I grew up in Calabar.
And though time and travel have taken me across borders and into new geographies of thought and living, the rhythm and warmth of the Efik people forever shaped my formative years. The Efiks are predominantly found in ancient Calabar City, albeit there are roots of the Efiks in Cameroon, eastern Nigeria and Cuba. On Google the Efiks are predominantly known for their hospitality and amazing dishes as they are a people who have mastered the art of welcoming and feeding both friends and strangers. In most descriptions of the Efiks I have read, I think one point keeps eluding, it is that ours is a culture where proverbs marinate our discussions, our discussions are oiled with rich adages that in few words tell tales that a thousand words cannot.

Folklore, stories, adages, and proverbs may seem trivial, but they indicate the philosophical structure upon which a society is built. For example, the popular Japanese folklore “Tsuru no Ongaeshi” emphasises the importance of kindness and gratitude and the consequences of broken promises. It’s no wonder that with such popular folklore prevalent in Japan, the Japanese society is built on honour, kindness and gratitude. A people’s folklore, adages, and proverbs give credence to the philosophies that weave that society together. Hence, for a proverbial rich society like mine, it was a bit of a wonder that one proverb was more prevalent in the discussions, stories, adages, and folklore of my people; that proverb was “utu ke owo akpa yak edim edep”.

The transliteration of this proverb made no meaning to me as a child. The transliteration of this proverb simply meant, “instead of someone to die, let there be rain” My childhood mind could not comprehend what was going on. Has everyone gone mad? I would retort in my silent childhood curiosity, as often as this proverb was used in discussions, as I tried to draw parallels between what was said, the context of discussions, and the proverb that was used.

But, as I grew up, I would catch myself using this same adage many times in conversations, however, this time with a deeper understanding as life in all its messiness had explained what language could not.

The framers of that adage, hundreds of years ago at the very onset of ancient Calabar Civilization, were simply saying,

Utu ke owo akpa yak edim edep.
If there is a choice between death and discomfort, choose discomfort.
If there is a choice between violence and an inconvenient peace, choose inconvenient peace.
If there is a choice between irreversible loss and temporary trouble, choose the rain(the temporary trouble).

The use of rain there to connote peace was a deliberate attempt to emphasize that peace, most time, is not convenient, yet it is a superior choice to death. Death is an irreversible reaction; chemists will say chemical reactions are irreversible and permanent, but rain is a physical reaction, a reversible reaction, whatever effect it has on us now, though painful, will and can be reversed; its pain is most time only temporary.

Hundreds of years ago, this proverb was coined to teach us to value the temporary inconvenience of peace above the choices that war, violence, and death present. “Utu ke owo akpa yak edim edep”

TO BE RIGHT OR TO DO THE RIGHT THING?
There is a peculiar kind of loneliness that comes with leadership. A kind of quiet burden that no one quite prepares you for, the weight of decisions that ripple across lives, partnerships, and dreams.

As a CEO, I have come to learn that one of the fiercest battles is not fought in boardrooms or balance sheets, but in the silent recesses of the soul — the space between being right and doing right.

Last year, I stood at that crossroads.
Our company had been wronged, a partner, once considered a friend, who breached a contract midway through its execution. In fact rumors had it that they had contracted another company to take over the project, not minding the resources we had already put into the project.

The board was furious. Rightfully so.
We debated, we argued, we plotted responses that would send a strong message.

Needless to say, I bought the revenge idea totally, sleepless nights and pain of betrayals just a month after the worst and only heartbreak of my life, the pain of a heartbreak from the girl of my dreams, beclouded any other alternative, I found myself clinging to vengeance like a raft in turbulent waters.

The world couldn’t have been more cruel, I often thought in those nights, the symphony in my head was loud songs of betrayals. The first note was hers — the one who left without warning. The memory of her laughter, the soft melody of her voice, the dreams we once co-authored are now torn and scattered.
The second note was business — the betrayal of trust, the unravelling of professional kinship. I sat in the dark wondering: Is loyalty still a currency that holds value in our world?

