tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39898209074663581082024-02-18T19:14:05.628-08:00Voice DiaryWords are often more volatile than voices, unsaid they promptly drift away and many times eternally lost. This is a diary where words are condensed into printable voice. In this form they are saved. If you enjoy them I am grateful; if you disagree and criticize, then I'm fulfilled that I have written something perhaps unique to only me.
You are welcome to my page.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-22738383149258562992017-03-30T16:17:00.003-07:002017-03-30T23:00:09.111-07:00While we all laugh: Nigeria 101 in plain language<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I have been privileged to visit
several countries on this planet earth, but I have not been had that rare opportunity to visit
a madder country than Nigeria. My very first flight out of Nigeria, and Africa,
was to London some years back. And I had no idea what to expect. Like most
Nigerian youths, life in Nigeria was good and couldn't be worse, having no other experience to compare mine with. Don’t blame me, I
didn’t know differently. We left Murtala Muhammed International Airport and I
had no idea how much it stank until I experienced something different. We made a brief
incursion onto the Atlantic airspace, a detour through an arid and Northern
Africa, over the Mediterranean and then …. There, right there was the first shocker. Watching
London from the air was like watching a perfectly pencilled work of an
Engineering student, with all the curves and lines where they should be. Even
the river banks we neatly drawn as it were, more like one giant cup of coffee, with banks
glittering greyish white from the distance. River! Ordinary river, that we used
as conduit for all things disgusting and nasty back home in Nigeria?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Before I knew what was up, tears
were streaming down my eyes. I wasn’t the emotional type, but the anger, the
feeling of betrayal, the loss that I felt, that all our leaders have been privileged to
visit these saner climes and yet they returned home without feeling the need to improve the country's condition of
living… We the youth, we do not know any better, so you should pardon us. We should
pardon ourselves. They, the self-acclaimed leaders, know better. Rather than returning to the country with a
passion to improve the home land, they go out there in the West and Dubari, on a spending spree- buying
houses, buying cars that only gods or insanely mad people would dare ride, spending
money on oyinbo girls, and boys and those whose behind is hardly different from the front…</div>
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<br /></div>
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Yet we laugh. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
After all we are Nigerians, and
the only consistent thing about us is our penchant to turn everything to joke
and laugh it off. We do it. Our fathers did it. Their fathers before them did
it. We play the ostrich, maybe if we bury our heads long enough in the sand and
laugh under the hood of the earth, maybe, just maybe the problem will have
disappeared before we remove our heads from the sand. And in time, we have lost
the knowhow of how to remove our head from the sand. Problem rages where our
asses reside, but who cares, our heads are in the sand and troubles cannot get
to us. The price of cement doubles, more than doubles within the space of 6
months. But who cares, the harder we laugh, the more distracted we get, the
less painful it will all be.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The generations of our fathers
bought brand new cars during NYSC and they didn’t have to share testimonies in
churches and mosques. And yes, our fathers studied history, and demography, and
education, and business admin. During NYSC, yes they bought DL cars, tear
rubber. They ate with both hands, excited by the jobs as servants of the civil society, forgetting to build industries... But who cares, we their sons are better than them; we are their pension plan, their breathing gratuity. We are better and so we study pharmacy, and law, and medicine, and
chemical engineering, and we study so hard that we speak languages our parents do not understand. Yes, we are doctors, we are engineers, we are lawyers and pharmacists and speech-makers … But 10 years after graduation we still don’t have a job
that does any better than keep us alive to suffer grimmer fate of the coming
morrows. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But who cares, our churches are
there, and our mosques, and our senate… they take our mind off our fate, and
they make us laugh, and clap, and make celebrations out of Christ… If I pay my
tithe of #1k today, next week God will have made me a millionaire. The good Lord in
Nigeria has taken Ponzi scheme to a whole new level. Just a seed of faith and
in the morning we all are at par with Dangote. But how? Just how will this
things be? Beloved, the good Lord cares not about tiny details of success, neither should we... And after
one year, and two years, and ten years, we still can’t increase our
offering from N20 to N50… But we are men of faith, and we are to bury our heads in the
sand of religion and indifference while Dangote, the son of God, buys us all and
makes us give him change.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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Who cares!</div>
