Just not too long ago in Kenya, in the earlier part of April, 2015, 148 students killed were killed and among them was Elizabeth Misina. Elizabeth was young and promising lady, who like any other Kenyan student of the University of Garrissa wanted a better life for her people, her family and loved ones. So she worked hard in school to make good grades not until terrorists made a call to her parents and made them listen while they slayed their loving daughter. The moment was a short one, about two shots that rang out from the phone receiver into her parents’ ears. She took her last breathe as she dropped to the ground, there she laid, lifeless, a good life cut short so effortlessly. Just as effortless as her killers cut phone call after killing her-it took a touch of a button. They simply pulled the trigger, but pain and anguish that must have instantly enveloped the hearts of her dear ones as they listened over the phone was immeasurable. Their walls went tumbling down. If this promising life was not put to an abrupt end, she could have been a mother, a teacher, a doctor or lawyer, an administrator, a public servant, assisted in bringing a cure for HIV/AIDS or even become the first female president of Kenya. A chance for this East African nation at having a bright tomorrow was thwarted, 147 other chances too. Her crime like others was that she did not have a religious belief that was permissible to her killers.
Did she ask to be
born in to a family with the discordant faith? That’s highly doubtful. Same
goes for all of us, about 85% of us practise faiths that we were born into; we
did not have any choice than to be taught by the holy books we now so
passionately believe in. But there is one thing that is paramount in all of the
faiths and religions we profess. That we should choose to do good instead of
evil. That we show kindness even to those who are not like us. Our beliefs
teach us to love one another even though we pray differently to the same God.
The merciful, all-knowing, just God that sends rain and sunshine on everyone no
matter their faith, colour, tongue, morality or affiliation. If this God is
mighty and yet kind, looking down on all of us as his own even at the times we
err, then who are we? Who are we to judge people by the way they look, how much
material worth can be ascribed to them? Who are we to say he is Christian or
she is Muslim? Who are we to say nothing good can come out of these people
because they are Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba? When the person who created us all has
not dared to judge us by our human identity.
But He has always
judged us by one thing, which is Character. The virtues we exude, the little
good that we do at those times that no one is watching. This is the same way we
are to judge our candidates as the elections in LASUCOM approach. We are to
judge them by the worth of their deeds at those times on the pitch, in class,
in the corridors and rooms in our hostels. Not deeds that we have only seen as
they began expressing their interest in holding one political post or the
other. Not the little bribes they must have thrown our way or plan to throw our
way when the campaigns begin.
The student
association has been the worst for it ever since it became a cheerful
accomplishment to only vote for persons who are of the same faith as you. We
lost our power of being objective; we resorted to serially putting round poles
into square holes. LASUMSA kept going on a downward spiral. More appalling is
when we come across statements of bodies having a selected candidate. It is
more worse when the people who the ‘anointed candidate’ will be compelled on
know right inside them, this is not the right tool for plugging the leaking
pipe and they make the decision of voting the wrong person because someone
else’s grudge-filled opinion.
However, the biased
voting is done and we have seen it happen over and over again. We have done the
same thing every time and yet expect a different result. The result that only
spells more religious hatred and malice. This destructive act does not end at
causing inter-religious crisis. It also runs deep to destroy the faith bodies
on the inside. Trust is lost in the religious leaders and the essence of the
religious societies. And so we keep dividing ourselves along different lives.
We also let the better candidates go as we refuse to see beyond our nose. That
all of us cannot be leaders, that those who show interest and are our chance at
good leadership should be encouraged with the little post of student
association executives and legislators so they can grow to become great men and
women that will change the course of our
country’s history for good.
Every other time we who carry ourselves as
knowledgeable persons, refuse be objective in our thinking and fail to put
persons of quality in the positions they would give good account of themselves
because we don’t value their belief. We
become no different from the law graduate who went missing from school on
completing his degree and only surfaced in the University to kill in cold-blood
a young and promising soul like Elizabeth. He killed the future of over 147
Kenyan families. We kill several budding and sincere dreams for our association
and even our nation at large. We would complain of the consequences of our
wrong choices only to go back to our vomit. But we would still let the sincere
thoughts and enthusiasm of others die. We forget so fast, about things we have
had to face due to incompetent leadership. We forget so fast, we go back to
make even worse choices in a short time.
The holy books tell
us in their various words and at different instances the need to stand at all
time for what is right. The faiths we profess were at one point in time protected
by people of a different faith. Christians and Muslims who have traced their
history can attest to the story of a monk foretelling Prophet Mohammed (when he
was an adolescent) of the future ahead of him, the records of Christian
community of Abyssinia receiving Muslims in time of trouble, the covenant of
Nujran where Christian and Muslim communities agreed to live peacefully and to
respect each other’s belief.
These were good
times and the world was good for it. A time when a man was measured by the content
of his character and not by the name he calls God or the language he prays in.
Not by the way he raised his head to heaven with hands behind his head and
bowing his head to the ground in prayer or the way he looks up to heaven with
eyes closed and ends prayer in Jesus’ name. We need to be transformed, to be a
united people, jangling our discord into a symphony of brotherhood. We can only
do better if we do it together, without segregation. The world has never gained
anything but ruin from discrimination. No person or faith can be an island of
its own. We all need each other to see life through. There is a part for prayer
in choosing leaders; there is the need to pray for wisdom and an impartial
heart to make the right choice.
After making the
choice, we are to pray for those who we eventually choose; we are to pray that
they be good tools for God to work with in changing our fortunes. These has
been painstakingly written to ensure we ask ourselves before we kill again,
before we have let a dream die, if it is really the will of God or our own
self-regarding desire. The Almighty is
one who cherishes a a character of competence and honesty, He even exuded it.
That is the way. He has tried keeping humanity from being a total ruin, by
raising prophets and just leaders. The world has kept crucifying the Jesus’s of
our time and freeing Barabbas, as well as making attempts at the life of our
present-day Prophet Mohammed like those before us did.
We would be
requested to give account of our actions someday; we won't have to wait till we
are at the gates of paradise. Regrets will trouble our hearts and the guilt
which we will try to hide will eat at our soul when our poor choices backfire
and things go wrong. We try to live with the wrong from the start of the administration
to its end, just because we make the 1-second ticking of the box in the ballot
paper. The truth is that we can avert
all of these; we can always make the better choice, though it may be hard and
may go against our loathsome desires. We would be better for it if no good
dreams die again. Even the less qualified candidates will be better for it.
They will learn and make efforts to be better people. The world needs less of
dead dreams and disappointments. The world needs you to be a life saver! Save
lives, save dreams, save all of us by making a choice for competent leadership.
LET’S LOVE ONE ANOTHER AND ‘TRUE LOVE’ BE THE WATCHWORD ……AMITY
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