Why So Much Struggle?

Good evening readers, how are you? Hope you are having a great day/weekend? Is it going as planned? Don't ask me, mine is definite not. Nothing I have done today has anything to do with what I planned to do. If I am to be honest, all have done today are things I never wanted to do, but hey, I guess you don't get to really choose, unless you are God maybe.

I actually had a few things planned for today, for example

1. Do the laundry

2 . General house cleanup and maintenance

3. Put all my records in order

4. Study a little

5. Sleep like no man's business afterwards.

Pretty basic and ordinary right? You would think this should be easy to get around to, after all it's the weekend; wrong.

While I was still at it, I remembered i had to attend the congress meeting holding today, and boy! are they not wise, they scheduled it for 8:00am, seriously, do the guys have a life?

I am the Director of Finance in my faculty's student union government and today was the de-facto audit and handing over ceremony, as it was the dissolution of the old parliamentary arm of the union and the inauguration of the new one, as well as the election of the principal officer of the new congress.

So, I had to get up early and deal with the flashing notification button on read.cash, I read all the article publish as at then, I had hope to write that morning but time was not on my side. After reading and commenting, I started sorting the financial records needed for the audit and every other thing. As sleepy as I was and still am, I had to do it that morning (or na prison for end the matter😂😂). I did try my best to sort it all out in the absence of the statement of the association's account, which I tried unsuccessfully to get on Friday last week.

By the time I finished preparing it, I was very late for the sitting(meeting), but still I had to try my best as I needed to be there. I got there and imagine my fury! when I realised they hadn't even started; Nigerians and Africa time ( Africa time is a concept whereby people come to an event few minutes or hours after the scheduled opening time, with the belief that they won't start before that time).

Well, angry as I was, I still waited until the whole thing got underway, and it was during the meeting that this question came to me. I was just sitting there watching them go about their business; which at that point was the review of the constitution guiding the association. I was alarmed at the level of power drunkiness been perpetrated by a supposedly "educated and intelligent" set of people. I am a member of the executive, and I sat and watched as these guys basically collected almost all the powers of the executive and vested it on themselves, it was baffling. I was almost tempted to ask them why don't they just turn it into a parliamentary system where they elect ministers from within themselves to run the affairs of the body instead of stripping the executive of the little power they had before. It almost seem like they want to run the show but want a number of figureheads who will burn for it when there's power. I just started thinking,

why so much struggle for power?

Really, why? We see it everyday, everywhere, the length people would go to just to either obtain or retain power even in small places( like a student union body). It's worrisome to me because I don't see how someone who wants to genuinely serve or has anyone's interest in mind would be power drunk, especially as all form of power are transitionary ( or at least supposed to be). The set of people trying to chop power away from the executive today won't be part of the parliament tomorrow, how can they vouch that those after them won't abuse these powers they are concentrating in one arm? But I am sure they don't care, this is about them.

The human nature of wanting to be on top is not a bad thing in itself, after all the Bible did say we are to dominate the earth and everything within it, but come on, domination what we see today is anything but that. The desire to have power, just so you can feel good about yourself and ride on people and in most cases enrich yourself illegally while impoverishing those you ought to serve is the order of the day.

Closing thoughts

Power used to be about service to those who give it to you, it was a thing that requires excruciating sacrifices, and hence those who had a passion for a cause and truly cared were the ones who stepped up to wield it, but today the reverse prevails. People now seek to wield power for their selfish and personal gain and are willing to do anything to get it. This is a disease that has infected from bottom to top, from the most irrelevant position in the most irrelevant organisation/group to the highest position in the best organisation/group, not even the church nor family setting is spared, it's just unbelievable, really it is.