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<br /></div>
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We have a President, and he has
certificate that no one has seen. Several months ago the 180million of us left
no stone unturned running after the fleeing paper; but we couldn’t catch up. We couldn't find it. We looked everywhere, everywhere except
the other room where he keeps a lot of precious things and our Mrs Madam. And when we’re
all exhausted from the search they graciously allowed us to consider his NEPA
bill…to become the President of our dear mother-father land. Hurray! No, not so fast, JAMB
has refused to allow us too present NEPA bills to enter higher institutions. What
are we to do? Our favourite spot remains still in the sand, we need only
bury our heads deeper still, and these concerns will dispel all by themselves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A rule exists for the Senate and
the politicians, another for us that live in the jungles of our common national
hustle-ship. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But who freaking cares?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Steal a loaf of bread and your
fellows-in-suffering, before you say “Jonat not Buh”, have lighted you up like
a candle. How fast they get the petrol I do not know… Or worse still, the police get to you first before you fulfil the destiny of a human torch. They take you to SARS, and for stealing a loaf of bread, you
enter their nest and you never again come out alive. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The gods that occupy our senate no
longer have to steal these days, they have carefully legitimized and
apportioned the choicest part of the loot to themselves. After all once the law backs it it is kuku not a crime. A single alert
announcing the salary of a senator, could well have paid the salaries of a
hundred Nigerians, and Dende that entered SARS’ nest would not have needed to pay such a fatal price for hunger, for a loaf of bread.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Someone dared us and we tried to
see if indeed we could remove our head from our precious sand. We did, only briefly,
and found that our President dearest, the Lion of the Tribe of the Other Room,
the Lord of WAEC, and the wife of Saraki, had been gone for more than a month.
Ah! Who stole him? The Queen? Is he alive? He breathes, like in the movies? But, is he alive like normal people? Before we were answered the one of whom Onikuje of Kuje fears, the Lord of WAEC, the Confidence of the Herders quickly
gave us the blessing of Suleiman and Otobo, and Sowore and Dino… And we were
happy, the Lord of WAEC is happy, Saraki is happy, so happy he has now gone on
a summoning spree; if a tree moves too much, it must appear before him in uniform. And before the year runs out we all must appear before the
senate at least to justify the criminal pay they all collect. Legitimate, yet criminal.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Perhaps one day the wind will
blow our sand away and we will have no choice than to stare with naked eyes at
our naked and sorely butts. Perhaps we will someday grow the courage to beat
sense into the senate and the executives. After all, the people they say is the
power of democracy… Perhaps, someday our youth will live up to their true
strength, not merely seeking and taking up jobs, but building industries and
inventing mechanisms to put the old dinosaurs leading us into old peoples’
homes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But right now, let’s keep
laughing until God comes round to building a ladder that allows Him to descend
into Nigeria to sort out our problems, every one of them, by Himself. Who knows, the desperate and fervent prayers of our mothers and their fathers before them, might just get answered in our days. But if that doesn't materialize there's at least a heaven after now and here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But hallelujah somebody, Nigerians needn't be afraid of a Hell after this life: Hell's headquarter has now moved to Nigeria, with the executives and legislators and public officers outdoing each other as the able representatives of Hell's special envoy to our land.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But who cares, our sand still remains.</div>
jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-31328242619943389502014-03-04T04:17:00.003-08:002014-03-04T04:18:58.285-08:00Nigeria the green<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Nigerians. Nigerians?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who are they? Who are we?</div>
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<br /></div>
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When I try to attend my mind to this question several
pictures come to mind: The rich crude oil flowing of the southern South. The
tall groundnut pyramids that used to adorn our historical past. The leafy cocoa
trees, their yellowing pods, also now faded into the past. The green and the
white national flag, the cattle ranch, the impossibly beauteous landscape
adorning of the Niger, of the Abuja, of the Ekiti, of the Savannah…</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I also remember the military khakis and the boots stomping and
the ground cringing. Their guns, their bullets, the several eyes they forever shut.
