WE CANNOT LET THEM DEFINE US - Pat Utomi We gather with pain in our hearts and defiance in our soul as we contemplate the troubles of young innocent girls that went to school in Chibok that their future and that of the rest of us may have greater dignity. Forty days ago men from the pits of hell came out of the dark of the night to traumatize their being in an abduction that finally awoke a world distracted by other matters to our broken institutions, troubled politics and powerlessness of a people in the face of a failing state which has the possibility of much different: prosperous, peaceful and civilized Nigerian society. If we must tell ourselves the truth, our times today is marked by a collapse of culture; power and politics are corrupt, and care little for the people. Our country needs a moral rebirth, it needs new leaders focused on self sacrificing service than on self. We must pull down the political walls of politics of the pocket by making power materially unattractive where the quest for immortality and a place in history drives the quest for public life rather than the lust of sirens and attraction to the public purse. Was our politics more about service than obsession with self and power we would not have so badly neglected to do the needful when Boko Haram was rearing its ugly head a few years ago to threaten the Leviathan’s primary objective; the assurance of life and security. But the dignity of the citizen has meant so little to our politics that it did not matter that a few Nigerians died every couple of days. Now our streets are washed daily with the blood of innocents and our politics continue as business as usual. It does not matter how many die just as long as people can be called Excellency and have access to the public purse for their comfort. Our country is gravely ill. Betrayed by men and women who miss the sacred nature of trust that is public office, hunters who fail to see the farmers need to sow, water and wait for a great harvest, they have let their vanity cripple the future of their children. Our country must turn away from the leadership that cannot see beyond its vanity, to citizen networks such as we have seen in the Bring back Our Girls Campaign and the Save Nigeria Group of recent memory and seek a reconstruction of the social order. We must pray but we have to act to reject violence, crude politics of democracy as government of politicians, by politicians, for politicians; and corrupted civil society that cannot call us back. Now that the world has seen us as we are, how really can they help save us from ourselves. These must be the issues we meditate on today and act out. We thank the Art of Living Foundation for I meditate Africa focusing on Chibok for us, the Christian and Islamic clergy that have joined us, and all the people who responded to our call to keep vigil on the 40th day since the abduction. We plead #Bring Back Our Girls now, alive and well. Pat Utomi Founder, CVL 25/5/14
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 09:40:43 +0000
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