#NOTEPAD

PATIENCE IN GROWING

Growth is certain and we all know that. It's part of the characteristics of living things we all learnt back then at elementary school, MR. NIGER D remember?

Growing is fun and beautiful. I mean the idea of having to record improvements and success is something every human being and organization in the world wants to do. It's very human and natural for anyone to do what is necessary in order to move up to the next step or level in any field of endeavor. 

Growth is long process, it takes time and requires a lot of work as well as patience and this is what most people lack. Many people just can't wait to see themselves at the top.

In the quest for growth, impatience is one infirmity that leads to opposite results in most cases. Many people want to grow so fast beyond the natural Order of things only to end up failing and this my friend is not what you want to do.

Understanding that seeking growth impatiently is dangerous is something you need to do and always remain conscious of.

In whatever you're doing, the process of growth will always be tough and time draining. Sometimes, the time frame maybe shorter and sometimes it might be longer but no matter what, you must stay patient and positive enough to make sure you undergo the full process for the purpose of your well-being.

You don't have to be in a rush for any reason because every second in the growing process is important and should not be neglected for the purpose of trying to be hasty.

I know it's hard to wait patiently especially in a world where people grow in different time frames. There will be days you'll feel like you are not making any progress maybe because someone your supposed to be with is way ahead of you or because someone you're supposed to be ahead of is coming up to your level and your aren't moving at all. You shouldn't feel bad at times like this because every person belongs to a different time zone of growth and no two persons share the same time frame in growing.

Some situations are bound to make it nearly impossible to remain patient. This sometimes makes us to doubt the process and start believing a lie that says there are easier ways to acquire growth without having to follow the natural process. In the real sense, this is actually when you need to be patient the most.

In all your doings, always remember that growth will certainly come and all you need to do is to work and wait patiently. It's going to be hard. It's going to be tough. It has always been that way. If growing was an easy task, then people at the top would have never been celebrated. No one would have appreciated Mohammed Ali if reaching the peak of a boxing career was easy, nobody would have celebrated Chinua Achebe if writing African literature was not an uphill task, we wouldn't have accorded any respect to Michael Jackson if becoming the King of Pop was something anybody could do, the men and women we look up to today as icons wouldn't have had these titles added to their names if what they did was easy, it was not, and it will never be easy and that is why those who get there deserve to be celebrated.

We will all get to the top one day. I mean you and I because we sure have what it takes to get there. All we need to do is remain patient enough to work on ourselves and develop steadily. In essence, growing till the apex will take long, but we must wait.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

First published @FelieMac.com

#NOTEPAD

During one of my classes on Media Content Analysis, our lecturer brought up a question that would change our perception of the media forever.

"By the way, what is objectivity in the media?" He asked.

As 200 level students, we all tried to define the word "objectivity" according to what we had learnt in the previous level, what we had heard of somewhere and what our mobile phone dictionary could provide.

After taking enough contributions from the class and explaining the concept of objectivity to a crystal clear state, he asked a second question.

"Can you point out any media house that practices 100% objectivity or is it even achievable at all?" With that, the whole class went silent. Everyone thinking without any positive response.

From that lecture session till this very minute, I have had more that enough reasons to say that objectivity in the media is unattainable. Believe it or not.

No media house in this world of human existence can boast of 100% objectivity in all its daily reportage. Not even the BBC that serves as a model to many other top media firms in the world.

The truth is that even in the apex of professionalism, every media house will only show you what it wants you to see and never the whole story.

The media is controlled by humans and until humanity losses all its strings of subjectivity which is almost impossible, the media will never be fully objective.

Wether you think it's true or false, every media firm has a name, person, movement and propaganda it protects and promotes and for no reason will it publish what threatens to tarnish the image of what it protects. And guess what? Under the guise of "agenda setting" and "framing" this is termed as PROFESSIONAL.

What you hear, see and read everyday on your radio, television, newspaper and the Internet is not the true appearance of news but a well sculpted and polished version of the reality that has been tailored to fit for the promotion of the media firms ideology.

It is dangerous, toxic and unhealthy to swallow whatever you see on the media hook, line and sinker because you are most likely to end up with a distorted image of reality.

In all your doings, never trust ONE media source for all your information but always try as much as possible to confirm and verify what you are getting from the media through comparison and personal research.

