Death is the leveler of all men,
great or irrelevant. We must all bow to the reality of our mortality at the end
of the day. The wisest of people who discovered this early enough decided to
throw back this inescapable fate in the face of death by immortalizing their
names in the history of mankind. They broke new grounds, defied every law that
said you couldn’t and there are many more who continue to tow this path even in
our times. The most recent being our own Mandiba, who courageously fought for
an ideal he believed in by sacrificing twenty seven years of his life in one of
the worst prison camps in South Africa. At the end of the day, he was freed, by
the people he fought valiantly for. He lived out the rest of his life taking
full pride in the victory he had won alongside other heroes and heroines. So
proud of his heritage he was that he refused to wear a suit to a dinner
organized for him by the queen of England and was almost turned away. In fact,
he got away also with addressing the queen by her first name ‘Elizabeth’. Such
is the greatness of men who are not afraid to stand for what they believed.
Even when they pay with their lives, their legacies will forever live on years
after them.
This brings me to the issue of Nigeria’s
relationship with God. The million worship places that decorate virtually every
space and corner in our country would make you think this country is heaven’s
headquarters. It is hilarious because we are the most woeful country on earth
as far as progress is concerned. Personally, I don’t have a problem with anyone
who wants to thank God for anything. Nevertheless, it brings to fore the
intentional weakness of Nigerians who in one breath they are standing for
something and in another breath; they pull out of reason and give up on that
very thing. When Nigerians were declared as the happiest people on earth some
years back, a lot of people (as usual), decided to link it to our relationship
with God, in other words, our very foolish and ill-informed reliance on
religion as being the backbone of our inexplicable source of happiness. The
popular biblical saying, ‘in every situation, give God praise’, has become our
new mantra in this country, thus, heaps upon heaps of tragedy that could be
averted, injustices that should be fought teeth and nails, irresponsible acts
of the government and leaders in every sectors and corrupt practices are being
chewed in acceptance as the norm in Nigeria.
What I don’t seem to get is how God
can be benevolent, compassionate, kind, loving and still be attributed with
every act of evil and tragedy that takes place in our personal and collective
lives. It is so easy to hurriedly say ‘let’s leave it to God’ after being
victims of oppression and disregard from people who owe us all the respect in
the world. In Nigeria, scores of women and children are violated daily by
people who are supposedly their loved ones and even spiritual guides and what
do we get at the end? The culprit goes scot free and the victim is left without
as much as a closure. Nigerians will rather let God be the judge than take
justice in their hands and demand for it. The unfortunate but funny thing is
that God seldom answers these supplications. I stand to be put right but how
many times have we actually seen any kind of divine justice being meted out on
evil men and women? Most of them suddenly become ‘men and women of God’ and we
they beguile us with their tales of their sordid pasts and they become
untouchables from that point because they have worn the garments of the anointed
of God and once again, we are enslaved by them. The others live long and
prosperous lives and are constantly feared and even celebrated. Last year
alone, I lost count of the number of pastors, imams and relatives who sexually
abused children and women who were entrusted to them for help.
The picture of God that Nigerians have
painted have convinced me more than ever that he must be different from the
same one that Americans and other European countries are serving. Their god
seem to be very open- minded, hates injustice, accepts homosexuals, inspires
great economic ideas in their leaders and helps their citizens to be deeply
patriotic. Our lawmakers are busy making laws that will imprison homosexuals in
a country where the Penal Code allows a man to beat his wife in a bid to impact
correction if she disobeys. How being an homosexual will impede on the fight
against corrupt acts of government officials is still a mystery to me and how
the same act will prevent our children from getting free education remains
confusing.
Whether we accept it or not, this country is
heading for doom, together with our ‘god of all circumstances’. While we are
being deeply forgiving of evildoers, we can also clean up our own mess by
ensuring that victims get human, not divine justice. Nobody really knows how
the afterlife works. Not even all those unscrupulous jokers who have gone to
heaven and returned with stories of a gold paved heavenly corridor, (the same
gold God instructs women not to use is used to decorate heaven, funny, isn’t
it?) and many other versions of heaven can tell how it works. While we still
have our consciousness, let us insist that every evil riddling us in this
country be stumped to the abyss of nonexistence.
This write up is dedicated to all the
victims of injustices of every kind who were denied repose and to those who
will be denied.
