Lord, Did The Village Zoes Bribe The Chiefs? (Pt-I)

Dear Father,

There has been an ongoing debate in our village these few days concerning the actions of some Zoes who had accompanied 12th Grade Grandpa at the Traditional Council the other day for testing.

The Zoes, from the 15 chiefdoms of our village had carried this new convert of theirs who had been named by the Old Lady at the Castle to oversee these chiefdoms. But as the village town criers put it, when the Zoes arrived at the Traditional Council, they offered gifts to chiefs before 12th Grade Grandpa could even greet the chiefs. The chiefs in return received their gifts and instead of testing 12th Grade Grandpa, they made comments that were tantamount to confirmation.

You see my son, no matter what kind of explanations the Zoes will provide to defend what they did; their action was a pure bribery. There was no need for the performance of any rituals at the Traditional Council on that very day. That the Zoes will march in their numbers to go and present this man before the Traditional Council with gifts is a pure bribery Period!

Father, you are very correct. This is the only village in which I have seen Zoes participating in politics at the highest level. If for any reason as they have struggled and continued to struggle in justifying their action, the person who should have been given the gift is the Old Lady to tell her thank you for choosing their son and not the people who were going to give their son a text. Their action is a total disregard to the doctrine of merit.

You know Father, if these people can go as far as bribing chiefs at the Traditional Council, what they will say when they give similar gifts to a school teacher because they are also presenting their wards to the teacher.

There is no justification of their action especially at the time the man was to be tested, at the time there were too much noise over his preferment.

My son, people say that tradition. Father, there is no way you can mix tradition with politics. If for any reasons the Zoes still saw it necessary to present gifts to the Chiefs at the Traditional Council, they should have waited for their son to be tested and cleared. But to do so at the time their son was to sit for a test was a complete bribery.

So Father, what then can we say to their action, now that we know that no matter their explanation, their action was bribery?

You see, my son, in a society where stealing, lying and cheating is the order of the day, the Zoes considered as the custodians of the village should be mindful of their actions. They should lead by an example-because what they have demonstrated is a bad sign. Are they telling us that if parents really want their children to graduate from a school, they (parents) should carry gift to the teachers as a presentation of their sons to the teacher at the testing hall.

Father, nobody should put smoke in our eyes here. We all know what such a gift does. It plays on the heart of the receiver to return favor to the giver. Whether it was a traditional ritual or what, the Traditional Council is not a ritual ground let the Zoes note this. That is a gathering of mixed beliefs and not restricted to traditional worship only.

Father, did I hear that one of the Chiefs from the lower end of the Traditional Council condemned this action of the Zoes? Yes, and rightly so my son. There is no one who is above the law of our village. The Zoes have erred and should not use Tradition to cover it. If they cannot go to grade schools and give gifts to their children’s teachers on the day of examination, they should also not do same when the man who is to head a very import place in our village is being tested.

The Good Old Book says the same measure with which you judge your friend, is the same measure that should be used to judge you.

This man knew he had a very questionable academic background, yet still he used to parade the corridors of the Traditional Council demanding that others brought in the appropriate cvs or had the requisite education for the job. It is a shame that he will now be relying on Zoes to help him go through similar process.

And this thing about academic qualification, the Old Lady is the one who had set her own trap. She had stressed this competence and qualified thing too far and must live by it.

A friend and I were discussing the other day that the Old Lady is the one who is actually relaxing our educational standard, because it has now become a routine for people to be appointed before they apply to enter the Hills of Learning. And the funny thing is that most of them end –up leaving as Cum-Laude or Semi-Cum.

Now, it has been scientifically proven that people start suffering from membrane loss at age 25. So for you to have a working mother or father coming first in a class ahead of a 21-year old is very, very impossible in our society. Many at times these people are not in class but they still have friends who send in the “As” for them all because they are serving either as a deputy minister or superintendent somewhere. You hardly see them in the class rooms, but they are the best. So how can we set standards at our hills of learning, when people have to wait to be appointed before enrolling at a hill of learning?

Now, the Zoes have backed this too. At a time a man’s academic credentials are being challenged, they accompanied him with gifts at the Traditional Council. Only God can save this village!!