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It is against the backdrop of "if you want to know more about the underground, then consult the rabbit" that Novum Athenaeum undertook the project (tagged "Our Noble Aspiration") of compiling and editing interviews with UNN '012 Best Graduands, including the Overall Best, Ejindu, Oluchukwu Roseline, for neophytes. While the print is now available (Not to be Sold), the e-copy is "Coming Soon!" The questionnaire was devoted to extracting from them "How they did it!"

Don't wait to grab your copy when it's out!

YOUTHS KNOW THIS: THE FUTURE IS NOW!

There is a famous picture in the United States of baby JFK, Jr. crawling under the Resolute Desk of the White House Oval Office while his fathered worked on it. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, JFK, Sr. (the baby’s father) was the 35^th President of the United States of America, one of those to be assassinated. That crawling lad was born to him few days after he won the US Presidency in November 1960 and remained in public spotlight until he died in a plane crash sometime in 1999. The 6^th President of the US (1825–1829), John Quincy Adams, was the son of the 2^nd President of that country (1797–1804). In the same vein, George Walker Bush, the 43^rd President of the US (2001–2009), is the son of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41^st President of that country (1989–1993). Again, standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. announced to an unprecedented crowd of 200, 000 civil rights activists, and indeed the world at large, his dream of a truly free United States of America. Whether the US is truly free today is a different story, but we do know that about 46 years after King’s epoch making I Have a Dream speech, Barack Hussein Obama became the first black human being to mount the US Presidency, or should I say, became the most powerful human being on the planet. From this survey, therefore, there seems to be a certain degree of sincerity in addressing youths of America and elsewhere as leaders of tomorrow.

I wonder if the same holds true for our country Nigeria. Few examples will do. When General Olusegun Obasanjo was Nigeria’s Head of State way back in 1979, he had addressed a group of youths, wherein he told them he looked forward to seeing them take over the reins of power in the nearest future. Funnily enough, exactly 20 years from that year, that is 1999, he vied for the office and became president again, remained there for 4 more years and wanted to bend the constitution to let him stay on, and would have asked for more afterwards, I guess. Go through the annals of Nigeria’s history and find that your great grandfather’s Heads of State now want to be your president, and are not joking about it. Even now, there are speculations that our current president wants it again come 2015, and if possible again and again. Go through the Nigerian Civil Service and find grand and great grandfathers who should be glorying in their pensions and be tenants of retirement homes still posing to be 50 years of age with the assistance of our interesting instruments of corruption – affidavit swearing and Declaration of Age. And yet we find energetic and promising youth languishing under the yoke of underemployment and unemployment.

The case here is that of a conspiracy of the rich and those who thread the corridors of power. They want youths down. They want them to be and remain incapable of questioning or challenging the status quo. They want them to accept the status quo for a culture and be too blind to spot and spoil their greed. And it actually appears they are succeeding if at all they haven’t. How? Through their educational designs and obsolete curriculum they make youths unemployable; through their emphasis on security they dissuade youths from resorting to crime; through their sabotage of the economy they discourage economic adventure, the type the likes of Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, etc. dabbled into in America to make their way to the billionaires club. What do we find around us instead? They want youths to get their eyes off white collar jobs and embrace the various available farming schemes. They offer enticing loans to NYSC pass outs, and have students compete in writing and executing business plans. In one word, it is difficult to trust that the system cares about youths as it appears that only death musters the courage to kick them out.

The one million dollar question becomes: “What do we do?” Rising to mutiny, that is killing every single one of them, is not at all a part of the solution. This is because your children will hold you responsible for the blood of their grandfather. Ruffling it out with them is not the solution either as one should be sure of losing out on the game since they are pretty good as what they do, in addition to which they made more than enough pluck when our money grew on trees – they own all the oil wells, bought up most public enterprises in the name of privatization, and equally have a cabal of Machiavellian capitalists who throw their combined weights behind them in return for profitability from their mischief. Furthermore, while they can be said to have the repose of wisdom, which is got from experience, youths are, more often than not, impulsive in deciding what course of action to take.

