By Michael BUSH
Bias is bad, bias is evil, bias is pro-Satan, ungodly. Bias always calls out, never congratulates. Bias always harps on the cons, never on the pros. Bias always insists on the 5% minus, never on the 95% plus.
The person in charge who dwells on the past is a sufferer of bias. The student who falsely believes that their teacher hates them is a purveyor of bias. The teacher who cruelly maintains that the marked improvement by a particular student is impossible is bias personified. It is stupid bias to believe that change -even the most incredible change- is impossible.
Bias keeps you in a box; bias denies you inalienable freedom; bias restricts your view, taints your perspective. Bias concocts arguments that make ashamed. Bias ensures you never see beyond your nose. Bias forces the miserably tiny minority to go south always.
Imagine saying that you don’t want to use cement to build your house because such houses are prone to heat. Imagine insisting that you prefer only outdoor lavatory. That is, that those building your house should build toilets separately, outside and away from the house. Oh, the havoc of bias!
Bias is an ape, a dwarf. It is easy to spot it. Always angry or bitter; always different; permanently desperate to be noticed. Throws tantrums at will.
Bias is a bastard, a bloody fool. Alienated by self-inflicted stupidity that is obvious to all, except self. How does anyone argue with a moving train, for pity’s sake? How do you count something that be, among things that be not; just because that is what you want?
Bias is a captor, a jailer. Someone is sitting pretty in an office but you refuse to accept reality. Please deal with your prison term alone. Don’t drag me along, we never stood trial together so there is no way we could have been sentenced together!
Bias stands on top of a mountain but still can neither see nor understand what objectivity sitting in the valley had cleared. The supreme court has spoken but you are still busy dancing naked at the market square. That is exactly what bias has been doing in the media and in the street since the local government autonomy verdict by the highest court in the land. Yes, it looks like magic but on that matter only bias would compel you to think that the jury is still out.
Bias is a disease, a disorder, a dangerous disposition. Patients live in dreamland. They think others are myopic but others know who is. Bias has a big problem with the mirror.
Bias is a hater, a hateful judge, a hateful listener. That person who concluded on your case without listening to or hearing from you is a selective listener. That person who decided your fate unfairly but apologised when tables turned is a sufferer of bias. Forgive them, for they knew not and may never know the danger and foolishness and meaning of bias.
Bias is a killer, a killer virus, a silent killer. Politicians who deny opponents and their people amenities, please gather here. You too, lecturers who keep back students from graduating on flimsy grounds. By the way, what is holding you from taking those back row seats as well, all other enemies of progress?
Bias is notorious and therefore always sidestepped in consensus building and research. Are many good people holding meetings without you? Or, is it a small cabal? Head or tail, I see bias: deal with it.
Back to the biased hateful listener. They are worse. Apart from being selective, they also pay little or no heed. Yet, they never hide their ignorance or keep quiet.
We must eschew bias, all of us.
Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Traditionalists, etc., all of us. Male, female; young, old; black, white; rich, poor; all of us. Bias knows no age, no class, no colour, no creed, no gender.
Flee from bias, even if you can’t. Bias keeps you from enjoying life, from enjoying relationship. Bias makes you a cynic, a sadist. In fact, bias is anti-life.
You do not know God -in the true sense of being a believer- if bias is your Achilles heel. You should never deliberately feed yourself the junk. You should never play with the rattlesnake. You should never take or give the slow poison.
Have a free mind: never speak before you think. Hear people out: never think you already know. Jump not to conclusions: never judge in haste. Take your time: never go ahead of it.
Be open to learning. Even fools can teach you how not to be foolish. Even nonsense can become sense just by shedding three letters. Life is too deep for you to be too shallow because of bias.
As for those who always deploy bias to target you, you are not them. Be yourself. Remain yourself. No matter what happens, stay true.
The thing about bias is that -like every mirage- it very soon disappears, it very soon melts. The person of bias very soon capitulates, very soon comes to their senses. The unfriendliest foe who caused quite some damage because of bias very soon transforms into the staunchest ally. They very soon bring double of their energy and resources to uncause the havoc they had caused.
You remember Saul who became Paul. The guy was like wind all the while bias held him hostage. Once free from that mental captivity, the new man (in Christ) operated like sweet tsunami. Old things were not only swept away, all things instantly became new.
That is exactly why all of us must be patient with bias. Bias is not eternal. It very soon crumbles. Give it time.
Bias always ends in had-I-known. Bias always regrets. Bias never succeeds. All bias needs is time.
Soon, very soon, they all see the light. Soon, very soon, they all come to the same light they had badmouthed all along. Soon, very soon, they all bow down to the same truth they mocked for decades. You remember Joseph’s brothers, don’t you?
Bias compelled them to hate him. Bias wanted them to kill him. Bias tricked them to sell him into slavery. Poor fools of bias, little did they know they were indirectly fast-forwarding his journey to the palace of power and plenty.
And, when time had eventually finished setting the table, they appeared before the same man; bowing and trembling. On that day, bias cried, and bias mourned, and bias wept -and bias became born again. Bias always bows and trembles at the end. If bias hasn’t bowed and trembled, know that it is not yet the end.
So, ignore it. If you can, endure it. If you can’t, enjoy it. Rest assured that bias shall lose: bias has never won a single battle, and can never win.
This is a special message to you who have seen shege in the hands of bias. Laugh it off because it is just a sitter of time. Bias always surrenders. Please prepare: it is your turn next, to have the last laugh.
God bless Nigeria!
Akparawa BUSH, our Columnist, is an Uyo-based Broadcaster, Journalist and President-at-Large of BUSH HOUSE NIGERIA
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