₦airaland Forum

A few years back, I wrote a piece titled, I WANT TO BE A TRIBALIST LIKE AWO in which I trumpeted the unassailable legacy credentials of the late icon, Jeremiah Oyeniyi Obafemi Awolowo. At this juncture, I could have passed for a closet tribalist. Quite a few of my kinsfolk took exception to a true nwa afọ Igbo eulogizing a man who was complicit in the Biafra genocide.
Even though I was only a little boy at the time, I could never forget the horrors of that bitter war. So I fully appreciate the basis for my people’s angst. Yet here I was, having spent 7 of my most fruitful years being groomed in an institution that is undoubtedly the apogee of Awo’s lifework, torn between not wanting to stir my people’s righteous indignation and giving credit to whom it was rightly due. I opted for the former, bracing myself for the inevitable consequence.
I have never regretted my stance because the facts that underpinned my thesis were as true as my intentions were pure and altruistic.
Something else was propelling me: I was beginning to discern what I assumed was a truly genuine intention to build a nation where, according to the defunct national anthem, “no man (or woman) is oppressed.” A nation where “though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand.” Since it is impossible to envision a great Nigeria without the presence and contributions of Ndigbo, I thought it was time to gently nudge my people away from the bitter past in preparation for the bumpy ride to a glorious future.
But I was wrong; and it took something approximating an epiphany to jolt me back to reality. That telling tale fits a better, brighter day.
The reality is, in the true sense of the word, a nation called Nigeria does not yet exist. There is certainly a geographical space with registered cadastral limits popularly called Nigeria but that’s about the whole story. Those strutting about and making out as nationalists are merely those earning a living by doing so. It is the same parasitic horde with their insatiable mouths clamped resolutely on Nigeria’s shrivelled teats. This Janus-faced gang that never passes up an opportunity to pledge eternal love to Nigeria happens to double as her bitterest foe.
These fake nationalists will make a racket declaring they have no other country but Nigeria but they neither trust her enough to cure their minor infections nor will they permit her educate their over-indulged children (read brats). No, there are no nationalists here: only conscienceless, conniving charlatans.
So I am now officially a practising tribalist. The implication is that my energies will henceforth be targeted at advancing the interest of the tribe. In Nigeria’s prevailing scenario, it makes perfect sense.
Soon after his inauguration on May 29 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari indicated he was going to operate based on a 97%/5% dichotomy where 97% represents his kith, kin and supporters and 5%, his opponents. I was initially miffed by this development but much later, I had to acknowledge it was a most reasonable course of action.
In spite of all the official bluster and bombast, Buhari does not trust many segments of the country he swore to govern. And he is equally aware many more are wary of him. Why expend so much time and resources trying to woo your enemies like ex-President Jonathan did when you could simply channel the same to empowering your loved ones? After 6 horrid years of continuously bending backwards, we know how Jonathan still wound up as persona non grata. Buhari – and rightly so – does not intend ending up so ignominiously, so in his appointments as well as harassments, he has remained true to his declared prejudices and preferences.
Mostly denied a wider platform, Awo did marvellously for his people; his stellar achievements earning him the tag of a tribalist courtesy of the envy brigade. Though Buhari is invested with all the privileges Awo sought so desperately but never attained, he still opted for the tribal path. In the end, he will always be some people’s hero.
I have neither the charisma of Awo nor the clout of Buhari but I freely choose to trek the tribal trail.
In response to the widespread protestations around his lopsided appointments, Buhari has maintained they were made on the basis of merit. With my new understanding based on the 97%/5% paradigm, I think I know what he means by merit.
Before me is a document released by the West African Examination Council detailing how states performed in the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations. The 10 best states are Abia, Anambra, Edo, River, Imo, Lagos, Bayelsa, Delta, Enugu and Ebonyi in that order. I compared this list with another issued by the Federal Ministry of Education containing cut-off scores by states for pupils seeking admission into Unity Schools. Predictably, the lists match.
So if I were president and I elected to source my appointees from these 10 states, I would not only be certain of advancing my tribe’s interests, I would equally be assured of promoting the cause of unrigged meritocracy.
Many years down the line after all of us tribalists might have concluded objective assessments of our tribal advancement projects, maybe – just maybe – we would all have been humbled enough to come together to design a proper template for building a truly great nation.
Until then…

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

I think I’ve just figured out the best way to die. But why would I be exploiting the heart-wrenching occasion of the demise of Nigeria’s Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, En’Ojo James Ocholi to publish my revelation? And what right do I have, for that matter, to be doing this? In law, I think they say it is establishing locus standi.
When my amorous tango with an Igala lass was hurtling irredeemably towards matrimony in the early 90s, I hadn’t the foggiest idea what I was getting myself into. My narrow perspective could only afford me the illusion that my would-be in-laws should be falling over themselves to have me. What I did not reckon with was that the Christian community in Benue State of the late 80s and early 90s guarded its own quite jealously. So for nearly two years before I earned the privilege of finally standing before my in-laws in Idah, I was under the severe surveillance and scrutiny of this closely-knitted family. They were not about to allow any impostor masquerading as a Christian youth corper to hoodwink one of their own to certain doom.
The entire Christian community and most particularly those of Igala stock did a marvellous job of exposing me to almost every personality among them that mattered. Not that I was overtly threatened in any way: far from it. Igalas are more sophisticated than that. But you had to be brain damaged not to discern the subliminal message delivered with such deliberate courtesy.
It’s something like this: “Hey, you can see we are one big, blessed family, and we look out for each other. When we do release our daughter to you, we trust you’ll treat like the one we love and cherish. But just in case you harbour some sinister plans of doing otherwise, we do have some bigwigs among us who will ensure you pay dearly.”
Among the intimidating Igala bigwigs, two stood out. The first was Justice Alhassan Idoko, Chief Judge of Benue State at the time and the other was a young, enterprising lawyer: James Ocholi. Living in Makurdi, I got to meet Justice Idoko quite regularly but I only rendezvoused with Barrister Ocholi after tying the nuptial knot, yet the shadow his exemplary reputation cast over me was no less effective.
Here was Christian lawyer who was as committed to spiritual pursuit as he was dogged in his professional career attainment. The fact that he was clutching tenaciously to the Bible was never a disincentive to his determination to claw up the often treacherous legal ladder. From afar, I continued to monitor the unfolding of his remarkable life and I was liking every bit of it.
I was not the least surprised when he became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. Whatever your misgivings about the process that coughs up these distinguished legal luminaries, what is indisputable is that no nitwit ever makes it that far. And he attained this despite daunting family challenges that were as mesmerizing as they were debilitating.
About the time I came to Makurdi in the later 80s, he had been involved in a road traffic accident that left him with a few major fractures. Recuperating then in the home of Florence and Paul Iyaji, brethren were falling over themselves to nurse him back to health; and this, for obvious reasons. To be our brother’s keeper is normal Christian conduct, and more significantly, Brother James would have given much more care than he was getting had another been incapacitated. He was that effective a member of the Christian community. We desperately needed him up and running.
And this explains the utter alarm that greeted his decision to take up partisan politics. It was akin to the trepidation one would feel if a loved one was being dispatched to the Boko Haram infested North East. Many brethren who had gone that path had been brought back dead, deformed or deranged. Some never even made it back.
But Brother Ocholi acquitted himself creditably in all the time he spent out there. He never sacrificed his Christian and moral convictions on the ephemeral altar of political expediency. When, in the midst of moral morass, a man elects to stand for truth, he soon sprouts a company of those with spines truly erect. That’s what the Reverend James did to all of us.
Sunday 6th March 2016 will be etched in our memories forever. That day, Brother En’Ojo James Ocholi left; and in the company of his missus and their baby. There is no amount of philosophical or spiritual spin that can render their demise any less tragic. How would they have died that would have made us feel better? And what is the best way to die?
Many Christians especially of the Pentecostal persuasion believe they are not supposed to die violently. The death of Dr Myles Munroe last year in a plane crash left a trail of confusion and consternation. The gamut of Scriptures provides little support for this doctrine of peaceful dying. The lives of many people of faith came to violent ends. If I can gladly call Good Friday, the day the one I choose to call Saviour and Master was extra-judicially murdered, then I can come to terms with any manner our terrestrial sojourn eclipses.
For me, the manner of dying is inconsequential as long as one dies in faith. And what does it mean to die in faith? It means to live and die doing what pleases our Maker and ennobles another, so that at the point physical life ceases, we have discharged our responsibilities to all; owing nothing.
As a brother and worthy in-law, Brother James owes me nothing. I’ve been monitoring reports from his family, friends and associates and they are saying the same thing. Both the Igala nation and Kogi State concur that the man has paid his dues: fully. Ditto; the legal profession. It is a grateful but grieving nation that has published the indubitable fact that his account is in the good. And the Church, through teary eyes, proudly testifies that the man died in very good standing.
So that’s the best way to die: debtless and empty; having discharged all we were fitted for. That’s how I plan to die; and if I can help it, that’s the way I’ll compel you to.
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

“No victor, no vanquished:” that was the slogan that greeted us as we crawled out of our bushy holes after the collapse of the first Biafran adventure in 1970. Read alongside the matching mantra of Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Reconciliation, it was undoubtedly Gowon’s most brilliant contribution to post-conflict propaganda. And propaganda is a subject matter we were fairly conversant with in Biafra. Modesty and magnanimity may have compelled the initiative but in the end, it was like stretching a noble intention too far.
If there was a ‘vanquished’ as our shattered lives bore clear testimony to, there had to be a ‘victor.’ The verdict of whether the 3Rs achieved their aim is best left for those untainted by the survivor’s prejudice.
From then began a habit of resorting to slogans and numbers in a desperate bid to nudge this aggregation of disparate peoples towards a common destiny.
We like to introduce Nigeria as the giant of Africa, and why not? There’s no better way to describe a country of nearly 200 million smart alecks. And there are many more such tantalizing facts we equally love to brandish and revel in. One out of every 2 West Africans is Nigerian. One out of every 5 Africans is a Nigerian. One out of every 7 Black persons on earth is Nigerian. Have these facts translated into measurable benefits to the common Nigerian? The answer is a definitive ‘No!’ The very fact that the facts and figures being bandied about are still subject to dispute is a measure of Nigeria’s failure.
I still vividly recall when Nigeria turned 20 in 1980. Alhaji Shehu Shagari was at the helm and no expense was spared in announcing our induction into adulthood. The ship of state was supposed to be sailing smoothly to the soothing harbour – well – until a certain General Muhammadu Buhari thought and decreed otherwise.
1985 was another magical year when Nigeria turned 25. Self-styled military president and architect of the Structural Adjustment Programme, Ibrahim Babangida made most of the occasion as he consolidated his grip on power.
The climax of this trend was undoubtedly when Nigeria hit 50 in 2010 under the leadership of the mild-mannered Goodluck Jonathan of the Transformation Agenda fame. It was a golden jubilee and the well-funded celebrations ensured the rest of the world took notice. With the enticing slogan of Good People, Great Nation, it seemed the darkness was finally behind us.
But the murderous separatist Boko Haram with their black, ominous flags had other designs. By the time their diabolical campaign climaxed in 2014, we didn’t even realize when we abandoned another lucre-guzzling jamboree dedicated to the centenary of Nigeria’s dubious amalgamation.
Long before then, we had had Green Revolution, Ethical Reorientation, War Against Indiscipline, Vision 2010, Vision 20-2020 and the canonization of the concept of servant leadership. After all the slogans and numbers, we are none the better.
If not for our tragic trajectory of failure, the current frenzy around ‘change’ would have presented such a hopeful scenario. But after over three decades of participating in these ill-fated cycles of dashed expectations, my honest assessment is this: this, too, shall pass.

How I would love to be proved utterly wrong.

We came in legions and hordes
Distraught, distressed and at great odds
Seeking absolution, desperate for healing
For a foul conscience and this numbness of feeling
We came laden with tokens of our listless journeying
Glittering contraptions and acquisitions of mammon’s offering
Clad in the fake aura of earth’s fading glory
We traversed howling deserts: that elixir of vainglory

The chalice of human capability remained empty
The cost of maintaining this charade: prohibitively hefty
We longed to quench the thirst for life’s missing meaning
To be rid of the crushing burden of sin’s unrelenting underpinning
We came shattered and in tatters
Barely surviving the endless drift in death infested waters
Despaired of life, dispossessed of hope
Condemned to be stretched beyond our ability to cope
We reaped the bounties of flouting the eternal warning
Victims in the unceasing deadly celestial wrangling

With the last instalment of strength and inflamed desire
We clawed towards our prospective messiah
That awe-inspiring agent of magnanimous divinity
Though clad in the gaudy vestment of errant humanity
Splayed at his feet and devoid of every pretension
We grovelled in undisguised contrition
Longing for the manna of the indestructible life
Craving the privilege to surmount all strife
Seeking audience with the true essence of our being
And making supplication to the all-Seeing

We were fed with the bread of life abiding
We drank freely of the well of joy unending
Immersed in the pool of peace beyond definition
And buoyed by the reality of love’s ultimate consummation
We took our first faltering steps on the journey to Certainty
Our blurred gaze fixed on things that belong in eternity
With increasing strength and sharpening vision
Raiding the enemy’s enclave became our sworn vision
Rescuing lives stripped of dignity and harmony
Compatriots arrested by sin’s hideous hegemony

Then we discovered the messiah’s affliction of shifting passion
Yesterday’s junk and dung crawling back into commission
Texts and homilies of dubious imprimatur
Contending with Holy Writ as inerrant tutor
Garbled ranting aggregated into the inspired book
Jaundiced justifications approximating gobble-de-gook
Since service to mammon is forbidden
We forged a decree to compel it to do as bidden
Forced into an accommodation as Elohim’s subservient neighbour
Mammon became the anointed token of divine favour

“To best the world” became the frenzied chorus
“They have no right to live larger and better than us!”
We abandoned the fate of perishing souls
To acquire the privilege of expensive soles
We strayed far from the mores of the kingdom
Bewitched by the lure of ephemeral stardom
We must return to the Rock we were hewn from
To survive Armageddon’s looming storm


© OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Someone who had read a piece I wrote sometime ago titled, “How I became a Nigerian” confronted me with this question. I guess the query arose because I’d indicated that Biafra was the first country I came to know as a child. I actually did have to become Nigerian. Before I address the question, let me state something by way of definition to eliminate all ambiguity about what Biafra is.
For anything to be worthy of belief, it’ll either be a personality, an entity defined by socio-political and geographical parameters, or an idea usually encapsulated in a concept, philosophy or ideology.
The Biafra in question is certainly not a personality nor is it a political unit with cadastral limits. That Biafra expired in the wee hours of 1970. That leaves us with the issue of Biafra as an idea. That, I think is the one I’ll be dealing with.
To get a grip on the concept of Biafra, we must revisit the unfortunate events of the ill-fated first republic.
After being granted that dubious independence in 1960 and becoming a republic two years later, the ship of the Nigerian state careened from one crisis to another in its elusive search for stability and legitimacy. And you can trust politicians on this count: their characteristic hubris and unbridled corruption will always nudge the polity to the edge of the precipice. In 1966, a group of ambitious, middle-level army officers took one look at the emerging scenario and elected to intervene; violently. Through a quirk of fate, the putsch was successful around the federation save in the south-east. Incidentally, the ring leaders of the initiative were mostly of south-eastern extraction or more specifically, Igbo. On the whole, that audacious initiative failed; as I believe it was destined to. The first republic effectively expired ushering in military rule headed by the inimitable General John Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi: an Igbo man.
Predictably, there were reprisals against the Igbo and their interests especially in Northern Nigeria. Thousands of Igbo were horrendously slaughtered in a pogrom that was a precursor to the genocidal war. Aguiyi-Ironsi himself was to pay the supreme price in a well articulated military ambush in Ibadan. He was felled alongside his host, Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi; military governor of the Western Region at the time.
The Igbo, no longer assured of safety outside their homeland were compelled to make the unpalatable and precarious journey home; abandoning all their properties and investment. The cerebral Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, then military governor of Nigeria’s Eastern Region, was under intense pressure to extract some form of guarantee for the safety of the Igbo across the federation. There were numerous summits and conferences convened in a bid to hammer out a compromise. In spite of the celebrated meeting of all stakeholders in Aburi, Ghana, then Nigerian head of state, Gen. Yakubu Gowon could offer no such guarantee as the killing and persecution of the Igbo continued unabated. It was this dire situation that forced the hand of the south-eastern leadership towards secession thereby declaring the sovereign state of Biafra in 1967. The horrors of the 30-month long civil war are properly documented for the benefit of all who’re not afraid to confront the crude truth.
From the foregoing, it is clear that Biafra happened as a predictable reaction to a peculiar interplay of events. If there had been no coup in 1966, there would have been no pogrom and the military would never have come to power. There would certainly have been no Biafra.
I’d like to draw an analogy from the hallowed institution of marriage. With over two decades under my belt, I can say without fear of contradiction that no one approaches the sacred altar of matrimony with the faintest thoughts of a separation or divorce. I wasn’t thinking of divorce on the 12th of December 1992 and I’m not considering it even now. That’s simply because I’m enjoying a little happiness in here. Unfortunately, I can’t make the same claim for many of my friends and associates. For many, marriage has become something to be endured. But it was not designed to be so. So when marriage ceases to deliver on the promise of happiness and bliss, the only option, painful and stigmatizing as it is, is separation.
I recently watched a friend go through the gruesome process of divorce. The day the court finally dissolved the union, my friend came apart completely. That’s why God hates divorce. That explains why the Church has no procedure for annulling the marriage covenant. In there, it’s “until death do you part.” But the reality on ground is that the divorce courts are very busy.
Governments exist for the welfare of the people. The legitimacy of any government is hinged on its continuing ability to provide for and protect its citizens. Governments must create and sustain the enabling environment for the people to thrive and realize their deepest aspirations. The right of a people to determine what those aspirations are is unimpeachable. So also is the process of realizing them. That’s what democracy is all about; the very same thing exotically christened self-determination. Those rights are inalienable.
Biafra wasn’t an original idea. It wasn’t something that was scrupulously articulated. It was merely a reaction to a government that had failed to rise to the demands of the occasion: a default solution, if you may. In essence, Biafra represents the resolve of a people to demand for a better deal. That’s what started in Tunisia, swept away the well-entrenched Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and has Libya’s Gaddafi’s future hanging by a thread. Syria’s Al-Assad and Yemen’s Saleh are fairing no better. Despotic regimes everywhere are predictably jittery, and why not?
When people say the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable, I assume the well being and security of all Nigerians have been factored in. I assume that that unity is founded on the bedrock of the peoples’ unalloyed and unforced commitment to the nation’s growth and sustenance. And the nation’s primary focus must be to provide the greatest good for the greatest number. Where governments falter or fail in this fundamental task, they lose the moral basis to demand the peoples’ commitment, and the unity of such an entity becomes accordingly compromised.
Husbands are obligated to love their wives while wives are enjoined to submit to their husbands. Even though a wife’s submission should not ordinarily be predicated on a husband’s love, we know all too well that the performance of one encourages the other. So a husband who has ceased to love and cherish his wife cannot simply turn around to demand submission. And if such a woman approaches the courts demanding the quashing of the union, he would have no tenable basis to oppose it.
As with husband and wife, so it is with a nation and her peoples. I hate divorce as perfectly as I detest the idea of secession. But I’ll have no qualms recommending both options if the circumstances so demand. The Boko Haram exponents are well within their right to demand to live how they wish. What they do not possess is the right to injure other people’s interests in the process of actualizing theirs. The charter of an organization is not complete without a provision for opting out. If you can subscribe, you must also be able to unsubscribe.
So do I believe in Biafra? I think I answered that question a very long time ago.
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

January 1 1984 was a Sunday; no ordinary day in Igboland whether from the religious or socio-cultural angle. The day was made even more significant by the emergence of a new regime. The lack-lustre and increasingly directionless administration of President Shehu Shagari of the NPN had made a coup inevitable. Every effort to compel the mild-mannered former school teacher to respond to emerging global economic realities seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. The same Nigerians who had gladly seen off the military to the barracks in 1979 were the same frustrated but upbeat horde that gleefully trooped out to usher the military back into governance. No segment of Nigeria was more desperately in need of that change than the people of the East: Ndigbo.
By convention, I was in Ohafia my ancestral home on that fateful day when news quickly spread that a certain army general named Buhari had seized the reins of power. The mood in Ohafia was predictably optimistic as often-deferred hopes transmogrified into urgent expectations. And those expectations were legion.
At the end of the civil war in 1970, the youthful head of state, General Yakubu Gowon had, in addition to introducing the fitting mantra of “NO VICTOR, NO VANQUISHED” also inaugurated a post-war initiative denoted by 3R: Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation. For a region that bore the full brunt of the mindless hostilities, it was the change that was so desperately desired. Beyond sophistry and sloganeering though, not much happened in concrete terms. Ndigbo had always been hard-working but it soon became clear they had to apply themselves thrice as hard to recover even a soupcon of relevance.
That day, I found myself in a certain stream along the dilapidated Ohafia – Bende – Umuahia highway. Known as Mmuri, it had become the most assured source of water for the Elu, Ebem and Ihenta Ohafia communities: a sad commentary on the reality of arrested infrastructural development. But it was much worse. Over Mmuri is a steel girder bridge that belongs firmly in pre-colonial times. Since the bridge permits only one vehicle at a time, the steel flat sheets that act as the bridge floor must be manually rearranged after each use to prevent certain disaster. I recently watched Channels TV’s Charles Erukaa’s documentary on the heart-stopping experience of crossing the Mmuri Bridge and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
As I pondered the myriads of socio-political and infrastructural challenges confronting the East as represented by that rickety bridge, I dared to imagine a genuinely reconstructed or even a new and better bridge.
Developmentally and metaphorically, bridges have become emblematic of the East’s sustained quest for justice and inclusion in the Nigerian project. And this dates back to Gowon’s 3R era. Ndigbo were falling over themselves to get back into national reckoning and recover requisite relevance. In their desperate mission, ever tool became legitimate: chicanery, humour, subterfuge and sycophancy. It accounted for why Ojukwu allowed himself to be employed as a lap dog by Shagari’s NPN government. When the malevolent maverick, that self-styled evil genius needed a dubious ally to scuttle the democratic process in 1993, he went no further than Francis Arthur Nzeribe.
One of the leading political lights of the East in the second republic was Chief Samuel Onunaka Mbakwe popularly called Dee Sam. He was Imo’s governor between October 1 1979 and December 31 1983. As a humour merchant, he severally employed that unique tool to attract attention to the East’s burgeoning environmental problems. When that failed, he resorted to something a bit more fluid.
While conducting President Shagari round the famous Ndiegoro flood disaster site in Aba, Mbakwe released a torrent of tears; earning him the whimsical title of “weeping governor.” There’s no evidence the deluge of tears changed anything. No, I take that back. It actually did: it worsened an already dire situation. Many more have engaged in all manner of stunts in order to secure some leverage for the East, but all to no avail.
The industry of Ndigbo is an indubitable fact; so being constantly on the move, bridges have become sine qua non for unfettered enterprise: providing vital linkages to prosperity and peace. So those seek the love and support of Ndigbo have always come armed with blueprints for building bridges. And for as many times, they have been duped.
The 2nd Niger Bridge has been in the pipeline for as far back as I can recall. Every aspiring leader has used it as a bait to hoodwink Ndigbo. As I write, that bridge is as ready for use as the 4th Mainland Bridge in Lagos.
Ndigbo generally and Ohafia people in particular have this knack for rendering a new leader’s name in a manner that announces their acceptance or otherwise, and encapsulates their expectations. On New Year Day 1984, the word on everyone’s lips was “Buharia:” meaning “to turn” or “to change.” What Mbakwe’s humour and tears couldn’t achieve, what the political theatricals and gymnastics of many Igbo sons and daughters couldn’t secure, Ndigbo firmly believed Buhari would. Unfortunately, his tour of duty was short-lived.
Nearly 3 decades to the day he was disingenuously ousted, conditions in the East are direr while expectations have since quadrupled. Despite the recent deafening bleating of the “Ebele Azikiwe” mantra, deep down, Ndigbo believe Buhari has what it takes to Buharia their depleting fortunes. I state without fear of contradiction that the East provides the highest and quickest return on investment anywhere in Nigeria.
Mr President, the ball is entirely in your court. Whether you choose to operate in the toga of Buhari or Buharia, it’s all the same to the discerning people of the East.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

On Friday June 26 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States of America in a divided opinion ruled that same-sex couples could marry nationwide. What this means in essence is that married same-sex couples will enjoy the same rights and privileges of married heterosexual couples and will be accorded recognition on official documents such as birth and death certificates.
Despite being the 21st nation to achieve this dubious landmark, it would seem, by the fiery reactions this event has elicited that the US holds the exclusive global imprimatur on the exercise of sexual liberties. One institution more than any other is bearing the major brunt of this legal tsunami: the Church. It can’t be otherwise because though many same-sex exponents have been deceptively placing the issue in the human rights arena, it’s evident it is really about morality and theology. Why in the world would you threaten to send a parson to jail that declines to solemnize a same-sex union? When you must violate the right of one to satisfy another, when the injured party is compelled to repudiate his/her faith in order not to fall foul of the law, we must suspect a rogue spirituality masquerading as legality.
My take on the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender controversy isn’t complicated. If these people must be granted full conjugal privileges because their preferred sexual orientations are considered valid alternatives and therefore normal, we must be prepared to, not too far down this slippery line, also extend the same recognition and privileges to practitioners of paedophilia, incest and bestiality. Enough said.
Sodom and Gomorrah has become the standard synecdoche for aberrant, abhorrent lasciviousness and moral depravity; and rightly so. When one man burns in libidinous passion for another, when one woman’s lustful desire can only be assuaged by another, when a little boy cannot point between his ‘parents’ who breastfed him, you have to be truly dead not to be alarmed. The intensity of the outrage expressed by a segment of the Church in response to the current gay rampage while in order seems to suggest that the last straw has just snapped and apocalypse is finally here. It is being made to look like certain sins and misdemeanours are insignificant. This, in my opinion is wrong; and dangerous.
The fact is, if these ‘small’ sins and errors had been dealt with with expeditious alacrity, Sodom might not have happened. If the Church in America had been consistent and focused on her core mandate of reproving sin, maybe the Supreme Court would have ruled differently.
Long before Sodom and Gomorrah, God found sufficient cause to destroy a world he had made. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with wickedness. God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth. Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth.”1

Corruption, wickedness: sound familiar? In Nigeria, certainly. It is corruption when motorists in Africa’s largest oil producer must queue endlessly for fuel while those that purport to lead live large off the masses’ misery. It is sheer wickedness when lawmakers justify their hefty pay cheques by comparing themselves with their counterparts in nations whose citizens live well while they work actively to institutionalize poverty. How else would you describe a scenario where a pastor feels no pangs of conscience living like the famed Croesus while a segment of his burgeoning congregation that contributes to enable his profligacy can only afford a decent meal in their tortured dreams? The thieves who continually empty the common till are not only bedecked with national honours, they remain the ‘chiefs’ who continue to direct state affairs at the highest levels. Little wonder that corruption and wickedness – that diabolical, same-sex duo – have since secured comfortable accommodation here.

If God intended destroying Nigeria, there were sufficient reasons yesterday to provoke him to. The fact that we have a law prohibiting same-sex liaisons wouldn’t sway him.

When that dreaded Day of Judgment finally arrives, it will start fittingly in the Church. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God;2 says the Good, Reliable Book. With Nigeria as one of the most religious enclaves on earth and host to the single largest church congregation, will it be out of place to imagine our hosting the inauguration of Armageddon?
1 Genesis 6:11-13 (HCSB) 2 1Peter 4:17 (ESV 2011)

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

His last session as an undergraduate was my first, and the first time I saw him strumming away at the guitar was the last time I witnessed that kind of spectacle.
Even as a ‘jambite,’ I had become reasonably acquainted with Brother Akin Adesina’s unassailable academic pedigree long before I set eyes on him. The “brother” bit was the titular token of being part of the Christian Community and the Evangelical Christian Union in what was then unarguably the most beautiful university campus in all of Africa. Back then, being addressed as “brother” was the highest form of identification.
So when I did get to finally see Bro Akin Adesina, as I had expected, he cut every bit of the image of a geeky wonk: tall, lanky and bespectacled.
He was then on course to earn a First Class degree in Agricultural Economics. That fact made very many of us who were remotely associated with him really glad. In those days at the University of Ife, you got exactly what you merited. In all my time there, I never met any First Class graduate who wasn’t deserving of it.
So, yes. Bro Akin was as smart as they come. If a test was ever conducted in the Federal Executive Council to place members on the basis of IQ, there’ll be little competition about who comes tops. I wager the cut-throat competition will actually manifest at the other end: who brings up the rear. Let me quickly navigate away from this cantankerous issue before I stumble into trouble!
So if the Honourable Minister for Agriculture has consistently exuded brilliance and sagacity, it shouldn’t be surprising. It is well within his firmly established reputation.
But there was yet another side to him that I was later to be let in on.
It was at a meeting of the ECU at the Agric Foyer. Bro Akin was exhorting on the necessity of love if we intended as a people, to successfully execute our evangelical mandate. His delivery was as crisp as it was eloquent. If Dr Adesina ever considered making, as his vocation, the planting of the seeds of God’s Word in men’s hearts, he’ll be one of the most successful ‘farmers’ around!
Not done with his preachment, he proceeded to do something completely novel as if to reinforce the utter urgency of his message. He grabbed an acoustic guitar and started ‘playing’ in accompaniment to a song he had just taught us.
“Let us love, let us love one another,” he belted out in undisguised charismatic fashion and fervor.
I didn’t have to be a guitar virtuoso to discern the discordant tones emanating from the guitar. And from the quizzical looks I also noticed on the faces of others, I knew something was definitely amiss.
But no matter, we all swooned along to Bro Akin’s ecstatic rendition for as long as he pleased. “Let us love, let us love one another. Let us love, let us love…..”
Soon after that meeting, I was to learn Bro was no guitar player whatsoever! I have since acquired some guitar proficiency, so with the privilege of hindsight, two things could have prompted the stunt he pulled off that fateful day: lunacy or audacity.
To underscore the resounding success of that effort, not only can I still vividly remember his message of over thirty years, but I have since been militantly implementing his admonition to love: a fact that my friends and my missus of over two decades should easily attest to.
And speaking of love and loving, that was a subject matter Bro was eminently qualified to ‘sing’ about. With so much going for him, there were quite a few lasses (read sisters) who were imagining and projecting (a veritable aspect of the subject matter of faith) themselves into his obviously bright future. So by the time he left in a blaze of glory in 1981, there were not a few hearts that required urgent, expert mending!
So thirty years down the line, Bro Akin Adesina, fittingly transmogrified to Dr Akinwumi Adesina, reappears on the national dais. He is older and certainly more experienced but the characteristic élan and profuse panache are still very evident.
If I haven’t been surprised by how he has carried on so far, it is only an endorsement of his refreshing consistency.
The media has been awash with the federal government’s latest initiative of procuring a staggering 10 million cell-phones for farmers at a whooping cost of N60 billion! Let me confess that I’m as flabbergasted as anyone could possibly be. I do not have a clear grasp of the issues involved: the convoluted matter of procurement being akin to rocket science to me. Many have resorted to mathematics to prove the absurdity, and by extension, the fact that the scheme is unworkable. But I have since learned that in Nigeria, projects that make mathematical sense do not necessarily make economic and political sense.
Dr Adesina has painstakingly tried explaining the huge benefits of the scheme and its well-articulated modalities: attempting gallantly to disabuse the minds of those who – and rightly so – are already insinuating corruption. Believe me, there are many more questions than answers.
So I recall the discordant guitar tones and I think 10 million cell-phones. And I’m minded to think the future belongs to the audacious.
So no matter, I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perusing his records since 1981, I discovered they are strewn with all manner of achievements resembling magic and miracles.
I have a hunch the current scheme will not depart from the trend. I hope so. No, I actually desperately pray so. That’s the very least I owe him.
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com