The take-overs. The fathers and brothers and mothers that disappeared from the
streets of Lagos and from our jungles. The Saro-Wiwas, the Iges, the nameless
ones dying daily for Boko Haram and by Boko Haram. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The Boko Haram, the politics of it, the intrigues of it. The
silence of the damned, and the silence of the President. The disarming of our
soldiers when money is mightier than the guns. The pupils shot in their sleep,
the silence of their graves and the ceaseless flow of pain, of loss on families'
faces, on all our faces. The anguish at killings which must be avenged…</div>
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<br /></div>
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I remember the motor ways and the jungles of them. The society
of potholes - baby potholes, sister potholes, and the grand holes. The breaking
of the absorber. The bursting of the expensive inferior tyres, and my frantic
effort to escape the abyss on the road. The soldiers I meet along my way of escape.
Their stranglehold on my meagre livelihood. The gun in my face. The whip on my
back. Their laughter and my weeping. The robbery. My loss. My children's loss. The
tears soiling our faces with no water to wash them off. For government pipes are
hollow, waterless even in the rain. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I my own government, digging my own well, buying my own gen…
The police cars have no fuel, and the ambulances have escorted the governors to
a weekend bash. I must buy my own dogs and keep guard at my own gate. I must
work in a bank and own one, plant a farm or four- one to grow meat and one for corns,
one for salt, and in the fourth I grow my own medicines. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The government of the Rocks and those at the states are for
the TVs praising them. Ogwuche they said commissioned a road. Jona too has improved
power. But Ogwuche's roads are those of his own estate and Jona's power lights
only his wife's dingy rooms.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I remember you Nigerians and the silly smiles we share. I
remember our temples, the fat offerings, the fatter tithes. The Imam's new car
of glass, Ayo too has bought a jet. I remember the scars on our knees as we
pray, hit our heads on the floor, or both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I remember our frenzy, our shouts, the confused cries on megaphones, and
the waking of neighbours Fridays. I remember our strange faith, and the endless
patience and tolerance of ills. Our docile backs bending again and again to the
whipping under the mid-day Sun. The shiver of pain from a back bleeding and
badly torn... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember the new elections and the new sacks of rice. Some
even got the President's wife's yellow T-shirts with her 1 million dollar
lipstick printed on the front. Some have sighted the President in his redeeming
walk. Some say he now has a patch created at the altars where to knee and make
us blinder still.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A pot of rice, a yellow T-shirt and Jona's kneeling and our
bleeding backs are now healed. Our hungry mouths are suddenly fled. And our
young idle hands somehow will feed off … something, anything. It is a miracle, Presido
did it again!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A rumour has it that new political formation is in town to
give the President a good run for his money. But all we hear is “Wolf, wolf,
wolf!” at the creeping of every gecko. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also share a scream with a rooster hired
by the President for such things as that. Some oily brothers from the southern
wells say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i> and the North
something else. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And us, well we panic at
the silence following Borno’s gunshots in the camp of the poor afflicted by
Boko Haram, the brave killers of babies. But still the North deserves the crown,
they were born to rule.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I remember you the real Nigerian from the North and the
South and fringes seeking a Promised Land. The hungry you. The blind you bowing
daily to the Imam telling you to slaughter sleeping babies and women. The blind
you heeding the pastor telling you to bring your money and your wife for his more
sanctified use. I remember you and your dusty daily walks, running daily after
Molues and Okadas, waiting at the fuel stand to atone for the invisible
subsidy... I remember you sitting at home with no place to go and no hope to
nurse.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I remember you, my green-and-white-and-green flag and my
pledge to thee.</div>
jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-11264670902889867422013-08-16T03:59:00.000-07:002013-08-16T03:59:00.501-07:00Discarding the Achebes and the Kayodes.Here is the bitter side of history, that it is never fully recorded or reported. The sparse record of it that remains was written by
individuals who viewed, experienced and interpreted events strictly from own limited point of view. In other words, we can never truly recover the full facts of the past by reading the skewed accounts presented by the historians. An Hausa man would write
the history of Nigeria in a light that protects the perennial interest
of the Hausas. The Chinua Achebes would go to the extent of
unnaturally bending past record and presenting it in light
that makes one view the Igbos as permanent victims of undeserving
malevolence directed at them from all other ethnic groups around. And when a Yoruba man, the Fani-Kayodes, writes his own version and surnames it The Bitter
Truth, he goes all the dubious way to marshal his craft and
craftiness to present the Yorubas as some noble ethnic group, one that is all accommodating and never given to crime and
suspicious dealings...<br />
<br />
But as a Nigerian I now write: our self-appointed historians have failed us. <br />
<br />
The Chinuas have failed, and so have the Kayodes of this country. For they are no more than a servant of their own gall and bitterness.<br />
<br />
For, what is the purpose of a history that does not solve any problem
or make a single meaningful contribution to the life of a Nigerian?
