Mr Olumide Olaniya has called on citizens and leaders to imbibe the spirit of humility and eschew the idea of social stratification in different sphere of the country to give sense of humanity to all.
Olaniyan, the author of the book, “Lucidity of Absurdity’’ made the called during his presentation titled, “Think, Act and Remain a Human Being’’ at the public presentation of the book on Thursday in Abuja.
According to a report by News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the 83-page book is a collection of 60 poems which narrated the absurdity in a country.
According to him, while every man and woman is born human at birth, the probability to remain human depends on two factors which are the ability to think and the capacity to act.
The author illustrated the intention of his work using a small hornless sheep chasing a big lion as pictured on the front cover of the book.
“Today, it is natural for a lion to chase a sheep; this is because of certain prevailing circumstances; the lion is bold, big and powerful; it believes the sheep is fearful, little, powerless and can become its prey.
“The sheep also believes what the lion believes, so it will forever remain a delicacy for the lion; you see, an order has been believed and established, it becomes natural.
“The allegory of a sheep chasing a lion is therefore a deliberate attempt to anger every human being who has surrender his humanness to slanted ethos sold to all as natural stratification.
“We must wake up to become human again,’’ he stressed.
He noted that over the century, peoples’ sense of humanity had been removed because they refused to think and act.
Olaniyan said humanity had therefore tainted the world by segregating people based on sex, age, race, ethnicity, locality and related stratification regardless of whether they are the rulers or the ruled.
He explained that humanity had divided the world into a categorisation of the haves and the haves-not.
“We have created a world that has wrestled the humanness out of the human being; this order has become entrenched because some people have accepted the given order not to think, let alone to act.
“For instance, in Nigeria and several other climes, it is believed that men should naturally hold socio-political power and lead; both men and women believed this.
“The elected representatives have always believe they should have over-the-top privileges; the electorates have not been able to challenges this, instead they have implicitly believe in privileges for the politicians; and so it is.
“The developed countries believe they are positioned to help the underdeveloped countries, the underdeveloped countries believe likewise and look for help constantly; and so it is,’’ he stressed.
The author also said, Nigerians regardless of whatever background should ensure that structure did not take away or reduced the human being on alleged organisation or socialisation irrespective of their position in life.
He emphasised that “Alan Oliveira, a Brazilian amputee athlete has a personal record of 10.57 seconds in 100meter race because human beings were able to think and act by developing prosthetic for amputees to retain their humanity.
“As citizens and leaders, we must decide to solve our problems and not entrench them with stratifications; let us think, act and be human,’’ Olaniyan submitted.
Also speaking, the reviewer of the book, Dr Mallam Al-Bishak said Olaniyan’s maiden poet effort is an 83-page 2017 Ibadan based Kraftgriot publication of 60 poems.
“Olaniyan objective is to remodel the absurd republic based on equity and justice since its perception of incorruptibility.
“The book, “Lucidity of Absurdity’’ is a blistering satire that bleeds the society against oppression which he sees as an absurdity; he takes pain to document the strings of abnormalities that endanger the society, Al-Bishak said.
The senior lecturer from the Department of English at the Nasarawa State University said the sixty poetic pieces in the book were segmented into five parts.
“Part one headlined “Of politics and power’’ contained 12 poems; part two called “When the Earth Cries’’ has five poems and part three tagged “ Humanity-Slavery and History’’ floats 14 poems.
“Part four named “Aches and Balms’’ has seven poems; while part five titled “Aspect of Humanity’’ bristles with 22 poems.
“Interestingly, the segments are not water-tight as the thematic concerns overlap into all section,’’ he said.
