FROM the days of their enslavement by the West, and their colonisation by the West, and their exploitation as cheap labour for the West, Africans have been duped into thinking that the 13th cheque they get at the end of the year as employees, is a gift given to them by the employer out of the goodness of his heart as thanks for a job well done.
That is why the guileful employer refers to the 13th cheque a bonus, a gratuity, an extra envelope, or a complement.
And African governments follow suit.
But the 13th cheque is not a gift.
The workers have already sweated for it each day of the ‘13th’ month that has been incorporated in the Western calendar which the West says is 12 months and thereby judiciously avoiding the 13th month which they regard as a bad omen in their culture.
European workers are privy to this and know very well that the 13th cheque is not a gift.
They have duly worked for it each day of the 13th month that they also regard as a bad omen.
To demonstrate that European workers share the same idea about the number 13 as a bad omen and know about its incorporation into their calendar as a way of avoiding it, just look around the streets where white people live and see if you can find an address numbered 13.
What you will find is an address numbered ‘12A’ and ‘12B’, followed by number ‘14’.
Number ‘13’ is skipped.
You will also not find floors numbered ‘13’ in European tall buildings.
The 13th floors are given names, not numbers.
Western efforts to avoid number ‘13’ as a bad omen by any means necessary have led them into tinkering around with their calendar in various unscientific ways, hidden to the undiscerning African eye, although they are so glaring and obvious.
A casual look at the names of the months in the European calendar will tell you straight away that December means the 10th month.
How come it is the 12th month?
November means the 9th month.
How come it is the 11th month?
October means the 8th month.
How come it is the 10th month?
September means the 7th month.
How come it is the 9th month?
All these deceptions were worked out in such a way that the unsuspecting Africans will never notice.
Here is what happened.
In their frantic efforts to avoid the 13th month, the West first experimented with a calendar of 10 months.
December was the 10th month.
It has maintained its name as the 10th month to this day in spite of later changes to its original position due to additions of other months to the calendar.
March was the 1st month.
The names of the 10 months from March to December were: Martius, Aptilis, Maius, Janius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December.
Quintilis was later replaced by July, named after Julius Caesar.
Sextilis was replaced by August, named after Augustus Caesar.
January and February were later added to the 10 month calendar to correct the errors that made it fail to correspond with the natural movement of the seasons.
January was inserted at the beginning of the year and became the 1st month.
February was inserted at the end of the year and became the 12th month.
February was later moved from the 12th to the 2nd position in the calendar.
Now, every adult woman, African or non-African, knows that the menstrual cycle, in normal cases, takes 28 days.
This duration corresponds with the days the moon takes to orbit the earth.
That is why women are called custodians of the calendar in African cultures.
Thirteen orbits of the moon round the earth make one lunar year.
There are, therefore, 28 x 13 or 364 days in a lunar year.
African cultures that do not regard the 13th month as a bad omen use a 13 month calendar in planning agricultural activities of their societies.
But for Europeans, the 13th month was, and still is, a bad omen.
So they dismantled it and distributed its days among the remaining 12 months as follows:
The seven months of January, March, May, July, August, October and December were given an extra three days each to their normal 28 days.
So, they became 28+3 days = 31 days each.
Together, they received 7 x 3 = 21 days.
The four months of April, June, September and November received two days each.
So, they became 28+2 = 30 days each.
Together they received 4×2 = 8 days.
The total number of months that received days from the 13th month was 7+4 = 11 months.
The total number of days they received together as 11 months was 21+8 = 29 days.
Now, each month was 28 days.
The extra 29th day went to February every four years during the Leap Year.
The total number of days in the lunar calendar every four years, therefore, came to 365 days.
The 366 day Leap Year was obtained by aligning the lunar year with the solar year.
But the lunar calendar remained the practical, functional calendar in planning the agricultural activities according to the discernible natural rhythm of the seasons.
So, the idea that the 13th cheque is a bonus is a myth.
It is based on the ignorance of Africans that they have already worked for it each day of the 13th month that has been incorporated into the 12 month calendar of the West.
But as long as African intellectuals and politicians continue to blindly accept every model of cultural, moral and economic development that comes from the West as scientific and God-given, they will only succeed in making their people forever fooled by the West and remain chained to the West as cheap labour for the development of the West at the expense of the development of Africa and Africans.