Take A Cue From The Animals

In 364 BC, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle said: In all respects, man is the best of all animals; when he deviates from order he is the worst.

After studying 2 million ants in 2005, the John Hopkins Research Institute came to a conclusion that, if ants were humans in their organised state, they will conquer the world in a very clean strike.

The research revealed that while performing their tasks each ant moves 0.25mm per sec leaving almost equal space between one ant and the other. All these communicates selflessness, obedience to rules and communal passion.

But the case is different for human beings. Think about the way people (hefty men, pregnant women, nursing mothers with their babies and different kinds of people) rush and fall to enter buses in Lagos, Nigeria; the congestion situation in Bombay, India; Manila, the Philippines; Cairo, Egypt; Seoul, South Korea; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Jakarta, Indonesia. Even ants queue up in an orderly manner in their movement, leaving space for each other. Human beings organised are not so.

Animals engage is survival habits while human beings engage in suicidal habits. Aside extreme acts such as electrocution, suffocation, hypothermia and poisoning, the FRSC in Nigeria recently released a report that the following four acts are responsible for over 7.5% of deaths in Nigeria. (1) riding on a bike without using helmet (2) driving without using seat belts (3) crossing the expressway despite the availability of a pedestrian bridge (4) abrupt interception on BRT lanes. On the contrary, animals are orderly. We say they dont have language but they communicate. They obey instructions and act solely for communal survival - the noble responsibility of providing food and security for the community.

As I am talking to you, over 10 million people are held in traffic in different parts of the world for no just reason but because one or more human beings decided to disobey traffic order. We have no respect for traffic lights. We do things anyhow. Are we organised?

The Lagos State Government of Nigeria has encouraged us to the extent of using renowned Nigerian Artistes like famous Funke Akindele (Jennifa), Segun Arinze, Kate Henshaw and Stella Damascus to tell us the essence of tax payment but we refuse to comply. While some have been compliant up to date, many are still evading and/or avoiding tax.

As King Fahd of Egypt said in 1515; I will rather justify my supremacy over the animal kingdom by orderliness in my kingdom not by the intelligence of my people.

I have never seen a case where lions, the king of the jungle, unleash nuclear weapons on other animals killing millions of people. Death rate from nuclear weapon is 120% more than death from cancer. (Nukefix, 2010). Reliable data from a National Crime Information Centre revealed that every 40 secs, at least one child is declared missing in the US which translates to 2,000 per day and 800,000 per year. Animals don’t kidnap other animals to demand millions of naira as ransom. Please tell me if you have seen tiger suicide bombers, animals don’t murder each other because of envy or jealousy; they don’t give death penalty by electric chair.

We steal, kill, lie, cheat, hit, abuse, discriminate & enslave others because of the color of their skin, age, sex, education, tribe or tongue but animals don’t do so.  We sell poison to others so that we can profit. Even our leaders engage in manipulation and corruption, favouritism and nepotism, ethnocentrism and tribalism, greed and irresponsibility.

If I will describe the animals in one phrase, I will say they are selfless creatures who work together for the utmost good of their communities. Let us take a cue from them.