THIS TOO WILL PASS AWAY

“Remember no matter what…

How good it is or

How bad it is.

It won’t last…

‘Life is forever changing’…..

This too shall pass away” –Anon.

Whenever I get tired of working or when I get overwhelmed with my research I usually switch of that “work-part” of my brain and try to do something else….one of those things I do is log on to the social networks – actually Facebook and twitter (I don’t know much about other networks besides these two…call me old school if you wish 🙂 ). Sometimes however, I usually switch on to news websites and try to depress myself with the news….did I say depress? Yes I just did…I wish I had said something else…maybe it’s just me but news have shot up to number 1 in my list of sources of depression. Is it only me? But I rarely read good news, it is most times from one form of crisis (– political, religious, ethnic) to some annoying politics, natural disasters…the list is endless…usually sport news use to lift me up but even that now has taken a u-turn…my poor darling team Liverpool is going through a phase in their history which I pray it passes sooner than later…feel free to join me in that prayer unless of course if you are a Man U fan then hold it!!! I don’t need your prayer…:-)

It is while going through one of these news websites a few days ago that I read a news flash which motivated this piece…It said “Boko haram agrees to dialogue with Federal Government”. On a normal day I would have skipped such and passed on…but if you are a Nigerian in Diaspora like me then you know such news squeezes your adrenal glands and you try to read as much as you can cause soon you will be stopped and asked hard questions about ‘your country’ it is even made worse when you come from Jos..yes, they know that is the region where the religious crisis is ‘hottest’ and it is like a full ‘war zone’ no thanks to the western media who are experts in multiplying news effects out of proportion (a story for another day) …you know sometimes I feel like I can qualify as a junior Nigerian Ambassador…:-)

Well, I read the story and prepared my mind against possible questions –which thankfully are yet to start coming…perhaps they (my friends here) are yet to read or hear about it. The issues have since been having a rollercoaster in my mind for these days and usually the best way to take them out is to put them down and that is what I am doing now.

I still remember 2001…September 11 as a fresh under graduate in Jos the crisis started….then it was a ‘Jos thing’. It has since grown in proportion with almost all regions of the country having had a reaction at one time or the other over the years…things got from bad to ugly in Jos…I no longer could take a taxi or a ‘bike’ that will pass through angwan rogo/angwan rimi axis…whenever I drive through bauchi road it was with non-stop prayers on my lips…Fridays became automatic half days and at midday Jos became like a ghost town because ‘you can never say’.  But today that has slipped away…

At a point, we were happy the crisis was coming to an end, and yes it cooled down…then the monster called Boko haram reared its ugly head and threw in a new dimension to the whole matrix. News and events which we only read or watched on TV became part of us…first it was arson and sabotage bombings, then it became even more interesting when we started having suicide bombers. It kept going from bad to worse and I am sure many like me never envisage it will come to an end so soon hence my surprise at the news flash…yes it may not have come to a complete stop (yet) but the frequency and spate of violence and attacks have dropped significantly (at least in Jos and environs). Just as it came all of a sudden, this too will pass away…

The same thing I notice applies to everything in life. The battle between the USA and Osama occupied the news headlines for years and never seem to approach an end…but today that too has come to an end – the Osama era too has passed away. Before him was Saddam Hussein…as bad and as long as that era was, that too has passed away.

The coming to an end of phases in life is applicable not only to the negatives of this life but to the positives as well…my darling team Liverpool (it pains me to use this as an example) was once the most feared team in Europe…our stadium –Anfield was like a fortress…we never lose our games at home…but that is now history as we have been the joke of the town…however even as things don’t seem to be going well for us at the moment, I take consolation in the fact that nothing lasts forever…this too shall pass away.

The super eagles of Nigeria…once so super, now not so super…the current times are challenging and not so good…but this too will pass way.

We all go through difficult times in our lives…we go through what some call ups and downs…if there is one consolation we can pick this day, it is this….THIS TOO WILL PASS AWAY.

Everything comes to an end…weather good or bad…it is a circle that nature has set in motion which is on constant play – auto replay.

Oh I just remembered one thing that has not come to pass away….and will never pass away…that which I hold dearly…The Word of God…Heaven and earth will pass away along with all that is in it…but the Word of God will NEVER pass away…so why don’t you hold on to it too…I have been holding on to it…It has never let me down…never disappointed me.

One last thing that also comes to an end is this write-up….just as it started now it is ending…this too is passing away…:-D