PARABLE OF IJAPA and CHILD

PARABLE OF IJAPA and CHILD

There is an old Yoruba proverb that says “The child insisting that his mother must not sleep will also not get any sleep.” (Ọmọ tó ní ìyá òun ò ní í sùn kò ní fojú ba oorun).

Women who nurse babies know the challenge of getting enough sleep while a baby is still unable to understand the difference between night and day. The baby keeps waking up to feed, cry, poo and pee.

The mother must attend to all the needs of the baby during the night. Typically, for the mother, therefore, it is a long, wearying night.

The poor mother gets up in the morning having caught almost no sleep, exhausted and drained physically and emotionally.

Yet she must face another day of sleeplessness and ceaseless labor until the baby grows up.

Now think of the story of Ijapa.

Ijapa is seated with his child with a bowl of food, from which he is expected to feed his children.

Normally, when a responsible parent is eating, there is an unwritten contract: the first morsel that the parent takes from the food goes to the child.

The parent takes the morsel, the child opens her mouth, and the parent puts the morsel in the child’s mouth.

As the child chews the morsel and tries to swallow it, the parent quickly grabs a couple of morsels in-between waiting for the child to open her mouth again.

That is the Yoruba way of feeding a child, and all parents understand that system, that contract.

Now, Ijapa is feeding his child. Ijapa takes a morsel of food.

His child opens her mouth.

Ijapa laughs, saying, “O gbọ́ irú ẹ̀ mi rí?” (It means, “Who told you I’m that stupid to put the morsel in your mouth and not mine?”)

Ijapa swallows the food.

Ijapa continues this way until the entire bowl is empty.

Then he goes on to clean the entire plate first with his fingers, and finally carries the bowl and licks it with his tongue leaving no trace of food.

Our Yoruba elders, our politicians and even most of our natural rulers, have become the Ijapa.

They have twisted the proverb of “The child insisting that his mother must not sleep will also not get any sleep.” (Ọmọ tó ní ìyá òun ò ní í sùn kò ní fojú ba oorun).

It is now “The mother insisting that her baby must not sleep will also not get any sleep.” (Iyá tó ní ọmọ òun ò ní í sùn kò ní fojú ba oorun).

Our elders use the tactics of Ijapa.

They eat everything and lick the bowl clean.

Then they ask their children to go and wash the plate.

May Olodumare save us from these parents of PDP and APC that have eaten up the national treasury, licked the bowl, borrowed trillions of naira, and are calling their youths lazy, indolent, unproductive and good for nothing.

And their children, who have been mumunized in a mumucrazy, just sit down and watch, too shocked to say a word.

NB

NOTICE OF CONTRACT

The Federal Government of 9jazz is awarding a contract to build a high-speed rail track from Nowhere to Nowhere.

Anyone incapable of adding 2+2 to get 22 need not apply.