As I went to bed planning the worst revenge that would suit the betrayal that this deserves, I met the old man who lives same room as me, an old man who knows me from the day of my first breath, “my conscience”

CONSCIENCE: What is this you are planning in your heart?
ME: I want to teach him a lesson — that people cannot simply walk away from contracts.
CONSCIENCE: That is what you say. But we both know this isn’t only about the contract. This is about J, who left you with no reason. This is about pain. You are bleeding. And you’re looking for someone to blame.

And in that moment, the kind of silence that breaks you had me, I recognized the quiet truth. I was not reacting to a business deal gone wrong. I was reacting to a heart still in pieces.

Most time, like me we all act like this, transferring aggression, bottling up traumas, pains that need healing. We pour rage into places it does not belong. We wound others with the shards of our brokenness. Our hate for others most time stems from actions that have nothing to do with them, and this often clouds our judgment and actions.
CONSCIENCE (again, louder this time): Have you called him? Have you asked for a conversation?
ME: But he is the one who is wrong. Shouldn’t he be the one calling me?
CONSCIENCE: Do you want to be right — or do you want to do the right thing?

That question stayed with me. It pressed itself into the corners of my heart. And so I picked up the phone. We spoke. We listened. And somehow, we found clarity.
Today, not only is the business relationship intact, the friendship too has survived. Because sometimes the strongest thing you can do is choose healing over retaliation.

Do we want to be right or to do the right thing?

THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS
Our world is faced with unprecedented waves of violence, war, conflict etc. Often, times like mine, the quest to be right clouds our judgment of doing the right thing. We are often obsessed with who is at fault, who started the issue, that we forget to do the right thing. We want to prove a point, to win the argument, to be seen, heard, validated. But rarely do we stop to ask: What is the cost of our correctness?

There are two paradigms at war in us all:

The instinct to be right: It is egoistic. It is loud. It believes the world revolves around our wounded pride.

The commitment to do right: It is gentler. But it is harder. It understands that our world is a web of interdependence. That peace, not pride, sustains our coexistence.

Our ancestors — the framers of the Efik kingdom — knew this truth.
When they said “Utu ke owo akpa yak edim edep,” it was a proverb with a message at its soul. They were embedding a worldview: Choose peace, even if it soaks your dignity like rain.
Because rain, though inconvenient, passes away.

I can only imagine with the constant threats of war and conflict in our world today, that the ancient men of the Efik kingdom would be loudly screaming to us today, utu ke owo akpa yak edim edep. Hopefully, we can be more concerned on how we can move forward and work together in peace than our obsession over who is actually right; this wisdom of the ancients becomes very paramount today.

AI FOR PEACE

It is from this same ancestral wisdom that we, at DeepFunding, draw inspiration.
We are birthing a movement, one whose name already carries the hope of tomorrow: AI4Peace.

We do not pretend to know exactly where it will lead, we are led by the conviction in a world where there’s saddening always something to fight and disagree about, there is a need for a sanctuary of peace, and that sanctuary must not only be built with code, but with conscience.

Led by Ubio Obu and the entire deepfunding developer outreach circle, is pioneering this concept with an ideation and hackathon (dualathon) challenge, this is the first of many more initiatives around the concept AI for peace for us.

The rise of AI has already shown concerning trends, with many fighting and disagreeing over its use-case, tech etc, but the idea for AI4Peace is that we all have a collective responsibility towards using AI for peace, irrespective of our knowledge or lack of knowledge of tech, and this is us at Deepfunding calling you to get involved.

We are inviting you: thinkers, builders, dreamers, even skeptics, to contribute your voice, your vision, your code, to peace.

Because it is not just about AI.
It is about us.

GET INVOLVED
Join our AI4PEACE ideation challenge here
Join our AI4PEACE hackathon challenge here

Join our town halls where discussions on how to use AI for peace will be held:  AI For Peace DF TownHall

Or link us to relevant global partners, agencies, who are generally interested in the topic of peace through our email devoutreach@deepfunding.ai

Ubio Obu