Life is not a fairy tale
~ Bishop T.D. Jakes

The neighbours were worried that her shop had been shut since Monday.
The Monday they saw her in hystrerics of agony as she heard the bad news from the Bonny waterside. A local boat had capsized in mid sea in the Bight of Bonny and they said her brother was among the people in the passenger boat.
They decided to go to her residence to find out if her brother survived or was among those who drowned.

The news was not in the newspapers and was not on the radio or television. So, there was no confirmation of any boat mishap in the Niger Delta. The only news making headlines was the bloody mayhem in Port Harcourt when armed cultists and terrorists went on rampage in the oil city. When the gunsmoke cleared, over 20 people were found dead and others were in critical condition with stab wounds and gunshot wounds. The reign of terror continued and the terrified governor of Rivers state jumped into his private high-speed boat and fled his besieged capital. I called for a state of emergency and the Federal Government quickly responded and sent a special task force of the Nigerian Armed Forces to flush out the terrorists from Port Harcourt and secure the lives and properties in the state.

The people in the Niger Delta live in fear and trembling. But from what I have witnessed since 2005 to date, these are the grave consequences of their evils. The evils of their greediness and wickedness. They are reaping what they sowed. And they have to eat the sour grapes of their harvest of wrath.

The human conflicts and natural disasters in the Middle East, America, Asia and Europe are the daily staple of the CNN and other news channels. The Christian preachers echo their biblical apocalyptic messages to terrorize their already traumatized congregations, but to other listeners, they sound like religious cliches and are no longer news. They heard the same echoes during The Holocaust of World War Two and the world still survived. The last holocaust in Rwanda was another opportunity for them to magnify their apocalyptic warnings again and the world still shrugged and continued in the endless journey in the universe. But I have noticed that the many called and uncalled ministers of the Apocalypse
have cashed in on those fears to terrify the most gullible of their congregations to give away huge sums of their hard earned money in multiple-offerings in their attempts to buy the mercies of God. In fact, Nigerians are so corrupt and are terrified of the wrath of God that they have tried to bribe God! And the so called messegers of God have been collecting the bribes in the cloak of church offerings. And I chronicle their fallacies and hypocrisies. But God cannot be bribed and God cannot be deceived.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness."
~ Matthew 23: 27, Holy Bible, KJV.


You may fool the whole world
But you cannot fool God.
~ Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima


N.B:
From The Earth is Shrinking, a collection of some of my recent non-fiction.

Part Two

She came to church and sat with us on the wooden benches outside.
I saw a male usher going to commiserate with the bereaved woman. 
I overheard some of our brethren comforting her and my heart throbbed in sympathy.
"You did not follow them to Edo for the burial?"
"No. They have already gone."
"Sorry. Oh, sister. Take heart."
She nodded as she looked at her little daughter nearby.
Her daugher has the same bright eyes. And the same glints in her brown eyes whenever she smiles.
Like mother, like daughter.
I waited until she was alone.
Then I went to her.
"My sister told me of the boat mishap last Monday," I said sympathetically.
I asked her how the tragedy happened.
She said he was the elder brother of her husband.
"My brother-in-law was in one of the boats and they collided near the Dutch Island. Only two of the passengers died. My brother-in-law and another man," she told me plaintively.
"What of his bereaved family?"
"He was married, but the wife was yet to bear a child before this unfortunate accident."
I said comforting words to her.
Only the bereaved could tell the depth of their loss.
I never knew the brother-in-law.
Unfortunate man.
What would the childless widow do now?
Get married again and continue with her life?
Would she be able to forget him?
How would she feel sleeping alone on the same bed they once shared?
I knew the widow would have nightmares of her dead husband.
Death does not have ears
So, cannot hear the pleas for mercy
Death is neither moved by fears nor tears
So, does not have pity.

Then I left her and turned my attention to the children as they were being ushered into the main building of the church. It was the Children's Sunday and some of them were dressed in their Sunday best and really looking happy with their innocent smiles, giggles and laughters. Two older children were playing two unarmed combatants and quite harmless.
I saw the youngest and smallest child clapping cheerfully and looking at me to see if I noticed her. I nodded and clapped to show her that I was elated to see her praising the lord happily. What a blessed child.

A couple was celebrating the birth of their new baby and we rejoiced with them as they sang and danced in thanksgiving to God. But I thought of the bereaved woman mourning the death of her brother-in-law.
"Did God not bless us last week?" The minister asked the congregation.
"God blessed us!" They chorused aloud.
"Hallelujah!"
"Amen!"
I wanted to see how the bereaved woman was reacting to the minister's question.
Would she concur that God blessed us last week whilst she lost her brother-in-law?

The minister said we should pray for peace in Nigeria and reminded us of the dusk to dawn curfew in Port Harcourt since the oil city was turned into a Battleground as the task force of the Nigerian Armed Forces fought with the cultists and terrorists on rampage in the Niger Delta. Innocent civilians have been killed by stray bullets in the bloody mayhem. The Nigerian Armed Forces claimed that they killed scores of the cultists and terrorists, including one of their dreaded gangsters, Soboma George. But the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said Soboma actually escaped and was still alive and at large. I heard that 17 Nigerian soldiers were killed, but it was not reported in the news.
They report only what they want the public to know.
White papers are often filled with white lies.

Life goes on.

Nigeria is imploding and many are still day dreaming in lust of the flesh.

Only fools make love when their home is on fire.

This is how the Rwandan holocaust started and the whole country was filled with over 800, 000 rotten bodies, including decomposing vaginas and pe-nises.

Save yourself before it is too late.