The Lonely Ones Among Us

By Oluwole Komolafe

The Lonely Ones Among Us describes the arduous and slippery paths of the selected few that journey to success from the base of the economic pyramid of life in Nigeria. In this book, the author draws similarities between the capillary action in a rising damp to the determination that propels the poor that rise from the base of the economic pyramid to success by dint of hard work.

Mr. Enilari Olakitan Ekun, a humble science teacher in a secondary school in Lagos, is the main character in the book. His life exemplifies the challenges faced by the few that swim against the tide to liberate themselves from the bondage at the base of the economic pyramid. Other characters with similar attributes to Mr. Ekun are identified in the book. What they all have in common is that they refuse to follow the accepted way of life that the society considers to be the norm. They are the aberrant that see the problems others overlook or pretend not to see. Instead of following the crowd, they choose to follow the road of the lone wayfarer. In summary, the book shows that the old fashion way of hard work still pays off.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532011269

Oluwole Komolafe

Oluwole Komolafe studied Industrial Engineering at the Technische Universitaet, Berlin. He is an ardent student of philosophy and classics and has published many other books on African wisdom and philosophical reflections on the life of man. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria, with his family.

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Copyright © 2016 Oluwole Komolafe.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-1127-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1126-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016918788

iUniverse rev. date: 11/11/2016

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

To all those that labour to arise

from

the base of the economic pyramid

in Nigeria

Author’s Note

On 28 December 2014, while holidaying with my children in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, I made the following note in my journal:

I am thinking of writing a book to be called The Lonely Ones Among Us. The book will describe the life of an educated and enlightened young man who lives in a cultural setting where he is faced with the problems and challenges of a society that sees present images of itself in its past. The main character in the book will encounter the problems usually faced by those of us who live in Nigeria and refuse to be part of the bourgeoning assembly of men who follow the conventional way of life that most of the populace consider to be the norm.

I compare the way the economy of Nigeria had been plundered by some of her citizens to that of a community which built a town hall and in the night, while they slept, some members of that same community went and looted the hall. Some stole and removed the roof, some pulled out the windows, some stole the fittings, and some others removed part of the cornerstone of the foundation. At daybreak, the community, including those that had busied themselves destroying the hall in the night, woke up, questioning and wondering what had happened to the building they had laboured to build.

The main character in The Lonely Ones Among Us sees the issues that the others overlook or pretend not to see in such problems as described above. Instead of following the crowd, he chooses to chart the course of his life on his own terms. He is the lone wayfarer that can trail and follow the footprints of the pilgrim even on a rocky path.

In line with the above I continued my thoughts, took note, and wrote what a pastor friend of mine once said. He reasoned that the percentage of Christians in Nigeria was estimated in 2014 to be 50.5 percent, which translates to 92 million Nigerians who attend churches, Sunday schools, prayer meetings, Bible studies, revivals, etc. He further said that of the total population of 182 million, 43.5 percent that is, 79 million were Muslims. If, according to him, by extension only about 60 percent of all faith communities, Christians and Muslims alike, which adds up to over 100 million, could be reached by pastors and imams on a weekly basis, in their churches and mosques then the pastors and imams would have the unique opportunity to preach to this large congregation of followers and could turn their pulpits and minbars into lecture platforms where they can preach change to their congregation. He advised that to make the change required to move Nigeria forward, we must start with our preachers, who should use their positions to influence their followers to become leaders and agents of change.

The lesson I learned from the man of God’s analysis is that the faith clerics must learn to go the way of the lonely ones among us in order to bring about the desired change in our communities.

...I should continue to develop the idea further.

In the course of a year and a half after writing the above, I finished the manuscript of this book, and in the process, Mr. Enilari Olakitan Ekun, a humble physics schoolteacher, was born, becoming the main character that fits into the imagery above.

Oluwole Komolafe

Lagos, Nigeria

June 2016

Introduction

The law of elementary physics defines rising damp as a capillary action by which groundwater moves through porous brickworks or mortar joints to the upper areas of a building. This hypothesis can better be understood by envisioning the osmotic principle through which oil permeates the wick of a lamp and is transported to a flame. A building that is built in a swampy location will particularly be prone to the consequences of this phenomenon if preventive measures are not taken.