I was told it was the most beautiful campus in all of Africa. That must have been what lured me to the University Of Ife and I’ve never regretted that choice. But Ife was much more than just beauty and aesthetics. It was in every sense a centre of academic excellence; providing platforms for deep intellectual intercourse. Back then, you couldn’t be there and remain indifferent to national and global issues.
When I accepted the offer to study Architecture in 1980, President Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria with his coterie of lack-lustre officials was in a frenzy preparing to celebrate 365 days of steering the ship of state determinedly towards bankruptcy. The most prominent opposition figure of the time, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, cognizant of global economic realities, had warned the NPN to halt the mindless spending spree and inaugurate a regime of austerity measures. NPN’s predictable response came in the form of a mantra: “The economy is buoyant!”
That, of course was a naked lie but the illusion was sustained until 31st December 1983; three months into Shagari’s landslide-enabled second term when the duo of Major General Muhammadu Buhari and Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon broke up the party; incarcerating as many as they could lay their hands on.
The failure of that administration, and by extension that political dispensation, was a popular topic of discussion back then. I had personally come to the conclusion that had President Shagari been educated beyond the Teachers’ Grade Two Certificate level; he would have been better equipped to handle the intellectual rigours of governance. Being in an academic environment where polemics and dialectics were staples, one was under the impression that academics made better administrators. Awolowo’s towering intellectual pedigree was certainly also a factor in this regard. It was impossible not to relate his celebrated sagacity to the fact of his being a university graduate. And I wasn’t alone in this line of thinking. Very many who’d also arrived at the same conclusion adopted all manner of advocacy options to press for a constitutional amendment making the minimum qualification for the presidency a university degree and I fully subscribed to the initiative.
Unfortunately, every effort at constitutional tinkering has left the presidential minimum academic qualification as it has always been: a Secondary School Certificate. The only reason why I was prepared to give Chief Ernest Shonekan and his aberrant Interim National Government any chance of success was because he was a graduate! But he wasn’t meant to last. Barely three months at the helm, Shonekan and his ING contraption were sent packing.
For the next fourteen years until 2007, the military resumed its suffocating stranglehold on us under different guises. When General Olusegun Obasanjo with his quasi-democratic credentials failed to doctor the constitution to enable a third term as president, he elected to foist on us the ill and ill-prepared Umaru Yar’dua. I hated the process that coughed up Yar’adua but I embraced his person for two related reasons.
Firstly, I saw in Yar’adua the fulfilment of my long-held fantasy of a graduate-president. Finally, we were going to have a president who would accurately analyse situations, and from the standpoint of well-articulated positions inspire his administration and the rest of the nation towards set goals and objectives. I was giddy with joy and filled with expectation from a president who I believed would say what he meant and mean what he said. That for me was the promise Yar’adua held.
The second attraction to the Yar’adua presidency was his deputy. To have a Vice-President who was not just a graduate but a PhD was a prospect too good to be true. The Yar’adua/Jonathan team was a fulfilment of my dreams and fantasies for a better Nigeria and I embraced the duo like I’d never done any before them.
The first moves Yar’adua made seemed to validate my preference. He publicly acknowledged flaws in the electoral process and promptly declared his assets publicly. In a manner reminiscent of the Rawlings years in Ghana, he took on the Niger Delta militancy imbroglio head-on. What really bowled me over was when he ordered the pump price of premium motor spirit (petrol) to revert to N65/litre. Obasanjo had jacked it up to N70/litre as a parting punishment for the demolition of his third term project. By 2008, one year into that administration, I could almost swear that the vaunted Vision 2020-20 was achievable.
But then, by experience, I hadn’t completely let my guards down. And sure enough, certain disquieting signs began to manifest. First was the lethargy that was becoming an undeniable feature of the anti-corruption war. Then just as suddenly, the hubris usually characteristic of officialdom began creeping back in. You could see government functionaries strutting about with this annoying swagger. And then the fact of the president’s failing health became public knowledge.
It is well over two years since Nigeria’s Senate confirmed Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President on 9th February 2010. The many battles that were fought to make that epochal event possible are well documented. Even now, I can recall those that put their lives and livelihoods on the line to ensure his emergence. What we may never be able to calculate and document are the hopes, the prayers and the sense of expectancy that heralded Jonathan’s ascension to the highest office in the land. No leader in recent times ever garnered such goodwill. For me, it was so much more than a dream come true. Having a PhD as president was the stuff of fairy tales.
But I was wrong and I accept full responsibility for this error. I had assumed that every university graduate was imbued with sound analytical and oratorical skills. Anyone who had successfully authored and defended BSc, MSc and PhD theses should have, in the process, become a guru in polemics. My thinking then was that when such skills are brought to bear in the sphere of administration and governance, success cannot but happen. I had the privilege of attending a university blessed with sound administrators. No one who was at the University of Ife in the good old days could forget the duo of Professors Hezekiah Oluwasanmi and Wande Abimbola. And these were accomplished academics in their own right. Maybe that’s what fooled me. I had been primed to expect so much from anyone who brandished a university certification. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
President Jonathan’s Cabinet boasts the largest assemblage of eggheads any administration has ever mustered. And that speaks volumes about his intention to leave a mark. The aggregate of what these appointees bring to the table does not make up for the glaring deficits in the character and carriage of the boss. And that is precisely the crux of our current dilemma.
So if and when 2015 comes, I won’t personally be fixated on helping make a graduate the president. I’d rather be looking out for a man (or woman) with a verifiable record of thankless public service. I’d prefer to cast my vote for one with demonstrable courage to tackle the ills that bedevil us. One, who is prepared to die so this beleaguered nation can survive, will be my champion. If such a one can combine the influence of Nebuchadnezzar with the strength of Goliath and the courage and conviction of David, so much the better. It used to be a source of irritation to me when graduates of the University of Nigeria Nsukka referred to themselves as ‘lions.’ But not anymore. Now, I love all graduates of UNN! We need lions all over the place to devour the venomous beasts that threaten to annihilate us. Ferocious, man-eating lions, that is.
The myth was that the graduate will always do better than the non-graduate in governance. Under that guise, far too many charlatans brandishing all manner of degrees wangled their way to power and prominence. And our sorry state is evidence of that monumental error. But the myth has been broken: the scales have since fallen off. Now we see and know better. And we owe this deliverance to none other than our own dear President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan. Without prejudice to what posterity will record in his favour, this, to me, will always represent his greatest legacy.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

If you have a wife who truly loves you, count yourself blessed. A wife is one of the few items in the long list of ‘things’ we purport to own that can robustly defend her ownership; like the one I’ve been stuck with for over 2 decades!
The union between man and woman is the human equivalent of the relationship between the Church and her progenitor, Jesus Christ. It is a relationship defined and nurtured by love. Only love could have compelled Christ away from heaven’s resplendence to a darkened earth; nudging him further still to that bitter, cross-enabled sacrifice. Only by the token of unconditional love could he secure eternal salvation for all who respond in faith to his claims: the very claims trampled by the same horde that hasted his cruel demise. It is the same love that binds him as Head to the Church which is the Body. Each individual member of the Church also relates to the Christ on the basis of love – sacrificing, unconditional love. That’s why the Good Book urges every man to love his missus as the Christ loves the Church.
In the world’s oldest institution as in its oldest profession, women are obligated to offer very similar services. While the loving, dotting wife offers her body unconditionally for love’s sake, the prostitute is motivated by pecuniary and other measurable benefits. As patrons of the enterprise of flesh will readily attest to, prostitutes usually have their services better packaged than regular wives!
When the inimitable Paul of Tarsus had a head-on with the living Christ on one of his murderous anti-Christian crusades, he posed a most pertinent question: “…Lord, what will you have me do?” This for me is the fitting response of one who, having answered the divine summons is intent on relevance and significance. Now you appreciate why this man, Saint Paul, authored more than a half of the New Testament. It is because our faith fathers stuck tenaciously to this paradigm that our generation still has somewhat to bequeath to our children. Paul was a true disciple of Christ who sought to recruit others into the same discipline according to Christ’s urgent commandment: “Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations…”
There is a trending tendency in today’s Church for fresh entrants not to ask to be shown what to do but rather want to know what is in it for them. Most Christians will of course swear they’re in Church to do God’s will but current realities suggest otherwise.
Perusing a list of the publications of one of Nigeria’s Pentecostal preachers, I discovered they all bordered on power and authority and how they may be harnessed to generate results. This in itself raises no red flags until matched with testimonies emanating from patrons of the same ministry. Without exception, all the testimonials speak of landing massive contracts, securing choice jobs, cornering preferred husbands/wives, obtaining healing from life-threatening ailments etc. It seems to be all about what God can do for those who serve him. If the people do have tales of becoming holier, accessing deliverance from terrible temperaments or making themselves more available for God’s use, either they never say so or the church authorities consider such stories unworthy of publication.
If one’s relationship with God and progress thereon is evidenced only by temporal acquisitions, one can’t claim to be a disciple of Christ. Prostitute isn’t a pretty word but if all that keeps you in church is the prospect of miracles, signs and wonders, there’s nothing else to call you.
As a pastor, evangelist, prophet and apostle, if the crux of your message is how the anointing and power of God can be employed in amassing this world’s goods, you look to me like a love-vendor recruiting and nurturing unwitting prostitutes.
love-vendor and prostitute: a cursed combination you hate to be associated with. I, even more, and God, certainly most.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

In the campaigns leading up to the nearly concluded generals elections, one of the subtle claims of the opponents of the All Progressives Congress was that it harboured an Islamist agenda. The biggest target of that crusade was General Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of APC (now President-elect) who it seems had made statements in the past indicating support for expanded application of the Sharia legal system.
Since taking his inaugural shot at Nigeria’s coveted presidency in 2003, Buhari has had to contend with a pervasive media perception of being an unbending Islamic fundamentalist. His ordeal was made even testier by the emergence of the murderous Islamist group, Boko Haram, as his opponents made a meal of linking him to the group.
By the time the ruling Peoples Democratic Party realized Buhari’s candidacy presented a distinct possibility of ousting it from power, it predictably raised the ante on the Buhari Islamization rhetoric. With generous help from a significant but sullied segment of the Christian community, many enabling documents were published to rubbish his candidacy. All those shenanigans fell far short; and the rest is up to historians and opportunistic scavengers masquerading as analysts.
So what precisely is meant by islamization of Nigeria, or put more esoterically, dipping the Qur’an in the Atlantic? I think it simply means making every Nigerian a Muslim. Is it something Buhari can pull off? Maybe. Will he actually do it? We have all of four years to find out.
Not only does the Constitution guarantee holding particular religious convictions, to propagate them within the confines of the law is a basic human right. To change or even completely dump any religious belief is also something we’re permitted to do. A Christian can elect to become Muslim, and vice versa, and anyone is at liberty to become anything, or nothing.
Will Buhari attempt to make the rest of us Muslims? I’d actually be shocked if he didn’t. As a Christian, I’m under obligation to make every Nigerian, nay every human, a disciple of Jesus Christ. That onerous task goes by a fancy name: evangelization – the Christian equivalent of Islamization.
Here is how I think a President Buhari will go about his Islamization initiative as encapsulated in this tale.
Story is told of a young man who had come to a decision to become a Christian or a Muslim. Having been inundated with competing claims from both sides, he came up with an ingenious plan to aid his decision-making. Using his reputation as a conscientious worker as leverage, he secured a job as a domestic servant of a Christian missionary living in his community.
In the months he worked for her, he took note of her every conduct especially her response to situations that didn’t fit her expectation. He was particularly curious to know how she fared under extreme provocation. By the time he felt he had known enough about Christian character and living, he was able to secure another job with a prominent Muslim in the community. On informing his boss of his intention to leave, she asked to know why, and he told her. Thinking it was a matter of remuneration, she offered to substantially raise his wages. At this juncture, his intimated her of the real reason he’d come to work for her in the first place: to discover first-hand how a Christian lived. Having gathered enough information, it was time to repeat the experience on the other side of the religious divide so he could come to an informed decision.
So I think Buhari will try to islamize Nigeria by behaving very well as President. And if you ask me, that’ll be quite a proper and progressive way to proselytize.
Goodluck Jonathan has had more than 4 years to strut his stuff and we’re all grateful beneficiaries of his legendary humility and equanimity. I assume legions have already signed up to Christianity on account of his unassailable testimonial.
It is only fair that Buhari be allowed to put up his own performance. Hopefully by 2019, the gates of Islam in Nigeria will be jammed with desperate prospective adherents. That’s the sort of islamization we deserve.
So General Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR: it’s your call. The stage is all yours!

