The Future That Fear Steals.

The greatest mischief wrought by fear lies not so much in the injuries it inflicts upon us, but in the lives it persuades us not to live and the possibilities it silently removes from our reach.

Fear is among the oldest companions of mankind. It has preserved us from danger and enabled our species to survive. Yet the very faculty that protects life can, when it exceeds its proper office, become one of its greatest enemies. The tragedy of fear is not merely that it causes suffering. It is that it deprives us of experiences, opportunities, and forms of happiness that might otherwise have been ours.

A person may imagine that fear’s effects are visible only in moments of pain or anxiety. But its more profound consequences are negative rather than positive. Fear prevents rather than produces. It keeps men from speaking truths they believe, from loving where affection beckons, from venturing where curiosity invites, and from attempting achievements whose possibility remains forever unknown. Thus, what fear destroys is often invisible, for one cannot easily count the friendships never formed, the discoveries never made, or the joys never experienced.

Many institutions have depended upon fear for their power. Tyrants have relied upon it, religions have sometimes cultivated it, and societies have frequently used it to preserve conformity. Yet every advance in civilisation has depended upon individuals who were willing, despite fear, to think independently and to act courageously. Intellectual progress itself is impossible where fear governs the mind, for fear prefers certainty to truth and obedience to understanding.

It is a common error to suppose that courage means the absence of fear.

Courage consists rather in refusing to grant fear sovereignty over one’s actions. A life wholly free from fear would be reckless, but a life ruled by fear is scarcely lived at all. Security purchased at the cost of curiosity, affection, or liberty is too expensive a bargain.

In old age, people seldom lament the embarrassments they endured or the failures they encountered. More often they regret the roads they declined to travel, the convictions they failed to express, and the aspirations they abandoned for the sake of safety. The wounds inflicted by action may heal, but the losses imposed by timidity frequently remain permanent.

For this reason, the greatest tragedy of fear is not the pain it causes, but the countless possibilities it quietly carries away. A man may survive his fears and yet discover, too late, that in guarding himself against life, he has also been guarded from its richest rewards.

It is in this light that citizens must consider their obligations to public life. Governments, being human institutions, are not exempt from criticism, nor does patriotism require silence in the face of incompetence, injustice, or neglect. On the contrary, the health of a nation depends upon the willingness of ordinary men and women to speak with honesty and reason when those entrusted with power fall short of their responsibilities.

For Nigerians, fear must not become a substitute for citizenship. If there are failures in governance, whether in matters of security, economic hardship, corruption, or the administration of justice, then these failures ought to be addressed openly and without malice. To remain silent merely because criticism is inconvenient or unpopular is to surrender one of the chief privileges of a free people.

No government is strengthened by flattery, but every government is improved by an informed and courageous citizenry. The duty of Nigerians is therefore not blind loyalty to those who govern, but steadfast loyalty to the Republic and to the welfare of generations yet unborn. Through peaceful expression, reasoned criticism, civic participation, and the ballot, citizens may remind those in office that authority is held in trust and not possessed by right.

Fear may preserve comfort for a season, but silence in the face of national decline is too dear a price to pay. For the greatest tragedy of fear is not merely what it does to us, but what it takes from us, and among the things it steals most completely is the future we might otherwise have had.

Dr. EK Gwuru writes from Nkolo Ikembe.