A few years ago, I had a personal experience with the effects of rising damp. The walls of the guest room on the ground floor of my house became damp, and eventually, the dampness moved by capillary action to the bathroom area. The walls were so damp that a lone mushroom started to grow in between the floor and the wall tiles of the bathroom. I found this unusual spectacle very interesting, and in the course of writing this book, I decided to put the picture of the mushroom on the cover to express the similarity between the phenomenon of the upward movement of dampness in a building and the struggle of the poor in our society to succeed, which is what this book is about.

Only a few water molecules or bits of moisture from the copious groundwater can make their way upwards against the force of gravity through the permeable building materials and bring about rising damp as described above. Similarly, the poor that dwell and struggle for survival at the base of the economic pyramid are many in number, but in an attempt to make progress in life, they face untold oddities, and only a few of them are able to climb the arduous and winding ladder that leads to success.

The sacrifices made by the few that escape from the ills suffered by those at the base of the pyramid may be compared to the struggle of the lone mushroom for survival: the mushroom was limited in number, was starved of needed nutrients, lacked space to spread out and multiply, could not be pollinated to reproduce itself, and thus was denied the possibility to expand into an agricultural produce.

In the context of the challenges they face to survive and to become victorious, ‘the lonely ones among us’ are the selected few that are able to escape from the base of the economic pyramid.

What distinguishes the lonely ones among us from those who remain at the base of the pyramid? What makes me call them ‘the lonely ones among us’? What are their attributes? What makes them so special? Why are they the selected few among the larger population? Is ‘lonely’ akin to aloneness of spirit or the lacking of the company of friends?

The Lonely Ones Among Us attempts to provide answers to the questions raised above. The setting is the urban centre of Lagos. The main character is the fictitious Mr. Enilari Olakitan Ekun, a physics teacher in a secondary school in Ikeja, Lagos. I chose him to represent what a typical young man goes through and must do when depending on working on merit to climb the ladder of success in Nigeria. In addition to Enilari, several other characters also show that the old-fashioned way of hard work still pays off in the long run.

I estimate that, of the 182 million Nigerians, the lonely ones among us are but just a handful. These selected few, against all odds, strive to do the right thing and do things right when it is much easier and perhaps more rewarding to do things wrong or to do the wrong thing and not be held accountable.

The lonely ones among us are the few who put self last and put the welfare of the larger community first. They do their work well; they under-promise but over-deliver. They are honest. They are thrifty and not wasteful. They are problem-solvers, and they are resourceful. They are globally competitive. They are knowledgeable. They read and love books. They may not be rich, but they always have enough because they know and can define the limits of their needs and are able to separate their needs from their wants.

They are introspective. They are like a lake that reveals only its calm surface but not its depth. They are visionaries, who reside today in the future and in the empires created in their minds. They are outliers sometimes, and in most cases, they have a contrary view of things and do not belong to the crowd. They are highly opinionated and passionate about whatever they believe in. They enjoy solitude, yet they stand out in a crowd.

They are never satisfied being average; they demand first of themselves and of others that they be the best at whatever they do. They do not celebrate yesterday’s success; they ask ‘What next?’ after achieving their goals. They ask, ‘What if I do it the other way round, or why not do it the other way round?’

Figuratively, they sleep and face the opposite direction from others and thus are able to see what others cannot see. They are the aberrant, marching and dancing to their own inner music. They are most unconventional and will see a pyramid sitting not on its base but on its angle. They are impatient and restless and are continually in search of a way of doing things better, not stopping at harvesting the apple but taking things further to make the apple juice.

They multitask and spend long hours getting results. The lonely one among us is a Jack of all trades and master of all. They take risks and learn from failure, trying again and again until they succeed. When they fall, they look for the obstacle before forging on. When they succeed, they query what made them successful, look for the indices that made the success possible, and determine how they can repeat the success over and over again.

They are in the minority and are mostly in opposition. In most cases, they work their way up the ladder of success by dint of hard work. They are the ones who are continuously struggling and trying so hard to be somebody. They dare to be different and are never satisfied with who they are, always striving to be a better version of themselves. Because they are transparently honest, they are confident and self-assured. They are moderate and do not waste resources.