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

The first time I became eligible to vote was in the 1983 general elections; in those heady days of the NPN, UPN, NPP, GNPP, PRP and Tunji Braithwaite’s NAP. For the presidential, I voted Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. He lost by an embarrassingly wide margin and has since died on me. So in my inaugural outing, my vote couldn’t count.
The landslide-enabled government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, after barely three months, was sent packing by a gang of military adventurists many of whom are still alive and angling for power.
On Saturday June 12 1993, Nigerians were offered another chance at democracy in a two-horse race. I stood convincingly behind Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola of the SDP. The result of that epochal election was never officially announced: no thanks to the malevolent maverick, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. Once again, my vote was not allowed to count.
Then began another period of military experimentation that lasted till the famed 1999 elections: another two-horse race. General Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief Olu Falae: two distinguished Yoruba sons were the frontrunners. I opted for Falae and predictably, he bit the dust along with my precious vote.
By 2003, democratic practice seemed to be taking root with not a few new entrants on the political dais. That year, General Muhammadu Buhari made his first attempt at the presidency and I elected to cast my vote for him. The incumbent, Obasanjo secured an easy victory meaning that once again, my vote didn’t matter.
In 2007, after Obasanjo’s failed attempt at self-perpetuation and his subsequent dragging of the ailing Umaru Musa Yar’adua into the fray, I was so pissed by the unconscionable audaciousness of the menfolk that I did the most natural thing. I switched gender allegiance by voting a woman: Sarah Jibril. It was a protest vote that wasn’t expected to count and it didn’t.
The process of registering for the 2011 general election was so hectic that after the ordeal, I was almost minded not to vote. But then, the tale of shoeless-ness and the promise of a breath of fresh air got me inexplicably bewitched. Like one under a spell, I shuffled off once more on Saturday April 16 2011 to do the needful. On that occasion, I harboured reasonably high expectations, and why not? It isn’t often a Ph. D is shoved onto the arena, genuflects before you begging to be made President. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is keenly aware of the many and varied sentiments that enabled his ascension to Nigeria’s dream position.
Four years along, I can say with every sense of responsibility that my vote didn’t count. I probably contributed to the over 22 million votes reckoned by INEC in Jonathan’s favour. If that is all there is to making one’s vote count, then I was duped. It would seem I was merely used to legitimize a few people’s access to power for less than altruistic ends.
Thirty two years after my electioneering initiation and after having survived five presidential electoral cycles, Nigeria is none the better. On all indices of human development, we have visibly deteriorated. But on the matters of population and ability to subvert the system, we have far outstripped all growth projections. In essence, all the sacrifices and inconveniences I have had to endure in the belief that my vote was going to make for a better country have all come to nought. This is a sobering commentary on our convoluted odyssey as a nation.
A few days hence, it will be time (I hope) for the usual election ritual. The candidates have been all over the place employing all manner of tactics to hoodwink the voting populace. A people blighted by hunger and ignorance harbour diminished capacity to identify these worn shenanigans. And for the very first time, the option of refraining from voting is actually looking quite inviting to me. If my five previous outings have yielded little, why would the sixth be any different?
But then, after the election must have been won and lost and things don’t improve, someone is going to insinuate that had people like me voted for the right persons, things could have been different.
So on Saturday March 28 2015, I’m going to travel (I was compelled to register very far from where I live) to do what model citizens are expected to do. That way, I can put the matter of the futility of voting beyond argument.
But here is the other side of my reality. I’m actually hoping – and desperately praying – that at the end of the day, I’m proved wrong.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Objects beyond our immediate grasp and control are nearly always more attractive and desirable. That’s why the grass across the fence appears greener and lusher. Your marvellous missus of two decades suddenly looks drab compared to the wiry wench who just wangled her way to employment in your slave camp that passes for a real workplace. Houses in the new neighbourhood have to be heaven compared to the hell hole you’re stuck in. The bombastic TV evangelist drips more anointment than the man who, as pastor/provider, has endured your fatalistic foibles for all of a decade.
Call it design error of operational deficit but it seems to be standard to how the human species is fitted. It accounts for the crippling feeling of inferiority on the one hand and the nauseating presumption of entitlement and superiority on the other.
The pastor plying his trade in Minnesota fancies himself better than his saintlier colleague labouring away in lowly Sango-ota. The graduate of the University of Tenerife imagines a suspicious superiority to his University of Ife counterpart. So a man would rather freeze over in some far-flung place named Siberia than apply himself in Nigeria.
Or why do you suppose our so-called leaders prefer making defining declarations at Chatham House when we could well establish and nurture our own Eket-Itam House to regional if not global reckoning? Why would a local potentate aspire to die in Arabia when Abia provides a much more dignified environment to expire?
I have a hunch that if the subsisting religious privileges of Medina were transferred to Kaduna, not a few adherents will down tools. In my humble opinion, Ohafia is the most peaceful place on earth, yet many persist in needless pilgrimages to Sofia to be at peace.
Nigeria could very easily become one of the greatest nations on earth. The ingredients have always been present but mouthing meaningless mantras and citing spurious statistics will never get us there. Nor will religiously implementing exotic models sourced from across the fence.
Until we come to grips with the fact that progress and prosperity cannot be imported, we’ll persist in the on-going risky rigmarole. Until we wean ourselves off the damning deception that our future is tied to dangerous and depleting resources, our destiny belongs in the nadir of irrelevance.
Every day, our pretender leaders regale us with their whimsical exploits in attracting foreign direct investment. Yet these overindulged, congenital nitwits haven’t the slightest inkling that our prosperity lies with engaging the almost limitless pool of human resources we daily denigrate and despoil. They would rather junket to Michigan when sincere synergies with Michika and Gbongan would have done the trick.
As Nigerians, we sometimes allege the West doesn’t love us. This was especially so when we were scrambling to procure badly needed arms to fight the murderous Boko Haram. Love has never been a component of international relations; and in all likelihood, it never will. Interests it has been; interests it always will be. Nations have an obligation to act always in the highest interest of her citizens. The West does not have to love us but if we play our cards right, they’ll act towards us as though they did.
It is time to dump the anachronistic and farcical principle of Africa being the centre-piece of our foreign policy. If Nigeria assumes her proper position in the scheme of things, Africa and the rest of the world cannot but be well served.
The grass on the other side isn’t greener. It only appears so because you’ve spent the best part of your waking hours gazing at it.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Let me first disabuse the minds of those infested with fetid, fertile imagination: I’m as straight as they come; and I’ve only had one face-to-face encounter with the current head of the Federal Road Safety Commission, Boboye Oyeyemi. It happened on the concrete-paved grounds of the FRSC offices in Wuse Zone 7, Abuja; next door to the NAFDAC office facility where the saintly Dora Akunyili once held sway.
Sometime in August 2014, I had initiated the process for the renewal of my National Driver’s Licence. I received a temporary licence with a 2-month validity, and since then, every visit had elicited the worn Nigerian refrain of “check back later.”
On Friday February 13 2105, nearly four months after the expiration of my temporary licence, I received a text message requesting me to collect my licence in Wuse Zone 7 between 10am and 2pm the next day. About 20 minutes to 2pm on Saturday February 14 2015, I came huffing and puffing to the venue. If I hadn’t been cocksure of where I was, I could have sworn I’d just chanced on an INEC Permanent Voter’s Card collection situation. Seated and standing in every available space were hundreds of men and women whose faces mirrored anger and frustration. To make matters worse, the sun was out in all of its infernal glory driving temperatures up to the region of 35°C.
The Presidential election was billed to have taken place that day, but I couldn’t imagine it being as harrowing as what was playing out under the sweltering canopy of the FRSC car park. Paper-clutching officers were scrambling around trying to straighten things out but it was obvious their efforts were falling far short.
Allegations of favouritism were already being bandied around and tempers were predictably beginning to flare. Having just been there for half an hour, I had little justification joining the angst party. Additionally, I had to be at my objective best as I was already contemplating writing about the sorry scenario I knew to be well beneath the towering pedigree of the FRSC.
As I was making mental notes, quite dramatically, the gait and mien of the officers almost instantaneously transmogrified. Grins quickly replaced frowns and cars were re-parked with deliberate dispatch to make room for a two-vehicle convoy – a Range Rover and a Ford Explorer. It turned out the “Oga at the top” himself, officially known as the Corps Marshal, was visiting. With little of the flurry and fanfare usually associated with the itineraries of personalities of his cadre, Boboye Oyeyemi materialized from one of the SUVs dressed like a school Games Master. The one and a half minutes he took to get to the vortex of the fuming crowd was all I needed to match the real man I was seeing for the very first time with the image TV had generously supplied.
He wore this permanent scowl that gave the impression of one adept at contemplation and introspection; like a monk. TV said he was a man of few but choice words and he appeared no different. It was only in the cosmetic matter of his height that I’d been misled. I’d expected a giant in the similitude of Barnabas Jabila, a.k.a. Sergeant Rogers of the notorious Special Strike Force of the dark, murderous Abacha days.
I did not see him talk down on or overtly reprimand any of his over-stressed officers. He listened intently to them and must have suggested how the process could be expedited. Within 30 minutes of his arrival, the crowd had halved; freeing up precious seats for late comers like me.
I was seated and already updating my FRSC narrative when, without warning, that piercing gaze from behind thick lenses was cast in my direction. When he suspected I wasn’t certain it was my attention he sought, he briskly covered the 5 metres that separated us. “So the boss intended attending to me personally?” It was getting really interesting. After supplying the details of the text message sent to me, it took less than 5 minutes for my licence to materialize!
I was so confused with joy that I was torn between genuflecting and somersaulting in appreciation. What I eventually did, I can’t precisely recall. All I vividly remember is that my redeemer was still engrossed with ensuring that none left the premises without his/her licence.
February 14 is touted as lovers’ day or Valentine’s Day after some mythical saint. I have always had a problem with the idea of isolating one day to celebrate what should ordinarily be an everyday experience and reality. I was probably the happiest when INEC’s Jega snatched the initiative from the mercantile and libidinous promoters of Valentine by fixing the presidential polls on the day. Sadly, the polls had to be rescheduled.
So here I was on this most-hyped of days watching a ranking public servant do what I would have sworn could only be found in the history books. That moment my licence was handed to me, I experienced something approximating an epiphany. If many more bosses were like this Boboye dude, we would have been far ahead of where we currently are as a nation. And if this is how Valentine Days panned out, I should since have become a believer.
So you can appreciate why I had to override my principles to make him my Valentine. And I have to add that I’d long identified and fallen for the lyrical, rhythmic and tongue-mangling possibilities of the name – BOB-OYE OYE-YEMI.
One little regret though. That name won’t be appearing on the ballot.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
Plot 542 Durumi District, Abuja
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Compromise is akin to the movement one makes from one point to another point where agreement or concurrence with another person happens. Whether in hammering out a contract or tying the nuptial knot, the parties involved must relocate from their initial positions to ones more agreeable to other partners. It is the religious observance of the rules of the new positions that enables international, intra-national and inter-personal peace and harmony.
Compromise in this regard is not only desirable but absolutely sine qua non for progress and mutual co-existence. This kind of compromise not only benefits the immediate stakeholders but the interests of so many more are served. I call it Type I Compromise.
There is yet another type of compromise that to the untrained eye looks exactly like Type I. The process of undertaking the necessary movement concomitant to compromise will in this case entail that at least one of the parties abandons initially held convictions. Enormous benefits may initially accrue but over time, the scenario starts to exert an unbearable toll on one or more of the stakeholders. More significantly, the possibility of spreading the benefits to larger society becomes progressively foreclosed. Let’s christen this Type II Compromise.
I will go out on a limb here with a guess on the preponderance of the two types of compromise across the board in Nigeria.
Type I Compromise: 20%
Type II Compromise: 80%
Maybe now you can appreciate why I think things may never improve around here. I will return to this matter shortly; after relaying a defining experience.
She was introduced to me simply as Hajiya. I never sought to know her real names and I don’t regret it one bit. In Nigeria, our penchant for titles is so deeply ingrained that they often replace proper names. The whole place is littered with people brandishing all manner of titles such as Alhaji, Chief, High Chief, Pastor, Prophet, Senator, Honourable, and the most nauseating of all, Your Excellency.
Hajiya intended erecting a 3-bedroom chalet on a property she owns in Gwarinpa, Abuja and my responsibility was to provide the design. After about 6 weeks of dilly-dallying and also meeting two other characters named Husband and Engineer, I was finally ready to talk fees for my services. And that was precisely when she elected to drop the bombshell in carefully choreographed collusion with Husband and Engineer. All she required me to produce was a site plan!
When Engineer first broached the idea over the phone, I assumed I didn’t hear him well probably because he brandished a professional title. Later, Husband (I only address him as such because that’s the title males adopt in matrimony) tried a few more tricks and when I couldn’t be convinced, Hajiya went for broke.
She informed me that in her long, illustrious career as a developer, all she had ever needed to employ was a bricklayer. Her having to retain the services of a so-called engineer was a huge compromise on her part. So, for her, the very matter of having an architect was new and strange turf. What do architects do anyway? She rambled on and on about how she had even detailed Engineer on errands abroad and plenty of other details too banal to merit ever repeating. She couldn’t understand my unwillingness to do her bidding when she was both willing and able to pay.
I barely restrained myself from exploding on her; managing to muster just about enough civility to decline her demeaning offer. Let me use this analogy to help you come to grips with my ordeal.
Imagine a wealthy but unhealthy woman arriving a doctor’s clinic with all manner of complaints. The doctor employs the best of his competence to arrive at a definitive diagnosis. He is about to prescribe a treatment regimen that should last a week when the lady not only demands a one-day treatment but stubbornly insists that’s what must be done. The logic of her insistence is simple: “He (she) who pays the piper dictates the tune.” If you were in the doctor’s shoes, how would you respond?
In my case, it would have been a small matter for me to accede to Hajiya’s misguided request. I would have earned my little dough and moved on. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be the end of the matter.
By agreeing to produce only a site plan instead of a full complement of working drawings, not only would I be rubbishing my personal convictions, I would equally be trampling on the ethics of architectural practice, and by extension, the very laws of Nigeria that empower me to operate. The law requires me to be a person of honour and integrity. By pleasing Hajiya, I would have wound up a common, cowardly felon.
Additionally, I would have brought my noble profession into disrepute because next time Hajiya encounters an architect or any other professional for that matter, she will certainly cite my compromise in a bid to have her way. There is no reason why she wouldn’t recommend me to others of her ilk who are equally intent on subverting professionalism. Because I succumbed the first time, it becomes subsequently easier for me to capitulate. And I will end up a liability to any effort to remake Nigeria.
Sadly, most critical transactions in Nigeria are based on the Type II compromise. In politics as in religion, loyalty is the euphemism for compromise. In the sleazy world of business, you are hailed as a team player when your capacity for this sort of compromise is beyond doubt. The system attacks and ejects anyone intent on rocking the boat. Next time you hear the expression, ‘one, big family,’ be certain the family’s cupboard is full of skeletons.
Let no one be fazed by contrived statistics and doctored testimonials because when all has been said and done, this is just a world of yes-men, side-kicks and goons. In other manifestations, they are boot-lickers and sycophants, and their ranks never diminish.
Maybe once in a while a recalcitrant fellow gets away from the pack and makes something for himself but like I earlier suggested, only 2 out of 10 will attempt this.
Now you know why the laughable war on corruption will never happen. Who will fight the war, and based on what convictions?
Are you still prognosticating free, fair and credible elections? Well, if only Godot will come and take charge of INEC.
I’ve been around for half a century and in all that time, I’ve seen nothing that should improve that truly improved. If anything, they’ve all been heading south.
I hope I’m wrong. I sincerely pray to be proved wrong.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
Plot 542 Durumi District, Abuja.
08032648369
nnanta2012@gmail.com

