They were not armed, save for some indecipherable skills and or pretences to them. There was no age barrier or limit. From the young to the not so young, the able and the slightly or totally challenged, they were beggars at a recent social function. The casual observer will hardly understand the deadly manifestation of the societal decay captured by their reality.
It was a battle ground in which an army of prey was being shadowed by a legion of predators. The apparent prize was some Naira notes in different stages of disuse. The real price however is the moral value of the society. The conclusion a dispassionate observer could draw is that we are further down than we are all prepared to accept.
The group dishing out music from the bandstand was excellent by all local standards. The tunes were coming from well-handed musical instruments even when the songs were ‘remix’ of other people’s hits. The dancers and the ‘prayers’ were well decked in ‘Proudly Nigeria’ Ankara, at least most of them. But the hoards of people heckling and pestering the dancers for money or other things were quite an eyesore. In their dressing, business approach and etiquettes, one needs little more to conclude that all is not well.
There is nothing wrong with getting some loose notes from a willing spender you would say, but when young children, offspring of peoples within the locality, get involved in shameless begging at social functions; when able bodied men harangue guests in provincial Yoruba land, then something has gone wrong with what we hold dear about our society.
A predator is an organism that feeds on another living organism or organisms known as prey; so one learnt from elementary ecology. There is the possibility that the prey is killed in such biological interactions during or after the act of feeding on them. Mutualism, a form of symbiosis, is a relationship of mutual benefit to the prey and its predator.
No where is the reality of the prey and predators better reflected than in the Southwest where such was hitherto strange? Here in the bowels of the Southwest, where dignity and respect used to be prime values, the sight of young children, contesting for leftovers was most difficult to bear. When did we sink this low? They were a different brand of predators, or preys as it really is. Cool and calculating, in one instance, daring and menacing in another. But that is not the distinguishing factor. Their preys or predators, though obvious of their nuisance capacities, lived with them enjoying their patronage. They were tolerated by their‘preys. Mutualism and not more, both felt. The reality is that one is always loosing and both will never gain.
What is creeping dangerously into provincial Yoruba looks on the face of it, like one that benefits both the prey and the predator? The young beggar, the old alms taker, the drummer and the women of the family see themselves as taking from the spenders as a way of sharing in the loot. The ‘Owambe’ spender feels that by doling out crisp naira notes, he is dispensing goodwill and displaying generosity. They are right so it seems. But is it really the way it appears.
In getting involved in begging, the beggar, particularly the able bodied one, shrinks his or her horizon for self actualisation. He incrementally disregards the attraction in toiling to survive. The premise is that the society is full of good people, who will always give to those who beg.
The giver beliefs that there will always be beggars; men who have become so self demeaned as to depend only on crumbs from others as a way of life. He wants them to remain beggars than become givers. He gives enough to discourage an honest day’s work but never enough to get the beggar off his misery. He would not stop giving so the beggar will not get sober enough to quit begging. Here is the pivot upon which what looks like a symbiotic existence is hung. But the Yoruba beggars one came across in the social event have dangerously close examples around them.
Since a misinterpreted form of mainstream politics has been forced down the throat of the Yoruba, the urge to affect lives progressively has been doused. Known means of survival for the states that make up the region have been thrown overboard. The economies, education and health realities of the people have become functions of federal allocations which we must agree have raised with the dollar fortunes of the country.
Rather than empower the people therefore, improved’ salaries, ‘better’ conditions of service and outright bribe of the elite have become the order of the day. Where ant mention is made of developing agriculture, forestry and other traditional means of generating revenues, it is always in position papers and programmes of action that end up inn government archives.
But the worst manifestation of the predator-prey relation is the use to token social service works as qualifying conditions for political office. Here, there and everywhere, you hear of office seekers who have paid school fees, bought Jamb forms and or provided drinking water. Those who make such provisions in their private capacities are most often found in parties and formations where provisions of such basics are hardly given serious consideration.
Worse, when they find themselves in government houses; most of the time by crook; they remember little of these needs. They argue unabashedly that they have paid enough as pre-election investments. The predators that they are have preyed on the appreciative nature of the people to get the more than commensurate worth for their ‘investments.’ The public till is seen then only as a pool from which dividends of pre-election investments could be drawn. They are in truth the predators and the people the prey. Even at that, symbiosis exists only in the imagination of the unwary.
