THE RISK OF REFUSING TO TAKE A RISK

    Experience has shown that when you refuse to take a risk, that same risk will take you.

    History has it that most men who succeeded in life took risks; unlike others who refused to take risks, but had risks staring back at them. Such men staked all they had just to achieve specific aims even though they knew that something bad could happen as a result.

    For instance, by refusing to take risks to defend their rights, the entire Blacks in Soweto risked their lives under apartheid (the former political system in South Africa in which only White people had full political rights while the Blacks were forced to live away from White people). Oswald Mtshali writes in Night Fall in Soweto that black people were "slaughtered every night in the streets… cornered by the fear" of taking risks.

    Later, a South African man decided to take risks by crusading for justice and freedom. Dr. Nelson Mandela's courage and tenacity in the ugly face of risks led to the emancipation of South Africans and the eventual eradication of apartheid. According to Mandela in his Inaugural Speech in May 1994, "apartheid is an extraordinary human disaster out of which must be born a society, which all humanity will be proud." Although Mandela spent most of his life in prison fighting this cause, the risks he took liberated his people.

    In the meantime, note that the risk of refusing to take a risk is living with the risk until you opt to take that risk. Risks are like the air we breathe. They saturate our lives and drive us restless. Just like the east wind, risks blow us around until we decide to stand and take a wedge.

    Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. took a wedge in the over-powering influence of Whites over Blacks in America. He took a risk and said enough was enough by leading the greatest and largest demonstration for freedom ever held in America on June 23, 1963 popularly called The Great Match on Detroit. In a speech, Martin said, "the price that this nation must pay for the continued oppression and exploitation of the Negro or any other minority group is the price of its own destruction." Martin's ideas contained in his I Have a Dream speech wound up as America's ideology, years after he was assassinated.

    The fear of failure and its immediate aftermath make people to refrain from taking risks. But not taking risks is a failure with its immediate consequences as well.

    Take oil exploration in the Niger-Delta. Ken Saro-Wiwa's struggle for the preservation of Ogoniland led to his execution by Abacha's regime, but the aftermath of the risks he took can be seen in the manner in which government attaches priorities on the development of the region.

    Finally, it suffices that the wise will never evade risks. If you evade risks, the same risks end up overtaking you and waiting for you in future.