Prophets say the world will come to an end. They even go as far as saying the heaven and the earth will come face to face and everything will melt and disappear. We hear it through one ear and out of the other. We ignore it. One time, they even said the world would come to an end in 2022. A few people panicked but a majority gave it a deaf ear.
If economists were to prophesy too, this would be the year people should panic beyond panicking. If any economist says South Sudan’s economy is coming to an end this year, people would believe it. It is too hard to describe the living. The economy jumps from that tall tree to this tall one, and from that tree to another one. Could I say it is a monkey economy?
As the sun rises, a commodity is sold at a price different from that of yesterday. When the sun sets, a commodity attains another different price. Could people say there is some sort of a joke in the deterioration of the economy? Why would something that sustains life be politicised? These days, life is too hard. Even a stone is softer than life.
Each day people go out to perform day-to-day activities, the little money waged could not buy anything tomorrow because commodities have skyrocketed further. The common man could not afford to buy a loaf of bread for his children. Each day he sets foot out, his children expect him to return home with a fist pregnant with food, but unfortunately, he returns home barehanded.
His children embrace him and stretch their hands to receive what their father has brought, but their father is holding neither a loaf of bread nor SSP 500. What he affords is to pretend like going to the toilet to urinate but going to hide his tears from his children. The common man is cornered. Only God knows the answer.
One time, a female antelope was undergoing a labor pain. Coincidentally, there was a rain. So, the cloud was foggy. Thunder struck the forest and so, trees began burning. There was fire everywhere. So, the antelope decided to move closer to a river. On the shore of the river, a hunter who had been hunting since morning but could not get any wild animals saw it and started aiming at it with a vow and an arrow.
The antelope saw the hunter and decided to run to the opposite side. Before taking just two steps, the antelope saw a lion coming towards it seriously. So, it suddenly stopped. From the north of the antelope, there was a fire in the whole forest, and from its south, there was a hunter holding a readied weapon. From the east of the antelope, there was a hungry lion, and from its west, there was a river full of crocodiles.
So, it was a catch-22 situation for the antelope to escape. Just like it is a catch-22 situation for the citizens of South Sudan to escape from the economic crisis. The antelope was filled with courage and bravery and stopped to die a dignified death. In such a tragedy, God usually pops up to help. Even if South Sudanese go out to seek a solution now, God will help them.
God popped up to help the antelope. The thunderstruck so hard that it made the hand of a hunter to tremble. When he released the arrow, because of trembling, the arrow missed the antelope, went so speedily and hit the head of a lion on the other side of the antelope. What then could the lion do? The lion started chasing the hunter to retaliate.
When the thunder was striking, the rain began raining and the fire in the forest was extinguished. So, the antelope found it an opportunity to escape. It ran deep into the forest and hid itself to give birth. It gave birth to triplets and all were healthy. This story has many angles to take, but I have, at the moment, taken the angle of God’s help for the antelope.
From the north of South Sudanese, there is a shocking news of oil shutdown, and from the south, there is an elastic political rope being pulled over the conduct of elections. From the west of South Sudanese, there is an unending economic crisis, and from the east, there is a rampant communal clash. So, South Sudanese are cornered just like the antelope was. The only option is to sit down to die a dignified death. It is up to The Almighty God to pop up for help or not.
Thanks for reading “Sowing The Seed Of Truth”.