Senator Ojudu and others in the farm

By Babafemi Ojudu

I love farming. Being on the farm makes me happy. I want to touch the soil, feel the plants.

This has to do with my love for growth, whether humans, plants or animals. To drop a seed in the soil and in a couple of days see it germinate is so magical, as magical fertilizing a woman’s egg, giving birth to a child and seeing him or her grow and develop to become a responsible member of society. You put a snail’s egg in a sand , it hatches and develops that hard shell . You can’t but wonder about this. It is hoped that in our life time we shall nurture and see this country grow from what it is now to a point where it shall give majority of the people joy and happiness. It is possible, it shall happen.

For this to happen you and I should be committed to sowing the seed, water it and watch it sprout and grow to achieve a bountiful harvest. In my culture the one who will never do well is the one who set up a fire, roast his yam seed and turn his back on the farm. He will never find sleep as he turns and turns , his stomach rumbling as hunger keeps him awake in the night . He wakes up in the morning to stare at an empty barn and yawn and yawn until air fills his empty stomach.

Senator Ojudu, attending to the yam tendrils

When as a voter you are given a ballot to choose a good leader and you take a paltry sum and cast your vote for the wrong person, you have roasted your yam seed and eat it.

‘Dibo ko sebe’ , that is the slogan of the ‘stomach infrastructure’ politicians and their followers. When you vote for the purpose of collecting money to cook a pot of soup, we wait to see if you and your offsprings will eat that single pot of soup for four years until another election.

When we take our seed and eat it, or trample on the seed sowed by others nothing will sprout. We all suffer for it. May we all be seed sowers and not seed consumers . Join The New Tribe.