How Knowing Less Can Mislead A Child By Rotimi Makinde

The story you are about to read is not so different from the ” ” which is one of the parables of Jesus Christ in the Bible, appearing in Luke 15:11–32.

He is one of the favourite children of his parents, well loved by the father, not because of his sagacity or for being born with special gifts but the love was just too natural. He was the most sought among the known children of his parents. Regardless of how weighty a situation is, it has to wait for his input before decisions are taken. His advice they seek and his honour they enjoyed in most cases.

The parable of the prodigal son teaches us how we can choose to live our life. We can be like the younger brother who lived recklessly or be the elder brother who lived and did everything right, which is, following the rules. 

At a point, the love showered on this young man went too far into his oblonganta on a certain day and he saw an opportunity to further sell his special gift to the outside world.

His father was reported to have slept with a particular married woman, the old man erred in all ramifications; he was so carried away, he threw caution to the winds and did this act in a shameful manner and right on the bed of the woman’s matrimonial home. Indeed, it was a shameful act that attracted the entire community to a standstill. Even at that, the old Man was courageous enough to sought the attention of his beloved son, he saw him still in that circumstances as the greatest adviser he wanted around.

With People’s intervention, the young man came face to face with his demoralised father. Looking through the crowd, the father insisted he be allowed to speak with his beloved son alone and he wanted it in private. The son dishonoured his cries and listened more to the wailing of the crowd and blatantly refused to grant his father the much needed private audience.

From a vantage where he stood within the crowd, he lambasted his father so much that the old man wept uncontrollably like a baby in shame.

To the generality of the people standing, they hail and sang the praises of this man as an upright but that was ephemeral as the husband of the woman caught in the illicit affairs with, appeared on the scene. He arrived from farm and he was aghast to see the crowd of people at his door step. He peeped through his window to see the accused – He saw his wife and the man now dressed. He shook his head and took a walk backward and later he began to address the awaited crowd.

His gentle and calm tone perplexed the belligerent people. He was in the fore knowledge of the scenario that brought the caged man to his household…

Mangana yankhare! Oro pesi je! Case don finish! Oto ni abimo ku, to ni agbara yi eje..

The sympathizers crying more than the bereaved. The crowd, one by one, apologised to the old man and they departed to their different homes one after the other.

The old man got to his home with his son to tell a bitter story to his son and other members of the family. This he did when his mother was even there to listen and to collaborate his statement of fact.

It was not a palatable story at all for the young man who took his father to trash openly as he was made to listen to how He, who was bold to lambast his father in the open was not even the biological son of the man but the son of the very man who just left them off the hook and saved them from the shame.

We must therefore learn to give advice and especially to our parents right in our privacy and not in the open no matter their offences and never to play to the gallery in the name of showcasing our uprightness or to score one political fame or to attract integrity.

There’s no dignity or honour in clout chasing, it only breeds hypocrisy, hence, disrespect and shame upon the clout chaser which usually boomerangs.

You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending so as to have a dignified personality.