If you undertake a pilgrimage of churches especially those of the Pentecostal persuasion in Nigeria, you will most likely encounter messages that highlight prosperity and greatness; and why not? The forgiveness of sins, a major plank of the gospel narrative, ushers one into a life of true prosperity and greatness. From the gamut of Scriptural exegesis, prosperity would mean a state of spiritual, physical, mental and financial sufficiency. Greatness, on the other hand, is the quality of being admirable, important and influential. It is my opinion that one cannot amount to much in God’s kingdom and in the affairs of men if these concepts are not properly understood and internalized.
Sadly, the narrow definition and the decidedly personal application imposed on these noble concepts by peddlers of dubious intent have denied the Church and the larger human community of the humongous benefits derivable from their proper articulation and robust application. When prosperity is measured only in terms having money, and greatness is sought for and retained solely for personal aggrandizement, an incongruous situation results like the case of Nigeria which though being one of Africa’s poorest nations is home to her richest individual. Now you can appreciate why a country that proudly hosts the world’s largest single church congregation would also be one of the most corrupt.
Even before he was born, greatness had already been bequeathed on Jesus: Christianity’s incomparable progenitor. He will be great and he will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. (Luke 1:32 [HCSB]) The fact that he never lacked the wherewithal to successfully execute his ministry could only mean he was equally prosperous. When the jealousy-enabled rage of the Jewish religious establishment had moved it to hatch Jesus’ murder, there was need to hire one of his friends and close associate – Judas – to positively identify him. This could only mean one thing: all his disciples looked and acted exactly like him; well, almost. Jesus had successfully allowed the essence of his greatness to diffuse into his followers thereby inaugurating the perfect model for the servant-leader paradigm. The hallmark of a life well spent would therefore be, like the case of Jesus, the evidence of having allowed our talents and endowments – prosperity, greatness, wisdom etc. – to positively impact the larger community. The ability to attenuate the dichotomies and disparities that are the precursors to conflicts in human interaction is, in my opinion, the truest measure of greatness.
David Jesse, ancient Israel’s most illustrious king, is another man who, against monumental odds, attained prosperity and greatness. He should have been content repairing to his lair to quietly enjoy with his family but he chose a path usually reserved for those with posterity clearly in view. He generously shared with his close associates and a grateful nation; so much so that modern Israel’s flag bears an unmistakable emblem: the Star of David.
On the flipside are sorry stories of people who misused the privileges of possession and position. Saul Kish, David’s predecessor was enabled to the apogee of power and prominence from a background of relative insignificance. A man whose only claim to distinction was his towering physique suddenly became Israel’s captain. Saul could have lasted the distance if he hadn’t resorted to the shortcut that is the preserve of the congenitally insecure. Every challenge he encountered only served to reveal the egomaniac in him, and he had this annoying habit of turning to blame others for his own glaring errors. As his hold on the kingdom weakened, his desperation led to actions that were injurious, not only to the nation’s fortunes but also to his personal interests. In the end, he lost both the throne and his life in a manner that was as ignominious as it was tragic. Leaving a severely fractured polity in the doldrums, his successor inherited the unenviable task of guiding a traumatized nation back to the path of unity and serenity.
Samson Manoah is another Biblical character who started out with a lot of promise but wound up very badly. Endowed with supernatural strength and stamina, he elected rather to employ his abilities in satisfying his private carnal cravings. He feasted on forbidden foods and hobnobbed with persons whose company was antithetical to the success of his ministry. In the course of his libidinous tryst with the seductively foxy Delilah, he was captured and roundly humiliated. A man who had been destined for a glorious end died sightless under the heap of a heathen temple. Left to mourn him was a thoroughly embarrassed nation compelled once more to resume the long wait for a fitting deliverer.
If Nigeria’s richest person is worth $20 billion, at an exchange rate of N180 to the $, that would amount to N3.6 trillion. If each of 170 million Nigerians has N21, 176.47, the aggregate will also be N3.6 trillion. If the law required payment of 10% of what the individual is worth, which will be easier to achieve: getting the richest person to fork over N360 billion or each Nigerian to pay N2, 117.64? Even on the pain of death, richest will not budge; but cursing, kicking and screaming, the masses will eventually oblige. Therein lies the illusion of personal prosperity. The fewer the hands in which the resources are concentrated, the poorer the community.
The Communists and Socialists contrived a system of administration where all resources and means of production, supposedly owned by all, were rigidly controlled by a powerful few. Like the dictatorship that it was, it was always destined to fail. Capitalism, on the other hand, hasn’t fared much better. Even at its operational best, it continues to enable the widening of the chasm between the haves and have-nots.
To live in a garrison-like house within a community vulnerable to external attack is foolhardy. To fare sumptuously amidst lack and squalor is an aberration. To be the only one who can ultimately discern wrong or right in a company of thousands is akin to sliding down a dark, slippery path to certain disaster. There is enough prosperity and greatness to go round if only we’re humble enough to exorcise the megalomaniac in us. A candle loses nothing by lighting a billion more.
A nation is rich because the minimum needs of the least are catered for. A church is powerful because you cannot attack the weakest without dire consequences. Our politics and homiletics require urgent reformation.
If it is only one head that the cap fits; and if only one mouth is fit to be the divine oracle, then we’re surely headed for the nadir named oblivion.
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

When I stepped foot on the sprawling grounds of what was touted as Africa’s most beautiful campus in the last quarter of 1980, he was already there. I took an immediate liking for him: his characteristic side burns, his consummate stage skills and dexterity on the piano. You didn’t encounter Andraé Crouch and remained indifferent. His engaging style compelled you to make a robust response to the burning issues of the moment. That, for me, is the hallmark of a true messenger. He exuded this positive energy each time he was on top of his act. I used to wonder how and why people got addicted until I rammed into Andraé.
There was equally this thing about his powerful lyrics and attention-grabbing rhythms that dripped modernity while managing to arrest the admiration of older generations. With pointed words that bore the unmistakable imprimatur of divinity, he captured the imagination of a generation of famished and frustrated Christians who sought valid outlets for the holy impulses that coursed within them. With music that was as convicting as it was contemporary, he gave direction to the zeal of a band of enterprising pilgrims desirous of deliverance from the deadening clutches of bland orthodoxy. If ever any sang songs that were spiritual, Andraé it most certainly was.
It was in Ife that the musical side of me became awakened and I sought for a platform for development and expression. The three campus Christian bands existing at the time were my tantalizing options: The Ambassadors, The Redemption Singers and The Soul Reconcilers. It took me the better part of a semester to solve the dilemma and here’s what finally decided it for me.
The Redemption Singer, I found out, was also sold out on Andraé. No performance was complete without one of his songs being featured. The four years I spent with the RS got me incurably addicted to his remarkable music ministry – the power, the passion and the purpose. After Andraé had done his bit, the only reasonable response was to ask, like the inimitable Saint Paul did about 2000 years ago: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” He nudged you to worship God with reckless abandon, to repent when found wanting and make quality commitments to obeying God’s holy commandments. Like the prophet he was, he highlighted the issues that were critical and eternal, and deliberately ignored the mundane and ephemeral.
So effective was his ministry that over 30 years along, I still vividly remember the lyrics of many of his impactful songs. I believe I’m but one among millions around the world. Here are a few of those songs: Take me Back, My Tribute (To God be the Glory), Soon and very soon, Through it all, Jesus is the Answer, I don’t know why, and my favourite, It won’t be long.
From these titles and the name of the group he led - Andraé Crouch and the Disciples – you knew this was one focused and intense fellow but he was by no means a grouch. Though he often brought us to our knees in unabashed worship and tearful repentance, it was in that position we encountered the true freedom known only to those properly yoked to the Lord. To experience this sort of freedom is to be immersed in joy indescribable; something a grouch is incapable of retaining or transmitting.
It seems such a long time ago because those currently making out as gospel ministers seem to be differently motivated. While Andraé laboured to enable the man that God uses, many of today’s ministers seem to be promoting the God that man uses. God is presented as the proprietor of a celestial supermarket, with praise and worship employed as a trigger to his boundless philanthropy. Today’s gospel music has the right lyrics and the production seems to be getting better by the day but something is obviously missing. Like the sonorous incantations of the shaman meant to call the spirits to duty, we seem to deploy praise to conjure God’s power to intervene in our endless carnal cravings. The whole place is crawling with malformed spiritual midgets making out as generals and giants. Now you know why the Church of Jesus Christ is in such a sorry state: wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.
No grouch ever amounted to much in the scheme of heaven. Saul, the sulking king of Israel wound up as tragically as the churlish, stingy Nabal. But despite being dogged by formidable challenges all his life, David carefully chose the path of enduring praise; becoming an abiding inspiration to those who seek to be friends with God.
Here’s what the Good Book says about Abel who was murdered by his twin brother Cain: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him for his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.” (Hebrews 11:4 [ESV 2011])
Ordinarily, the dead don’t speak, so if Abel still speaks, then Andraé will not only continue to speak, his assertive voice will never cease belting out those melodious canticles of Zion over the deafening din of a world unhitched from its moral moorings.
Can we really say Andraé Crouch is dead?
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
Plot 542 Durumi District, Abuja 08032648369
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Before I take off, an explanation is required. This is neither prophecy nor clairvoyance. It is certainly not an act of political brinkmanship. Sometimes I wish I had the power and influence of a godfather to ‘fix’ things politically because I’m still trying to come to terms with this caricature called democracy. If democracy is defined by the four-year ritual of choosing between little known knaves and their ‘repentant’ and pardoned counterparts, then count me out.

No, I’m not a democrat: not by any stretch. No one should bother rehearsing the enormous benefits many nations in the Americas, Asia and Europe have garnered through democracy. Fortunately, I have lived all my life in this beleaguered enclave, so in a sense, it matters little to me what happens elsewhere. And maybe I do not really care what it is called – democracy, cinematography or geography – as long as the greatest number is served.
And here’s the most incongruous aspect of our sorry situation: the fellows who are very familiar with these so-called bastions of democracy are the self-same people who are the greatest impediment to our collective good. They are quick to claim democracy has no alternatives but are reluctant to subscribe to the sacrifices needed to spread the benefits. And to think the rest of us have been putting up with this anomaly; believing the goodies will begin to roll in in the never-arriving future, is probably more perplexing than their chicanery.
“Rome was not built in a day,” they often pontificate. This is supposed to be a powerful anodyne and a ploy to have us permanently postpone our expectations. I think the Rome they speak of will never ever be completed. And so we’ll keep deferring hope until we’re consumed by the vagaries of time. And all that is supposed to be democracy!

In case you’re not aware, the race for the prizes on offer in 2015 started a very long time ago. Don’t be fooled when they say talking 2015 now is a distraction to governance. For me, governance is a misnomer because it conveys the erroneous impression the people’s needs are supreme. Governance is the mere interlude between one election and another: election being the real deal. It is after each election that the certificate of return is issued: that dubious document that carries the official imprimatur to get on with the brigandage. So if anything will qualify as a distraction, it will be governance.

The last local council election in the FCT was characterized by abysmally low turn-out of voters, yet that stooge of a minister could still score it as credible. At some polling points, less than 1% of those registered to vote showed up. If this whole business is supposed to be for the people, and by the same people, how can 1% engender credibility?

In all honestly, I think the 2015 general elections are already rigged, because majority of voters will not bother to exercise their franchise. And the reasons are not far-fetched. Not having seen any rewards for their past electioneering choices and bogged down by abject poverty, apathy becomes a natural reaction.

How can a nation with over 70% of her population living below the famed poverty line even talk of free, fair and credible elections? How can people so severely brutalized by common deprivations and traumatized daily by brazen acts of kleptomania be trusted to make fair choices? Free and fair elections can never result among a people whose consciences can be priced as low as N500.

Imagine a scenario where you immobilize some people for two weeks in a dark room only to bring them out to compete in a 100m race with someone who has been practicing for over a week. That race is already rigged to throw up a preferred outcome. Behind the scenes, the diabolical wheeling and dealing are already happening with little thought for the people. The cynical horse-trading that passes for politics has nothing to do with the greater good. So, mobilizing a largely ignorant and impoverished populace to validate these dubious choices will not miraculously transform self-interest to altruism. In the end, whatever good these so-called leaders manage to generate is presented as a favour done to the people. We deluge them with undeserved honours for doing things they are statutorily and morally obligated to do.

Let Jega and his INEC gang prepare all they can. He can engage all the gadgetry and sophistry possible. He can even ‘import’ Nigerians in diaspora to man critical organs of the electioneering behemoth. Even if the National Assembly was to grant him twice as much as he requested, it will matter little.

For as long as Nigeria is run the way it is, and Nigerians are treated as shabbily, the 2015 elections are already effectively rigged.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
Plot 542 Durumi District, Abuja
08032648369 nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

To successfully execute this piece, I’ll be donning the garb of a pastor, or should I say, prophet. I’ll be exercising certain liberties that might appear strange to those familiar with my softer style.
Nigerian music maestro of the reggae genre, African China fits my definition of a true activist. His preferred medium – music – is enduring, and his message is scathing like a prophet’s. In his wordy and worthy number titled, MR PRESIDENT, in the last two lines of the two stanzas, he sends a passionate plea to Nigeria’s rulers:

Make una lead us well
No let this nation to fall inside well

We are blessed having the likes of African China who can boldly speak truth to power. Thankfully, Nigeria isn’t yet in the well but what he didn’t say is that the blueprint for the nation’s renaissance is stuck at the bottom of the well; dumped there by the same lack-lustre leaders that have underperformed for the better part of half a century. Until the document is retrieved and religiously implemented, all our efforts at attaining our destined greatness will remain a mesmerizing mirage.
To recover the blueprint from the well whose depth remains unknown, there is a standing instruction to lower a rope made out of items of the same type tied one to another. The items, preferably of the personal sort, must have an undeniable connection to every Nigerian. Since men have been the major culprits in Nigeria’s underdevelopment, the item cannot come from them though the responsibility naturally falls on them to do the retrieving. Clearly, what we seek is a personal, feminine item that relates to every one of us.
Growing up as the older of two boys in the midst of six beautiful sisters and a mother with a keen fashion sense was always going to predispose me to the kind of task I’m currently undertaking. From quite an early age, I embraced the idiosyncrasy of the ever transmogrifying trends in female fashion. Gaining robust understanding of why women are sticklers for their appearance has helped me cope better in a world where every other person is female. I don’t claim to be an expert but I know just enough to get by.
A little over a year ago, I was still groggy with sleep one morning when I imagined seeing my missus straining to put on something that looked like the stretchy pantaloons we used to wear as kids while playing masquerade at Christmas. Before I became fully awake, she was gone. 12 hours later, she was back; and before my prying eyes, she peeled off stretchy with much less effort. A discussion then ensued. “What is that?” I enquired with my caring-husband voice. “Oh, this?” She holds it up and stretches it to demonstrate its capabilities. “It’s a tight.” “Obviously,” I responded. “It looks really tight on you. Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable? And why do you have to put on two items of underwear?” “I’m quite comfortable in it and I wear it to keep my butts from shaking wildly and it also ensures my thighs don’t graze against each other.” “But I don’t mind the wild shaking!” An impish smile had taken over my face. “Of course I know, but how about the many lecherous men out there who are dying to ogle? Are you willing to share?” Her logic was undisputable and I immediately became a tight believer. My personal belonging shouldn’t be seen attracting illegal attention in public. So if you can just be patient enough to pose the right questions, you’ll soon discover that most of what women go to great lengths to do ultimately benefit men.
While I was meditating on the most appropriate item for the blueprint retrieval, it suddenly hit me. Eureka! Tights will do the job. So bring in all the tights. Let’s tie them together and recover the all-important blueprint. There’s no limit to how many will be required. The more, the merrier. I can guarantee at least 10 from my household. At the end of the day, we should be able to gather millions of them. It’s all for the better.
And for those who think I’m nuts or can’t seem to catch the drift of what appear to be riddles, let me state my thesis in planer terms. To get out of the rut we’ve driven ourselves into as a nation, we need to recruit the support every Nigerian woman. The logic of this position is simple. In 100 years of amalgamation and over 54 years of flag independence, men have been at the helm. No woman has ever been head of state, president or elected governor. Whatever positions women have held have derived more from sympathy and tokenism. If Nigeria was run aground, we know where the burden of culpability lies. It has always been a contest between men: one fumbling man against a fanatical other or a fornicator against a farting fool. Isn’t it the height of lunacy to keep hoping for greatness when our better and more humane half is barely engaged? How far can we go hopping on one tired leg?
Since the price of oil began the recent nosedive, everything economic – growth, budgets and prospects – has been shaking. When the on-going socio-political and religious tremors are factored in, the urgency of why women must be brought in to calm things down becomes clearer. They seem always to have what it takes to deal with the shaking – whether tantalizing or terrifying. I should know. And judging from the tight corner we’re wedged in at the moment, we will lose nothing getting many more of them running the show at the highest levels.
So let’s get about mobilizing and gathering the tights. There’ll be lots of loose ends to tie. And while we’re at it, let’s not also forget the tithes – 10% of our earnings. Last time I checked, there were far too many famished faces in the House of God in contradistinction to a few fat cats. If we can get everybody properly fed, we would not only be pleasing God, we’d equally be mobilizing a strong and well-motivated army for the onerous task ahead.
So let’s all meet at the well to do the needful. I’m certain African China will feel honoured to lead the way. There’s enough room for all 170 million of us.
It is well!
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Room D8 Angola Hall of the University of Ife is one accommodation that’ll always trigger fond memories. Between 1982 and 1983, I lived there with some of the most remarkable characters it was my privilege to encounter in my 7-year Ife odyssey.
Obasi, Obegolu and Molokwu, foremost denizens of D8 were medical students but in the matter I shall shortly reveal, there were as committed as, if not more than I was. There was also my bunkmate, Kehinde Aremu; a civil engineering major who was always going to become a parson. His particular passion was beyond question. Kola Amodu and Femi Sharaibi were D8’s most important tenants: they were national chess players. The duo, really colourful fellows, spent a larger chunk of their waking hours around the game.
It was only a matter of time before the rest of us got initiated into the cerebral cult of chess. And the beautiful thing about the game is this: it has no place for luck. You excel either because you make smart moves or you exploit the not-so-smart moves of your opponent. Even though the rigorous demands for studying Architecture could never permit me hone my skills past the very rudimentary levels, so genuine and deep-rooted was my interest that thirty years along, the names of International Grandmasters of chess like Gary Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky are still lodged stubbornly in my head. In chess, I embraced the clearest meaning of the words, gambit and endgame.
Maybe because I never graduated beyond the lower rungs of proficiency, a singular concept became my most cherished: stalemate. For those not conversant with chess, here’s a brief run-down.
It is a two-player game played on a chessboard which is a chequered, 64 squares flat board arranged in an 8×8 grid. It looks a lot like the local ‘draft’ board. A game starts with each player having 16 pieces: eight pawns, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, a queen and a king; each with different movements and attacking patterns. The objective is to ‘kill’ or ‘checkmate’ the king of the opponent by hemming it into a situation it can’t wriggle out from. The whole course of the game is usually divided into opening, middle game and endgame.
Stalemate is an endgame situation. When the king, although not in check, can only move into a position of check and no other piece can move, a stalemate happens. Kings and potentates shouldn’t commit suicide! Of course a stalemate means the game is a draw which is why as a greenhorn; I always looked forward to it.
The more I think about 2015 and the concomitant socio-economic and political permutations, the more I’m convinced Nigeria is headed for a stalemate of sorts.
Nigeria has never been this polarised along the ever-widening ethno-religious chasm. This has grave implications, not only for the 2015 general elections, but the very survival of the nation. And like in a chess game, the two players – PDP and APC – do not seem to be making any provisions for losing; especially at the presidential level. There is a real possibility the presidential contest will involve a run-off, and whoever eventually wins will be burdened with superintending over a severely fractured polity.
Dangerously tumbling oil prices for a nation that depends almost entirely on oil earnings to run its affairs can only mean one thing – economic stalemate. As I write, many states and even the federal government are lagging embarrassingly behind in paying statutory bills; and it can only get worse in 2015. When you add the on-going, murderous, money-guzzling insurgency in the North East to the already potent mix, you have the making of a socio-politico-economic time bomb waiting to explode in our faces.
A stalemate isn’t such a bad thing; at least for underdogs: and underdogs aptly describe what most Nigerians are and have been for the most part of half a century. A stalemate presents a refreshing opportunity to start all over again in the tasking and strategic game of nation building. Much like in chess, 2015 might just present us the privilege of that critical gambit: re-ordering and re-arranging our assets towards finally checkmating the demons we permitted to corner us into this pretty pass.
As a nation, we have long fantasized and longed for the opportunity to remake Nigeria. 2015 might just be our year of repentance and the beginning of true recovery.
On the other hand, a stalemate can also be an excuse for tired and frustrated players to pack it all up. Some years ago, certain people predicted that that’s what Nigerians will do in 2015.
It doesn’t have to be so. We shouldn’t abandon the game in 2015. We dare not.
Amen!

