Will of God and ill of man

The fire disaster that razed Ochanja Market in Onitsha, Anambra State, resulting in the death of five persons, including a mother and her child, and destroying goods running into billions of naira points to the nation’s poor emergency management strategy. According to reports, the fire incident was caused by a premium motor spirit-laden tanker which fell and spilled its content continuously for about two hours into the drainage along Upper Iweka before catching fire. While the fuel was spilling, no action was taken to avert the imminent disaster. Even after the spilled fuel resulted in the fire outbreak, the fire service did not immediately spring into action to minimize the damage. It held back until lives were lost and shops were destroyed.

With the poor handling of an obviously avoidable disaster, the poverty rate in the country has gone up a notch because it is a safe bet that many of those affected by the calamity took no insurance policy that could have entitled them to any compensation and mitigated their losses. So, they have to start again from the scratch, looking up to friends, families and government to get back on their feet in a society devoid of any form of safety net.

In his reaction to the disaster, one of the victims, who said he lost goods worth millions of naira to the disaster because he just stocked his shop, said he had accepted his fate as the will of God.

But could he be right? Will of God? Could it have been the will of God for a tanker to fall? Could it have been the will of God for those who ought to prevent an accident not to act in good time? Could it have been the will of God for the fire servicemen to be caught napping in an emergency? Could it have been the will of God for the means of livelihood of hard working people to be reduced to ashes? Could it have been the will of God for a woman who waited 16 years to have a baby to be killed with her baby in an inferno? Will of God? Will of God or man’s irresponsibility? Will of God or man’s recklessness? Will of God or a penchant for not doing the right things? Will of God? Is the ill of man the will of God?

While it is indubitable that God plays a significant role in the affairs of men, believing that God would do for us what we ought to do for ourselves is a delusion grandeur that has been partly responsible for our stunted development as a people. God won’t fix our roads for us. He won’t fix our vehicles for us. He won’t manage our traffic for us. He won’t obey traffic rules for us. He won’t fix our fire service for us; neither will He manage our emergency situations on our behalf. He has given us the power to handle those matters; waiting or praying for Him to fix these things for us is like waiting for yesterday.

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Will of God? That is the kind of thinking that has made us the kind of people we are; always at the mercy of the elements. That is the thinking that has made us un-progressive as a people. That is the thinking that has made us lethargic and uncreative. It is the kind of thinking that has made it difficult for us to effectively combat insurgency, kidnapping and armed banditry. It is the type of thinking that has restrained us from demanding good governance from our leaders. Instead of challenging ourselves to get better, we throw up our arms in the air and expect God to fix for us what we are best suited to handle. Surely, our level of development is a reflection of our level of thinking.

The question to ask is why is it that while other countries are already considering obstacle-evading technology that makes it safe to drive even on a winding road, we are still struggling with trucking premium motor spirit on the highway, thus exposing our compatriots to extreme danger and destroying our not so good roads? If they can achieve such a feat, why can’t we?

Man is not designed to be at the mercy of his environment; rather he is wired to be its lord. But unfortunately in this clime we seem to think that the environment is the master and we are its slaves. Were that to be the case, Dubai would still have remained a desert to be deserted by all and sundry. By turning a desert to a global centre of attraction, the United Arab Emirate has shown that the environment is answerable to man and not the other way round.

It has been said that doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result calls for a visit to the shrink. Our society will not change until we change our thinking. Believing that things will change when they will or when God wills is nothing but hallucination. The power to change our lives lies with us.

The Japanese have said that good thinking leads to good products but I think that is not just all there is to it, good thinking produces good life, not just good products. As a people think, so are they. The good life we have always longed to have will be our reality when our thinking improves.

 

Nigerian Tribune