This is just the simple complexity of reality.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

#NOTEPAD

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I love childhood for many things

Fantasies are real and reality seems fake

You play with the world

And get serious with toys

But I hate childhood for a thing

In this fools paradise

A wrong kick 

Can burst the bubble of dreams

Never mind young lad

Play and play for all you care

Wear your happy face

And smile to the little wonders the world offers

Play and play for all you care

For God watches your young feet and soul

So every bubble you kick won't be killed dreams

But a burst of amazing surprises

That will add color

To your childhood story.

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.

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I've heard and read good stories, coupled with experience I've had every reason to say youth is fun. I love youth. It's the only time of your life where you get to enjoy the fools paradise of believing you can do anything. Of course you can but it's easier said than done.

You get to feel like a god. What's more? The crown of responsibility sits on your head and like you've always wanted as a child, you're in control.

Youthfulness is a very wonderful package. So much to make you happy. So much to make you laugh. So much to make you dance. All of these with every energy you'll need to experience and explore everything.

Enjoying youth is no crime at all. For all I know, there's not yet a prisoner that was convicted for that. 

Although slippery, speedy and snaky, the path of enjoying your youth is well defined and the ride is running at the speed of light.

Light is speed and like speed itself; every wrong turn, every wrong push, every wrong aim is a certain disaster and that's what you don't want.

Everyone keeps saying it. There's a thin line between enjoying youth and ruining life and you will never know when you've crossed it. It's just like dying in your sleep, you mistake the afterlife for a dream until it's too late.

I didn't write this because I'm a saint or because I'm done with my own ride or to sound like some hypocrite or something. I'm still riding too and I hope and pray I'll get to tell the story of my ride one day.

In the end. It might be two decades from now or more. It might be to my grandkids or students. It might be in a family dinner or a birthday. It might and it might never be but I pray it should and it should come with smiles and an exhausted to-do list. I hope you do too. Old age will be more fun than youth provided we ride well. Trust me.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

#NOTEPAD

After pornography, the next worst thing you can do to your mental health is having conversations with people who are dumb enough to believe that learning new things is a total taboo.

Believe these words or not, our world certainly has a fair share of these people and fate has distributed them so evenly that you'll always get to see one everyday.

Experience will tell you that every word these people say, every point they make in an argument and every opinion they share is never bare of toxicity. 

They carry a rare kind of toxicity that affects the most precious possession you could have as a human. Your mind.

Whatever it is, in all your doings, try not to engage in any exchange of ideas with these people because it will always prove to be a waste of valuable time, energy and brain power. Good morning and happy new week. 😊

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

JUSTICE FOR UWA: HOW FAR WE'VE COME WITH THE POLICE.

While America and a greater part of the world have been submerged in an aggressive online and offline protest against racism, the Nigerian narrative have also had the internet on fire over one of the most gruesome, appalling and horrendous malefactions to be committed against any person in God's green earth. Rape and murder.

Nigerians have had their social media timelines become an inferno of reactions, comments and protests sparked by the horrific rape and murder of 22-year-old Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, a microbiology student of the University of Benin. A hideous act of misdeed that took place at one of the Reedemed Christian Church of God branch in Benin city, a church where Uwa worshipped with her parents until her tragic demise.

News report had it that Uwa (as popularly called by friends and family) had left home on Wednesday May 27 for the church to read just like she had been doing before and ever since the initiation of the lockdown order in the country for very obvious reasons only to have her paths cross with that of the miscreants that had a wicked and violent nonconsensual carnal knowledge of her and sent her to her early grave. 

These men with nothing but evil intentions didn't just stop at raping her, they went ahead to attack her with a fire extinguisher making her sustain serious injuries. Three days later, Uwa died in a hospital and the news of her death have given the Nigerian social media space an offline gist communities a shock they are yet to recover from.

The news of Uwa's death was received by numerous reactions from Nigerians calling out to the appropriate law enforcement agencies to swing into action and make sure the culprits were made to face the law. 

One of the first of these effects was the trending of the hashtag #JusticeForUwa on social media. A trend of had numerous of Nigerian top celebrities condemning the totality of rape as a crime, calling out for justice for the deceased, and also sympathizing with the family of the victim.

Sooner than later, Nigerians got a reassuring message from the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu who through his spokesperson, Frank Mba issued a statement on Monday vowing "that the force will surely bring the perpetrators of the callous act to book in the shortest possible time.” 

The IG also begged Nigerians to remain calm even though it was difficult to due to the extreme emotions Uwa's death evoked.

The statement also informed the public that the IG had drafted investigation aids and forensic support to Edo state all in an effort to ensure the Uwa's killers were stripped of their present anonymity and made to face the punishment for rape and murder as provided by the Constitution.

