Cheating is sweet when you know that the person doesn’t know. Stolen bread is sweet, that’s what the Bible says. It says but, after some time, it will turn to gravel in the mouth of those that eat it. You know what it means? A man or a woman that cheats, the thing go dey sweet dem, go dey sweet dem but the day the disgrace comes — that’s the gravel — it will remove all their teeth.
When a person’s teeth is removed, what does it mean? When a person’s teeth is removed — glory, the person is robbed of glory. You become ordinary because once you don’t have glory, you’re ordinary. Some people who you see are resplendent, it’s not money, it’s glory.
There’s something they call glory. If it is on you, you don’t have to have money, people will respect you. Have you seen people that don’t have money that people respect, that when they speak a word even big men will say “Ah, he’s said it. Please, let’s do what he said”? That’s what they call glory.
Glory is not money: you can have money but not have glory… Glory even makes it difficult for people to talk about you anyhow, because there’s an aura around you that makes you special. You occupy a different space in the very place where you are. That’s glory.
Somebody asked me a question. He asked me my age and I told him. He said he thought I was older. I asked him, “Why? Because of the white hair? It’s a sign of stress.” “No,” he replied. “It is not the white hair.” He said it’s the way senior colleagues relate with me that makes him wonder. Glory is not money. The sad aspect is that, this generation, all they’re chasing is money. They think money is synonymous to glory.
Let me tell you something about the way I operate. I don’t leave room for embarrassment… I will not change.
May you not take what you don’t deserve that will go and block your destiny. Too many people, they take things — you know we’re in the grab generation — and what do they get in return? There are some girls now, if they tell them, “Come, come, we’ll do something about it.” They’ll go and see that lecturer but what do they get in return? Forty. But what they’ve given out is even more precious than an A times ten. They paid a heavy price. And they normally regret it. Some boys too, they’ll go and pay money.
When you give — it’s like blackmail — when you give, the person you’re giving will demand more. If you start giving me five thousand when you’re in hundred level; you can’t give me five thousand now that you’re in final year. Will I take it from you? Who born dog? You go give me fifty thousand! You know the mistake? Never start what you cannot finish.
In my house, I drink wine once in a while but I don’t buy it and keep in the house; I don’t want it to become a tradition. Because once I start keeping the wine in the house and our friends start visiting, I’ll be under pressure each time they’re coming to buy wine. But once in a while, they meet me in the house, they say, “Kofo, wine wa l’eni (there’s wine today). E je’a jo lo (let’s go).”
I say, “Okay, let’s drink it. I can’t finish a bottle.” I take a glass of wine; I watch TV; and sleep. Some students, male students now, dem go dey start the thing way dem no fit finish… When the thing now starts bringing problems, they find who to run to.
The lecturer that you’ve been close to from hundred level, you even manipulated yourself to go and do your project there, and you’re now having problems, who’ll save you? You manipulated the system, you lobbied so that the person would be the one to supervise you. Now the person is now giving you problems, who will save you? You started it.
“Glory,” a contribution of Dr. Kayode Kofoworola.
Until next time, I am Oloye Emeka saying, life na cruise, catch am.
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