One of the most frequent sentences I grew up knowing my Dad say was:

"I can't beg anybody!"

He always said so when we were in school to drum his belief in Merit in our ears. To him ' there is nothing like having what you deserve'. You can be bold to demand it when it is your right!

He grew up in the days when one finished secondary school and your stellar WAEC result would get you a place in Ibadan or any school of your choosing.

You finished up at university and got to serve. A car and an office was given to you after the one year of service. It was meant for your job, of course.

"Those days", my dad will speak loudly, "people got work, rose through ranks and got in the dailies because they were competent. Riff raffs didnt have certificates or hold jobs. These were days when MERIT was King."

I lived a part of those days. At least, I got into university to study Medicine,for instance, purely on Merit. My scores were so high, I didnt need to beg a soul!

The academia was like a bunker of solace for purists like my Dad who passionately bought into the principle of fair play. He refused to believe professors could bend to political sway or that Ph D holders would meddle tangibly with inserting the names of their own wards for admission, whether they deserved it or not.

The other day, someone told me she had passed her JAMB and WAEC. She wanted to get into a particular university. I felt it was beside the point.

"Do you have someone on the inside?" I asked gravely.

You see, I have learned tricks I didnt grow up knowing.

I have witnessed a faculty delay resumption because the daughter of a key lecturer was abroad on holiday

I have had slots close up for me unjustifiably and open up for someone else because the State Governor requests that this person MUST be employed.

Corporations take resources to publish vacancies in newspapers that have already been filled by candidates who know people on the inside. Senseless formalities a fresh graduate quickly understands.

These incidents become useless to my mind wired to think in term of what I merit. I simply call them "Miracles" when they affect me positively.

Don't we rush to an evening service to give praise to God for giving us an opportunity we didn't deserve? We say it is a miracle. It is grace.

We grumble, only when someone else is on the receiving end of getting freely what we think we deserved by our rigor. We call our world Messy and Unfair.

A couple of nights backwards, I began thinking about the phrase "shades of grey". It occurred to me how straddled we are between two polarized ideas. One where we exert ourselves to conveniently merit the dividends of our labor...like good jobs, cars, sound healthcare. But somehow, we ceaselessly glamorize the possibility of getting things we didn't work for.

Our desire for miracles is often because of our dwindling faith in Merit. It has failed most of us,if not all of us. It has been my utmost fear,however, that the interest to work, to earn, to toil as in the days of my father is gradually broken by the exuberant expectation and possibility of getting rewards we didnt labor for.

As I see teenage school-leavers on the street rather than in schools, the ones who have great results to qualify for admission and the ones who have to combine results in the hope of the same ALL have an answer in unison when you ask them about being matriculated.

"We are waiting on God to help us"

It is the type of answer that takes some to the V.C's hallowed office to prostrate severally for a slot. A proactive move, it is called.
These all happen while others go on long fasts waiting for an admission letter float to them on prayer mountains.

It is life and sometimes, there are no lines...just shades of grey. They are things you have no words to describe. From the pit of your chest you just "hmmm"