A nation where god is mocked

While the President sits comfortably in Aso Rock, occasionally taking his fresh air leave for those handshakes he covets; our nation tethers. Ditto for the states. Governors and their minions in and outside government are sworn to one thing and that only, blinded to grinding poverty and want. They are committed to one thing alone, use any means to maintain and sustain the licence to loot unchallenged. For the robed gentry as long as generous offerings come in, they are loyal members of their Anglicised or Arabic names.

If the scriptures were still open only to the ordained, many would have abandoned their faith in God. These religious first eleven that are often taunted by their leaders go to the extent of burying people alive in their quest to cling to power. These educated illiterates and clueless rulers have all the pretense of modernity but use the cover of darkness to bow before effigies at archaic shrines. These baptised and titled rulers have their names in secret societies where they swear to ludicrous oaths and condone all forms of bestialities. These people answer names extolling the virtues of a holy God but grovel in the shrine of hogs at night.

Just because God is quiet, they think that they can get away with their double life. They are so inebriated with power and drunk on looting that they never learn from the fall of their colleagues. If Ghaddafi had learnt from Ben Ali, Idi Amin, Bokassa or Mengistu, he may have been alive today in exile with his life as ransom. But, when it was evident to the goats on the streets of Tripoli that his time was up, he was sitting in his tent telling the BBC – my bibul lub me. But Ghaddafi is a bad example. At least, he built his country to a level before realising that he could create a dynasty. That was when he started the looting and stashing. He will not benefit from his stash, neither would Libyans or the children he was building a nest for. The irony of wanton riches. Too bad we would never know what he was thinking when he was fished out of that culvert.

The Nigerian political locusts nibbling at our common patrimony at all levels are an unconscionable bunch. They blow hot and cold. One moment, one former student union leader metamorphosed into was on the vanguard of the anti-subsidy removal train; today, looking like a kwashiorkor patient dressed in borrowed robes, he an apostle of removal of subsidy. They must be recycled because of fear of surviving outside office. While changing their own belts to accommodate their distended tummies, they demand that we tighten ours.

Apart from their names, nothing is Christianly or Islamic in their daily lives or action. So unsure are they of their own safety in God that when they appear in the house of worship they sully the sanctity of the area with armed security ready to kill. They disrupt the natural order of service and jump out before anyone has the opportunity to give them a true report of what they really think of them. Apparently, they do not read newspapers – since their media minders only provide press clippings that eulogise them. They sustain only state-owned press which does nothing but sing their praises.

But what shall we say of the clergy? The lure of wealth has blinded them from the pursuit of truth. Today’s clergy minister to no-one but their own greed and avarice. They maintain an outward appearance of holiness but their lives are the open putrescence of odious sepulchers. This is the tragedy of the incursion of religion into politics.

Preachers grovel at the feet of the politician and tell the oppressors that it would be well with them. Gone is the truth that the best way to evangelize (and I use that term liberally) is not to answer a so-called ‘Christian’ or ‘Muslim’ name and have devilish attributes but to do acts of Christ or abide by the Sunna of the Holy Prophet (SAW). It is degeneracy when religious leaders are happy to be identified with the oppressors of the people; when saying that a corrupt politician or a clueless one is a member of their congregation is their greatest achievement, God is mocked. Rather than hold press conferences to denounce acts of ungodliness, these new age preachers are happy to be numbered with the looters. What a shame.

These people have abandoned chastity. They profit from the sustenance of the current morass. Just like the politicians, they too are tragedies of history, not having learnt from its antecedents. Most of the world of Godlessness that embrace sodomy and other vices in the name of tolerance today were at one time or another bastions of uprightness. When they compromised the truth they died before the society with worship places being sold to disco halls, open witchcraft and all forms of satanism.

When religion becomes an accessory to the socio-political and economic morass, it is digging its own grave. This may be the final throes of morality. Religious orders kept quiet as public schools are destroyed but are building schools that their members can neither attend nor send their children. They are evidently richer than the governments and their imposing skyscrapers dwarf the ghettoes that their leaders have to wade through to get there. These leaders no longer rely on divine protection. They cruise around in the latest cars with armed guards but tell their members that God would protect them.

They get their percentage from corrupt government officials and bless them. They do not query non-performance provided the governor services their quota on the annual pilgrimage. If liberation theology does not pick the seared conscience of the corrupt, it has failed because you cannot have morality without morals. It is not the perceived number of adherents but the number of regenerates that makes the difference and distinguishes us from being dubbed a nation where God is mocked.