Thoughts on the New Year

In the twinkling of an eye, 2013 has gone with all its ups and downs and 2014 has arrived with expectations and individual resolutions. For those who passed through agonising times in the year that just ended, they should use this joyful occasion to be thankful to the merciful and mighty God for His abiding […]

In the twinkling of an eye, 2013 has gone with all its ups and downs and 2014 has arrived with expectations and individual resolutions. For those who passed through agonising times in the year that just ended, they should use this joyful occasion to be thankful to the merciful and mighty God for His abiding love, care and protection, which have enabled them to be alive and kicking in the New Year. Such people should be hopeful that despite the vagaries of life, it shall be well with them in the fullness of time if they are faithful. Despite the frustrations and disappointments of 2013, they should not see themselves as a failure or complete write-off. After all, failure should not always be perceived as negative or end of the road in the struggles of life, considering that it would make us to be introspective in order to identify where we made mistakes and how to make amends and forge ahead. In the unforgettable words of the late Dr Nelson Mandela, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling but in rising every time we fall”. And for those who 2013 brought a lot of good fortunes, they should give all the honour and exaltation to our heavenly Father for His amazing grace and loving kindness by being faithful, pious, kind-hearted and altruistic.  
In this New Year, we should not continue to lament over our predicament(s) or pander to fatalistic resignation or self-pity, which rarely solve any problem but create more confusion and uncertainty. Rather, we should count on divine help through earnest prayers, with clear conscience, while being upbeat and maintaining a momentum of grit and courage to survive and overcome, even in the face of great adversity. Needless to say, the centrality of Almighty God in surmounting the battles of life is beyond doubt. This is because in His will, as the overall sovereign of the whole universe, lies our peace, our future and our salvation. What is more, the mere mortal man, no matter how powerful, can propose and unforeseen circumstance can dispose. Again, no one can predict tomorrow (or the future) with certainty except the all-knowing Supreme Being. This is a valid reason we should not repose all our trust in fellow human beings who can disappoint when it matters most but in the Good Lord who never fails those who worship Him whole-heartedly.
On our part, in the midst of the storm of life, we should remain unperturbed, focused and resolute, relying on the resilience of the human spirit, which would see us through the darkest moments. This is because man will not merely survive but will endure. Of course, the human race never solves any of its problems, it only outlives them.
We should see 2014 as a year for a new thinking. Therefore, we should rethink individualism, selfishness, personal aggrandisement, greed, covetousness and ava-rice. Apart from undermining or destroying inter-personal relationship and imperilling both our moral and ethical values, these retrogressive factors are also responsible for the upsurge in crimes like corruption, fraud, armed rob-bery, kidnapping, murder, human trafficking, prostitution and crude oil theft. Rather than being obsessed with self, we should be thinking of the well-being of others and the entire society. Building such an enviable altruistic order that will rise above the confine of “me-first” syndrome, which has turned our society upside down, will require a sea change in the aspects of our altitude and behaviour that are negative or repulsive.
To make 2014 eventful, we should compassionately consider the plight of the less privileged in our society – especially the unfortunate victims of deprivation, priva-tion, poverty, alienation and economic austerity. That the level of squalor among a vast majority of our people is spiralling out of control today is not an overstatement. Those in the corridors of power at all levels in Nigeria are besought to respond swiftly and vigo-rously to this worrisome development through good governance and delivery of dividends of democracy by way of provision of infra-structure and social services, as well as articulation of safety nets of poverty alleviation, skill training and social opportunities.
On the part of our religious bodies, especially churches and mosques, they should help build a beneficent system by channelling a sizable portion of donations made by their faithful into mitigating poverty and suffering in the land through evolving of micro credit programme and provision of affordable schools, medical centres and housing. This is of urgent necessity
We should also think of how to make this year a new era of vigorous spiritual revival. Despite the religious effusion of most Nigerians, as accentuated by their willingness to defend their faith at all costs and proliferation of places of worship like mushroom, it is lamentable that acts of immorality, crime and criminality have claimed a latitude as wide as they had enjoyed before – including the seemingly unheard-of developments like kidnapping, hostage-taking, virulent ethnic nationalism, religious fanaticism, terror attack, suicide, acid bath, rape, gang rape, paedophilia (or sexual exploitation of children), the so-called baby factories and human trafficking. In addition to these awful acts are worsening of traditional crimes like armed robbery, sea piracy, assassination, homicide, ritual murder, communal bloodshed, cultism, bribery and corruption and advance fee fraud, as well as hatred, wickedness, vengeance, inhumanity, dishonesty, sel-fishness, greed, jealousy and immoral acts of Sodom and Gomorrah proportions like incest, homosexuality and adultery.  
It is impossible to conclude without mentioning the great significance of 2014 for our fatherland. It is exactly 100 years this year that the Northern and Southern protectorates were amalgamated by the erstwhile British colonial administrator, Sir Frederick John Jeatry Lugard, to form a country named by Flora Shaw as Nigeria, i.e. a nation state in the River Niger area. Regardless of the painful twists and turns the country has undergone since its formation as a political entity on January 1, 1914, as exemplified in bloody civil war, minority uprisings, political upheavals, military interventions of the mid-1960s through the 80s and intermittent communal pog-roms, there is still hope for the future. If anything, such traumatic events and those subsisting should be seen as part of the birth pangs of our nationhood, which other countries had passed through and came out more stable, united and peaceful.   Happy centenary to all Nigerians.

Emeh wrote from Wuse 2, Abuja, <[email protected]>;