Do not mistake me. It is not a crime to talk to my parents. It is never a crime to tell my father to be decisive in taking decisions pertaining the welfare of our family. I am an heir to whatever my father possesses.
I will inherit all my father’s wealth, including his golden belongings. I will inherit all my father’s problems, including his debts. It is better to talk to my father before it is too late. It is better to tell my father now than later to lead our family with just, honesty, dedication, commitment and fairness.
It is better now than later to tell my father to use our fertile land for agriculture than to import food from outside. It is better to tell my father to avoid borrowing. It is better to tell my father now to spare some oil, gold and other minerals for the unborn generations.
It is better to tell my father to build schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, orphanages, railways and airports before it is too late. If I do not tell him now, the burden will be on my neck in future. Prevention is better than cure. It is better to fix a ladder now than to fix it later when it has fallen a child.
The only problem is that, when a male child tells his father to do something needful for the welfare of the family, the father and his cohorts take him as a future threat to their leadership. Sometimes, such a child can be harmed or even killed to make sure the father decides and leads the way he wants. With the influence of the cohorts, the father could not completely realise that his child is saving him from building a poor legacy.
Okonkwo’s father was a weak man. He could go borrowing all year round. With borrowed seeds, he could not germinate them well or even germinate them all. Every year, he could borrow. He had debts more than any one man in the whole village. That ruined the white part of his legacy. So, his legacy became tinted.
When his son, Okonkwo, grew up and became a man himself, he hated his father for having had a bad reputation. Then he worked so hard to whitewash his father’s dirty reputation. It took Okonkwo years to correct his father’s way of leading the family.
Remember Okonkwo’s father was just a head of the family. How about someone whose father was/is the Head of the State? How many years would it take him to correct his father’s way of ruling the country? It would take him decades.
So, it is necessary for one to talk to his father as early as possible before things go out of hand. As obvious as the truth that one’s child participates in the building of his reputation, the fact that such a reputation is for the whole family cannot be forgotten. So, it should not solely be the father to put all the stuff in the reputation. He may mess up somewhere and since nobody has the gut to tell him to correct one thing or two, the mistake would go uncorrected.
Personally, I’m not that type who sees a mistake and minds my own business, particularly when the mistake puts the country at risk. I should talk to whoever is responsible whether he kills or arrests people when he is told to correct a mistake. It is not a crime to tell a responsible person to correct a mistake or walk on the right path.
In other countries, such a person who tells a responsible person to lead in a right way is not an enemy, but a friend, the best one. So, I’m as right as rain to talk to my father to lead with just, honesty, dedication, commitment, transparency, accountability and democracy.
Thanks for reading “Sowing The Seed Of Truth”.