By Sylvester Udemezue (Udems)
In the farm? Waoh! Is he one of our students? So lovely! I was like this. Indeed, reminds me of my glorious days in my father’s farm, hoe or cutlass in hand, tilling and ploughing the farmland, making mounds for yam and cocoyam, potatoes and ridges for cassava cutting the grass, clearing the bush, or weeding. How I miss those good old days when rainfall or downpour on my head acted as a welcome, motivating, energizing factor for greater strength and work and to stay focused in the farm. In contrast, today, every downpour chases us into our houses as if rain or rainfall was once not welcome on our heads and bodies as a helpful companion during farm-work. My hoes for tilling and plough, and for making ridges and mounds, and my machete and cutlass for cutting grasses and clearing bushes are still intact in my house in the village. Should the need ever arise, one does not get old in what one knows best how to do.
It is however unfortunate that knives, cutlasses and machetes have now lost their value in our deformed society, and are now being deployed for chopping/cutting off human heads, human hands and human private parts of innocent citizens senseless during armed robberies, needless phone-snatching, brutish ritualism, thoughtless terrorism, unthinking and unfeeling kidnapping, and for idiotic ethnic cleansing (such as the lawless, above-the-law terrorist herdsmen of Nigeria are doing, purportedly in the name of cattle rearing; which cattle rearing? Are we fools?).
Dear Nigerians and Nigerian youth, knives are for killing chicken and goats during the Yuletide and other festivities and the new year, rams during sallah, and for cutting and slicing pepper, onions, vegetables, yam, cocoyam, potatoes potatoes, etc in the kitchen and not for harming , maiming or killing fellow Nigerians. Please, let’s keep and use the knife, machete and cutlass for the exact purposes for which God gave them to us. Stop misusing, abusing and misapplying knives, cutlasses and machetes. Stop killing fellow Nigerians as fouls. We can only build a matchless and stainless country when we learn to use machetes and cutlasses for their God-ordained purposes. Our misuse and abuse of knives, cutlasses and machetes have turned our country into a bloody animal kingdom where waste of blood is the order of the day. Let’s return our country to a matchless human kingdom by deploying knives cutlasses and machetes for their God-ordained purposes. Let’s, one and all, embrace farming (even if as a hobby or pastime) so as to give knives, cutlasses and machetes their pride of place. Let 2021 be a human-blood-free year.
Dear armed robber, phone snatcher, Boko Haram terrorist, kidnapper, ritualist, bandit, terrorist herdsman, cultist-youth and ethnic cleanser, etc, those people you kill or main with knives, cutlasses and machetes are not the real problems of Nigeria and wasting their innocent blood will not bring the solution, good life or good governance you desperately seek. Wasting human blood, on the contrary, worsens our condition and your conditions and takes us back into the dark ages as brutes, savages and senseless animals. Let’s stop this bloodletting and face a blood-stain-free Nigeria. We can’t make progress with our hands soaked in blood. Blood retards progress and diminishes humanity. Let’s respect knives cutlasses and machetes.
I miss farming. When shall I return to the farm, to continue my usual mounds-and-ridge-making competition with my ever-energetic father who already taught me to never waste human blood that I may myself live because he who lives and progresses by the sword is sure, no doubt, to retrogress and also ultimately die by the sword, in line with Karma and Retribution, as what goes round soon comes around. Thank you, father, for having taught me to never misuse, abuse or misapply knives, machetes and cutlasses. Thank you, father. Wishing all Nigerians a happy, peaceful and blood-stain-free 2021 .
Respectfully,
Sylvester Udemezue
(Udems)
(farmer-turn-lawyer appreciating a student-farmer)
