good intentions for this country but I will never forget to state the expression which goes thus; "Bad company corrupts good manner". You may consent with me that sometimes people's impression usually redirect or deviate our mind towards the course it wasn't designed to follow.

Recapitulating the expression that has been stated earlier on that, "Everybody thinks about changing the world but no one thinks about changing himself" and just as they say,"Charity begins at home". We can thereby make a perfect inference therefrom, that for a good change to be a reality, people have to change themselves first and if we do so, the world would be a great and a better place for us to stay. The government will no longer have to change because the people in it has changed already. Nobody would want to vote for somebody for the money they have to give but voting for somebody who we know he has the country's success at heart.

Furthermore, people wake up every morning to say our government is bad and corrupt. Bribery and corruption have taken over our country. If the people in our government is bad then who is good? Who is bribing and who is taking the bribe? Who is corrupt? Is it the country or the people in it? Is it that the people in government are bribing the individuals or the individuals are bribing the government official. As for the writer, the individuals, among other things constitute to the problem of this great nation. Everybody wants the government to favor them to the detriment of others due to greed and selfishness.
Stressing more on this, the governors, president and their executives today were one time ordinary individuals and will eventually return to be with the masses and remember, "The road you did not build today , tomorrow you may pass through it". It takes the people to make a government and it takes them too to mar it. Our problem is not the government but the spirit of greed and self-centeredness that possessed both the minds of those that run the government and its people.

The people's mind set. Our state of mind. Our general perception about life. What we think of of ourselves and of other people. Our conception of things around. What kind of tradition are we practising. We to understand that no matter any condition we need one another to survive.

In conclusion, we have to know that it takes two to love, two to trust and two to fight. Fight against what is wrong. There is more to pay for total freedom than  keeping silent. Before our past heroes could obtain our freedom from our colonial masters, which I call "our first birth", they fought physically, mentally and emotionally but people in this present time found it difficult to run the affairs of what they labored for. A line in our national anthem says,"The labor of our heroes past shall never be in vain". Then how are we making sure that their efforts were not a wild-goose chase. Fighting for what is yours is never a crime but before you fight count your teeth with your tongue. Change for the better. Know what is good and do it. Be good to your fellow mam and see that it is cool to be good. For all I care, we are still waiting for our second birth but until then....