By Dr Doyin Okupe<\/p>\n
An old widow with seven children was having a very rough time feeding her family from the meagre income she was getting from sales of “Akara” in her village square. The Akara was very delicious and patronized by many people in the village. But villagers were very few in number being a small village\u00a0 and they only ate Akara in the morning.<\/p>\n
One day a retired banker living in the village advised the widow to take the advantage of the new express road which passed just a few kilometres by the village and move her business there. The travellers commuting to and fro are by far many times more than the villagers and they have more money and the traffic wad all day.<\/p>\n
The widow heeded the advice and prospered greatly.<\/p>\n
Few months down the line a middle aged baker from the village sort permission from the widow to put up a small table beside her to sell bread to her customers. She gladly acquiesced because the customers though they enjoyed the Akara greatly often times asked if she had bread.<\/p>\n
This new arrangements profited them both. customers bought more Akara and the bakers business that was on the verge of closing down in the village received a major boost financially.<\/p>\n
Shortly a young enterprising lad observing the new prosperity of these two approached them to kindly allow him to perch with them to sell ” pure water”. Because there was obvious demand for the water his reauest was jointly enthusiastically approved.<\/p>\n
The resultant prosperity of the trio because of the synergy provided by their individual enterprise and industry was unprecedented. The effect went beyond their store on the express. these three started having much influence in the village and hardly could anything be done therein without their valued contribution.<\/p>\n
However, the widow was a sticker for cleanliness.\u00a0 But her other partners really did not care much especially the young lad who sold pure water. Sadly he generated the greatest refuse, which the widow and her children swept dutifully everyday after the close of business.<\/p>\n
after a while and several entities to her colleagues on the need to keep their environment clean which fell on deaf ears, she felt she had enough and decided to punish them since her Akara was the main driver of their joint enterprise. She decided to move away. She moved some distance from the original spot . The baker who was an arrogant man knew he would not be able to tolerate the incidence of the young man moved also. But being smart he moved in the opposite direction of the widow. This way he thought he will have the first contact with the travellers.<\/p>\n
When the buses approached, they slowed down by the baker but instead of buying bread they asked for Akara.\u00a0 Seeing there was none they moved on hoping to see the widow. on getting to the usual spot all they saw was pure water. Many reclined their seats and resigned their fate giving up on the possibility of a snack. By the time they notice that the widow was somewhere after the bend the drivers usually could not stop and were reluctant to reverse.<\/p>\n
Slowly what was once a growing and prosperous joint enterprise one by one collapsed and the three of them returned to the village broke!!<\/p>\n
More often than not the disunity may unmask our individual weaknesses, take away the potential derivable benefits of our synergies and reduce our expectations in spite of our inherent potentialities.<\/p>\n
GOD BLESS OUR UNITED NIGERIA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Dr Doyin Okupe An old widow with seven children was having a very rough time feeding her family from the meagre income she was getting from sales of “Akara”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n