“Fork in the road” is also used as a metaphor to describe a moment in a group of people, or someone’s life or better still, in history when a choice is offered between various, often life-altering options. For example, a person must decide between a new job that will require a move to a new city or staying where they are because of romantic or familial relationships. Neither choice is necessarily better than the other, but the decision to choose one fork or the other — stay or go — will inevitably and differently affect the course of their life.
The economic growth of our dear state has been significantly impacted when exposed to indicators of bad governance and painfully, different indicators influence the degree of impact. A lack in regulatory quality, government ineffectiveness, and a lack of control on corruption has been linked to poor economic growth in the state. The retarded and stunted growth and development of the state brought the state to almost zero lines ranging from infrastructure to quality education to basic health facilities to welfare of the Citizenry.
Today, Kwara is witnessing a Government that is participatory, consensus-oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, and follows the rule of law. Under Governor AbdulRazaq’s watch, he assures that corruption is minimized, the views of minorities are taken into account, and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. On this, let anyone who has contestation to bring it up. I guess no one, right!
Remember, Bad governance is the decline in institutional integrity and capacity, aggravated by arbitrary actions and further compromised by a conflict of interests. Political interference and patronage appointments systematically reduce the public sector’s institutional autonomy and integrity. Under such politicization, informal and non-transparent systems for public sector management can increasingly come to dominate established procedures, greatly undermining both the accountability processes and the technocratic capacity in the public service.
Should we not be grateful for the people’s governor we have in the state? We made our voices one a few years ago to rebuild the state from hegemonic aberration and where is the consciousness again? The proverbial “Atiyo an wa bẹkún-bẹkún kiri” is relatively relatable in our case. In today’s Kwara, our views on good governance are varied but what should be ideal is a Government that has people at heart. We fought and we fought well. Should we go back to the past or we meuuuuve? I advised we should rather keep right at Fork.
In the 90s, Mr. Haruna (not the real name) used to walk around with kids in his neighborhood — mostly at dusk — to enliven our minds with nursery rhymes and would be retired to Idi-Ofi to share folktales with the kids (us) till a time of twilight. The young man is amiable, buoyant, chipper, cordial, festive, good-natured, jolly, pleasant personified. In his pool of experience and knowledge, we got admitted to our first school of Thoughts.
He narrated how Tortoise got its scars…
The grass shriveled up and turned a pale grey. Rivers and pools dried up. All-day long animals scurried around looking for food and finding nothing. Mr. Tortoise was getting desperate. Every day he woke up to the sound of his wife and children crying. One day, while he was wandering the countryside looking for food he knew he wouldn’t find, he noticed a flock of birds flying overhead and disappearing on the other side of the mountain range. The next day, he saw more birds flying in that direction and disappearing over the mountain range. And again the next day. It occurred to him they might be onto something, and he tried to attract their attention. He shouted, he screamed, he danced, he jumped up and down, he shouted while jumping up and down, he ran in circles and waved a stick. None of the birds paid any attention to him; none even slowed down.
Many animals would have given up, but not Mr. Tortoise. He decided he would compose a song to the vulture; he thought the vulture might just be vain enough to stop and listen. That night he finished composing the song and the next morning positioned himself in a nice open spot by the side of a field. When he saw the first birds in the sky he started to sing his song:
The vulture is so good
The vulture is so wise
Everyone admires him
As he flies through the skie-ie-ie-ie-ies
The vulture heard snatches of the song, and he was intrigued, so he came down to land and strode over majestically to where Mr. Tortoise was sitting. When Mr. Tortoise saw vulture approaching, he sang again:
The vulture is so good
The vulture is so wise
Everyone admires him
As he flies through the skie-ie-ie-ie-ies
Aaaah, the vulture exclaimed, what a beautiful voice! What enticing music! Mr. Tortoise thanked him profusely for his praise, then asked very politely if he could ask a favor of Mr Vulture. Certainly, the vulture beamed, go ahead, my lyrical friend!
Tortoise explained that because of the drought, there was no food left where they were living if Mr Vulture could only give him a lift to the other side of the mountain so that he could look after his family. Vulture readily agreed to help his new friend. He raised himself and flapped his wings. Just hang on to my waist, Mr. Tortoise, and we’ll be there in no time at all.
