Persistent and prolonged reign of evil is very destructive on the psyche and attitude of the people under the evil gulag. When one is under a system that is offensive and oppressive for a long time, the appearance of a lesser evil is easily seen as the messiah. The militarization of our consciences in Nigeria is traceable to the long reign of the military. The military actually subdued Nigerians and brought untold hardship to the common man. The height of this was the Abacha regime that isolated Nigeria from the international community. The advent of democracy gave birth to this slogan: “The worst civilian regime is better than the best military regime.” And so when an elected official begins to build substandard structures with huge sum of tax payer’s money, the common man will defend such by saying “Let it be, after all we were not seeing any at all.” The long reign of the military who looted the treasury has somewhat made us to clap for the lesser evil. To some, what is happening now, though not the best is better endured than to have another military regime.
And so when someone in the midst of all the landmark “dividends of democracy” cries foul, he is seen as a person of ingratitude. The absence of rice however, should not be the motivation for people to eat goat droplets. When you keep advocating that a mad man should stop passing excreta inside your parlour and he hears you and begins to stool inside your compound, should you just keep quiet because the condition has improved? I think the best thing is to keep shouting it loud until the misdeed is no more. The Priest, who mentored me in 2007, once told me to always demand for the best and what is right and never stop demanding for it. People may not like you for it but they will respect you. Insist on the right thing with all seriousness so that those whom you make this demand from will know that it is true and critical.
In this era where it seems as if getting a sane, sound and well groomed marriage partner is getting harder and harder, many people now seem to be settling for what is called the lesser evil. Evil is evil no matter its magnitude and age. A person of a lesser evil will definitely graduate into a person of worst evil. The young of a poisonous snake is as poisonous as the oldest of its specie. Much of the decay in the society stems from the philosophy that the goal post should be expanded and shifted since the desired goals are no longer met. An insistence on the right thing exerts great pressure on the ungodly. This insistence becomes a motivation for people to leave doing the wrong thing to do the right thing. A young lady who insists that the tattoo and ear ring wearing husband from abroad is better than nothing at all, is making a grave mistake. The greatest nightmare a lady will grapple with is trying to change a man whom she considered as a lesser evil prior to the signing of the dotted lines.
The essence of marriage is not just to remove the reproach of single-hood. Removing an old reproach to wear a new one is just a worst way of solving a problem. The reason why most people give up in their search for Mr. Right or Miss Right is because of impatience and pressure from close friends and relations. Insisting on the right person still remains the key to a fruitful and prosperous marriage. The Standard of the scripture has not changed despite the changes around us: “Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.” (1 Cor. 6:15-17)
It is very easy to pull down a man who is at the top. On the contrary, it is not very easy to pull up a man who is down. This is applicable to a man or woman who decides to marry someone who is a lesser evil. Many men and women of great character have had their lives polluted and destroyed simply because they decided to marry a person of lesser evil. This is why the Lord charged the Israelites not to marry women of the heathen nations. The reason for this is further explained by the Bible:
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. (Deut 7:1-6NIV).
The reason for being careful so as not to settle for the lesser male or female evil is well stated in the Bible: “for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.” The emphasis to this is further beautified in this verse: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” Low self esteem is contributory to the attitude of settling for the lesser evil. Believe what God’s word says about you and refuse to be what people think you are. Marsha Sinetar in his book, “Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow,” talks about people with low self esteem: “The individual who fails to reward himself usually backs away from saying and doing what intuitively feels right. More specifically, he may choose the wrong friends or select the wrong job, perhaps one that is easier than he can handle, or one that is in the wrong field. He may give into the pressures of other people’s thinking, especially those in authority. (Like parents, teachers, lawyers or other “experts”) or tell himself he “should” feel one way when in fact he feels another.
This treatise must not be mistaken for a support or credence for certain discrimination against people. The discrimination of some people in the name of a caste system is demeaning, criminal and idolatrous. People should be concerned about the character and health status of the person they want to marry than being preoccupied about cultural and ethnic practices that have no bearing with the word of God.