What then is the way forward? The answer is quite a simple one and is hidden in the understanding that the future is now! You just need to understand that your future is now, and then start living in it. I can explain. To start with, what is your take on the idea of future? Is it something faraway, near or now? Do you wake up every morning in joyful anticipation of ‘a time’ called ‘future’ when all your dreams and noble aspirations will come through? This is correct only insofar as you are viewing the matter in the light of conventional wisdom. However, the problematic encountered in seeking a deeper understanding of the concept of future, the type sought for here, is that of the concept of time. Suffice it therefore to say that our understanding of the concept of time is the point in question here, as the terms past, present and future, or yesterday, today and tomorrow are only nomenclatures that express time.

At this juncture, let’s turn to St. Augustine to tell us something about time. For him, the concept of time is elusive, one that is understandable but incommunicable. He confesses, in his Confessions, that while he knows what time is, his knowledge of it eludes him whenever he attempts to communicate it, reason being that the components of time (past, present and future) barely exist: the past is no more, the moment is passing, and the future is not yet. Therefore, this ‘present passing moment’ is all we have got to grapple with.

And so ‘getting involved’ in this ‘present passing moment’ is the key to doing battle against the Nigerian status quo. When you get involved, you rather than blame or complain against the situation take responsibility for whatever has become your lot. It demands that you do whatever you say you want to do – never caring about your detractors – because your word is your bond. It calls you to the realization that your destiny is in your hands, and you never want to trade it for a bowl of porridge. It emboldens you to go out there and get all you need to become all you want to be. It instructs that the only limits are yours to decide. It means that you daily become what you aspire to become by the quality of every single choice you make and every other decision you take. Yes, it is that simple, except that you have decided to busy yourself with gossips about a system that cares little or nothing about you.

For instance, what are you doing with the many months you have been at home because FG and ASUU want you out of school? I bet you that many youths spend their time making jokes of it on social media sites, many others are doing one stupid thing or the other. And if you continue this way, why complain about being on the dark side of life? I understand that the status quo has put you in there, but you are having me believe you enjoy every bit of it. However, my friends and I have set out on a voyage to the sunny side of life and I doubt that we are not already there.

Care for a ride with us? Get involved!

METANOIA

At what point is a U-turn, which is a complete turnaround, necessary in any course of action? It is exactly at the very point where one discovers that an indispensible item has been left behind or a wrong route taken. And so doing it the ‘U-curve’ way becomes inevitable picking along the indispensible or getting back on track. Employing an illustration here would do. You have just taken the left turn at the roundabout when the only road that leads to your intended destination lies left. On discovering this, you would agree with me that the only valid course of action is a complete turnaround. Again, you are dressed up and already headed for the British High Commission to apply for visa only to discover far into your journey that you left your passport way back at home. Retracing home the ‘U-way’ to pick along the one single most important document for visa application is non-negotiable. That is how it works, and is as true for getting on track as it is for finding the kingdom of God.

The word is metanoia and is at the very heart of the road to the ‘Father’s House.’ This is because wandering off ‘the way’ that terminates in paradise has proven to be habitual for many a man who, more often than not, compromise the kingdom ideals by trading them for earthly pleasures. It connotes repentance for the sinner and steadfastness for the saint that falls. It is the amazing grace that sees that we are never out of supplies as we individually and collectively journey to enter the rest promised us by God. It is the chisel with which heaven is hewn from earth, the fountain of divine love.

In experiential terms, at what point is metanoia called for? Let’s situate it in the context of different circumstances.

1.      In your life as a parent, what is your reading on the parental responsibility scale? Is the best you’ve ever done for your children giving birth to them and ensuring they are not suffering the lack provision and protection? If that’s your level, then you are the least of parents as you are functioning at the default setting of parenthood. What about apostolate of presence? What about posing as a shoulder to lean on amidst the challenges of growing up? What about going the extra mile to finding out why your baby isn’t laughing asmuch as she does on a normal day? How about their friends, how much do you know them since they pose as a compelling influence on your children?

