IT’S OPEN SEASON…AGAIN!

“It is when you’re ill that you appreciate the value of good health”…Yoruba Proverb

Obscure Freedom

Have you ever truly known how it feels like to be free? Well…If you’ve never been in jail, a hostage or confined to other forms of detention, perhaps you’re not even close to knowing the half of it.

When I saw the animated movie “Open Season” which featured the voices of popular American comedian Martin Laurence as Boog, a domesticated 900IB Grizzly Bear and prankster Ashton Kutcher as a Buck or so back in 2006, I honestly didn’t quite feel the depth of the content of the message. Even now, it is imperative to carefully gather one’s thoughts concerning the relativity of paradigms relating to the unique perspectives which we are bound to share and react to especially in this fast paced and developing world so that we don’t lose our minds.

Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in”…J F Kennedy (35^th President of The United States of America)

Down To Earth

Remember me talking about knowing what it is like to be free in the first paragraph of this blog post? Never mind me much, I’m neither an ex convict nor have I been kidnapped (And hopefully I won’t be), but you pretty much get the idea right?

The point basically is that at some point we all are apparently clueless and we helplessly need to be smacked back to reality. The world as we know it is filled with ups and downs in varying facets so much that being a specialist in problem solving sure comes with loads of perks.

The best things in life are free they say, from the air we breathe to the beauty to behold of the sun, moon and the clouds, it’s an awesome world of limitless freedom to broaden the horizons of countless opportunities, but what are we really doing about it?

I personally would assume that God is impressed so far with the way man has developed the Earth, but I also think He’d be massively disappointed that we are also trying to destroy it.

Come to think of it, like the optimist’s creed, we have lived up to survival by creatively making the world more comfortable even through harsh weather conditions.
On the other hand, we have also been out rightly complacent so much that we have become terrorists to ourselves, just like throwing a stone at the market only to hurt our relatives and by implication, our very selves.

Like A Movie

“I look like a Bear, I talk like a Bear, but I can’t fish. I can’t even go into the woods”…Boog (Open Season: The Movie)

Most of us live our lives just like what we watch in the movies. We talk, act, dress and even look just like the actors, which is why they have become incredibly popular and influential over our lives. One thing we need to realize however is that in as much as lots of the things portrayed in movies do actually happen, most of them are actually designed to entertain us. Lots of effects are being doctored to show representations that we can relate to, thus influencing our judgment in an emotional way.

Open For Business

“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins, cash and experience. Take the experience first, the cash will come later”…Harold S. Geneen

Where do I start without totally digressing from the main point? Depending on who you are, where you are and what you do, there is always an opportunity in sight, and it might as well be a business opportunity, its just that it’s up to you how you can best exploit the situation.

In the prison for instance, it’s always an open season for the stronger set of people. During the great migration of the wilder beasts when they have to cross the river, the crocodiles will surely have a filled day, same thing applies to when an antelope crosses the lion’s territory.

Now let us gently narrow it down to the Nigerian perspective. With the recent discoveries of stolen monies from our treasury and our economy in general, it is apparently safe to say that it’s been open season for as long as we can remember, that’s if we actually knew all about, which we faintly do by the way, as we all are corrupt in one way or another, not because we want to, but technically we were born into it.

“Whenever you find yourself in the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect”…Mark Twain

The point basically is that there has been a massive exploitation of both the system and the citizenry. The extremists have bloodily terrorized our land, the politicians have looted our treasury, the business men have imported sub-standard products, the government officials have connived with the contractors to provide poor services and infrastructure all to our very detriment, which appears to be the very vicious cycle which constantly haunts and hurts us.

And now that the Nigerian government is restructuring and re-strategizing the economy and how it can all be better, which includes reintegrating foreign partnerships and participation, it is open season again, but this time round, if the information of the change mantra is anything to go buy, perhaps we might be the ones taking advantage of the foreign world, or we wish, maybe they will exploit us instead, as usual.

Thank you.

Akin Abimbola (akinzogee@yahoo.com)

SOURCES:

Google

Wikipedia

Good Reads

Brainy Quote

Open Season (The Movie)

American Congressional Record House