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| A cuckoo chick, and it's surrogate mother! Notice the size, and plumage difference! |
The bird is famous for one thing; the fact that it never, at any given time, brings up it's young!
Rather, through one of the most crafty, and ingenious, acts of deception, it uses other birds to raise it's young!
It usually begins with a female cuckoo laying a single egg, in the nest of another bird, of a different specie!
Usually, the target bird would have eggs of her own, in the nest!
The cuckoo's egg, because of the evolutionary wiring developed over countless eons, usually hatches first!
This act, dooms the original eggs, for which the nest was constructed!
As soon as the cuckoo nestling emerges from the egg, it instinctively seeks out every unhatched egg in the nest, and systematically pushes it out of the nest!
When the "mother" bird, who we shall from this moment call the surrogate, returns: it would consider the loss of the eggs as not being a total disaster, since it still has one chick to raise!
Also, it would be too late in the season for it to mate again, and lay a fresh clutch of eggs!
Thus begins the second part of this journey in deception!
The surrogate toils night, and day, to raise it's single chick!
At a particular point in the process, the chick even becomes bigger, and radically different in plumage, from the surrogate: yet she gets fed, by the surrogate!
What is actually happening, is a process called imprinting!
The surrogate registered the product that emerged from "it's egg" as her offspring: and as long as that "offspring" asks for food, something inside the surrogate, it's maternal instincts, compels it to feed the now grown cuckoo chick, which is now twice the surrogate's size!
It is a case of listening to one's heart, instead of the head!
Do you see the parallels between the cuckoo, and the Nigerian situation?
In our case, the cuckoo represents the government!
The people are the surrogate, who believe, that they have a stake in the government!
They pay their taxes, the country makes a lot of money from oil, but it only nourishes, an illegitimate leadership!
Illegitimate in the sense that they have no interest in fulfilling the aspirations of the people!
How did we end up with a cuckoo?
When we voted, our votes were trashed, and and the elections rigged!
Our legitimate choice, our preferred candidates, were replaced by ghosts selected by a cabal of a few selfish men!
Like the surrogate, we staunchly, illogically, and mindlessly, defend a government that evidently does not have our interest at heart!
They buy new cars for themselves, but refuse to give us a working mass transit!
They live in mansions, and make it impossible for us to own affordable houses!
They go abroad for medical treatment, while giving us hospitals that have no drugs, equipment, or personnel!
So I ask a very stupid question, when are we going to open our eyes to see the truth, and acknowledge it as so, instead of just mindlessly defending a government that only takes away from us!
Wake up Nigeria, wake up!
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