Anyanwu Paul Udochukwu writes,
Chief Anabuc, a wealthy businessman from Onitsha, never goes down on his knees except to God in prayers. His wife of 29 years loves him in everything he does but not his overly repeated prayer point. "O Lord, because I'm in Nigeria may the Naira edge over the Dollar". Just yesterday, Chief relocated to the US and now he prays "O Lord, as I've left my past behind, bless America, defend our Dollar".
Oga Tough, a beast to everyone but Lola. "My Lola done go school," he reverberates in resonance with pride whenever people ask about her at the motor park. Thirty years on in their lives came a conscience scaling development. "Baba, ministry say make I pursue all the agberos comot Obalende," Lola said. Oga Tough now in his ailing age, visibly drowning in grief from what he just heard replies Lola, "my pikin, you still remember say na agbero work I take train you?".
Sekinat and Khadija often have that inkling of converging to gossip, just as soon as their husbands leave home for their respective work jobs. If only they would address the issues of their households just as they address those of people they discussed. Today, their unproductiveness was directed at Alhaja Halima and her only son's affinity for men. He was allegedly believed to be the reason no gateman ever employed to man their gate stayed beyond two weeks at his post. But that is not the steaming reason for which they dumped their chores this morning. Apparently, Sekinat recounted seeing Alhaja sneak two females believed to be runs girl in the dead of the night and just moments later, the girls were seen running towards the gate as Alhaja's son pursued them with a pestle. The irony of the whole unfolding was that the same Alhaja who employed the services of runs girls was heard not too long ago yelling at his daughters, cautioning them against following men around.
The above stories are fictional narratives that subtly depict our push for survival and how we often barely recognise that our consciences are constantly being subjected to tests through our words and actions.
Surviving is human nature and the forces of life never fail to bring forth obstacles in their complexities. Obstacles we continuously strive to overcome.
In reality, if we all strictly follow the doctrines of survival the world would be a much more chaotic place to live in. The compromise however, brought about by the moral sense of right and wrong, helps to align us towards the good path.
Survival doesn't necessarily mean we have to dash the hopes of others to the flames of our burnt offering. We should endeavour to scale our consciences in our bid to survive.
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