Lord, Truly, We Are Our Own Problems

Dear Father:

You know, many times you talk to people even strangers outside of our village; they always say that the problem of our village is us. But you see, not many of us will like to agree to this, simply because, we feel that the problem of our village is somebody else-which is while some often say unless certain people go home to our ancestors, we will never move forward as a village or we will never have peace.

But to be quite honest, Father, the problem of our village is actually us. It is borne out of greed, selfishness, strife, envy and jealousy, which have blinded our psyches, and disabled our rationality, thus leaving us with a jealous and destructive spirit.

So, whenever it is not me, it can’t be anybody else-meaning anybody other than me must be destroyed, even if it means setting the entire village on fire to get rid of whoever is there other than me.

This jealous and destructive spirit transcend from our hamlets and fiefdom to the rest of the village. This is why people hardly do much in their native villages around here. Who does he or she thinks he is? Or she is?

Take for instance, Father, if one was to leave the village center to pay a visit to a relative in one of our fiefdoms, let say your mother or aunt, somebody in that village will get angry because it is not his son or daughter and therefore, who is that mother of yours to have a son or daughter coming from the village center with regular provisions.

And so your mother or aunt would get afraid and say son or nephew, I would rather come to visit you or when you come here don’t sleep here and don’t eat from anybody and the rest is understood.

My son, where are you going again with this one?

Father, I hear people saying they want to burn down this village because only few people who have a time limit are enjoying, while the majority of the people are suffering.

But you see, there are two groups of people saying this and their claims are genuine, the problem is their solution to the way forward.

However, I still have a problem with one of the above groups-And it is with the ones staying in Uncle Sam’s village.

Some of the reasons this group is giving is that their friends who were struggling with them in Uncles Sam’s village had since come home and are working in the Village Council and the fact that the living standard of their families left behind in Uncle Sam’s Village have improve, while they are still at the same position means they are thefts. And since the Old Lady is very unwilling to get rid of them means she is condoning it and she should also go.

In order to ensure this is accomplished, they have found link with the other group back home to be the foot soldiers who should engage in an oil boys like demonstration, forgetting to know that this style has worsen the plights of the villages of these oil boys and things have continue to fall apart and this is my problem with the ones back in the village.

They have every reason to express themselves but to allow themselves to be used by some people with selfish motives to destroy the 10 years of gains this village has made is complete madness. Because the people who are advocating for this sit in the comfort of their homes in Uncle Sam’s Village, while the rest of us would go through the worst forms of hardship, as they prepare to come down for another elephant sharing regime.

But I don’t blame those boys at home; I blame the people who hyped these boys foolishness by organizing a counter group Father.

You mean, you are also angry with the Old Ma must stay up people too?

Yes, Father.

What for?

Father, they help to cause the panic that was in this village on Thursday and I don’t care what they think of me on this one.

The thing had been plain and simple. The town criers had refused to give these anti-peace statements the publicity it was looking for, and just right within the blue they came up with this which exacerbated the whole thing.

Father, I don’t care if I have friends among this particular group or not, but the leaders were going to be equally responsible as well as those who were seeking the Old Ma down fall if anything had happened yesterday period. In short, they helped in blowing the entire scenario out of proportion and I am willing to say that to any of them.