I observed 58 years today. It is quite a conundrum. Should I celebrate my survival as an under-achieving 58 year old woman? Oh\u2026..it is not easy going through the motion of growing. So let us celebrate.<\/p>\n
I sat under my coconut tree to reflect on the day of my birth and the victory of being born, hmmm v-i-c-t-o-r-y.. I looked up, though in season, the coconut tree under which I sat was only flowering but not bearing fruits. I remember vividly the goal of my birth in 1957.<\/p>\n
INDEPENDENCE!!!!<\/strong> For 58 years, my golden trees are still flowering. The matured trees within me that bear fruits are being exploited by the sons of the colonists who ravaged my virginity. I cannot manage myself to the extent that, I beg the sons of my adversary, the IMF, to come into my home\u2026. Yes even into my room now and then, to teach and remind me of how indiscipline and irresponsible I am. These sons remind me of how stupid I am that, I eat more than I can produce, and spend more on irrelevance than I generate. All my children with different persuasions have gone back to them over and over to admit their irresponsibility and indiscipline.<\/p>\n All my assets have been sold to the sons of my adversary and my children work as farm hands on the property of their fathers. My children harvest the fruits of my labour for the strangers to eat, and sit to hope for the promise of the flower. My children beg and borrow what belongs to them to buy food and after, beg to be assisted to clean the faeces of their defecations.<\/p>\n We carry calabash in hands seeking alms to build schools, and after, beg to be fed so as to occupy the classrooms. My children cannot build hospitals to take care of their health unless they seek for money from the stranger. Yet they boast in the achievements of their borrowing instead of the returns on their lending.<\/p>\n They borrow from the stranger and invest it in food and drinks and gloriously call it social interventions. The stranger continuously eats from the increase of the interest of his borrowing whiles holding my resources as collateral so as to deny my children of their use.<\/p>\n My own children have signed their fellow brethren into slavery for a pittance of crumbs. My children grope in darkness because they have relied on the moon for so long that, they forgot its waning efficacy for economic development.<\/p>\n They live near and in abundance of water yet their lands are dry of food. They boast of food malls yet eat the produce of strange lands. We go back again to the stranger to give us a chemicalized food called GMO to strip my future population of their inheritance.<\/p>\n The leaders… Hahaha, yes!!!! The leaders of the land deliberately place their feet on the hands of the younger ones to prevent them from eating whiles, they eat from the bowl that is intended to nourish the future.<\/p>\n The adversary bent on perpetuating his stronghold on my resources, has given my children weapons to fight, to pull, to heckle, to divide and to undermine his fellow brother. The weapon of partisan democracy!! My children sheepishly fell for this weapon because of their individual greed for political power for self-aggrandizement. They have become so divisive that, they deny me the collective national vision required to propel me to greater heights and the respect I deserve among my peers.<\/p>\n The collective effort needed to fight the aggressor has been lost on them. They have become victims of their greed and self-centered choices yet believing in the primacy of their \u2018intelligence\u2019. They speak eloquently of things they do not understand, and defend every fault of theirs even with insults and ridicule of their fellow brother.<\/p>\n My children that eat at the palace of the leaders have mastered the art and songs of appellations and sycophancy. They sing it well and so loud that, the songs of wisdom and compelling counsel that are essential for the upliftment of my land is deeply drowned. When that leader falls, they quickly compose a new song of sycophancy for the new leader. Their motivation is the food that they eat in the palace. Not the success of the leader.<\/p>\n My children have grown to love mediocrity. They celebrate non achievers and dance to tune of triviality. They adore shallow oratory and frown on depth of knowledge and experience. They are quick to shelve the experience and skills of the elderly to purchase the nothingness of a personality. They make heroes of people with no heroic acts or history.<\/p>\n They ditch the elders and make the young ones to ride and yet blame the recklessness of the horse. They are preoccupied with form instead of substance. They have grown to love power and control but lack knowledge of its appropriate use. They red carpet the aggressor and kill their wise men.<\/p>\n Have I grown cynical of my children? No not all. I am describing my children that I have observed for the 58 years of my sojourn of earth.<\/p>\n Yes\u2026\u2026\u2026.., I remember the fickle brightness at the horizon. Yes, the fickle of brightness. I see a generation so bright and questioning. They are acquiring knowledge and expertise but devoid of values.<\/p>\n Values that will channel their collective knowledge and expertise to rescue my ravaged womanhood and place the property of their fathers under their collective use and advancement. The aggressor again quickly deprive me even of these knowledgeable yet valueless children.<\/p>\n They steal them and indoctrinate them under the aggressor\u2019s presidential initiatives and programmes.<\/p>\n They come back to their brothers after their indoctrination to rob them of their resources for their new masters, the aggressor. Yet I still see the fickle brightness. I can see a generation of angry yet intelligent and determined with values to fight for their inheritance that has been stolen. Some of these children of mine are already causing little changes in various spheres of my womb. Indeed, I can feel the growth of a brighter day in my womb.<\/p>\n I wait patiently, though I age, I shall not grow old.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Kofi B. Kukubor<\/p>\n A Governance and Policy Analyst<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I observed 58 years today. It is quite a conundrum. Should I celebrate my survival as an under-achieving 58 year old woman? Oh\u2026..it is not easy going through the motion of growing. So let us celebrate. I sat under my coconut tree to reflect on the day of my birth and the victory of being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":97370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[8],"yoast_head":"\n
\nAs I reflected on this goal, the horizon of my vision deemed yet littered with fickle brightness. Am I independent enough to bear fruits of sufficiency for my children, or pseudo-independent to the extent of being kwashiorkor? Do I believe that I am old enough yet being fed from the very hands that I fought to extricate myself from?<\/p>\n