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

Three months ago, I was going to write to advise that the Presidential Election proposed for February 14 2015 be shelved; and my logic was simple: why go to so much trouble and expense organizing a contest whose outcome was already pretty obvious? Since the South Africans are now painfully aware of our preference for ferrying humongous swathes of cash, we could head in that direction with the resultant savings to purchase badly needed ammunition for our soldiers. That way, we wouldn’t have to dispatch them to confront Boko Haram bare-handed and then turn around to sentence them to death for something cynically called mutiny.
I was quite aware that our laws have no place for my proposition but, heck, didn’t we make these laws? And have we lost the right and capacity to unmake or remake them?
President Jonathan was going to win once again not because he had performed excellently. On the contrary, if making promises and not fulfilling them were a felony, he should by now be cooling his heels in one of Nigeria’s many decrepit jails that were employed in shortening the lifespan of the mercurial Gani Fawehinmi of blessed memory. There were just no exciting alternatives to the lack-lustre offerings of the Jonathan hegemony. Even in the unlikely event that he expired as his boss Umaru Yar’adua had done, his replacement will represent a worst-case scenario. Mohammed Namadi Sambo has in five years said little that is of significance. He has done even far less.
On the opposition corner, except for a few comical innovations, unfolding events seemed like business as usual. Apart from the precocious Sam Ndah-Isaiah, all the presidential hopefuls had tasted executive powers and privileges: an experience that is evidently incurably addictive. For the gangling retired general and former head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, it would be his fourth attempt at becoming president; giving him the dubious tag of a serial contestant. Between when he was a military dictator in the mid-80s and now, he has done and said enough for us to know what he is capable of. At a time the polity is deeply divided along religious lines, Buhari’s candidacy was always going to be problematic: something the ruling party was already primed to exploit.
That the APC conducted a rancour-free presidential process was quite commendable and I was truly impressed, but the emergence of Buhari didn’t come as a surprise. Even in the critical matter of choosing a running mate, no tsunami was expected as the frontrunners were the routine suspects: Tinubu, Fashola, Amaechi, Fayemi, Rochas and Oshiomhole. At that point, I’m fairly certain the ruling PDP was already shopping for the chairman of the Presidential swearing-in committee. And then against the run of popular expectations, Buhari named Yemi Osinbajo as his running mate.
Let me make a confession here: I love keen contests and I usually prefer rooting for underdogs. And until the blast of the final whistle, I keep my eyes glued on the proceedings even if my team is getting a drubbing. And here is what a close contest always does: it keeps the contestants and the eventual winners on their toes. That way, they are under perpetual pressure to deliver the goods. I closely followed the American presidential election of 2000 between George Bush Jnr and Al Gore who was Vice President at the time. It was one of the closest in America’s convoluted political history and served adequate notice to the eventual winner, Bush, that he could ill afford any slip ups. I stand to be corrected but that nerve-wracking poll prepared him for the turmoil that was ahead: the bombing of the World Trade Centre. Bush’s admirable handling of the aftermath of that dark event represents the apogee of his political career.
Landslides, on the other hand, are like ill winds that blow nobody any good. Whether electoral or environmental, they eventually leave a trail of blood and tears. I was only a boy in 1972 when Richard Nixon won the American presidency by an unassailable landslide. Less than two years down the line, he was forced to resign under the cloud of the noxious effluvium generated by the Watergate affair. Undoubtedly, America had hit the nadir.
Back home, I vividly recall how in 1983, Shehu Shagari of the bombastic NPN dusted other presidential contestants by another record-shattering landslide. While Obafemi Awolowo warned of the necessity of adopting austerity measures in view of global economic realities, his counsel was roundly dismissed as the ranting of a disgruntled serial loser. With shouts of ‘buoyant, buoyant,’ a season of frenzied brigandage was inaugurated, and in three months, the soldiers had found enough excuse to come calling. General Muhammadu Buhari should know a thing or two about how that gig was broken up and it would be 16 long years before Nigerians are offered another semblance of democratic rule.
No, landslides are no good; but don’t take my word for it. Go enquire from the Afghans and Filipinos.
The duel of February 14 2015 will be an excruciatingly close one and it won’t produce a landslide; and that makes me really happy. The introduction of the dark horse, Yemi Osinbajo will have a lot to do with it. Apart from his eight-year stint as the Attorney General of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, very little else is known about him, politically. This, in my opinion, is the greatest asset he’ll be bringing to the fray. People are going to want to listen to him, and if he can strike the right chords, then we’re in for one helluva election.
He’s a Professor of Law and any professor made in the University of Lagos has to be smart. The title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria he brandishes must be a confirmation of his erudition. That he’s also a pastor can only mean he’s equally focused and disciplined. I’ve heard him speak, and orator is what people like that are called. He writes even much better. In a contest where the others are barely articulate, he’ll be drawing quite some positive attention. Being properly married to Obafemi Awolowo’s granddaughter counts for something amongst Oduduwa’s descendants. I earned my Architecture degrees at Ife, and as a near-Awoist, I should know.
If Jega’s INEC will do the needful as pledged, then we have a game on our hands.
I can barely wait!

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

10th December 1992 was a Thursday. The cool harmattan breeze must have been wafting gently across my face but I couldn’t feel it. What I felt was my heart thumping madly in my chest and my body systems generating enormous heat. My wedding was 48 hours and 200 kilometers away from where I was, and 77% of what needed to be done hadn’t been done.
By the book, I should have been happy and excited, being just a few steps away from the genesis of endless bliss. Instead, my emotions swung between fear and apprehension. Having dragged my people from over 500 kilometers away for the traditional marriage rites, I was desperately praying none will regret making that precarious journey. My friends urged me to relax, but scanning the faces of my in-laws arriving for the ceremony, and noticing the severe facial marks on some, any prospect of relaxation evaporated. I was being drawn in ten different directions all at once, and with money running dangerously low, I was depending on God’s mercy and the magnanimity of my in-laws to survive.
If you’ve never been to Idah in Kogi State, I’ll urge you to pay a visit to this ancient town of my conjugal ordeal. Idah is to the Igala what Gboko is to the Tiv and Numan is to the Bachama. Here, the Attah Igala, one of Nigeria’s longest reigning monarchs, holds court. Nestled on the eastern bank of the River Niger, Idah is a boat ride or swim away from Agenebode in Oshiomhole’s Edo State; depending on your risk threshold. Idah was once a prosperous town in Northern Nigeria, as evidenced by the numerous warehouses dotting the river bank. Palm produce and sundry agricultural products were stored and later transported to other parts of the country and to the coast for export. When state structure was adopted in 1967, Idah became part of the old Kwara State. From Kwara, Idah and the Igala were again bundled into Benue State in 1976, and finally into Kogi State in 1991.
Despite these movements, the collective fortunes of the Igala were scarcely bettered. With the inflow of cheap petro-dollars and concomitant decline in agriculture, river transportation was swiftly abandoned and the economy of Idah went comatose. The abandoned and dilapidated warehouses by the Ega waterfront are sad commentaries on the nation’s prodigal economic decline. It was to Idah I came with my entourage on that fateful December dusk; fuelled by love, propelled by unbending destiny. We came all the way from Ohafia in Abia State, traversing three other states in the process. Two years earlier when I informed Papa I had found the girl I intended to spend the rest of my life with, he wasn’t exactly excited. He wondered why I could not locate a suitable bride from any of the 25 villages that Ohafia is comprised of. I politely reminded Papa that when I was barely a teen, he had sent me off to Kaduna for my secondary school education. Five years later, I landed the University of Ife with his unqualified support and blessing. If the Kaduna and Ife projects were resounding successes, I assured him Igalaland will be no different. To Papa’s eternal credit, he believed me, as did my cousin of blessed memory, Mr. Anya Kalu Olugu; a onetime Port Manager of the Tin Can Island Port. And so they came to Idah to help consummate my two year old romance with Jumai Awakulu Christiana Sule. Some came boldly yet others approached with uncertain steps. But they were all buoyed by the confidence and faith I exuded; a confidence aided in no small measure by the sterling examples of two Igala women.
Mrs. Okolo was the spouse of one of Papa’s colleagues at the Funtua Post Office at the time. This woman was so petite I used to wonder why Mr.Okolo settled for such a small woman! But after I got infected by her legendary kindness and hospitality, I started to connect smallness with niceness. In running errands, I always designed my itinerary to incorporate the Okolo residence. Only a foolish boy would have done otherwise! Mrs. Okolo was the first Igala woman who left a positive mark on my young, impressionable mind.
The second was Hassana Onucheyo (now Mrs. Iredia); my classmate at Federal Government College Kaduna between 1975 and 1980. She was easily the most intelligent among the girls and yet, the most approachable. She wore no airs and was totally devoid of the pretences usually exhibited by girls in boys-infested environments. She quickly cut this image of a motherly figure: a role she continues to play among the class alumni to this very day. I would have loved to touch on the matter of beauty but I think the Iredias are eminently better positioned to speak on that and other issues. Believe me, you had to make an effort not to like Hassana. She’s that good. These two women’s positive influences ensured I was game for the next Igala woman who crossed my path. And cross my path she did in Makurdi, Benue State, in 1988. So the little spark that was ignited by Mrs. Okolo, fanned into flame by Hassana, had now become a big conflagration; burning off every vestige of prejudice usually associated with such inter-tribal ventures.
The prejudices we harbour against peoples of other tribes and belief systems and our penchant for characterizing them along certain lines, constitute one of the biggest hindrances to harmony and progress in our nation. Even though comedians make these issues the subject matter of their jokes, the reality is that most of us take them much more seriously. And all of us are the worse for it. Anyone who believes all Igbos love money will never truly trust the Igbo in financial matters. Those who think all Yorubas are congenitally fearful and therefore prone to backtracking will always approach them with a modicum of suspicion. When we believe all Hausas are lazy and parasitic, we will always blame them when the ration does not go round. I could go on and talk about the Fulanis, the Idomas, the Kanuris, the Itshekiris, the Efiks, the Angas or any of the other people groups scattered across the length and breadth of this vast enclave. We all know the prejudices we hold against them from entrenched positions supported by unpleasant personal experiences, rumour and hearsay. And when those positions are scrutinized from a more objective platform, they are most often found to be questionable. Sadly, these tendencies manifest at the highest levels and in every sector of our national life. But let me go back to Thursday, 10th December, 1992.
Just before the ceremony got under way, I found myself in the midst of some of my in-laws who wanted to get friendly. One of them, Mr. Joshua Ibrahim Achimugu asked to know my state of origin. I excitedly told them it was Abia and before I could proceed with my current affairs show-off, someone else interjected rhetorically, “So even Abia has a state?” Before I had any chance to respond, the whole group erupted in hearty laughter. I couldn’t help but join. It was the kind of therapy I desperately needed. It was this laughter that set the tone for all that happened that evening. Everything was done in an atmosphere of cordiality, mutual respect and compromise. By the time the ceremony was rounded off well into the evening, a small detachment of Ndigbo and a band of Igala had developed a fresh sense of mutual understanding. My in-laws demanded no bride price to the admiration of my people. My in-laws were overjoyed by my people’s grateful acceptance of their modest hospitality.
By this time, I was in very high spirits and was now in a frame of mind to rehearse the events of the evening with my missus. I told her of the Abia incidence and the hearty reaction it elicited from her people. Suddenly, she burst into peals of laughter that got me both confused and curious. When she recovered, she gave me the joker. Abia in Igala means dog! In essence, I told my in-laws I hailed from Dog State, or if you are in the habit of stretching things, that I was a dog! Now it was my turn to laugh. And laugh, I most certainly did. I knew of course that my in-laws were aware that the abia of my state was not an Igala dog and that I was certainly no dog. If it were so, they wouldn’t have entrusted their daughter to my care. It was a good-natured joke and laughter is what jokes should elicit.
Coincidentally, Abia goes by the caption, “God’s Own State”. Anyone endued with modest levels of mischief and irreverence can, with a measured shift in perspective, actually read it as “Dog’s Own State”. And if the miscreant happens also to be of Igala extraction, the justification is double-barreled. After all, GOD and DOG are composed of the same alphabets. I could have assumed my in-laws actually believed I hailed from Dog State, and that I was by extension, a dog. If I did, I’m sure I won’t be here today doing what I’m doing. As a dog I would most certainly have mauled my Igala spouse to death. If I did that, I would either be dead or languishing in some decrepit prison cell. My family would have blamed my in-laws for breeding a ‘witch’ who brought their son to ruins, and the Igala would in turn brand Ndigbo as a horde of cannibals and monsters. If left unchecked, situations like this could degenerate into endless conflict and blood-letting. Thank God it was a joke, and that it was treated as such. But sadly, not many such exchanges end as happily as mine did.
The number and severity of the conflicts across the nation is a clear pointer to the fact that many are acting based on entrenched prejudices and unfair characterizations. Being Igbo is a badge I wear with a sense of pride and responsibility; a responsibility that constrains me to accept others as equal partners in the Nigerian project. I am an Igbo man. I had my primary education in the north and the east, my secondary education in the north, and my university education in the west. My wife is of middle belt extraction, and I speak Nigeria’s three major languages. Without sounding immodest, I know of no one more Nigerian than I am. My upbringing, education, career and ministry have taken me to every part of this country, and the spread of my friends and associates will be tough even for the National Assembly to better. If I thus write with a certain measure of assertiveness, I do so from a position duly earned. Let me therefore say, without fear of contradiction, that no ethnic group is superior to the other. And no individual is indispensable. If we can imbibe these realities in our private and public dealings, we would have secured a sure footing towards irreversible progress on all fronts.
I love the Igala not only because I’m married to their daughter, but equally because I know a bit about them. A critical step in overcoming prejudice is to become better informed about the subject of our prejudice. And more knowledge certainly engenders a fresh perspective on issues. Knowledge is light, and light, ennobles. Ignorance, on the other hand, is darkness, and darkness disables.
I didn’t appreciate the Gbagyi much until I began to be better informed about them: their history, aspirations, challenges and frustrations. Abuja and the Federal Capital Territory is what it is today because the Gbagyi have played along. We should not mistake their calmness for docility. We did that for the people of the Niger Delta and today, we’re all paying a hefty price for that folly. We must not willfully marginalize nor exclude any group.
And by all means, we must never call Dog where God is.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

