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The Nigerian Moral Dilema

I had a fast day yesterday. When I have a bunch of things to do I like to structure them simultaneously in my mind and do them one after the other as fast as I can achieve them, I am a lazy person and I do most things not because I want to do them but because I have too, so I was on my way back home at about 1pm, I was really excited, had planned out how the rest of my day would be, I had bought a variety of food and had no intention of going out except it was really important, I would have a shower, microwave a cocktail of assorted food in one plate, put on a movie, kick back and enjoy my hard earned ‘rest of the day’. The universe had other plans. I had made the last turn to my house, I was literally seeing my gate, when this car left its lane and crashed into my car and I watched as my glorious plan flew out of the window as I wound down to look at who the agent of chaos was, it was a woman, it was her fault, no arguing that, I stepped out of the car to see how much damage had been done and quite a lot had been, my headlamp was broken, the fender had a nasty dent, I looked at her car and hers looked bad but had less of cost implication than mine. I calmly told her “you’d have to pay for this” she had two guys in the car with her, they both said “oga, sorry please” that wasn’t the issue here for me, of course we’d all be sorry if we did something bad so I was cool with the sorry and mentioned I’ve accepted the sorry and someone needs to own up to responsibility, now we have come to the part that is extremely significant and the purpose of this write up, as we were all under the sun in utter state of shock, while I was silent and thinking of my flushed away plans and how much I hate unnecessary chaotic events, this woman who was not silent for a minute kept going and in the multitude of words, sentences and pleadings said the most bizarre of things, in her words “People hit my car and I forgive them” then proceeded to plead with a lot of ‘sorry’.

Her words put me in a moral dilemma instantly (it didn’t last long), being Nigerian, I have no choice but be religious even though at points when my brain and not my heart is in control I can think things rationally and logically, but for a split second her words almost got me, then my brain kicked in, what is the rationale behind her words? I’m I meant to walk away with a loss that I clearly didn’t bring about upon myself? Because frankly we all make mistakes while driving and to be honest I have had my blunders in driving, the difference though would be I accepted my fault and owned whatever consequence that came with my actions at the moment.

The concept of “if I am good, the universe will bring good to me” is largely based on religion or the concept of it, good and bad are constantly at war with each other or with us, I’m not certain anymore, however, we believe people should be good to us because we are good to people even if the person in question wasn’t even present when you were being good to who you were being good too, but here’s the flip side, firstly, I’m not obliged to be good, being good is a choice and ‘good’ is largely dependent on the definition that society gives it, so what you might term ‘good’ might not be ‘good’ for another person. secondly, if karma is a bitch and she gives back what you give out and since no one is without sin, then I am equally allowed to cast the first stone as a stone will be cast at me too someday, I mean being a bitch broadly means you don’t have to be ‘good’.

So as I stood there pondering in my moral dilemma, I decided karma can get me another day but today I’ll be the one serving this woman karma. She’s paying for the repair of my headlamp.

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