Metanoia calls you to rethink how well you have been ‘pastoring’ the flock of your household with a view to making a U-turn if you have not been doing it fine.

2.      As a student that you are, how far? What do you do with school hours and reading times, how well have you been relating with your books? Do you possess studiousness (painstakingly applying oneself to studies), which is supposed to be the virtue of an ideal student? Or do you lazy around in plugged ears and dancing steps? How many dosages of lies have you feed your parents to extort money from them aside their regular bills they are obliged to pay? Have you practically become a thief instead of a promising student that you ought to be?

Today that metanoia have come calling, endeavor to harden not your heart.

3.      Dear teacher whose difference with capitalists isn’t clear enough, how far? How much pay would you be offered for imparting knowledge on young minds and you will be satisfied? Shame on you. It seems you are the only one that doesn’t know that teaching is a vocation, and as such is one of the very heights of service and for which there is no monetary equivalent but a stipend, which of course should secure one basic comfort and usual charities. How much extra effort do you make to ensuring that they are no discrimination between your carriage of the best and least of your students? Can you even contemplate a generous overtime to ensure that the various mental capacities of your class get the gist of your lesson? Or do you have your heart and mind glued to the clock so that a dime of extra time is no offered? Yes, you deserve a just pay because you have to survive and lead a good life as much as everyone else but not in comparison with anyone else so that you are not tempted to thinking that you contribute more. And I wonder if you have contributed more than a typical Catholic priest, who gives it all in obedience, poverty and chastity.

If you have not fared fine in the teaching ministry, then metanoia needs you to do something: follow the U-curve for good.

4.      And to those that thread the corridors of power, whose duty it is to shape the destinies of their countrymen in definite directions by deciding their fate through the various and varied laws they promulgate and the policies they initiate; how is the going? I hear it usually said that you never can know a man well enough until you have given him power, and I guess we now know you well enough, as one who is confidently and comfortably feasting on the future of our children and their own children after them. There appears to be no plans for a sustainable economy, the roads are a deathtrap and nobody is talking about them, the educational sector is dwindling and the best you could do is send your children to join the Oxbridge tradition, the youths are jobless and all you do is call them leaders of tomorrow, etc.

Metanoia needs you to change something.

5.      While Christians chant the Golden rule as, ‘do to others what you want some others to do to you,’ capitalist render it as, ‘he who has the gold makes the rules.’ It appears that there is a marked difference between when a fellow cues up for communion in church Sunday and when he mans the scales or dishes out the measures in the market. For him, the business of business is business and is necessarily different from the pursuit of piety and the exercise of religious duties. At the slightest opportunity he cheats his customers and outsmarts his competition and goes to the bank smiling as a consequence, the reason for which the business environment is described as hostile.

And when Christ came calling, Zaccheus offered to pay back to each in a fourfold, and Matthew left everything and followed him, and since Judas Iscariot refused to be converted he knew a sad fate. Now is your turn, and metanoia has come calling. Say, yes!

6.      Whatever situation you are in, you alone know, judging by the kingdom standards, where you have faltered. Just turnaround, not either way but the metanoia way, which is depicted in the curve of the letter ‘U.’

ON CONTAINING A NAGGING PARTNER

Love relationships, like foreign policy, are interest driven; ‘something has better got to be in there for me.’ Just like no alliance can be entered into by a state with any foreign power for no serious reason(s), so too are love relationships. The reason is simply because love relationships, like foreign policy, are a serious business; one that must make or mar you. And truth be told, nagging is one hell of an attitude that wouldn’t have had you commit yourself to a love relationship with him or her. I am pretty sure about this one: no one likes it when their partner is constantly on their nerves.

