PULL DOWN THAT FENCE

 

I was thinking this morning.... In those days in Warri, we lived in a community without boundaries. A 'yard' where there were no fences between compounds. High fences were for the rich and those that had something to hide or so we thought. What was common was 'monkey fence.' Today, a typical community in Nigeria has buildings locked in high fences like maximum security prisons while Residential estates are like mazes with high fences separating semi-detached duplexes.

As I drove off this 'fence-less' community, I reflected on how we have voluntarily imprisoned ourselves in Nigeria. I pondered on the different kinds of fences. Though it is said that good fences make good neighbours because it prevents unnecessary invasion of one's privacy, distrust for one's neighbour is at the root of the fencing mentality. The mata don bad so tay, some energise their fences to electrocute intruders.

Beyond the physical fences, there are invisible fences. I stayed in a majority Indian community recently. Though there were no physical fences between the apartments and semi-detached duplexes but there was a cultural fence between us because I do not look or talk like them.

The 2023 general elections in Nigeria caused serious damage to our integration as a people. Due to political differences, very high energised fences were built between friends and in some cases brothers, blocking themselves on social media. All in the name of political fencing.

When a man is offended in his wife, he will refuse to speak to her. That is emotional fencing. However, when a woman is angry with her husband, she places a pillow between herself and her husband. That is not only matrimonial but also intimacy fencing.

The world today is very divided and toxic needing men of goodwill to do something. If you have a broken or strained relationship with anyone, this is not a time to sit on the fence, rather, you should be mending fences (Romans 12:18). If for some reason you can't mend the fence, then pull it down

Stay hopeful. God's got our back.

Happy Sunday!

......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey