NIGERIA 2023: THE TUNNEL OF REALITY
We need to come to grips with realities of the moment which point to the inevitabilities of the future, because time is running out, for us to initiate entry into a tunnel of social revolution. Are we ready, only time will tell.
If you must buy a baboon don’t buy the one with a 10% discount. Reality is a construct. At the beginning of the year, I had promised that for 12 months, In Shaa Allah, I will once a month X-ray the issues around the forthcoming General Elections in the world’s largest black population and sufacracy. This is number six, and six more to go.
So, there’s this theory we call the theory of the reality tunnel. The reality tunnel is a theory that, with a subconscious set RI PHQWDO ÀOWHUV IRUPHG IURP EHOLHIV DQG experiences, every individual interprets the VDPH ZRUOG GLͿHUHQWO\ KHQFH ´7UXWK LV LQ WKH eye of the beholder”. It is similar to the idea of representative realism, and was coined by Timothy Leary.
According to the theory, humans see the ZRUOG WKURXJK WKH ÀOWHUV RI WKHLU H[SHULHQFHV and beliefs. Upbringing, education, all the joys and failures that have ever happened to us are the building material for the tunnel of reality. And that’s why people react GLͿHUHQWO\ WR WKH VDPH WKLQJV
Take Leonardo da Vinci’s legendary SDLQWLQJ ´*LRFRQGD µ $V \RX ORRN DW LW one person will notice the enigmatic smile, another will notice the mathematical perfection in it. And the third will see a complete woman without eyebrows. And none of this trio is wrong - they all live in their tunnels and sincerely believe they are right.
And all because, according to the theory of tunnels, there is no single truth. And cannot H[LVW (VFDSLQJ IURP \RXU WXQQHO LV GLFXOW It is like a well-trodden path: comfortable and familiar.
Each exit from the tunnel is unusual, dangerous and unpleasant - but it’s in these moments that real creativity happens, in these moments you can become a creator who creates a completely new, unique reality. Nigeria is at a verge, 2023 presents an opportunity, and a new reality, if we take it, remains to be seen.
Looking out across the rolling wooded acres of Arlington National Cemetery, with its hundreds of thousands of white stones in perfectly ordered rows, brings an assortment of emotions that are impossible to escape. Sadness. Desolation. Pride of country. Anger over so many lost young lives. The stones represent tremendous loss as well as the gift of freedom we are able to enjoy.
Arlington National Cemetery is a United States military cemetery located across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., in Arlington County, Virginia. Within its 624 acres, over four hundred thousand activeduty service members, veterans, and their families have been buried. In addition to the military heroes, Arlington is also the ÀQDO UHVWLQJ SODFH IRU D VHOHFW QXPEHU of presidents, astronauts, senators, and Supreme Court justices. Founded during the dark days of the Civil War, the cemetery now contains the remains of military personnel from every American war — from the Revolution to Iraq and Afghanistan.
But what about those of us who have never been called upon to lay down our lives in battle? Is the whole concept of ´VDFULÀFHµ VRPHWKLQJ IRU RWKHUV DQG QRW IRU us? No!
6DFULÀFH LVQ·W MXVW VRPH GUDPDWLF ÀQDO DFW RI KHURLVP 6DFULÀFH LV DOVR OD\LQJ GRZQ RXU SULYLOHJHV EHQHÀWV DQG SOHDVXUHV IRU the good of someone else.
Nigeria and Nigerians are torn deeply by terrible segregated, divided, dichotomous, ethnic and religious schisms. The nation has as much as one million tunnels of reality. With barely a handful willing to PDNH D VDFULÀFH IRU D QHZ UHDOLW\
As we approach 2023, very few persons are thinking, and by thinking, I mean this THINK stands for: T--True: Is what I write true? H--Helpful: Is what I say or do helpful? I--Inspiring: Is what I do, write and say, inspiring?
N--Necessary: Is what I do say, or write necessary?
K--Kind: Are my actions, words kind to others?
I as a matter of me look at issues from the larger picture. I do not just dabble into matters, I THINK, I look beyond sophistry, anchored more on bare-face political partisanship, and ethnicity or group DOLDWLRQ , OHDYH URRP IRU KXPDQ IUDLOWLHV but I THINK before I write or talk.
Whether Atiku, Peter Obi, Wike, Buhari or GEJ, Fulanis and the South, all are situated in dichotomies, APC is a Muslim party, does it make PDP any Christian? Our tunnel of reality is not a subject within the shores of this nation that one talks about without understanding, it evokes a lot of passions from the heated arguments which it generates, everyone holding dear to their values, and idiosyncrasies.
Again with 2023, our propensity to think as easterners, westerners, northerners, middle belters, all depending on the turns of event comes to bear.
Every nation has countless tunnels or the other, if it is not the north vs south, it is versus blocs, religion or even ideological dichotomies. There are several reasons why such tunnels exist. Sometimes it is a function of creation or political correctness like we have in the Nigerian case.
In our sensationalism, we have in every sense approached most problems sectionally thereby creating all kinds of unnecessary petty-culture-ethnic-religiousparapoism and bourgeois mentality in dealing with our national issues.
Tunnels and dichotomies are one that is used by political apologists as a socioeconomic weapon. Apart from the positive, our dichotomy has been used to exploit and bamboozle the masses without major consideration being given to the dynamics of the law of development which in essence GHDOV VFLHQWLÀFDOO\ ZLWK WKH XQLW\ DQG struggle of opportunities and opposites.