Who likes it being thought of as getting it all wrong all the time? Who enjoys being corrected at even trivialities that could be overlooked? Who is comfortable with being corked under a pressure pot in the face of a mildly challenging situation? Who is at home with being compared with his peers to a fault? Who takes constant criticisms and complaints filed against him/her with a pinch of salt? All things being equal, nobody does. However, that’s exactly what many get from those they’re already stuck in with in what we have come to call love relationship. It is called nagging; an irritable sort of attitude that sets one on the edge and gets others haywire.

Most times one may feel like letting go of the relationship, other times one may begin to blame oneself for having been too blind to spot this earlier before the handshake crossed the elbow, and a very few other times one dares to inquire into the way forward. It is about the very few times when one longs for the way forward that this piece comes handy. When the 15^th Century English philosopher and Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon, posited that knowledge is power, he also suggested that therein lays the solution to the problem.

The first noble truth to commit to heart is that no one likes to be identified with his/her bad attitude habits. And so no nag likes to be addressed as such, which shows that they would have loved to be better if they could. Secondly, no one can change another, which instructs that you shouldn’t even contemplate changing them; you can only influence their decision to change themselves. Thirdly, nags aren’t a liability per se, which suggests that they are worth what informed your choice of them. Fourthly, you needn’t try to conform yourself to their naggy designs so you don’t make a double lose – themselves and you. Be yourself! Lastly, something made all of us who we are: nature and nurture. Therefore, their story wouldn’t have been different; look into their life and the reason for which they nag is not far away.

With the above realization, containing a nagging partner becomes more of a responsibility than a liability since nagging is rooted in one’s mental orientation arising from one’s peculiar breeding. Attempt the following to see what becomes of them in a little time:

1. Pay deaf ears to his/her nags

Robin Sharman opines that it takes 21 days to form a habit, and your partner would have formed his or hers in many multiples of 21 days; that’s probably the best thing he or she knows how to do. Why not embark on a voyage of mastering her fault in the next 3 weeks – 21 days. One of the reasons why humans are humans is because we can feign pretence and decide not to act on certain impulses. Get used to him or her and don’t complain or criticize in return else you become what you disgust in 21 days.

2. Be yourself so he/she gets used to you

There is the temptation of wanting to bend oneself to the whims and caprices of a nag; you want to do it his/her way in order to avoid being nagged at. Experience has shown that you will soon become something else if you choose to always do it their way. Resist that temptation and keep doing it the way you know is best and in line with your being. Sooner or later he/she will have no choice than to get used to you.

3.  Focus on what informed your choice of him/her

Definitely, something informed your choice of him/her. It could be beauty or brains, social standing or something else; you alone know what exactly made you go for him/her. Despite her nags, I suppose he/she hasn’t lost that quality. Focusing on those qualities that triggered off the relationship and paying less attention to his/her naggy attitude would do you some good.

4. Don’t fuel it!

What do you do to extinguish a fire? Fan it all the more or sprinkle some more fuel on it? If you do any of those, the flame will grow all the more. The point is, endeavor not to serve as a catalyst to his/her nagging by making conscious effort to avoid retorting to certain utterances one could let go of. While he/she nags, describing him/her with such terms as pest, troublemaker, noisemaker, gossip, bug, busybody, etc. would only do more harm than good. Just don’t fuel it; always keep your calm when doing so is all you should do.

5. He/she is probably a perfectionist; learn from him/her

Some nags are probably perfectionists as they seem to always insist that nothing but the best is good enough. And so, the much you do is seldom appreciated as more is always on the demand. For once, don’t you think your nagging partner could be chiseling you by their insistence that you better your good, best your better, and best your best? Inasmuch as nagging is not a positive attitude, if it is that affords you the opportunity to move to the next level of personality development don’t hesitate to cash on it.  

6. Talk it over with him/her

We earlier agreed that no one likes to be identified with their bad attitude/habit. Some even exhibit such attitude unconsciously, having built it over time. If this were the case, then talking the matter over with your nagging partner could prove to be of help. Spill it all out: how bad you feel about it, how much you expect from him/her, just about whatever you want to talk over with him/her.

