3 Questions.
Three mutually exclusive events that occurred last week left me with a few questions and they are:
1. Charity is great, but how sustainable is it?
2. Our culture is great, but how do we keep it alive?
3. Twitter?
1. Charity is great, but how sustainable is it?
I received a call from a woman who claimed to be from my LGA. Let’s call her Bamidele.
Bamidele informed me she had an ailing child in the hospital and needed funds to take care of the child’s medical bills. Now, these kinds of requests are not unusual to me especially since I became a public servant. However, it has become common knowledge that anything remotely related to health will quickly get my attention (for obvious reasons) and I am aware that this could be exploited.
During the phone call, I asked Bamidele to let me speak with the doctor handling her child’s case. Bamidele was reluctant to let me speak with the doctor; a few questions later and it turns out that her child was neither ill nor in the hospital. In summary, she lied.
Later that day, she sent me a text message saying that she had run out of food and had no money to take care of her children hence her reason for lying #lori iro.
I was amused that she thought she could scale my lying detection threshold. That put me off immediately and I wasn’t going to respond, but then it occurred to me; with over 83 million Nigerians living on less than NGN380 per day, it’s safe to say that people will go any length to solve their problems.
Whatsmore, low household income, high unemployment rates, and malnutrition are drivers of poor health outcomes. As we work tirelessly to deliver sustainable interventions/programs that lend themselves to economic prosperity, under His Excellency Dr John Kayode Fayemi’s administration, requests like these make me ever so mindful that there are many Bamideles that need to eat today and meet their basic sustenance.
This brings me to the question: how far can my miscellaneous budget go in helping to address immediate needs for people like Bamidele?
2. Culture is great, but how do we keep it alive?
Last week, I spoke to my nephews who live with their parents outside Nigeria. My sister and her husband have been very intentional with teaching them about the Yoruba language and culture. The children on the other hand are very enthusiastic and excited to learn that they literally speak the very little Yoruba they know to every and anyone who cares to indulge them. The Joys!
In Yoruba culture, males are supposed to “Dobale” (prostrate) when greeting elders, including their parents. So their Dad goes to pick them up from school and the boys dobale (unprovoked 😂) to greet him.
While their dad was happy that the children are excited about their culture, he was conscious of their grandiose exhibition. Conscious because their Western neighbours and schoolmates could misinterpret the gesture. While I had a good laugh as he narrated the story, I asked myself…preserving our culture is great, but how do we keep it alive?
3. Twitter? Phew!
…
That’s the question…