The first term of my second year at Federal Government College Malali, Kaduna was spent stretched out on a bed at Dala Orthopaedic Hospital Kano after undergoing corrective surgery on my right knee. Sometime in 1972, I had flouted my father’s strict orders and went riding on his priceless bicycle. The predictable fallout was an awkward fall that got my right knee grotesquely dislocated. Two previous surgical interventions and a stint with a traditional bone setter had all come to nought. Dala seemed to be the last chance there was to exorcise my established capacity to mess up every good thing. For my dear, longsuffering mother, allowing her first son to be away from school for a whole term was a painful but reasonable price to pay to correct the worsening effect of that freak accident. I think I spent the Christmas of 1976 in Dala.
While I was away, an event I had been anticipating in my final weeks in Class 1 happened: the arrival of the new students. Among them was a pretty lass named Portia Ramaphosa. As soon as I limped back to school in January 1977 and set my famished eyes on her, I knew immediately that I had missed a unique opportunity to place myself in a vantage position to make the acquaintance of one who could very well become Miss Malali if matters ever came to that. And how would I know that? I had watched the miracle of my two elder sisters transform from awkward girls to gracefully beautiful ladies. I knew the potentials and saw them clearly in Portia. Unfortunately, there was already a motley crowd of swooning admirers milling around her, and joining them was totally out of the question. I am agoraphobic.
I contemplated other tactics like employing my above-average academic rating as leverage, and maybe that would have worked wonders if Portia herself wasn’t also above-average. Not being so physically endowed, I could certainly not compete at that level and my newly acquired orthopaedic limp only exacerbated my already desperate situation. For three and half years, I watched with diminishing hope from the side-lines as my expectation slowly went up in smoke.
There was an even more compelling reason why I was dying to nudge closer to Portia: the country of her nativity, South Africa. At the time, South Africa was still in the firm grips of apartheid, the deadly war of liberation being waged by the African National Congress was in full-swing with Nigeria in the very thick of it. Though she wasn’t a beneficiary of the federal government’s anti-apartheid students’ sponsorship initiative, Portia was only one of many South African students in Nigerian institutions. In the matter of being a brother’s keeper, Nigeria’s records are beyond compare. Without motivation of reward or returns, Nigeria continues to bear the burdens of many nations with equanimity.
Yet there was something about everything South African that held me in mesmerizing attention. It was in their men who were brave and their women who were beautiful. It was in the peculiar pulsating rhythm of their songs that announced hope with a hint of the melancholic. It was equally in their exotic names and the faith of a man – Mandela – who was prepared to pay any price for his people’s liberation. That Nigeria fought no battle of liberation probably partly accounts for why we have largely misused the privilege of independence. The anti-apartheid struggle provided me the opportunity to vicariously participate in an experience Nigeria couldn’t afford me. In close proximity to any South African, I felt like I was an anti-apartheid activist, that I was part of a worthy initiative infinitely bigger than me.
I never got close enough for Portia so she could take even the briefest notice of me, and in my Black Book of Memorable Losses, I have a bold entry of that monumental loss. I left Kaduna in 1980 but never forgot Portia. Some years ago, I came across the picture of the famous Hottentot Venus and for obvious reasons, I remembered Portia and thought of her as the Hurting Thought Venus!
Forward to 2014 and I’m taking a leisurely stroll around Cyberia; specifically Facebook when I suddenly saw a comment by a Portia Ramaphosa to a post by one of my many friends. Could this be Miss Malali? There was no picture on her wall so I sent her a ‘friends’ request. Less than 48 hours later, she accepts my request! She couldn’t recall who exactly I was; whether I was her classmate or not. She was swayed by a piece I had posted about the same period titled, “WILL YOU DYE FOR ME?” It was indeed the one and only Portia Ramaphosa who was finally taking notice of me after 34 years of my last feeble attempt!
In the intervening period, much water has passed under the bridge. Apartheid has since been dismantled and the hunted ANC is now the hunter. The great Madiba left prison, served one term as South Africa’s first black president and went on to become one of the world’s most revered citizens. He has since joined his ancestors leaving shoes that are not likely to find fitting feet in the foreseeable future. The pressing challenges of 1980 may have been surmounted but even more daunting issues have since replaced them. South Africa’s Portia may finally be the limping Nigerian boy’s friend but matters between these two great nations have since become more complex.
Nigeria’s recently re-based economy has overtaken South Africa’s to become the continent's biggest. With a population about a third of Nigeria’s, in per capita terms, South Africa is still one of Africa’s best. The import of these facts is significant: a functional synergy between South Africa and Nigeria will be Africa’s most potent platform for badly needed renaissance. Political problems, grim economic outlook, religion-inspired insurgencies and scary health concerns are once more pushing the continent to the brink. With the rest of the world also grappling with issues that are no less threatening, Africa is condemned to pull itself out of the thickening quagmire. That cannot happen as long as Nigeria and South Africa are at daggers-drawn.
The last few months have thrown up events that very nearly resulted in a diplomatic stand-off between the two countries. The SA authorities seized about $15 million cash that was being unconventionally ferried by Nigeria to purchase arms. While the ensuing brick bat lasted, another seemingly unrelated event only served to escalate an already tense scenario: over 60 South Africans lost their lives when a building belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos collapsed. It took the sagacity of SA’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Lulu Louis Mnguni, to stave off a full-blown diplomatic row.
Happily, matters are now calm and need to remain so for the benefit of both countries and Africa. Any squabbles at this point in time will be doubly costly.
On a personal level, the fact that a Southern African lass whose attention I desperately sought nearly forty years ago is finally warming up to me is an encouraging indicator that maybe, Africa’s recrudescence is finally at hand.
And to add a whimsical twist to the whole saga, SA’s Bafana Bafana denied Nigeria’s Super Eagles the chance of being at Equatorial Guinea in 2015 to defend the African Cup of Nations they won in South Africa in 2014. I hear South Africans are happy at the development. As painful as it is, I can live with it. If it is the price to pay to neutralize all outstanding animosities, it is well worth it.
Come January 2015, I’ll be sitting back to watch all matches of AFCON 2015; hoping and praying Bafana Bafana wins the tournament at the end of the day. I want Portia Ramaphosa and all of SA to be as giddy with joy as we were nearly two years ago.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

By morning of Monday 10 November 2014, the whole place was awash with the news of the tragic demise of Myles Egbert Munroe: pastor, leadership avatar and motivational wonk. I just found out he had been knighted by the Queen of England, and why not? For a man whose ministry inspired millions around the world, an OBE seems to me like minimum recognition. The global Church, reeling in shock, is still trying to come to terms with her loss. The man’s profile loomed large in life; in death, it’s about to get even larger.
Like many, I never encountered Myles in person and it adds to the measure of his stature that even his media presence was just as effective in diffusing his massive influence. I listened to an audio tape of one of his messages in 1993 and that inspired me to write one of the best songs in my repertoire. If there was ever an apostle of “purpose,” Myles it unarguably is. Testimonies pouring in from around the world corroborate this fact. If I had to make an honest entry in his condolence register, here is what I’ll write: “He fought a good fight; he maintained his course and kept the faith.” Sadly, his last flight wasn’t good as it failed to maintain course.
It is traumatic events like this that compel us not only to embrace our mortality but also give requisite attention to the pertinent question of what constitutes success in Christian life and ministry. “How far?” a decidedly Nigeria expression is a euphemism for enquiring into the success of any venture. How many miles was Myles supposed to cover? How far was he supposed to go? Can we reckon that Myles covered his miles? Evidently, even he couldn’t have provided conclusive answers to these questions. Only God who called and commissioned him can judge him fairly.
Yet we must reckon with the fact that people like Myles who are blessed with visibility and volubility will always be under intense scrutiny. Their every word and action will be thoroughly dissected and analysed both from within and outside the Church. Despite the deluge of glowing tributes that shows no sign of abating, Myles, like many among his Pentecostal cohort, was the object of scathing criticism. To be accused of heresy as a gospel minister is a big deal. One may not totally subscribe to the spirit behind these weighty allegations but casually dismissing them will be tantamount to throwing away the baby with the bath water. Here is how I think gospel ministers mostly of the Pentecostal persuasion get themselves enmeshed in doctrinal quagmires.
A pastor’s primary responsibility is the reconciliation of fallen humanity to a holy and loving God through the gospel. The gospel is the propitiatory death and subsequent resurrection of the guiltless Christ: paying, by supreme sacrifice, a debt he never owed on behalf of doomed humanity. The gospel is administered through the two-pronged instrumentality of the word of God and prayer.
Over the ages, the desperate and dysfunctional systems of the world have always attempted to draw servants of the gospel away from their primary focus. Each time a caring, charismatic figure bursts on the scene, there is always a well-orchestrated design to derail his focal purpose. Jesus fed thousands with bread and that was such a beautiful thing. In the eyes of many though, that singular compassionate act not only validated his prophet-hood, it became the signal to anoint him king so as to banish any possibility of lack of bread. And the mob was prepared to employ any and every means. Here is how Jesus responded to a threat that has continued to stalk many a minister: “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” (John 6:15 [ESV2011]) Had Jesus caved in to the pressure, he would have ended up as another world renowned philanthropist far away from Gethsemane and Calvary. And he would have designed a doctrinal justification for bread-enabled salvation.

Sadly, many pastors have become heavily involved in many schemes which, though legitimate, fall way outside their primary assignment. In their desperate bid to impose compatibility on these disparate roles, they begin to engage in bizarre exegetical somersaults that engender needless controversies.
Naaman, ancient Syria’s army commander, though such a wonderful fellow, was a leper. He came in contact with Israel’s prophet, Elisha who cures him. This miraculous event also marked his spiritual turning point: he dumps the Syrian god, Rimmon to worship Jehovah. He then raises a pertinent issue bordering on conflict of allegiance. As army chief, he was under obligation to accompany the king into Rimmon’s temple; an act that would be in violation of his commitment to Jehovah. Elisha responded with words that were as brief as they were apt: “Go in peace.” (2 Kings 5:19 [ESV2011]) The fact that Naaman clearly identified the conflict but made no attempt at evasion or justification meant he was going to be faithful to his new pact with Jehovah.

Unfortunately, many truly called pastors today not only think they are at liberty to be whatever else they wish to, they take on these other roles with a vigour only reserved for the gospel. To improve the world politically, socially and economically is a noble thing but it is not the gospel. Man’s appetite is a bottomless pit that can never be satisfied. His needs are not only endless, they are constantly transmogrifying. To focus on them is to sign up for frustration and failure. Jesus knew better.

If Myles made any mistakes, it was in thinking he could take on the crushing burdens of a decaying world in addition to the onerous demands of the gospel. If he ever uttered anything remotely heretical, it must have been in his sincere and spirited attempt to justify his taking on the role of Hercules for a world that neither needs nor deserves one. So, once again: did Myles cover his ordained miles? I think he went much farther. He took on so much more than he was fitted for; and maybe those needless burdens eventually did him in.

Jesus knew the irreconcilable difference between offering the bread of life and running a bread-based social programme. His choice between the two was unambiguous. So should every gospel minister’s.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

It must have been in 1975 not long after the military junta of Murtala Mohammed had consolidated its hold on power after shoving aside the increasingly vacillating regime of the youthful Yakubu Gowon. Suddenly, every task and directive had to be executed “with immediate effect.” Public servants were summarily dismissed because the military potentate paid an unscheduled visit; arriving 10 minutes after the official resumption time. You could be kicked out of work based on whatever the overlords considered grave enough. Since the Constitution had been discarded, what was wrong or right resided in the thick head of the soldier. Those times were scary indeed.
The fear was so palpable and yet so nebulous that the matter of having greying hair was considered a potential dismissal trigger. My father (Papa) was a staff of the Post and Telecommunications Department (progenitor of NIPOST and NITEL) and was in his mid-40s at the time. Unfortunately, he was beginning to grey at the temples and that was bad news. The first desperate solution was to recruit the famed Morgan’s Pomade that was touted to “restore grey hair to its original colour” and also “prevent it from turning grey or falling off.” After a few weeks of religious application showed no dramatic result, Papa went hunting for something more potent. One day, he came home looking unusually ecstatic. The secret soon emerged: a fool proof solution to the greying challenge had arrived!
It was a hard, dark stuff that had to be dissolved in water then carefully and appropriately applied. Between Uncle Ajike and my mother, Mma, there was little doubt who the responsibility for doing the needful would fall to. Tasks that bordered on the cerebral were not exactly Uncle’s forte. The perfect gentlemen he was, Papa still had to pop the question to Mma. It was posed in impeccable Ohafia but here is as close a translation in English as is possible: “Will you dye for me?”
That was as rhetorical as any question could get. Of course she was going to do it. After giving life to his eight lusty children, what was there in dyeing? And dye she did; as many times as occasion demanded. Papa kept his job while Mma slept better. I swept the beautiful story into a secure recess of my mind for the day it will be ripe for telling.
Mma loved and adored Papa so much that even if she had assumed the supreme sacrifice was demanded of her, she would still have happily complied without batting an eye. And because Papa would have done the same, their union remains the best I would ever know.
In 1979, Mma had to die. She could well have been doing it for her beloved husband who lived another 31 years before joining up with her.
Once more, the season of high-wire politics is upon us. Our vast landscape is crawling with political entrepreneurs making all manner of declarations and promises. Having survived many of these frenzied seasons, I can state without equivocation that we’re being set up to be duped once again. The stakes again will be characteristically high; so high that these desperados masquerading as patriots will swear to do what they don’t have even the slightest intention of attempting. If I were you, I’ll quit listening to promises. As for ideology, let us just say that perpetually-nascent democracies like ours can’t yet embrace such a lofty concept.
I think this is the season to ask questions and I don’t mean such worn questions as “What will you do for us?” Trust these dubiously smart alecks, they’ll promise mansions in the moon if they have to. For me, I’m going to be asking the very same question Papa asked Mma nearly 40 years ago: “Will you dye for me?” “Will you help cover the object of my fears and insecurity? Can you afford to shield me from harm? Are you prepared to sacrifice everything for my good?”
And you have to trust me on this, if they can sincerely dye for you, dying for you won’t be such a big deal; if it came to that. Anyone willing to do die for you will most certainly live for you. In view of the deteriorating global security scenario and our own distressing local equivalent, that must become the irreducible minimum for leadership.
On a cautionary note, there is no guarantee that a response in the affirmative will automatically translate to performance. But unlike the current woolly, impunity-ridden scenario, it will be quite easy to judge whether they were initially sincere. Either the hair on your head is completely black or his head is irreversibly off.
Soon, they’ll come hounding you for support, but please, resorting to evasion or excoriation will serve no useful purpose. Just call them aside, look them straight in the eye and ask with as much panache as you can muster.
“Will you dye for me?”

