From my careful thoughts & valid retrospect in comparison to the present today and the Brimming Future of Tomorrow, I write this interesting piece centered on what I detest greatly: Poverty.

POVERTY MY NUMBER ENEMY BY OMIJIE OSHOR STANLEY

Poverty! can anyone who has not really been poor know & understand what poverty is? I really doubt it. I weep as I write this piece because a lot of changes has taken place in the minds of many including myself and I find it hard to understand how to equate my thought with my present status. How can anyone who enjoys three square meals or more explain what poverty means? indeed, can someone who has two meals a day claim to know poverty? perhaps , one begins the real meaning of poverty when one struggles really hard to have one miserable paltry meal in 36 Hours . Poverty and hunger are intertwined , curled into a stake like cucumber tendrils. the former always dragging along the latter wherever he chooses to go. If you are wearing a suit, or a complete traditional regalia, and you look naturally rotund in your apparel , you CANNOT fathom what that beast called poverty entails. Nor can you can you have a true feel of poverty syndrome if you have some quite exquisite clothes, pair of trousers, never mind that all these are casual wears. indeed, if you can change from one dress into another, and these are all you can boast of, you're not really poor. I remember how my brother & I use to wear our night clothes to Church and how we dont go out , especially Parties and Social function because we lack BASIC apparels. Gosh!!!!! A person begins to have a true feel of what poverty scourge means, when apart from the tattered threadbare clothes on his body, he doesn't even have any other , not to talk of calico sheets to keep cold away at night. I speak, Let us face it how can anyone who has never slept outside in the open , appreciate the full, harsh impact of homelessness? Yet, that is what real naked poverty is. He, who can lay a claim to a house , however humble cannot claim to be poor. indeed , if he can afford to rent a flat, or a 6 ceiling room in a town, city, without the land lord having genuine cause or raison d'être to evict him, he cannot honestly claim to be poor. The really poor man has no roof over his head and this is why you can always find him & his family under the bridge in Lagos, in an abandoned tent in Benin, or in the vast open fields in Auchi, Under completed buildings at Umagbai community, etc. But that is hardly all. The poor faces the world as a hopeless under dog with not hope of a bone. In every bargain, every discussion, every events involving him & others , the poor man is painfully & constantly reminded of his failure in Life. Nobody dares listen attentively when he makes a sound point, nobody accepts the his opinions merits due considerations and cogitations. So, in most cases , he learns to accept that he has wisdom nor opinions. At this moment, my hand aches, I feel terrified at what I am writing, it makes my hands wet and my body shake. If only I can change the world!!!! I need to take a break & cry. Lets take this to another dimension; The pauper's lot naturally rubs off on his progeny, his child(too bad) who is often jeered at school, church, among his peers group because his Father couldn't afford 14 inch coloured television and DVD. He becomes impoverished in stomach , this is serious, but also of the mind. The pauper may also lack the resources to send his child to school. And even if he can, it will be community school where Education is free, seriously he will still face an uphill task because of the hunger of the body which impedes the proper nourishment of the child. He is denied access to modern communications media , the poor child has very little understanding and concept to know what he's been taught at school. His mind is a rocky soil on which the seed from the teacher cannot grow and blossom. Thus embattled at home and then at school, making him to be frustrates and drops outta school. This isnt over , weakened by hunger , embattled by cold and exposure to the elements, feeding on poor water and food , he becomes a soft target for vectors that causes diseases. This is why the poorest countries have the shortest life expectancies while the longest life expectancies are recorded among the rich nations . Conclusively, I Omijie Oshor Stanley affirms the following
1. If you can feed yourself and others , thank God
2. If you can eat, you can share( My mum, Mrs Omijie Beatrice )
3. When you give the poor, you lend to God and you fulfill the law
4. Don't mock at those who doesn't have, help them in times of need
5. Build your legacies by giving
6 To the poor, Gear up, Brace up, Do your best, don't feel bad, Your help is on the way.

I Love you.....

You have a rich mind and sense of writing

poverty! Poverty !! poverty !!!