Uniqueness: Not just about your name (Rose Abeni Oluwa)

If uniqueness was all about the name, you should start wondering why you can find at least ten people with the same name as you in the country where you reside. The only man that God gave the name that is greater than all other names still has namesakes. Look up the internet for a few minutes. There are many Mr Jesus, Mr Christ and Mr Messiah all over the world.

I have thought about this thing called “uniqueness” many times over than I can count. The Bible says a lot about how God created humans and has plans for them. I can’t help but sigh at Rachael’s experience of being a mother to one hairy boy named Esau, and the twin homely boy named Jacob.

But I’d tell a story now which was as a result of a discussion I had with the Holy Spirit. It is a very funny one, you would think it was sci-fi but I’m not into sci-fi yet.

So, a certain Miss Rose Abeni Oluwa lives in an absurd world…

Uniqueness is not just in your name

On her birthday, Rose Abeni Oluwa woke to the sound of her phone vibrating. The alarm labelled “birthday conference in a few hours” had just gone off. This world conference was for all the persons named Rose Abeni Oluwa in the world.

Fortunately for Rose Abeni Oluwa from Nigeria, she was hosting the year’s birthday conference and didn’t have to fly in an aeroplane just to make sure she attended the meeting. Being just five different Rose Abeni Oluwa’s in the world, the meeting was quite orderly.

Uniqueness: Rose Abeni Oluwa’s Perspective

The five of us sits at the high table and some people who bought tickets are sitting with their face masks on. Most of them are from popular newspapers. I can see my friend that works at Punch newspaper in a redshirt. Punch Newspaper really wants to know what will happen to the Rose Abeni Oluwa from Nigeria. I guess our birthday is quite popular because we have a monarch among us.

The man in a black suit behind the camera from CNN looks familiar and I brace up so as not to cause a global embarrassment to myself.

The MC with the young face but grey hair bounced on stage in his black shirt and blue jean. He has a large file in his right hand. The moment I see that I just sigh deeply and tell myself “You’ll be fine. You volunteered so much last year. You cleaned gutters in ghetto environments, you lectured some kids on sex education. How many orphanages did you visit? Yeah, 10 per month. You’re good.” I try to breathe in and out to release traces of anxiety. I was pretty sure that the press would have checked my LinkedIn profile.

The air conditioner blows cool air on the five of us. I glance at the other four. Surprisingly, we look somewhat alike even with our age differences. We all have the same destiny. Our purpose in life is to…no, there’s no way I would reveal this to you. It’s only known amidst the five of us and of course, the man with the file. The files have our names, our ages and where we come from. But this particular conference is held on our birthday every year. We review our scores and see who is fulfilling the purpose the most. 

The MC clears his throat. 

“Welcome everybody, especially those at the high table.” I smile at the regally dressed fifty something-year-old who is seated beside me. She’s the oldest of the five of us. And just like a queen, she smiled regally at me with a perfect set of teeth. But in her eyes, I see a kind of pride. I shuddered at the thought of how much purpose she would have fulfilled with her influence being the queen in one African country. 

“Why do I keep forgetting details about her? If the MC decides to ask us questions concerning one another, my score would just keep getting lower.” I mused.

The MC opens the large file and speaks into the headset microphone.

“Before we go into today’s business, I’m happy to announce to you that another Rose Abeni Oluwa has been given birth to just an hour ago. She has the same destiny as you and hopefully, she’d be here with you next year. Happy birthday to you all.” The MC says and we smile at one another.

“Rose Abeni Oluwa from Brazil, are you present in this conference of Rose Abeni Oluwa’s from all over the world? If you are, please wave,” the MC’s face had turned really serious

The fifteen-year-old stands and waves at everyone in her full ofi dress and red ileke around her neck and begin her speech. 

“My grandma loves wearing dresses like this. And I’m glad to be here since this year’s conference is held in Nigeria. I’d like to connect to my roots. Do you know that the Yoruba language is now an official language in Brazil?” She sees that no one is interested in her chatter and sits. She then murmurs

“I guess you people are not culture-oriented.” 

The MC continues “Rose Abeni Oluwa from the United States of America?”

The girl stands up patting her permed hair and says 

“Y’all, I’m glad to be here. I got some original Oreos for you guys. You see, I started calling God ‘Daddy God’ this time last year, so, I wanted to celebrate it with you. What do ya say to that?”

There’s no reply and she stares at the audience for a few seconds before she speaks again.

 “Well, I guess you people wanna listen to my opinion about pro-choice and pro-life instead. Of course, we can talk about that later. Whatever our discussion amounts to, I can let it on the White House. I’m closer to President Biden than you can imagine.”

Okay, thanks. From Nigeria, are you here? You sure should, you’re the host” the MC then smiles. “Can we recognize you with a wave of the hand?”

Then, I get to stand up and I see the one from Brazil gasp. 

“No! You still refused to plait your hair? Your hair is so grown and bushy,” and…She looks like she’s going to cry. 

“You got so fat! I could have got you some effective slimming tea if I knew that the Corona Virus got you like this… now, you’re the fattest of us all. You look so different than you were last year…” 

I then become so embarrassed that the only thing I could do to shut her up was to say in a shaky voice to the audience

“I’m also glad to be here.” 

The introduction continues with a Rose Abeni Oluwa with neat acrylic nails, kinky afro and big ring earrings standing up. She exudes a ‘boss lady’ aura. Her peach suit and pants were of top-notch quality. I am sure that she would speak with so much confidence no matter what her voice sounded like. I didn’t get to remember where she was from because I was still thinking about what the one from Brazil had done to me.

Before you know it, the MC is asking for the report of what each Rose Abeni Oluwa did the previous year. In his words, “for a gracious period of 365 days.”

Of course, we all can’t score the same and the next year would involve reports borne out of competition. We were also going to be dragging a one-year-old into the rat race.

Conclusions on Uniqueness and your name

This isn’t happening in our world, yet we find ourselves stepping over one another just to show that we matter. We envy one another’s lives and compares Rose with Abeni and Oluwa. Your name is very important and tells a lot about you. However, it is not the pillar of your uniqueness. Oh no, it is not.

So, if you are unique, if I am unique and there is even such an imaginary conference, we ought to carry ourselves as such, knowing that God put so much effort in creating us all uniquely in his image.

Yet, there is none like him, so, He really is.

There is none like you, so, you really are.

And, there is none like me, so, I really am.