The only thing close to a government we’ve ever had since the First Republic, is the Buhari Regime, but we capitulated and today, we live as mere beasts in the wild. Perhaps I should proceed like the prophets of old and give the present-day Nigerian leader a message straight from God, through me, an unlikely agent with no claim to holiness or venerability. I attend neither Church nor Mosque. I choose instead to believe in God and to believe that every creature of God, even animals, has a divine right to life and should not be discriminated against for what they believe. I therefore proceed as an unwilling prophet, the Jonah of my age.
‘O ye Nigerian leader, Christian or Muslim, you have sinned and ridiculed your Creator and your people! You consistently show wickedness to my People, whom I created with all care and concern. You have pitched them on the path of destruction. You have foisted on them unwarranted poverty in the midst of plenty. You wine and dine and feed fat like pigs! Your wives dress up in the world’s most expensive apparels. Gold, Silver and Diamonds adorn your houses and your concubines, like Jezebel of a time past! You treat my people like dogs, chasing them off the road with your chariots of destruction. You deprive my people of what is theirs, you watch them labour and die in poverty. You watch their children grow up with embedded venom. You have rendered my princely people as slaves all over the world, hewing and scraping for other races. Yet you were poor before I let you rise to riches…’
‘O ye Nigerian leader, you have angered the Lord, your God. You have set yourself up for destruction. You; and the false prophets that you consult. You, and your Ministers, who prefer to bury their heads in the sand, and those who make Laws for their own benefits only, rather than for the benefits of the people; and those entrusted with public offices who decide to hoard monies meant for the people with greedy money-lenders (called banks), for pecuniary benefits.’ ‘REPENT!, says the Lord Almighty. Repent Immediately!!!! Tear off your luxurious robes in penitence! Roll yourselves in dust and ashes. Go on a hunger strike for your sins, for the wrath of God to be spared on you, your generations and even on my innocent people. Repent or be destroyed! Says the Lord Almighty, the creator of the Universe!’
Well, don’t ask me why God is still speaking to me with King James’ version of English Language. Don’t ask me why he calls SUVs and Jeeps ‘chariots of destruction’. Don’t even ask me when he spoke with me. I really don’t know what it means for God to speak to people and I don’t see visions, but the issue of Nigeria has been eating away at my soul and I had this urge to speak to our so-called leaders like the prophets of old would. The prophets of today are very much like the leaders, especially in Nigeria, and especially the so-called Christians out of them. Many of the so-called prophets are contract-seekers, who are in cahoots with those they should speak truth to. Many so-called pastors move around with a battery of heavily-armed security men, mobile policemen and drive about with siren-blaring convoys, much like our disgraceful ‘leaders’.
It is obvious however, that this country has crossed the Rubicon. We have passed the stage where gentle resolution will solve our problems, except we see a very dramatic shift immediately in the way the country is being governed. This shift must be immediate and revolutionary; like every appointee moving around silently in one car and obeying the rules; like there being a ban, a total ban in using government money to place adverts for appointees’ birthdays and such rubbish; like telling so-called first ladies to man their kitchens and children; like commanding all government appointees and even allegedly ‘elected’ officials to travel less and if they must, to stop wasting the country’s money on first class tickets for themselves and all their family; like ensuring that taxpayers money (even natural resource money) begins to visibly work for the people; like jailing those who have stolen our commonwealth but who are today defector presidents and kingmakers; like seizing those properties they have acquired with illegal wealth… Immediately!
But the hearts of the Nigerian leader has been hardened. So we will wait and see the Act of God in action. For nothing lasts forever; not even the stupidity of a small tribe of bandits who call themselves political leaders in Nigeria. The rank of their despicable party keeps swelling in disdain for the people. Mr Yar’adua, our ‘nice’ president in whom we had hope, has been subsumed by the terrible elements in that party and he’s helpless. He stands at the threshold of destroying his family name. The Obasanjo gang, with people like Ribadu and el-Rufai, also hopes to pin all the problems on Yar’adua when it is clear to the world that they set the stage for the eventual and imminent annihilation of the project called Nigeria. They set new records in banditry and corruption.
Meanwhile the rest of us have become unthinking fools. Those that think they are educated just hope for a better day someday, and are unready to take any risks to ensure that that better day comes to fruition. Many of such have dispersed to everywhere else in the world and have become street-sweepers and cab-drivers in other people’s countries. Those at home mostly work in banks and such like, where they have access to steal other people’s money, even stealing from the poor. A few jobless failures seek government appointments to get rich beyond their imagination and the rest of us worship them; Your Excellency!, Honourable Minister!! Right Honourable Doctor Engineer Alhaji, JP, OON, GCFR, FSS etc. As all these continue, the vast tribe of the disenchanted, the unemployed, the uneducated, and the religiously brittle continues to swell.
If we were a thinking people, we’ll be out demonstrating the moment President Obama put down the mike in Ghana. The future of African youth, he said, is in the hands of African youth. And the world is tired of hopeless African leaders who merely get stupendously rich at their peoples’ expense. He had Nigeria in mind. What a gross shame. Nigeria – the land of 3,000 Mobutu Sese Sekos; yet home to the world’s poorest; a tinderbox waiting to explode; a shame to the black race; a sore on humanity’s conscience; a lost opportunity for greatness… Nigeria – the land of my birth…