…in the Final Analysis

One thing is certain: nagging is one hell of an attitude that nobody likes to put up with. But it is never the case that the baby is thrown away with the bath water. And so a nagging partner, who is completely still worth the earlier interest one had in him/her, is more of a responsibility than a liability.

The point being made here is to the effect that they be contained, borne, or accommodated in the spirit of understanding, with a view to their finding enough reasons to change themselves in time. And even if they don’t, you’ll be glad you did keep them in the face of every reason to let go of them.

Get used to them; pretend they don’t nag.

WORKING AS MUCH AS PRAYING AGAINST BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA

Once upon a time the emphasis was on praying, so much that people used to think that just as the old saying, ‘To work is to pray,’ was true, its reversal, ‘To pray is to work,’ was as true. And so in the face of any given problem situation, they chose to do either believing that it suffices. Trust that praying was easier.

However, new insights has led us to the understanding that ‘work’ and ‘prayer’ are not to be adjudged identical but cooperative in the roles they play to securing a functional and meaningful livelihood for the one and the many. And so, today, it is more appropriate to advice that one works and prays. This is coming against the backdrop that while work, understood here in the corporeal sense, engages the physical, prayer on the other hand, understood here as communication with God, engages the spiritual, so as to get both hands on deck in getting things rolling for good.

For years now, praying against bribery and corruption in Nigeria has occupied a chunk of the prayer time in most Christian congregations. And the crux of the prayer is that the Almighty and merciful Father, the Ruler of all the nations of the earth, sheds the light of his face on our land ridding it of bribery and corruption in the process. That’s fine! But the big question is: Who are those that say this prayer, and how do they conduct their affairs from the dawn to dusk of Monday through Saturday before they return back to church on Sunday to chorus the prayers again and again?

Gathered in the congregation and actively participating in the prayer against bribery and corruption in Nigeria are:

1.      The priest who overtook someone by the wrong lane on Saturday evening and was pardoned by the road safety agents because he had his soutane on.

2.      The policeman/woman who insists on taking a bribe, and the church member who even initiated the bargain.

3.      The Christian women leader, and most others, who insist that their pregnant daughters must procure an abortion to save them (their parents) the well deserved label of irresponsible parents.

4.      The civil servant who goes to work by 11am instead of 8am, leaves for school run at 12noon, gets back on seat by 2pm and is homebound before it is 2.30pm, but expects a huge paycheck at the end of the month, and even continual pay rises.

5.      The Christian fathers and some other brethren who are the judges and lawyers that pervert the cause of justice, and are equally the politicians that fan the very embers of corruption by their participation in favoritism, nepotism, and the various scandals and misappropriations reported on the dailies on a daily basis.

And while we burden God with the guilt of our sins by our fervent prayer against bribery and corruption, we fail to make the slightest move to supporting his doing the job with even our little finger; we pray but never work – and expect all to be well. What a fat lie!

However, in the spirit of praying and working, a single demand is, therefore, made on each and every member of the various congregations concerned about having God do something about Nigeria’s bribery and corruption quagmire. The demand is this: Do something. And you don’t need to do too much to have done enough. It is as simple as:

1.      Resolutely pay your bills, at the right time and to the rightful authorities.

2.      Do your job and do it well, motivated by your just pay and customer care.

3.      Contribute your quota in cash, kind and time to ensuring a just order, like maintaining queues at the road traffic and while accessing services.

4.      Know your rights and demand them as much as keep to the demands of your duties.

5.      You’ve broken a law or compromised an order, why resist an arrest or beg to settle to it ‘the other way.’ Etc.

In these little ways, we can then be rest assured that while heaven is processing our supplications, earth is waiting in joyful hope with her cooperative effort. And so, while we pray as if it were all God’s business, we ought also to work as if it depends on the wit of our minds and the sweat of our brow. Or perhaps, the Greek legendary writer, Homer, was right when he submitted in The Odyssey that the gods are not in the habit of doing for man what man must do for himself.