Instead, their account of the past was designed to keep us chained down by the fetters of blood, of intrigues, of hatred woven by these
same men and their colleagues. And this they did supposing Nigerians shall have no other place to find meaning than in looking back over their shoulders at the failings of their fathers and then refusing to move forward.<br />
<br />
But they have all failed, these servants of discord and bitterness.<br />
<br />
When great men die, shouldn't they leave behind a legacy of benefits
that should tell their tales? Great men have lived and died and by the products of their lives established
scholarships and foundations that have continued to benefit humanity, even the children of strangers, centuries
after they were gone. Chinua died and left behind a call to hatred, and Fani-Kayode's very life labours to fan such embers to
full blood. Should Nigerians be deceived about their motives?<br />
<br />
Should we be deceived?<br />
<br />
Perhaps we are really so dumb- as opined by Tunde Bakare- dumb
enough to allow these selfish and hateful interpreters of history to
sway us by their own demons and venom. Perhaps we are
dumb enough to ignore the fact that the same challenges befall all as
Nigerians: 1) Boko Haram doesn't care that you're Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa
before they seek to kill you; 2) your ethnicity makes little difference when
poverty and joblessness come calling at your door; 3) before the Police man forces a bribe out of you you're not required to justify your ethnicity; 4) ... I shall stop here, but we all know there are more. Why not conduct a small experiment. Make a road trip to Katsina, Enugu, Benue, Nasarawa,
Oyo, Anambra or Ekiti State..., some place, any place away from your ethnic origin. Perhaps then you shall understand better
the problems and situations that unite us are many more than the ethnicity that (some persons want to) divide
us.<br />
<br />
Isn't it silly and utterly unintelligent that one should take credit for
something not a product of one's own choice? If you did not do a thing
to become an Igbo man, why then should you wear your Igbo-ness as some
proud warrior would do after his conquest of the Land of Ticks? If
my Yoruba-ness was beyond my choosing why then should it be the basis
for differentiating me from all other ethnic groups both in Nigeria and
beyond? Should it be land and claim to it? Millions of people that had laid claim to the same land have come and gone, not able to leave with a handful of earth from it. We too have come, and shall certainly go when we are done here. Isn't it silly that we should lay a bloody claim to a thing that shall survive our mortal existence?<br />
<br />
Education, business empires, sound political career and legacy: these
are direct products of human diligence, resourcefulness and effort. If you're tempted to boast
because of any of these the world will understand and congratulate you that your boast
is well deserved...<br />
<br />
A thousand of thousand years from now, and perhaps just a thousand years
from now, every Nigerian will likely have in his veins the blood of all
ethnic groups. Even now, there
are millions of Nigerians within whose veins the bloods of different
ethnic groups have achieved an harmony. Which side should these people then pledge allegiance to? Where
should we chase them the next time we consider them too unsightly and poor
to adorn our state capitals? Or should we simply call them a no-man's
people the next time we seek a reason to relieve them of their jobs in the
state civil service?<br />
<br />
These past months and weeks given us reasons to bite and malign one another, no thanks the self-sponsored Achebes and Kayodes. I am to remind us
that at the end of the day we all must return to tending the wounds that we commonly share as Nigerians. And that many of our historians are men so much overwhelmed
by their own bitterness and failings that they must incite public discord
for them to find some relief from their affliction, their narrow view of the Nigerian history and situation. But this is the very reason we are humans, capable of individual interpretation of our circumstances in a way that improves the present. Most Igbos had
