The Home of Peace,' the name fits Borno State well as the state is known for its peaceful and hospitable nature.' Imagine! That is from the website of Borno State. It is still there even as you read of bombs, deaths, abductions and disappearances this very minute. Borno is the only state in Nigeria flaunting peace as its niche. It is not the only state that personifies irony. Ekiti is another. It calls itself 'Fountain of Knowledge.' That is the boast you hear in every mouth that claims that state as its origin. The state's website even contains a louder boast: 'Ekiti State is reputed to have produced the highest number of professors in Nigeria.' You read this and ask: who counted the number of professors in Nigeria that gave that state the numero uno position' The past one week has, indeed, thrown Ekiti up as a 'number one.' It has effectively displaced Borno on the chart of violence.With knowledge comes understanding, we are told. Indeed, the dictionary meaning of knowledge is: 'understanding and skills that you gain through education or experience.' Now, imagine a state that calls itself fountain of 'understanding' daily assailing our sensibilities with deadly misunderstanding! What is the goal of knowledge' Is it just to flaunt academic epaulets online and offline or to make the world around us better in all ramifications' I never heard of someone being elected governor, in a democracy, and very daring attempts would be made to prevent him from assuming office. I never heard of a judge being beaten - anywhere- but Ekiti provided reference materials last week. And it is the Fountain of Knowledge, head-waters of understanding! Can Ekiti professors 'tell us if 'brain' and 'brawn' are distinct and different again' With the odious smell regularly oozing out of Ekiti corridor, shouldn't we ask that the 'Fountain of Knowledge' give us its definition of 'knowledge'' But should we agree with Socrates that 'knowledge is not the same as wisdom'' That the difference between the two is in putting into practice what is known.As with Boko Haramic Borno - 'Home of Peace', so it is with violence-racked Ekiti, Fountain of Knowledge. Contradictions, paradoxes, ironies are never in short supply in Nigeria. Nigeria is actually a babe with beautiful face, ugly legs. She has wonderful eyes, nice, curly hair, great eyes, great ears, great nose, sexy lips well etched to complete the beauty of a great face. You get swept off your feet but so soon, you look beyond the upper deck. You direct your gaze at the limbs carrying the frame. You find a definition of ugliness in what you see! She is a fine babe with ugly legs!Even beyond Ekiti and Borno, what is there to see' I look at all beauties without substance, structures without foundation; I look at religion without faith; rifles without triggers; I look at life in its unwholesomeness, its hollowness. I weigh life's vacuous abundance. I look at governments with fine rhetoric, zero action. I laugh at all Alai ni kan se ' the smooth talker who cons babes to fall but won't be there to take the catch. I see governments dressed in great attires of grace and goodness but quietly spreading devastation in the name of construction. I see men of God turn men of war because money is involved. I see fine babes with ugly toes in corridors of beauty.I see great men of power shrinking in chambers of goodness. I see giants become pygmies on the rostrum of morality. Are great books with beautiful covers and blank pages truly great' Are they not' Should one really bother to flip the pages without asking what genius clothed nothingness with artistic charm' Look around you. I see great roads cracking before praise dries in our mouths. I see houses of worship crumbling under the weight of lies and blasphemous mendacity. I see blood where love is preached. I see war in places of peace. I see stark ugliness where beauty is assured. Look around you. Can you see what I see' Borno is Home of Peace' Do you kill, maim and rape in praise of peace' Ekiti is Fountain of Knowledge' Is knowledge same as arid, crude street fights and brawls in temples of justice' Can you see what I see'There is so much to dread all around. So much to loath; very many bridges of love and friendship collapsing under the weight of power, money and greed.We see paradoxes, ironies and contradictions all around us. We read Rich Dad, Poor Dad; we have a rich nation with poor people ' or better put, rich governors, poor subjects! But contradictions won't just end. Malaria skeletons are on the streets rallying for mosquitoes. Look across the street, they are there. They will always be there. That is why foot soldiers won't be content with peace in Ekiti or anywhere else. The lords of the land hold the levers...Another goodnight to scholarship... And as I write this, a call comes in. Another teacher is dead. I have lost another moulder of minds. The air here suffocates teachers, I have always known. This is one too many for one. He was not just my literature teacher, he was my friend, my mentor. Two decades after the first contact in Great Ife, our rivers of consciousness met again... and like all great teachers, he continued the teaching where he left off in the 1980s. He was my sparring partner on the turf of creativity. He wrote books, great books. When a teacher dies, it is like a whole university is destroyed by plane loads of Tomahawk missiles. What is there again to salvage' The devastation is total. Goodnight, Prof. Wole Ogundele.
Click here to read full news..
