It is cruel to
negotiate some roads. One could spend several hours and who cares if you die
trying. It is a silencer. It hurts. It could bring a man to his knees. The
loser is a meal to the bald vultures. In the weakness, I was strong, tough and
mean.
Regularly counting the
cost of my valor has helped my poor soul to tread cautiously. My loss if I ever
had any was taken into consideration because smart people draw strength from
their fall. The cost of finishing strong and staying alive against all odds is
mine to bear.
I drove through
Lawanson road, an old narrow way leading off Itire and I had my first sight of
the Palace of the Itire Monarch. It was old-fashioned. It was African with a fine
red painted threshold. It was old. Things had changed. Here the more things
change, the more they stay the same.
Every day is a
journey. The day we close our eyes upon the light of the world, the journey
ends. Most times, it is out of our hands to choose how we will embrace the next
world. There are forces that rule in the affair of men but fate would place a
man where he truly belongs.
Now I am on a journey
that looks like a formality. Sadly, in this ever-changing world, there are no formalities.
We only have change and challenges and a reasonable man must bend any
circumstance to his favour.
The Lawanson road
connects Oshodi-Apapa expressway. If you are in a hurry to embrace silence and
get out of a third world misery, you are welcome to this part of the world. You
can never have enough of the misfortune on this highway. Trucks queue on both
sides, trapped in a constant battle to outsmart one another. There are dilapidated
buildings along the road and their numbers scary.
Most of the buildings
have no occupants because they are like a dead man bound by horrible tradition
that made it difficult for his people to commit him to mother earth without any
offence. The cost of maintenance and travelling back and forth from the
buildings would leave a deep hole in any pocket. The implications are damning
and grievous. Weight of which tied to a large man and tossed overboard a ship
into the sea would drown him. Death has no joy.
No matter how frugal,
miserly or clever a man is, he can hardly recover all of the loss of wasting his
time. You cannot live out your life in happiness in a city that is poorly organized.
It is bad and tragedy to born in such a place.
The beauty of the city
is only a figment of some people’s imagination. The city is overrated. Bizarrely
awkward and could cut any destiny short. It is delusional and fraud to put
yourself where you are not. Paradise is arguably city of excellence. Is Lagos paradise?
Sanity is a very
expensive commodity. You risk raising weak people. When weak people are more in
number, they are powerful. If unhindered, they could also raise for themselves a
leader. You will think like the people with whom you spend most of your time. The
world will perish under the feet of the weak.
The gridlock never
dies. The dark nights never end. There is no charity in the air. The cruel
hands of fate snatched it. In those buildings are economic losses. Weakness is
also borne out of stress. There is no point to prove. You can never live out
your life in happiness and freedom in a city under siege. It is tragedy to
train up a child in this creepy kind of place.
It is easy to be a
prophet of doom when the young men emerging from the college after a hard five
years were faced by a world indifferent to their enthusiasm and bursting
knowledge. Results that is never palatable. Those who lack courage and a will
to survive, leaves the troubled world behind. Others take to vices, which
leaves them less human.
Trying to live at all
cost, they end up paying the price. The cost of breaking the law far outweighs
the price of obeying it. The horror stories of heartless and vicious people
cannot be undermined. Tales by young people who managed to secure employment
only make one hardened and embattled.
Some were just little
bits of dirt to be starved and worked into the ground by the employers who are
heartless. There is never a day off. Some to wash the car, dig the garden, feed
the dogs, and push trucks and do family shopping for the boss. What about
others who are forced to render services to keep their job? Many stretched
beyond limit, broken and left for dead. No human is carved out of stones.
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