~On This Day, A Year Ago
ENUGU WEST GENERAL ASSEMBLY (EWGA) - The True Believers!
…. By Onuorah Ndubuisi Godwin.
In the sanctity of the sacred journey towards posterity, in the furnace of refinement to reshape and fine-tune societal political orientation towards egalitarian political society, there certainly must be true Believers!
The True Believer, according to Eric Hoffer in his good book of the same title, ” the True Believer is the mortal enemy of things-as-they are, and he insists on sacrificing himself for a dream that seems impossible to attain”
Suffice to say that the Believer, not in the Religious sense of the word, has always had a very rough passage in the society. Furthermore, the True Believer is always a misunderstood man, just like Hon. Prince Humphrey Onyima Njoku, the leader/founder of Enugu West General Assembly, EWGA.
The True Believer is probably a villain or a hero. May be an opportunist in the borrowed robes of an altruist!
The Mission of the True Believer is also oftenly suspected. Probably because he waves the flag of altruism and holds aloft the banner of the Courageous Defender of the Public Will. But society on its usual reluctance, sees a flag of altruism stained with the grease of a barely-disguised personal ambition. – the ambition for self recognition.
The pertinent question based on the foregoing is therefore;
Must a Believer be merely somebody who Hankers after public recognition or adulation? Or is he/she the type of person who fights for some special societal interests with the courage of his personal convictions, or is he/she a Frustrated Man/Woman who is merely in search of public sympathy?
The answers to the above and similar possible questions must surely vary from one man to another and from society to society and even within the same society. Because surely, there is no any consensus on the places and roles of the Believer in any given Society.
As for Hoffer, he insisted that the Believer is a Frustrated Man whose only Mission is to make an attempt in making some remarkable meaning out of the emptiness of his own existence. He further argued that; “it has to do with the burning convictions that we have a sacred duty towards others who in most cases due to gullibility, misconstrue it as to be a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft”
Take away your sacred duties and then you will find our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that when we exchange a self-centered life for a selfless one,we surely gain enormously in the public esteem.
I therefore ask again;
Does it mean that vanity then inform the action/mission of the Believer, the True strong defender of the public good against the monstrous injustices, evils of inequality and oppression?
Even Napoleon Bonaparte believed it does. “Vanity” when he wrote on the French Revolution, he vividly pointed out that vanity is what made the Revolution, whereas equality from the perspectives of the enemies of the French masses was only a mere pretext.
Can the same be said to be true of a single man, probably a soldier, who perhaps sacrifices himself for his dearly beloved country?
For James Jones. In the work, WW11, he asserted that “personal vanity and pride,is and must always be an important factors in self-sacrifice for the safety of others especially in the battlefield”
Therefore, thanks goodness for the Believer!
You can denigrate him or his mission as you may wish. Every society is always in dire need of the Believer.
He may be a lost sheep or a lone Wolf who may have strayed from the safety of the pack to contend with the dangerous and unpredictable life of the surreptitious lone ranger.
Whereas it is the lone ranger who insisted that he cannot accept the world with the top side up,as a world with the right side up and this makes all the difference in every society.
He pokes society in ribs and then provides the very essential ingredients without which society itself would die of boredom—life.
Frustration, rather than being the excuse for the mission of the Believer,is indeed his motivator. In the positive sense, frustration leads to the rejection of what is and impels the Believer to Fight for what ought to be.
Frustration is not necessarily a licking of wounds not the nursing of a bruised ego in an isolated corner of the soul or mind and should not be seen in such lenses.
Take a cursory look at events around the globe,in the past and present day.
Many years ago, Nelson Mandela was incarcerated in prison because he was frustrated by the Apartheid government of then South Africa and he decided to Fight against it. Today he is free because the apostles of Apartheid themselves are frustrated by the enormous social, political and economic problems which the obnoxious system have caused their country.
The Berlin Wall was brought down because it constituted a source of frustration for the Germans.
Communism as a system of government have to go away in Eastern Europe because the people are frustrated with such an economic and political system which puts Human Freedom into shackles.
Even here in Africa (Mali), the people’s Army, inspired by the Believer phenomenon have to rise in defense of the beloved country because the political class have constituted frustration to the collective social aspirations of the citizens.
In a nutshell, when a peoples frustration reaches the boiling point, the Believer must rise. There must certainly be an explosion, and then this explosion must give birth to a brand new Society.
Onuorah Ndubuisi Godwin
Is a Development Economist and media Director of the Enugu West General Assembly.(EWGA) – Ably led by Hon. Prince Humphrey Umezulike Onyima Njoku.
Senior Special Assistant to the Executive Governor of Enugu State.
The Rt. Hon. Dr Lawrence Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