They are the critical mass whose actions can cause change and trigger a chain reaction in the social dynamics of their community. They are the 20 per cent whose actions can change the lives of the remaining 80 per cent, following Pareto’s principle.¹ They are like Atlas and carry the weight of the remaining 80 per cent of the populace on their shoulders.

Readers of The Lonely Ones Among Us are requested to join the ongoing movement discussed in this book and to encourage others to become better at whatever they do by building and breeding more leaders.

Chapter 1

Every day is the same. It is we humans that try to separate certain days from others, seeing some days as more important. God distinguished only the Sabbath from the other days and requested that we sanctify the day as holy. God did not acknowledge the end of one year or the beginning of another as any special day. It is mass deceit to lead people to believe that the end of the year is different from the beginning of another and consequently worthy of celebration. Resolutions made at the beginning of the year do not make that year different. We are the ones seeking to do things differently at the turn of the year. Do as you would at the end of one year as you would at the beginning of another.

Such were the thoughts that went through Enilari Olakitan Ekun’s mind on a certain weekend in April, a time of the year when people were generally moody, attributable perhaps to the changes in weather conditions, which oscillated from hot to wet to high humidity as a result of the rains. Enilari did not see any reason to celebrate that particular day; instead, he paced up and down his 12-by-10-foot rented room, sweating profusely as the sun radiated down on the corrugated iron roof of the low-cost building where he lived in the outskirts of Lagos.

The cold sweat that streamed down Enilari’s cheeks evaporated and dried quickly in the hot room, leaving a grey crust of dried sweat on his cheeks. The absence of an asbestos ceiling, as was usually used to insulate such buildings as his, coupled with the general poor ventilation of the house made his room exceptionally hot and uncomfortable. The only protection he had from the direct sunshine outside was the corroded roof of the house. Enilari licked his lower and upper lips to moisten his mouth, tasting the dry, salty sweat at the corners of his mouth.

He went to his window and drew the faded curtain that was hung with an elastic spring cord; he rolled and tucked the split ends of the curtain into the burglary proof iron bars to allow some fresh air into his room. He then cursorily peered through the open glass louvre panes and the dusty mosquito net on his window. Since his house was slightly more elevated than the other houses in the neighbourhood, he could see the roofs of the other houses below. A boring set of rusty brown crooked figures that resembled poorly fitted caps on circus jesters met his gaze. For the umpteenth time, Enilari wondered why the houses could not be arranged neatly in rows. Where were the town planners when the houses were being built, or did the houses magically spring up overnight while everybody was asleep? he wondered.

As can be determined from his name, Enilari Olakitan Ekun was a Yoruba man from the south-western part of Nigeria. Traditionally, all Yoruba names have meanings, and if a Yoruba name begins with an O, one can guess with some degree of accuracy that the name has been derived from either Oluwa or Olorun, as in Oluwole, Olumide, Oluwabukunmi, Oluwaseeni, and Olorunda. Oluwa means ‘Lord’ in the biblical sense of the word, and Olorun means ‘God’. The two names for the creator of the universe can be used alternately in the prefix of a name in Yoruba culture as Olu-.

Names starting with Olu-are more common to people born after Christianity was introduced to the Yoruba kingdom in the nineteenth century. According to Sir Michael Familusi, a Methodist church leader and historian, Thomas Birch Freeman and his wife and a devout Ghanaian couple, William de Graft and his wife, arrived at the shores of Nigeria at Badagry to start pioneering work of Christianity in the region the evening of 23 September 1842. The first Christian service was said to have been held in Badagry in the open, under a tree, on 24 September 1842. In most cases, Yorubas born after this time always have the prefix Olu-attached in one form or the other to their names. There are, however, exceptions to this rule, as in the case of Enilari Olakitan Ekun’s middle name, which when abbreviated had nothing to do with God.

Yorubas view the aphorism What is in a name? differently and are of the opinion that there is a lot to a name. They have even coined a counter-adage to support this belief: ‘Ile lanwo k’ato somo loruko’, meaning that the type of the family a child is born into determines the appropriate name the child will be given at birth. As often as practicable, the meaning of Yoruba names used in the course of this book will be translated to give