The people ought to reject these crumbs served as generosity. The beggar must reject the hand downs of criminals dressed as philanthropists.
It was a battle ground in which an army of prey was being shadowed by a legion of predators. The apparent prize was some Naira notes in different stages of disuse. The real price however is the moral value of the society. The conclusion a dispassionate observer could draw is that we are further down than we are all prepared to accept.
The group dishing out music from the bandstand was excellent by all local standards. The tunes were coming from well-handed musical instruments even when the songs were ‘remix’ of other people’s hits. The dancers and the ‘prayers’ were well decked in ‘Proudly Nigeria’ Ankara, at least most of them. But the hoards of people heckling and pestering the dancers for money or other things were quite an eyesore. In their dressing, business approach and etiquettes, one needs little more to conclude that all is not well.
There is nothing wrong with getting some loose notes from a willing spender you would say, but when young children, offspring of peoples within the locality, get involved in shameless begging at social functions; when able bodied men harangue guests in provincial Yoruba land, then something has gone wrong with what we hold dear about our society.
A predator is an organism that feeds on another living organism or organisms known as prey; so one learnt from elementary ecology. There is the possibility that the prey is killed in such biological interactions during or after the act of feeding on them. Mutualism, a form of symbiosis, is a relationship of mutual benefit to the prey and its predator.
No where is the reality of the prey and predators better reflected than in the Southwest where such was hitherto strange? Here in the bowels of the Southwest, where dignity and respect used to be prime values, the sight of young children, contesting for leftovers was most difficult to bear. When did we sink this low? They were a different brand of predators, or preys as it really is. Cool and calculating, in one instance, daring and menacing in another. But that is not the distinguishing factor. Their preys or predators, though obvious of their nuisance capacities, lived with them enjoying their patronage. They were tolerated by their‘preys. Mutualism and not more, both felt. The reality is that one is always loosing and both will never gain.
What is creeping dangerously into provincial Yoruba looks on the face of it, like one that benefits both the prey and the predator? The young beggar, the old alms taker, the drummer and the women of the family see themselves as taking from the spenders as a way of sharing in the loot. The ‘Owambe’ spender feels that by doling out crisp naira notes, he is dispensing goodwill and displaying generosity. They are right so it seems. But is it really the way it appears.
In getting involved in begging, the beggar, particularly the able bodied one, shrinks his or her horizon for self actualisation. He incrementally disregards the attraction in toiling to survive. The premise is that the society is full of good people, who will always give to those who beg.
The giver beliefs that there will always be beggars; men who have become so self demeaned as to depend only on crumbs from others as a way of life. He wants them to remain beggars than become givers. He gives enough to discourage an honest day’s work but never enough to get the beggar off his misery. He would not stop giving so the beggar will not get sober enough to quit begging. Here is the pivot upon which what looks like a symbiotic existence is hung. But the Yoruba beggars one came across in the social event have dangerously close examples around them.
Since a misinterpreted form of mainstream politics has been forced down the throat of the Yoruba, the urge to affect lives progressively has been doused. Known means of survival for the states that make up the region have been thrown overboard. The economies, education and health realities of the people have become functions of federal allocations which we must agree have raised with the dollar fortunes of the country.
Rather than empower the people therefore, improved’ salaries, ‘better’ conditions of service and outright bribe of the elite have become the order of the day. Where ant mention is made of developing agriculture, forestry and other traditional means of generating revenues, it is always in position papers and programmes of action that end up inn government archives.
But the worst manifestation of the predator-prey relation is the use to token social service works as qualifying conditions for political office. Here, there and everywhere, you hear of office seekers who have paid school fees, bought Jamb forms and or provided drinking water. Those who make such provisions in their private capacities are most often found in parties and formations where provisions of such basics are hardly given serious consideration.
Worse, when they find themselves in government houses; most of the time by crook; they remember little of these needs. They argue unabashedly that they have paid enough as pre-election investments. The predators that they are have preyed on the appreciative nature of the people to get the more than commensurate worth for their ‘investments.’ The public till is seen then only as a pool from which dividends of pre-election investments could be drawn. They are in truth the predators and the people the prey. Even at that, symbiosis exists only in the imagination of the unwary.
The people ought to reject these crumbs served as generosity. The beggar must reject the hand downs of criminals dressed as philanthropists.
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