The pages of history turn every year, on January 1, from one year to another. And as the pages turn, the beginning of a new year evokes mixed feelings of joy and of trepidation in the hearts of many.
In the effervescence of contemporary Nigerian religiosity of delusion and deceit, a fetish is built around a new year.
Consumed by curiosity about what lies in wait in the new year, many approach pseudo-prophets, men and women who are adept at manipulating individual and social psyche, making unverifiable claims and pretending to see the future before a bewildered, traumatised and gullible audience.
So many believe that a year seals the fate of persons and nations when in fact it is not the year, but the way people behave in the conduct of their affairs during the year that determines their fate. Many see a new year as mysterious. But there is nothing mysterious about any year. It is human beings who have mystified years. Apart from natural disasters, human beings bring calamities upon themselves and upon others. It is, therefore, not the year that brings good things, neither is it the year that brings calamities. The year does not act. Human beings act within a year. Human beings are agents in history. There is therefore no need to be afraid of the New Year. But we need to be afraid of our bad conduct.
As the year 2024 begins today, let us focus, not on the New Year but on ourselves. We must, individually and collectively, interrogate ourselves: are we in Nigeria going to continue with the bad behaviour we manifested in 2023 or are we going to adopt a new attitude? It is a question to be asked and answered with sobriety and candour. For years, we have witnessed an epidemic of bad behaviour in government, among political office holders, in universities and in cities, in the family, and even in places of worship, on our streets and in our homes.
In the consciousness of the need to change for the better, many make New Year resolutions. A resolution expresses the will to do something that one has not been doing or to stop doing what one has been doing. In other words, a resolution is an expression of intent to change for the better. It is an expression of conversion, a turning of one’s life around to what is true, to what is good, to what is loving.
It is an open secret that most New Year resolutions turn out to be unfulfilled promises, broken within the first hour of the New Year. That is because many people do not understand that not only a new year, but every new day, indeed, every new moment that the Creator adds to our life is an opportunity for conversion, an opportunity to resolve to be a better person. To resolve and to renew our resolve to become better; that should be a constantly implemented programme of life.
If there is a resolution we ought to make in Nigeria, it is to put an end to a habitual disruption of moral order that has made us a society where good behaviour is punished while bad behaviour is rewarded. And we do not need to wait till a new year before making the resolution. There must be in us, in each of us, a daily resolve to change for the better if this country is to attain greatness. Every new day is an opportunity to become better, so every new day is an opportunity to resolve to live for what is true, for what is good, for what is loving. Every New Year is an opportunity to resolve to stop living for what appears to be true, and to stop living for what appears to be good.
Among the inhabitants of this planet, no one is perfect. But to be truly human is to seek one’s perfection. It is to desire what is good and to move towards what is good, that is, if one does not mistake what merely appears to be good for what is really good. In the course of a thorough examination of conscience, a person is able to discover how he or she can use the opportunity that the next day offers to become a better person. That is why a wise person makes daily resolutions and not New Year resolutions.
Just as an old year gives way to a new year, and every second gives way to a new second, we in this earthly existence constantly face the need to transit from the old self to a new self. This change of self must be a daily occurrence. That is why a wise person does not make a New Year’s resolution but a daily resolution to become better.
Since what happens in the New Year will be the result of how we act, unless we ourselves are transformed, our land will not be transformed. Let each day, therefore, be a day of conversion, and each day shall witness the transformation of our persons, the emergence of a new self, a new self working for the emergence of a new Nigeria, a new world.