Yesterday, a report that confirmed progress in the tracking and arresting of Uwa's killers surfaced on the internet. Nigerians were given yet another reason to believe the police were actually doing something when news came that one of the suspects was identified, tracked and arrested.

The development was made known to the eager public through a statement from the spokesman of Edo Police Command, Chidi Nwabuzor.

Nwabuzor claimed the suspect was identfied through the fingerprints that were left on the fire extinguisher which is the murder weapon that was used against Uwa.

A lot of Nigerians including myself are hoping and praying that Uwa's case doesn't get swept under the carpet like others that were before now and until this moment, the Nigerian Police Force have been doing the opposite.

Almost all hopes have been on the competence of the NPF despite the recent happenings like police brutality and killing of innocent civilians by trigger happy policemen that have created a bad image of the force.

The Nigerian Police Force sure has its own weakness and the public is clearly aware of that but no matter what, Uwa's murderers must be brought to book and the NPF must give it their best shot and nothing else.

After putting up this post, I'll join the rest of Nigerians on the internet in tracking the latest development of this story and others. For judging wether or not the NPF is equal to the task of solving Uwa's rape and murder and also the other numerous rape cases that have been troubling the internet lately, I will try not to.

Rape and murder are crimes and Uwa deserves justice even in death. It will surely come because it's the only thing we can hope for at a time like this.

Uwa will get justice. 

I hope

I believe

I know.

May your soul find rest, Uwa.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

Kingofthequill.blogspot.com

For those of you that justify rape, don't come near this post else, the social media principle of Tiger generator will be your portion.

MY CHILD

The moon was smiling at Grandpa's homestead

I could hear my clansmen pounding the leather drums

Crickets chirping and owls hooting

This was the African night I longed for.

Grandpa laid asleep

His face up, while his back faced the earth

He was among the fallen heroes of the Hamlet

Sleeping six feet below a pile of sand.

Grandma sat on a wooden stool

Chewing on her youthful days 

As she munched her chewing stick

Her eyes staring into the future as she thought about the past.

My child! She called out

Come sit close to me

Under the luxury of this moonlit night

Let me tell you a story

A story with which I'll write history

On the clean slate of your childhood memory

Let me tell you what my father told me

About his father and the fathers that were before him.

Once, your ancestors were giants

Men that wrestled with leopards and lions

Men that fought with tigers for tribes

These men carved the ivory mask of Benin

They made the furnace that fired the terracotta

They carved the Calabar statues with elongated arms

They danced to the tune of the Tom-tom and Kakaki

They lived the written literature of Moremi, Mutanda and more.

Your ancestors were great men

Their braveness the height of the Kilimanjaro

Their love for one another flowing like the Nile

Their strength like the raffia ropes of Ikot Ekpene

Their African spirit was wild fire in the harmattan

But like your grandpa,

They died forgotten as their red caps lost its colours

The day they died, 

The African spirit fell asleep

What killed the African spirit 

Was the question my innocent childhood lips could mutter

Change!

The white change

As the church bell rang from afar.

Grandma pointed at the crucifix

There lies the reason

That cathedral sent the African spirit to sleep

It made us cast away our sack cloth and follow the cotton cassock

We lost our fathers because a man came to teach us how to say our father.

And like sheep, we ate the wheat and weed from the pastures of the pulpit

And till today, like sheep, we obey the shepherd and not the master.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)

PALLBEARERS

PALLBEARERS

Your legs are revamping brooms

Sweeping the life out of the way

As you stride in a dancesteps of the dirge.

Your shoulders are open umbrellas

Carrying sleeping souls and dead dreams

In the parade of a last respect.

Dear pallbearer.

Does your shoulder ever ache

From carrying the heavy burden

Of a widows wails and an orphan's misery?

Does your soul ever feel sober

To the dirge meant for the men you lift

In the long procession to resting in peace?

Does it ever occur to you

That while you're just working for butter on your daily bread

The world sees you as ambassadors of death?

I salute your courage for many million reasons

To march in the midst of tears and not tear

Offering your shoulders to lift the funeral burden

While your faces become a mental image the dirge creates.

I worry about your end more than mine

For if you lead all to the grave and none is left

What feet shall walk you home when you die?

What shoulders will lift your cups in a toast?

What voice will sing your dirge?

For if you lead all to the grave and none is left

Then none will have the right to bid you farewell.

© Ifiokobong Etuk

(KING of the QUILL)