Columns
If Only We Can Live Before The World Comes To An End
By Kehinde Oluwatosin Babatunde
It was the morning after; it began well and ended in sobriety. It was a day with memories that will not be forgotten in a hurry. I woke up to the bizarre putting away and dumping of all things, from television to sound systems, money, cars and all that were thought belonged to the world.
I was a kid, however a kid who asked questions. On inquiry, I was told a denomination of the Christian faith was putting their belongings away as it has been received that the end of the world beacons in some few days.
It’s been years now and memories flood through the grey mist of time as the world has not only remained in existence but has created more ground breaking innovations although with its attendant evil too. Memories help us to codify history, the putting together of history however leaves at our disposal the abuse and amoral use of memories.
Today, we fondly remember the coming to the end of the world both in sobriety and reflection. If you think my submissions are too assuming take a walk into any hospital or burial site and have a firsthand glimpse of what the end or the expectation of it can do to a man.
I got thinking recently that if there is a people that should stop or mildly preach about the end of the world it is Nigerians. My submission premised on the following: let us assume the world would end in fifty years time, 2068 precisely, will Nigeria have transcended into modernity then? Will the country have become Singapore or Malaysia in economic prosperity? Will those things we dreamt of as young people become a reality? Will children ever become leaders? Would we have transcended beyond making manifestos that border only on basic things of life to the electorate? Think on these things and find out why the excitement of an ending world does not belong to us.
Yet because of our selfishness and the belief in the superiority of our faith above others we dance and wine over the coming to the end of the world, thinking we have found our own route to paradise.
How can a people who haven’t lived or found paradise on earth desire that the world they have never lived in to end? The typical Nigerian has known no better life than that of deprivation and lack. In 2018, he does not have electricity as a given, bathing with shower is still a luxury to him, he still pays to get water, and still dies of meningitis; the education he went to school for takes him two centuries below modernity.
Citizens of the first world can desire the world to come to an end, they have aspired, invented, innovated, affected humanity, not us.
I blame not the Nigerian, he has never lived hence the possibility of a better life in paradise easily raises his expectations.
About the author: Kehinde Oluwatosin Babatunde writes from Lagos.
jayeoba
August 26, 2018 at 3:08 AM
Sorry to disappoint dt can’t happen unless Nigerian youths can do what the youths did in Ghana
No revolution, no change
L. Ibiyemi
August 26, 2018 at 3:14 AM
What if the end never comes
Mon
August 26, 2018 at 3:33 AM
I may be wrong here, but i guess the writer is referring how Nigerians embrace and silently killing themselves because of religious matter, the few enlightened ones never want to share the truth and don’t want others to see the light, they hold everybody hostage by not letting people know that God wants this earth to be a replica of heaven as Yeshua pointed out in the prayer HE thought us on OUR FATHER WHO AT IN HEAVEN…………THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH,AS IT IS IN HEAVEN…….death still remain the leveler and that’s when ones end comes in this earth…the soul will answer to GOD.
iron bar
August 26, 2018 at 4:06 AM
Amazing article from kehinde.we ve been eaten by even the tiniest of nations..we are now the giant ant of Africa
Danti
August 26, 2018 at 12:16 PM
Iron bar, I like your flow; good observation.
Bridget
August 27, 2018 at 5:08 AM
We already in end times Ibiyemi and people suppose to thank God that the body of Jesus Christ is still on earth hence they don’t want to hear anything about Jesus the savior. People have not seen anything because after the rapture the worst is going to happen, because the kingdom to rule is not gonna laugh with anyone.
Metu Nyetu
August 27, 2018 at 2:54 PM
IF ANY PEOPLE SHOULD anticipate the end of the world, Nigerians have even a triple reason to do so. What have we to cling on here, or to miss when we die? Nothing!!! A wealthy man who have built himself an estate of comfort would not wish the world to end: he would likely spurn the thought of a paradise preached about by religion, for what other paradise would he wish for beside the one he had already created for himself?
BUT IT IS not so with the poor man. He keeps hoping for a better tomorrow that soothes away his pains and discomfort. And if that tomorrow fails to come in the now, he hopes in the hereafter! And so, Nigerians hope in the hereafter, for we have achieved nothing as a country. The thought of a paradise to come is a great consolation! So, why should Nigerians speak of a coming end? We should even climb rooftops and proclaim it loudly to our calloused, wrinkled, wretched and dying generation!
MADAM ERANKO
August 28, 2018 at 7:54 PM
YOU ARE NOT THE MAKER OF THIS WORLD SO, YOU CAN NOT END IT,
RELIGION ARE FOR THOSE WHO ARE FOOLS AFRAID OF HELL FIRE, WHY NOT ASK YOUR PASTORS IF THEY HAVE BEEN THERE BEFORE.
PASTORS SHOULD STOP PREACHING WHAT THEY DO NOT KNOW .
BECAUSE YOU PREACH HEAVEN AS IF YOU HAVE BEEN THERE BEFORE, YOU ALSO PREACH END OF THE WORLD AS IF YOU ARE THE MAKER,
YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING FOR GOD , WHATEVER YOU DO WITH YOUR LIFE , IT IS YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS.
STOP BEING A SLAVE TO ALL THOSE BELIEVES, PLEASE ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS , QUESTIONING YOURSELF IS THE BEST TEACHER.
DO NOT ALWAYS PRAY FOR WRONG THING, PLEASE YOU WOULD NEED TO USE YOUR BRAIN AND RESPECT SMALL BEGINNING AND WALK YOUR WAY UP.
DO NOT GIVE YOUR MONEY TO FRAUDSTERS PASTORS GOD IS NOT A BEGGAR OR VAMPIRE WHO NEED SOMEONE ELSE BLOOD BECAUSE OF YOUR WRONGDOING.
YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE POWER AND THE AUTHORITY BEFORE YOU ARE BORN, SO THE POWER LIE WITHIN YOU.
BE AN ENTREPRENEUR THINKER AND YOU WILL SEE GOD.