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By Young Erhiurhoro
Almost every higher animal has a mouth, including the king of all living things – Man. The mouth is used for eating foods and to also drink water and other liquid materials. It’s an essential part of a human being. Without the mouth, human beings are incomplete. No matter the numbness of the mouth to speak, one can never stop to eat with it. It’s the conduit pipe through which a food and other nourishments are passed to the body system.
Yet, in all these important functions of the mouth as enumerated above, there is a more important function of it which is the reason for this short piece. That function is communication. The mouth as we all know, is the part of the body that is used to communicate or produce sounds after the brain has formed or combined the thoughts to produce such sound or language. To produce understandable language, it’s the combination of the brain, the ear and the mouth. The ear is the receiver of the sounds while the mouth is the producer of the sounds for clear communication and understanding.
Phonetically, the mouth is so positioned that without it, there would be no production of languages. But you may ask, what about the “deaf and dumb”? Yes, they can still communicate, but without making sounds as normal people do. That is, the earth would have been noiseless without the mouth to speak. In this case, the audiology and phonology of the words are made meaningful through the power of the mouth.
However, what we want to talk about the mouth is nothing but the power to speak. We have already known that the mouth is what we use to speak or produce audible sounds for good communication. We should also know that, every word we utter from our mouths carry power. This is not centred on the Biblical perspective as such.
Historically, words are spiritual materials, no matter the person that speaks them. Some people are ignorantly cajoled by religious leaders through wrong teachings that only the priests or the religious heads of a particular religion has power to speak or make declarations or pronounce anything before it can come to pass. To these set of religious bigots, apart from these ordained people, no other person has the power in his tongue.
This is a complete lie and religious fallacy. Again, words are spiritually powerful because they are spiritual materials. This is why we should be very careful and selective of the words we use in our private lives as individuals and in our public lives as groups. As essential and important as the mouth is to us, we can use it to build and can also use it destroy our lives without we knowing.
In some occasions, we may deliberately and purposely say these words and again, in some other times, we may say them unknowingly and without knowing the effects they may produce later in our lives or in the people we say them against. This is the more reason we should be careful when selecting the words to use in either private or public speaking. There are certain words you may use to destroy an organization and there are some words you will use to build and make stronger such organizations.
More importantly, words are truly spiritual materials and carry spiritual power with spiritual effects, whether good or bad. However, my candid advice to every human being is to speak positive words which carry positive results and effects in our lives and that of our generations. To further prove to us that words are spiritual materials, read this short story to buttress my points. It’s a story of my lineage and family.
My great grand father, late Udufovwe Ogbi was a popular and gazetted ‘Odion’Rode’ (traditional ruler) of the Uwheru people in the present Ughelli North LGA of Delta State in the days of the Colonial rule in Nigeria. He was a wealthy and highly influential traditional ruler in the entire Uwheru kingdom. He had one of the biggest palatial compounds, with different mud houses. He had many wives and many servants. His Majesty, Udufovwe Ogbi had other siblings like Efeteya and others. Among his siblings, there was a particular one that was full of jealousy and greed. He had lust for power. As a result, he was plotting to execute his brother, the king and probably took over the throne by force.
On a fateful day, the servants of the Udufovwe Ogbi went to work for their master in a nearby farmland. Just to stretch his legs and to see the level or size of work the servants had done, Udufovwe Ogbi decided to visit the servants at the farm. Immediately, his evil brother got this information that the king wanted to visit his servants in the farm, he held to it as the opportunity he was looking for to execute the king. He hid behind a big tree where he finally assassinated his blood brother. What a wicked world!
However, the point I want to bring out here is that, before this king finally gave up the ghost, as there was nobody to give him a helping hand, he told his brother that, he would die and all his generations would be useless and miscreants in the society. This word uttered by this man truly came to pass, not even long after the execution. The evil brother later hung himself on a tree when he discovered that his excesses and sins were known to the people. Again, his children were truly useless and miscreants today in the community. This continuously affected the family until they discovered that, the words spoken by the brother of their father, was the bane of their challenges. After discovering this, they came for veneration and prayers in our ancestral worship hall. This was faithfully done by the oldest man in our family and they were forgiven of the sins of their father. Since then, they have cut edge with a vista of new life and new beginning.
Conclusively, you can build your life and your future with positive words. You can equally destroy your life and your future with negative words. Don’t just say, it doesn’t matter. It matters a lot with issues relating to life and the lives of your children. So many people have paid dearly, even with their lives as a result of speaking negative words into one’s life and destiny. For you to be an eloquent and good public speaker, always select good and attractive words to drag the attention of your audience and listeners to yourself. Secondly, to be a good marketer of any product or service, you must be careful to select attractive words to convince your customers or clients about the products or services you have. Thirdly, for you to be a reliable and respected political or traditional leader, you must avoid destructive and negative words that can possibly ruin your leadership career or paint you black before your followers or subjects. Fourthly, as a religious leader, you must make your worshippers and members to know the implications of using negative words in their lives. They should also expose the members to know the importance of using their mouths in speaking evil words. Fifthly and last, we should be careful to know how we use our mouths to produce sounds that can build and not sounds that can destroy. Use your mouths well!
Young Erhiurhoro;Kjc is a reporter and a member of the Urhobo Historical Society