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21.06.2014 Feature Article

Who Is The Madman?

Who Is The Madman?
21.06.2014 LISTEN

My little stubborn brother always pesters me to buy him ice cream. Recently, he cried severely and refused to stop until I buy him yoghurt. I had no choice than to use ma last 1.00gh for his yoghurt.

He followed me to a nearby supermarket and on our way back home, the little boy screamed and called, " bro Nat".

As I turned, i noticed that fear has embraced him. "Nii, what is the matter with you?" I asked, and there, he pointed at a poor dirty wretched young man passing by. Nii, my little boy called him a MADMAN. I said to myself, this boy will call the poor dirty man on the street a madman but when he grows up, he will recognise who the real madman is.

There are many people out there who don't really know what madness is. Many people out there will describe the madman as the filthy dirty wretched man who has lost his mind, eating from the ground and refuse dumps, sleeps on the streets and in some cases parades the street half-naked.

Well, as far as I am concerned, the mad man is not who Nii and many other people think is. The madman is the pot-bellied greedy man in suit and tie always sitting at one place to implement policies for the people. The madman is the one who has been given the power to manage the resources of millions of people but decides to loot and share.

These men go round the country, convince and influence lots of people to vote for them to come to power and later forget these same people who gave them the ruling power. I'm asking, are they not MAD?

Just take a close study at the poor homeless man sleeping on the streets and on cardboards laid on stinks, will wake up the next day with frustration written all over him, put on his tattered clothes and keep walking hopelessly along the streets, compared to the person serving others, not for the good of the people but for his own interest.

Philip Umeh, in his poem titled "Ambassadors of poverty" described them as enemies of the economy because the money meant for constructing roads, alleviating poverty, providing good drinking water, good education is stolen by these enemies of the economy and deposited into foreign accounts. These monies are used to develop other people's country, loaned to indigenes of those countries to grow their businesses and create jobs for their people while the owners of the money hunger for food and thirst for water.

Now tell me, WHO IS MAD?
These greedy pot-bellied men in suit and tie sit in offices for their own interest instead of working to the benefit of all. They are the "Barons of Incompetence". Their lunatic actions at the top affects us down here, despite being aware of how badly their actions are affecting us, yet they keep repeating such actions making the hopeless poor man more hopeless and more devastated.

What will make a man to put his brother in such a devastated situation if not Madness? So now I want you my readers to tell me, WHO IS THE MADMAN?

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