Learn or Perish

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The prompt is, (Time Travel). If you had the opportunity, would you be able to go back in time to stop a historical event from happening? It could be a tragedy which sent your country on the path it currently is on today. However, you have no idea how much will be affected by what you change. You could make things better. Or you could make them worse.

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Time is meant to teach us a lesson and that is why we have history, to learn not to repeat the same mistake. Sadly, people study history not to evade it but to repeat it.

Often when I discuss politics with my country folks and the situation of things in my country, my contribution and stance remains, we got our independence probably not a little too early but on a faulty foundation which is greed.

You'd understand better if you study the Nigerian history regarding post independence and all the plotted coup.

Interestingly, by 1966 three years after we became a republic in 1963, it became a struggle to remain as one entity. Each regional head wants autonomy of the country's resources and this led to a failed coup with gruesome murder.

Did they stop there? Of course not. The following year being 1967, the country was at the brink of division which ushered in three years of long war called the Biafra war. Again, if not for greed, both the coup and the civil war would have been avoided but, men were drunk with power and blinded by greed. What followed was coup upon coup before the military era finally came to an end in 1999.

You'd think that the current generation would know better, being that everything that took place back then were recorded and are available to study as history.

Well, my dear readers, the current generation is aggressively beating the war drum and agitating for division. I think it should be over a year since the seat at home order was passed in the eastern part of Nigeria by the secessionist group.

Instead of 5 working days, all they currently have in the East due to the seat at home order is 2-3 working days. The poor who rely on daily income are suffering, businesses and the economy are drowning , people are even dying due to the agitation from separationists and then there is the government acting helpless. And I ask, why do we want to repeat history in the most gruesome of manner? Well, I don't ever get the desired answer.

Going forward, I really do wish that we got independence on a more genuine ground. The thing is, if there is one thing I could go back in time to prevent, it is the discovery of crude oil because that became the starting point of our woes. But regardless, can I prevent something that is already deposited by nature? Because sooner or later, it will be discovered so what happens then? I think that will just be me postponing the evil day.

Given my knowledge from reading and watching science fiction movies on time travel and time alteration, it mostly never ends well. While the hero or heroine might think they've gotten a second chance to right their wrongs by altering time, it just leads to a series of chaotic events and occurrences. In the end, the time traveller starts wishing they had let the past be the past. In some of the movies, we often see the time travellers make efforts to go back and put things back the way they were.

Another thing with time is that it's of abundance moving forward but quite limited going backward. I don't think that time goes backwards, but the good thing is that everyday going forward is an opportunity to right our wrongs but then it's an opportunity that is difficult to take. Only few seize the moment and act on it for a better future.