never personally had a reason to specially hate a Yoruba man until Prof Chinue Achebe's "There was a country". Then the Igbos suddenly remembered, as one jolted out of a dream, their ethnic duty
to hate and distrust the Yorubas. Then also came the champions of the
Yorubas, Fani-Kayode, who reminded the Yorubas their sacred duty to view the Igbos with immense suspicion. And in this induced silliness,
many Yorubas chanted, "Go home ingrates". These they did, as though afflicted by a strange amnesia, ignoring the personal relationships
they have had (and still do have) with many Igbos, some of whom they
have married, some of whom they have fathered and mothered, and some of whom
are their Pastors and fellow-sharers of the same faith and trade.<br />
<br />
And for a Nigerian, where is home? Isn't it silly to be asked such a question when you are at home?jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-83461217455336921502013-04-01T00:07:00.000-07:002013-04-01T00:07:19.847-07:00Happy nation.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOop-N7xZLpsA_kv9pVMAaUPmC5MwXjd-gQO_dGlepgiEz8c99o0tfwUvD-Dct05-XCo0DChQnZsCQ78pqIn9LHi7v7cswNPVUO6lPTkAyuwwHYIpdoOhAQ1pc42DhHVyQ6_hn7vGRug/s1600/happynation.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOop-N7xZLpsA_kv9pVMAaUPmC5MwXjd-gQO_dGlepgiEz8c99o0tfwUvD-Dct05-XCo0DChQnZsCQ78pqIn9LHi7v7cswNPVUO6lPTkAyuwwHYIpdoOhAQ1pc42DhHVyQ6_hn7vGRug/s200/happynation.png" width="200" /></a></div>
We are a happy people <br />Let us celebrate and sing a song <br />We are a happy nation <br />The last strand of our ill <br />The pretense that our <i>GEJ</i> would certainly fight corruption <br />Has finally breathed its last <br />Our corruption once again lives and kicks in fine health <br /><br />We are a happy people <br />Let us celebrate and bring a bomb <br />We are a happy nation <br />Sultan calls for amnesty <br />The pretense that <i>GEJ</i> was surely atop the situation <br />Has finally breathed its last <br />Our politics of violence gains life as from the dead<br /><br />We all are Nigerians and we have no worries <br />We have Goodluck Jonathan <br />And Alamieyeseigha <br />We have the Sultan, and he has Boko Haram <br />And we're quiet as the <i>mouses</i> in our Temples <br /><br />We are a happy country.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-10531163081574689902013-01-26T21:22:00.000-08:002013-01-26T21:22:04.924-08:00My tale as a countryI'm not likely to explain to you the reason for my hope, but then
it's probably enough to tell you I had one day met a middle-aged
woman who told me stuffs. Sad and interesting and hopeful stuffs. She
had no shoes and it's about impossible to question the reasoning of one
without shoes. Such a sad sad little woman, clad in a faded richness and
a sleepiness that made me think she's incapable of seeing outside her
cosy little world. <br />
It was in the farming years and even though
the pleasant palms and nuts and cocoa trees were about all gone from my
gardens, I had at that time retained the pleasure of relishing the
stretch of my land--the richly dark forest nourished by coast and rains,
and the sandy brownness Northward ploughed into richness by Nomads'
feet. I must say it wasn't always this way with me that I should relish
in the tell-tale marks of my extinct crops like one rejoicing at the
vestige of a departed Sunshine. Instead I had lived my days as night and
my night to sorrow over a growing apprehension: would I again regain my
rich coat of white and green and be able to feed my children with meat
unborrowed? But then the Messenger of the Winds visited me on one of my
gloomy nights with report of the vast richness by my springs. I
despaired to believe, to trust any good should come from turning
springwardt rendering my house panting after and tearing apart one
another for a bite at the strange nourishment. Also, who shall fight to
restore my greens, my crops and my trade? And what shall become of a
house raised on hand-downs after the springs do dry?<br />
<br />
The Messenger in words was sweet and in motive ruthless. He was
also very good at commerce for he sold to me my own possession and in
exchange took my pleasant gardens of nourished forest and sandy
brownness. And when I thought all I ever had was now lost, he showed me a
means of being at peace with my destiny. For, he said, a man must
accept his destiny or be crushed by it. With many such words he
