By Ibrahim Adeyemi
NEWS DIGEST – It’s APRIL FOOL, the only month, when the world talk about fooling and foolishness. Isn’t it fun to talk about foolishness?
Foolishness is part of life, take it or leave it. A society without folly will not get to the promised land. Is it not because of the wise man that a foolish man is created? So, when you are called a foolish man, you had better be proud of your foolishness. Of course, if a wise man can be proud of his wisdom, a foolish man should not be shy of his foolishness. After all, both wisdom and foolishness make a good society.
Nobody would be happy when called a fool, but this life itself is full of fools and foolishness. Perhaps, that is why a whole month is dedicated for fools, fooling and foolishness. So, let’s talk about foolishness!
Let me go a bit biblical, after all, today is Easter Monday. Let’s pore over the seemingly biblical typology of fools: The simple, the silly, the sensual, the scorning and the steadfast fools.
A simple fool is simply simple with his folly. He lacks something, it is called descernment. He’s gradably gullible, huge like horse but small in sense.There is something common that is not common to him, that thing is common sense. He’s open-minded for any passing thought. He doesn’t know how to say “no”, since he does not even know whether saying “no” is good or bad. A simple fool is a cow, as big as it is, only a thin rod will move it front and back, left and right. We said a child is a fool, his mother said if he doesn’t die. What kills a child than arrant folly?
Parrot, talkative, blabamouth: these are the suitable cognomens to call the silly fool. A silly fool can say anything anyhow to anybody. The gate of his mouth is not always locked, it’s always opened, blaming, blabbing, bragging and brazing his bilabials, at all time. My people have a name for such person, he’s called ‘bankarere’, who believes he has no restriction to what his mouth can say. A corrected silly fool will never want to take corrections, but he enjoys correcting corrections even when he knows he’s not correct. A silly fool is a mad man, metaphorically. A mad man is not aware that he’s mad, if he does, he wouldn’t have gone out nude to the market. The proverbial words of the Bible have said these words about a silly fool: “Wise men lay up knowledge: but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction.”
What can one say about an old man, who deeped his finger in his anus and smelt it with his nose? Can one call such man a full-grown or a fool-grown man? Sensual though, he can’t sense with his senses. That’s an example of a sensual fool. He sees the Truth and spurns it. He appears sensible but senseless because he’s not sensitive. A sensual fool is a leader but very dangerous to follow. When sense is aimed from a sensual fool, nonsense is usually gotten. What a fool!
What nomenclature is best to describe a blind man with catapult in his hand? Ghoulish, devilish and foolish. Such person has a name really, he’s called the scorning fool. Because he’s a fool, he his full of himself, just like a fool house wife (sorry, I mean full house wife), scorning the directives of his husband, will such woman not later be husbanded by anger and hunger? A scorning fool will always rebuke and refute warning. A dog that is subjected to a total loss will not listen to the whistle of the hunter. Any youth that turns a deaf ear to the words of the elders will not only die young, he’ll die of his aversive folly.
A foolish man in position of wisdom. The man caroused by the alphatic alcohol of power. The man who thrives robustly like the latrine cockroach in corruption, extortion, exploitation and victimisation. Such man is also a fool – a first-class fool. He’s simply the steadfast fool as listed above. He fears no one, not even the Lord of everyone. He’s a fool for killing tomorrow because of today. He’s a fool living as though he will live forever. He’s is a fool for looting public funds to build a mansion, even when he knows he’ll end up in the grave. He’s a fool then, now and forever.
Gents and dames, if you fall in any of the categories of fools above, I’m not sorry to say, you are a fool. If all mankinds fall in any of the categories, that means we are all fools. Read the following broken news headline carefully:
BREAKING: FG urges state Governments to create Ministry of fools and foolishness….
April fool!