Seed Time, And Harvest Time…

The future does not end with your time in this time. Aiye ninu Aiye, Orun ninu Orun. Worlds within worlds, and heavens within heavens. Whatsoever we planted in our lives, we shall also be reaping, in our new births.

I am a farmer of some sort. I planted my first cocoa plantation when I was yet in my thirties, and just before my wife birthed our second child, I planted 7 Acres of teak, reasoning that; even if I might have died before the children would be ready for university, my wife would recoup enough from the sale of the rare timber that the teak would yield, upon maturation in what I was told would be between 12-15 years. Ajibola is now 15 years old, and I am by the mercies of God, still alive.

My dear friend and partner, Ralph Nwoke, once posted an Igbo proverb, which admonishes that the man that seeks to luxuriate in the shades of the mango tree in his old age, should ensure to plant the seed, whilst yet in his youth. I was inspired by the proverb to uproot my front lawn, and to then plant myself a mango tree. I am enjoying the shades today, and it has offered up the occasional fruits in its own season.

Seed time, and harvest time. That which a man shall sow, that shall he reap. This is an immutable law of nature, and it is above the laws and will, of any man. As it is for the farmer, so it is for all men. Our deeds, choices, actions, inactions, the totality of what we do, are all seeds, and we shall surely reap, that which we have sown. May God be merciful in judging us all. Amen.

Our rulers do not usually die with the current frequency by which they have been dropping dead. Why should they? They have access to the very best medical care that money can buy, and they are treated at the expense of the Nigerian poor, who daily die of easily preventable and treatable diseases, and whose deaths are rarely acknowledged or recorded. When they are out of power and had not managed to write themselves a retirement bill that picks the cost of their treatments, they have unanimously stashed away enough of the commonwealth, to pay for the best medical miracles in the world.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the game. It has not leveled the field to be sure, but whilst witches and wizards have become increasingly active, and are routinely blamed for the unrecorded deaths of the poor, the virus has been rather casual in its harvest of the Nigerian ruling class. In this shameless country called Nigeria, the de facto power behind the throne, Abba Kyari, was ill with a virus that was already a pandemic worldwide, but in its infancy in Nigeria, and the Nigerian capital city of Abuja, could not muster the facilities and or manpower, to manage his healthcare needs. He had to be shipped to Lagos for his treatment. The shame of a nation.

Senator Ajimobi was a two term governor of Oyo State, when he finally died whenever he died, he died in the same hospital that was the official locus of Kyari’s morbidity. The cardiologists have become virologists, because they are well equipped with functional Intensive Care Units. How many hospitals did he constitute in his time, and exactly how many equipment upgrades did he authorize? Seed time and harvest time.

Seed time and harvest time. What are you planting today? What do you expect to be harvesting in future?

The future does not end with your time in this time. Aiye ninu Aiye, Orun ninu Orun. Worlds within worlds, and heavens within heavens. Whatsoever we planted in our lives, we shall also be reaping, in our new births. But ki lo’mode mi mo, what do I know.

May we reap bountiful harvests, and may His grace guide us, as we sow in the fields of life.

DF