Tai Solarin, Nigeria’s under-celebrated educationist,
social critic and visionary reformer, wrote a newspaper article 55 years ago to
usher in 1964. He simply titled the essay, May
Your Road Be Rough. It was the great man’s prayer that the going should be
tough and rough for his compatriots during the year.
Hardly a wish to say Amen to by millions who were in
churches across Nigeria and worldwide to usher in the year 2019. In his days,
as it still is in our age, Solarin realized the controversy his position would
generate. So, early in the write-up he allayed his readers’ fears. He wasn’t
wishing them evil, he averred.
“I am not cursing you;” he said. “I am wishing you what I
wish myself every year. I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this year,
may there be plenty of troubles for you this year!” If fellow citizens didn’t
know how to respond to this strange salutation on New Year’s Day, the
Ikenne-born writer offered this counsel: ‘’ If you are not so sure what you
should say back, why not just say, ‘Same to you’? I ask for no more.’’
Tai Solarin said he based his stand on empirical and
philosophical perspectives that great nations like the old Soviet Union and the
United States of America had exploited to transform into powerful societies.
According to him, “Our successes are conditioned by the amount of risk we are
ready to take…The big fish is never caught in shallow waters. You have to go
into the open sea for it. The biggest businessmen make decisions with lighting
speed and carry it out with equal celerity. They do not dare delay or dally.’’
He told the story of a local farmer close to where he
lived. The man, he said, appeared to be self-sufficient. He had almost
everything he needed to sustain him: fish, snails, pepper, fruits, cocoyam etc.
He didn’t have to go to the town for anything. The farmer said he had no
ambitions whatsoever.
Tai Solarin wondered what would have been the course of
history if we were all like that farmer: no challenges, no risks, no rough road
to navigate, no tough times to test our courage and character, no radical
reaction to setbacks or disappointments.
He wrote: “You cannot make omelettes without breaking
eggs, throughout the world, there is no paean without pain. Jawaharlal Nehru
has put it so well…He wants to meet his troubles in a frontal attack. He wants
to see himself tossed into the aperture between the two horns of the bull.
Being there, he determines he is going to win and, therefore, such a fight
requires all his faculties…“I found, by hard experience, that all that is noble
and laudable was to be achieved only through difficulties and trials and tears
and dangers. There are no other roads…Life, if it is going to be abundant, must
have plenty of hills and vales. It must have plenty of sunshine and rough
weather. It must be rich in obfuscation and perspicacity. It must be packed
with days of danger and of apprehension.’’
But the millions of Nigerians who ‘watched’ the last night
of December 31, 2018, slip into January I, 2019 haven’t read this 55-year-old
essay. So they would opt for the easy route of only praying, ignoring the
solemn injunction of our Lord Jesus Christ that we should ‘Watch and pray’, not
just be on our knees all day, all year round. Prayers should be a preparation
to go into the world to work. Praying ought not to be a replacement for
activity.
We condemn Tai Solarin’s irreverent atheism or humanism.
But this does not degrade what he teaches in this sublime presentation set in
exalted and poetic prose.
Some decades ago, the essay found its way into a textbook
for teaching English Language in secondary schools across West Africa. That was
where I first read it. I recognized its noble language. Then, years later, I
came in touch with another majestic composition: Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
I often recommend the Lincoln oration to speech writers of
Nigeria’s political leaders. What we get from the local scene is drab writing
that serves more as lullaby meant for nursing mothers who want their kids to go
bed. They are tomes of kilometer-long constructions. Let our speech writers
read it, and study it word for word, line by line. The Gettysburg Address is
only 272 words. But history is honouring it as one of the greatest in the
genre.
Now, I think Tai Solarin’s May Your Road Be Rough ought to be so dignified. It will teach us
to set a premium on hard work. Every first day of the year, it will lead us to
tough resolutions followed by energy-sapping hard work that takes us to the
precincts reached by illustrious inventors and reformers who have improved the
lot of mankind over the centuries. When we absorb what this essay is teaching,
our leaders would no longer be satisfied with giving 200 million Nigerians lame
déjà vu budgets.
So, this election year, I wish Nigeria a rough road
leading to a radical change in our choice of leadership.
*Ojewale, a Nigerian writer and veteran journalist,
is a regular contributor to this BLOG (He could be reached with bmrtbo@yahoo.com)
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