by Evans Ufeli
Now,I know why Jesus used the road between Jericho to Jerusalem in the parable of the good samaritan. This road is 15 miles long and when you start out from Jericho the land topography stands at 800 feet below sea level, on getting to Jerusalem you are up at 2,500 feet above sea level, an elevation of 3,300 feet. That’s a dangerous road! It’s easy to think and say that the Priest and the Levite in that parable were not good people given that none of them stopped-by to help the man that fell in the hands of robbers. But here is what I think, it could be possible that these men were afraid given the nature of that road, perhaps they thought the robbers were still somewhere within the path. So the question the Levite asked himself was,
‘If I stop to help this man what will happen to me?’
The Priest asked the same question. But the Samaritan turned the question around what he asked himself was,
‘If I do not stop and help this man what will happen to him?’
Now, this is the question we should be asking ourselves.
‘If I do not stop to help my neighbours what will happen to them?’
Our leaders in this country should be asking themselves this question if they don’t help the masses what will happen to them? If we do not bring back the Chibok girls what will happen to them? If we don’t rescue the 18 generation of unemployed graduates in Nigeria what will happened to them? If you do not stop-by to help your parents what will happened to them? We must stop-by to help someone. To help a child who is out of school, hawking wares in hostile environments. To help a girl who is abused by people who should protect her. To help a man who have lost his sanity on account of poverty. To help those displaced by insurgency. To help society get eviscerated from the banalities of patriachy.
If we do not stop-by to fix humanity what will happen to them?
If you take our common wealth and stock them in foreign bank accounts what will happened to the citizens?
Evans Ufeli is a Lagos based Lawyer and writer. He is the author of the a claimed Novel “Without Face”. He lives in Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria. He is on Facebook.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