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

“Nna!”
“Sir,” I responded to Papa’s summons with timely alacrity.
“You will be travelling to Kano in three days.” It was a command that came out exactly as one. Back then, fathers like mine generally ruled by decrees. “I hear the train gets almost filled from Kano so you need to go and board the train there to secure a seat for your sister.”
This was 1977 and Charity my elder sister was due to return to school in the East from Funtua in then North Central State. The journey plan was for her to join the Kano–Port Harcourt train in Zaria but the problem of congestion was the trigger to my eventual involvement. A few days earlier, Mama had hinted at the possibility of sending somebody to Kano, but Uncle Ajike who lived with us was – by age and experience – eminently better qualified for the assignment. So it came as a welcome surprise when Papa put me on notice: a surprise because at barely 15, I had only been to Kano once in the company of Mama. I was so giddy with joy that I never bothered to find out why I was preferred.
The next two days passed in a blur. I hardly slept the night before my momentous journey. One of Funtua’s foremost transporters at the time, Alhaji Usman Nabature operated a Funtua – Kano – Funtua daily luxury bus service. By 7am, I was already comfortably seated and headed for Kano: a journey that wound up as smooth as it was uneventful. By 10am, I had already purchased my ticket in readiness for roll-off. While waiting, I interacted with some of the other passengers of Igbo extraction and all of them without exception were headed to the East. It was strange I was heading only as far as Zaria.
For very obvious reasons, I chose a window seat. I carried no bag or any other luggage. Despite my most strategic position, I merely watched as other passengers engaged in the usual frenzy of buying what they needed for the journey. From the curious looks I got from them, I guess they may have thought many things of me. They may have assumed I didn’t have money or that I was a travel greenhorn and therefore clueless as to what I needed to be about. That I carried no luggage could have heightened suspicion that I was embarking on a nefarious mission. Because I minded my business while my journey lasted, it wouldn’t have been farfetched if someone assumed I was deaf and dumb.
It didn’t matter to me one way or the other what anybody thought, and I felt no compulsion to clarify matters. I knew why I was on that train and my unwavering intention was to complete my task.
As the train rolled into Zaria station, a massive, restless crowd of prospective passengers jostled on the platform. The most challenging part of my assignment was to locate my sister in the melee. Thankfully, her attractive complexion came in handy. Getting in was with her luggage (women always manage to end up with so much) was war. As soon as she was safely seated, getting out was an even more challenging affair. I wangled my way and managed to hop onto the platform just as the train began to pick up speed on its nearly 72 hour journey to the Garden City.
As I stood on that platform all roughed up and sweaty and watching the train snake away, I was satisfied I had done what I was billed to do. Whatever anybody may have thought or said did not matter: not then, not now and not ever. Sometimes, we just need to get about what needs to be done and allow the process of time to churn out the explanations.
Of a truth, Goodluck Jonathan is already undoubtedly Nigeria’s most maligned president. Like I suggested in an earlier piece, Jonaball seems to be the trending political sport. Those wishing to hone their excoriation skills mostly now prefer to take pot-shots at the president. He has been charged with all manner of iniquities ranging from cluelessness to clannishness, and I must confess that sometimes, he inadvertently provides his traducers with the ammunition they employ against him. Yet, in all, he has remained tame in his responses to the barrage of criticisms. Apart from the duo of Abati and Okupe who sometimes go overboard in a bid to compensate for Jonathan’s apparent aversion to the doctrine of a-tooth-for-a-tooth, he is well on his way to becoming Nigeria’s most tolerant president.
There are very many who are persuaded differently: asserting that the man doesn’t have what it takes to run Nigeria. I am certainly not a Jonathan acolyte and you’re not likely to see me in bed with the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria. But it has been occurring to me lately that, maybe, we’ve been misreading the man’s mission.
It seems to me that Jonathan’s core mandate is to occupy that position, not only to deny some desperados that privilege, but also to ensure that the one ordained to take Nigeria on the long, arduous journey to true and sustainable nationhood does not need to engage any battle of legitimacy. And like a scarecrow, his simple duty is to ensure that the pestilential birds that usually deplete and destroy the national harvest are kept at bay.
It just might turn out that Nigeria’s long delayed harvest time is closer than we imagine and who knows whether, like my sister Charity, our messiah will appear in the form of a woman!

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

I can claim to have known G D Numbere quite well even though I never physically met him. I am equally certain that I speak for legions because when a man lives with a clear sense of purpose, his influence surmounts the limitations imposed by space and time.
My conversion experience sometime in 1978 was akin to an earthquake whose epicentre was the aggregated godly influences of certain students of Federal Government College Kaduna.
Stephen Bariture Kpuinen was a year my senior but we were both of Niger and later Volta House. I had the privilege of watching his life up-close and it became quite clear to me that becoming an exemplary student in character consistency would require much more than personal resolve.
Kagbarenen Zoranen, Lugbe Biranwin and Barinyima Koate Girigiri were my classmates. The way a white background helps accentuate a black object is how their stellar character and performance made me look every bit the recalcitrant rascal I was.
Then there was Israel Vurebel whose vast and robust grasp of the Bible exposed me constantly as a bumbling, spiritual ignoramus. The fact that he was a junior who wasn’t exceptionally academically endowed made it even worse. Israel it was who assumed that his state of personal holiness was under threat when he first encountered the mathematical concept of “sine” usually abbreviated as “sin!”
This five, all of Ogoni extraction, were already practising Christians before coming to Kaduna. Additionally, they had all been massively influenced by the fiery evangelistic ministry of someone they all fondly called Apostle Numbere. From them, I first became acquainted with Greater Evangelism World Crusade: the ministerial platform that Numbere employed in his pioneering evangelistic initiative in the economically, environmentally and spiritually challenged Niger Delta region. Anyone fairly conversant with the dire conditions of this treacherously endowed enclave will agree it is no place for the lily-livered.
In September 1980, Africa’s most beautiful campus spread its captivating arms to welcome me into its addictively warm embrace. It took only a few weeks for me to discover that this same privilege had been extended, a little over a decade earlier, to the one and only Geoffrey Numbere.
The circumstances around a person’s parturition reveal quite a lot about the person’s pedigree. Ile-Ife is the cradle of Yoruba civilization much the same way the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) has been the divine crucible for firing up and launching many ministries that have effectively impacted the nations.
It was in response to the preaching of Rev Mike Oye that Numbere submitted to the lordship of Jesus. Tutored and mentored by Pa Sidney Granville Elton, he was enabled to robustly assent to a call to ministry that was destined to surpass all imagination. Between the ministries of Mike Oye and S G Elton can be found all the missing ingredients the Church in Nigeria desperately needs to plough herself back to relevance and significance. I have a dossier on the duo based on personal experience and here is what I can state without equivocation about these genuine generals and missionary statesmen: there’s no record of them birthing anything but giants and champions.
Like the true fruit that does not fall far from the tree, Numbere turned out the success he was fitted and destined to be. For over forty fruitful years, he stuck with stubborn tenacity to the focal motto of GEWC: To know Jesus and to make Jesus known. He could well have exclaimed like the inimitable Saint Paul, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
On Wednesday October 15 2014, the curtains fell on the eventful life and ministry of this remarkable gospel gentleman. He takes a deserved seat in the celestial gallery awaiting the very imminent Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
We cannot speak of the mansions and edifices he erected because they were never part of his mandate. For a man who was commanded to make disciples for Jesus, it will be ludicrous attempting to enumerate the millionaires he made. The revelation of his bank account balance will be utterly useless in determining whether he truly fought a good fight.
“And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” This scripture activates my longing to be present at that final judgment and I will certainly be looking forward to hearing the citation of an undisputed avatar of apostolic evangelism, Geoffrey Dabibi Numbere as he is admitted to the ranks of persevering overcomers.

That is one event you should not miss for anything.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

If the first and last letters of this title are substituted, it can pass for any of the ubiquitous catchy slogans commercial concerns daily inundate us with. Like, MTN is giving away 1000 Blackberries! 1000 free drinks in the Coca-Cola “scratch & win” promo! Incidentally, this is not your usual advert strategy intent on bigger market share. This was actually the screaming caption on a church bill obviously targeting the husbandless. The church in question is located on the roof space of a nearly- and haphazardly-completed 3-storey building adjacent to Grand Square along Mohammadu Buhari Way in Abuja’s Central Business District.

I had reason to be in that church on Sunday January 30, 2011, when a good, old friend finally found enough reason to “jump the broom”. From the point of view of ergonomics and the economics of longevity, that’s not a place I’d wish to return to anytime soon. I would be the least surprised if people routinely pass out during the usually energy-sapping, high decibel-generating church sessions. Ventilation is one of the few privileges in very short supply there. To exacerbate an already testy scenario, the head pastor—or more appropriately—the chief operating officer prefers the equipments to operate at near one hundred percent installed capacity. If he understands the laws of thermodynamics, it’s obvious he harbours scant respect for them. Vibrant and voluble, he embodies the quintessential salesman. Were he to consider a career in marketing, he’ll be undeniably world-class. And with a pretty missus to boot, he’d give the likes of David Beckham a run for their money.

To show my goodwill, I’ll call him Senior Pastor; among other titles I’m sure he parades. If recollection serves, he hails from somewhere in Nigeria’s north-eastern flank. I have a hunch he holds a PhD in Pneumatology and Numerology. The first specialty is what distinguishes all dyed-in-the-wool Charismatics and Pentecostals. It’s what makes them loud and proud. I’m one of them, so I should know. The second is the truly exotic one; and I suspect, the Senior Pastor’s stronghold. And I also think he has a thing for the number 1000.

In my January 30th encounter, that number showed up during the mandatory offertory which the Numerologist himself supervised. After exhorting the congregants to give bountifully and cheerfully, he then introduced a cheeky innovation. Those who wished to contact ‘special blessings’ transmitted through a handshake with him could do so armed with a minimum N1000 offering! Since I hadn’t N1000 to part with or desire for a pastoral handshake, I elected to observe this classical case of ecclesiastical apartheid from my sweat-soaked perch. With a few more ingenious fund-capturing gimmicks thrown into the bargain, and nearly an hour later, the fund-raiser was at least N2 million to the good! Talk about the blessings of God making rich! Little wonder sorrow is alien to these anointed servants of the Most High.

I had put this N1000 episode conveniently behind me until this 1000 husbands issue pops up. Then it suddenly occurred to me that it’ll amount to dereliction of duty—nay, sin—if I kept mute. “Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven”, says the Holy Book. Husbands, wives, children, goodly houses, well-paying jobs, lucrative contracts are certainly desirable and beneficial; and I have no doubt God gives them. But if it is only for these and other temporal blessings we flock to his presence, we should be pitied above all men. We’re no better than a political party, a labour union or a secret cult. The Church is primarily a spiritual entity: mandated to offer God’s spiritual graces to a world sinking in the murky mire of materialism and hedonism. Her servants should ordinarily be in the forefront of promoting the much sought-after virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, contentment, chastity, self-control, gentleness, meekness, and the like. In a situation where the top echelon of the Church leadership; especially those of the Pentecostal persuasion, also double as apostles of crass materialism and conspicuous consumption, someone has to raise the alarm. In a poverty-drenched situation like Nigeria, it is not hard to imagine why this brand of gospel is gaining currency.

What makes this scenario even more unsettling is the Ponzi-style tactics freely employed. When ‘God’ is offering 1000 husbands or Blackberries in a city like Abuja, be sure it’ll be oversubscribed. And that’s precisely when those wooly terms and conditions start to be applied. The concept of ‘seed faith’ is always a clincher any day. The distraught and desperate ladies are goaded into parting with princely sums of money as a way of ‘provoking’ God; much like a gaming machine. And that is usually the climax of the gig. From here, it’s all smiles and grins to the vault!

A few years ago, a preacher arrived from the eastern flank of Africa. Verbose to a fault, he worked the congregation to a frenzied climax, and then swooped on the husbandless. He expertly maneuvered them into giving various sums to secure their desired husbands. In this case, the ‘best’ husbands would end up with the ‘highest’ donors! I knew a lady who parted with a sum in excess of N20, 000. At the time, that was hefty. Long after the preacher had zapped back to his country, no suitor showed up; not even the N1000-cadre! Frustrated and disappointed, she left for another church, probably to be duped once more.

Many men and women have been duped in this manner, but most will never confess, either because they’re afraid of incurring the wrath of God, or they’re ashamed of having been so gullible. This trend has become so rampant it is gnawing away at the moral substructure of the Church. Suddenly, the spiritual and moral credentials of Christians are increasingly being called to question. Sodomy, once an anathema, is gradually beginning to taint the testimony of many a clergy. Gradually, we are losing our ability to be effective guides to a progressively directionless world. I have no doubt that the undue emphasis on the material is part of what has brought us to this pretty pass. There’s no better time to repent and make amends than now.

I have nothing personally against the Senior Pastor. If anything, I admire his courage and focus. And he’s not conceited. I deeply appreciate men who recognize their limitations. He has been able to inspire a crop of dedicated and talented men and women to join him in discharging his onerous mandate. This is commendable, and I have no doubt that, deep down, he means well. What I obviously have a problem with are the means and methods he employs. In the kingdom of God, the end does not justify the means. If the end is noble, so must the means. We cannot employ carnal means towards spiritual ends.

There’s no one with a modicum of conscience still ticking away inside that won’t be alarmed by the very precarious global situation. But most especially here in Nigeria. Political uncertainty, unnerving insecurity, massive unemployment and underemployment, collapse of moral values, are but a few of the challenges that confront us. You have to be truly dead not to be affected by the legion of goodly and godly men and women who cannot marry because the means to do so continue to elude them. Or those who fast because they lack the wherewithal to feast. And those who pray because they lack the energy to play.

Jesus encountered such situations severally during his earthly ministry. On one such occasion, he miraculously fed at least 5,000. The very next day, a larger crowd turned up to eat. But he didn’t feed them: he knew their real needs went beyond food. If Jesus had succumbed to their pitiful looks and given them what they craved, this whole gospel business would have fizzled out in a bazaar!

That the gospel has survived and thrived is because Jesus and the inheritors of his estate have kept the important issues clearly in view. Every genuine messenger, like the Senior Pastor, knows what these issues are. Of this, I’m most certain.

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.