Mr. Tortoise grabbed hold of Vulture’s scraggy feathers, Vulture flapped his giant wings, took a few great strides, and up they went. And vulture had been quite right, it seemed to take hardly any time at all and they were floating over the mountains, and Tortoise could see a glimmer of green appearing below. A few more flaps of those giant wings and they were landing in the middle of a truly amazing landscape. The place was covered in trees and bushes carrying every fruit imaginable, mangos, bananas, pears, oranges, apples, pineapple, papaya, plums, you name it, it grew here in abundance.
Tortoise walked around in a daze, he picked an apple here, tasted some mango there, found some blackberries on a small bush. The most remarkable thing was that apart from the birds who must have discovered this pleasure paradise flying over it, there seemed to be no other animals here at all! This set our Mr. Tortoise thinking.
Now you may have realized already that Mr. Tortoise was not just any old tortoise, but that he had a very good brain, and a great imagination. So, slowly but surely, he hatched a plan. The next morning he found a spot on the hillside which gave a good view of the orchard, he stood upright and started speaking in as loud a voice as he could muster:
Yo! Yo! All you birds, listen to me for a few moments! Yo! Yo! I have bad news for you all! I’m afraid you’re all trespassing here on this land. This land belonged to my great great grandfather. When he died he gave it to my grandfather. And my grandfather left it to my daddy, and my daddy, well now, my daddy he gave it to me before he died.
There was consternation among the birds, they weren’t sure how to take this news.
Then Mr. Tortoise carried on: I’m going to count to three, and at the count of three, I want all of you to have left this place.
ONE!
Hey, Mr. Tortoise, you’re joking, aren’t you?
Is he joking?
No, man, he’s not joking!
TWO!
Some of the birds started flying. We thought you were joking! We never intended to trespass, after all, we’re all just law-abiding citizens, you know. More and more birds flew off.
THREE!
Now they were all leaving. Mr. Tortoise looked for his friend, Vulture. When he saw him, he ran up to him and called out: Heyo, Vulture, hold on, you’re my friend aren’t you, you can stay here with me.
After feasting on the fruit for several hours, Mr. Tortoise had another idea. He really wanted to find out exactly what he had here. So he approached Vulture and said: Vulture, you’re going to carry me high into the sky! Then I will know how big my land is, and I will see how useful it will be.
The vulture replied: Yessir! Hang on to my waist. So Mr. Tortoise clung on to Vulture’s waist, Vulture flapped his wings, gently at first, and up and up and up he went.
It was very breezy so high up in the sky, and Mr. Tortoise was enjoying himself. Whoa, whoa, he shouted, this is wonderful, I’m enjoying this breeze, it’s just beautiful!. Then, in his excitement he started scratching Vulture’s armpits; that was not such a wise thing to do.
Please, screeched Vulture, I am ticklish, do-do-do-don’t do that PLEEEEASE, Stop it, please, I’m sooooo ticklish!.
Unfortunately, Tortoise wouldn’t stop. In desperation, Vulture shook his wings so violently that Mr. Tortoise lost his grip. He went down and down and down and down and down, and there was nothing at all to stop him. It was Mr. Tortoise’s rather bad fortune to land in a place that was covered in hard jagged rocks, there was an enormous crashing sound when he made contact with the rocks. Cracks appeared all over the body of Mr. Tortoise.
He tried to shout for help, but his voice only made a very small sound. Luckily for Mr. Tortoise, Vulture saw him lying there, his body all cracked up, and felt sorry for him. So Vulture decided to get the ambulance, and they managed to get him to a hospital. Because he was in such a bad way and looked as if he could die any minute there and then, Mr. Tortoise was taken straight into the operating theatre and three doctors started work on him. They worked for hours on end, stitching, stitching, stitching all the cracks in his shell.
Eventually, all the sores healed and he was discharged, but of course, he was left with the scars, and that is why every time you see a tortoise you can still see the scars on the back of his shell.
Now, We must not allow what we say or do to turn against us or create problems for us. Our actions or words must never go against us. Often we tend to blow our own trumpet which gives rise to difficult situations that we may not be able to handle. It is always better to remain humble and act wisely.
We cannot but leave our vomit where it is. God forbid the narrative that will take us back to square one. We have got the right man for the job, don’t scratch the good work being done; we shouldn’t allow Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to lose focus so as for us to not lose grip on development. If they ask you to do it, tell them, you will rather keep right at Fork.
