When I was a secondary school student, I found it hard to believe my geography teacher whenever she thought that the earth rotates. It was indeed difficult to believe her, because a rotating object carries everything in circular motion with it and they will be seen rotating. So, how could my geography teacher have convinced me that the earth rotates, when my house, or my village does not move an inch.
I was only a young boy. So I reasoned like that. Now I am an adult, I have grown the mind of the adult and old enough now to realise that my teacher talked about change. Nothing is permanent but change. Change is the other name for the rotation of the earth. Change is constant. But the earth is not. What constituted value to normal men in those days have dropped along the way. Change determines values.
Values are transient. At best, the most resilient of values i.e. clothing, shelter, manners and other cultural elements are subject to abrasion by the ruffling wave of change. That is why for instance, man talks about good old days. And funny enough if contemporaries of ‘good old days’ will be sincere, they will confess that even in those days thousands and one souls complained and talked about their own ‘good old days.’
Unfortunately, change, at first is the least accepted by men. When we say, for example, that the prices of goods have changed, it presages what experience has revealed to hardship. But natural change, the real change, is positive. This is a gradual process with a precipitation as certain as the rising of the sun from the east. And hence, the nothingness of man is shown when he is forced to adjust to change. Not the other way round.
Our degree of response and adjustment to change determines the difference in our mentality and style of living. For instance, in food, the rich man feeds on sumptuous dishes in sharp contrast to his malnourished poor neighbour. The so-called rich man knows when to make a change in his level or grade of priorities based on the result of his previous pursuit. For his readiness to exploit change, he had demonstrated loyalty to the dictations of all-powerful nature. In reward he reaps the bounties of fortune at the time nature the supreme architect of change, has willed.
Unlike the rich man, the poor man blindly pursues one trend of life and priority. He is so inflexible that he fails to glance over the shoulder of his memory to evaluate what gains he has made from his pursuit. Has there been a change for better from his regular kind of priorities? The poor man does not ask such question. So, the experience of exploiting change constantly escapes him.
We must change with the changing time and values. The consequence of our tendency to be comfortable in mis-chief-making has proved negative in our dreams to parallel the exploits of others. If you go round our villages today, many people still emotionally cling to ancient fetish beliefs. This forever informs inter-familial hatred and inter-communal animosity. They account for the spread of witchcraft and invocation of demonic forces among brothers and sisters.
Too bad. They tend to succeed in cutting down promising lives in their primes, depriving the respective villages of the positive roles they would have played in their quest for a prominent place in the society.
Man has to change his mentality of hostility towards a brother whom he considers better off. He needs to know that the degree of response of his brother to the commands of change and that the volume of sacrifice he makes to exploit change underpins his success. Take, for example, two sons of a brave hunter. The hunter is known for abundant meat supply. One of the two young men is well known for feigning illness to avoid school any time his father kills an animal for consumption.
The other indulges in the consumption not as immodestly as the first boy. The boy who will not compromise his lessons at school, grows up enlightened enough to take a brighter look at life, to the chagrin and envy of the first boy who likes meat consumption at the expense of education. Is he justified to hate, or envy his brother who obeys change? Never!
Some people claim to have been denied education because their forebears were myopic. Agreed. But how come they also think it is evil and foolish to train their children, no matter how brilliant such offsprings are?
Let us make a change. I am praying for the day when the diabolical will wither or scram from the land or be summarily marginalised by a positive breed of men who will fight at the various levels to make life worth living.
Hopefully, they will prove more enlightened and progressive-minded. They will lead, not rule the land. Surely, this new set of men will shore up the all-elusive development of man and his land.

By: Arnold Alalibo