separated me from my miseries and preserved me comatosed and proper for
his use. I contended vigorously, within me, to tell him I was no longer a
man but a piece of rag soaked in oil and hanged on termite-infested
props. That mine was not a destiny but a woe of my own gullibility, the
doing of an indifference to the state of my father's house. That I was
already crushed, long crusehd, the very moment I tarried to hear his
message of Winds. Yes, I contended vigorously but my contention died
within me for my very voice was owned by him. <br />
<br />
Was I deceived? I have no means of judging. I am so far removed
from my own conditions and from how things should be or should have
been. My surviving children were born in the time of oiled rags and are
all grateful for the remnant oiliness in our rags, and the older ones
dig insatiable wells with million pipes running underground on their
deepening bellies to drain out the little breath that in us is left. <br />
Was I deceived? <br />
Perhaps.
But then that was the last of the deception that I should suffer, The
Messenger of Winds having these days grown somewhat quiet and distant,
or perhaps bored by the vastness of his loots. And gradually I have
found some way to grow my own crops from the brilliance of my
children-from letters and inks, and make the remnant of my oily
inheritance cater to my house. Some disturbing tales from abroad had
sometimes ago breezed in that some of the goods stolen from me were
found on foreign shores, and then returned to my land. I've asked around
but none could tell me where it landed-within my yard or in The
Messenger's barn. But when some said it had all invisibily gone into
oiling my rags I decided to let the matter rest for I have no way of
deciding whether or not I was being deceived. It had seemed enough that a
small fraction was recovered from The Messenger. It had also seemed
appropriate, that I should be left alone to tend to my fading embers
especially now that I have met a shoeless friend.<br />
Sitting there
opposite and facing me on my rotten bench, I had never felt a deeper
connection to anyone. She's clad in the skin of my own offsprings, and
in a shoelessness that echoes my own nakedness. She had stared long at
me and suggested she would champion a cause to recover my stolen life. I
patted her softly on the back to solidarise in her meaningless
ambition, I was very much at home with much meaninglessness. She swayed
back and forth and from side to side, lifted up one foot after the other
to make sure I had not missed the pitiable sight of her unshod feet. I
told her I saw it all and that it's nothing to compare with my broken
will. She answered every one of my questions with a blank stare, and had
proposed befriending the Messenger as a means of compelling him to
return my stolen goods. It was a simple plan, easy to memorise. It had
also come with the tenth of a bag of rice and the rat-size of Ankara
cutting; my children hailed her so I gave her my vote and companied her
with drums and the last of our breath to the Rock. But suddenly I found
myself arguing over the ownership of our remaining metre-square land, praying to the Winds to give light,
and begging a shoeless friend for a chance to shoe my children's feet.
My sandy brownness now enriched in blood to the overflowing, and in my
dark forests robbers and kidnappers form an empire.<br />
<br />
Did the shoeless woman deceive me? I have no way of telling, for my bent back and feverish gash are to me a much closer reality than those that though shoeless shall deprive me of my last oily rag.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-26239634655254650742012-08-29T04:47:00.000-07:002012-08-29T04:47:20.987-07:00Tribalism and the Nigerian model of racismIt was my first time in Europe, London to be precise, and I had gone to check this apartment that was advertised in the <i>Loot</i>
weekly. At that time I was still living with a relation, and I was
quite happy that the advertised apartment was no more than 100m from
where I was staying. So, I walked up to the indicated address, rang the
doorbell and waited for a response. After a few seconds the door opened
and a male Caucasian appeared. I'm never going to forget the look on his
face after he discovered that an African had come to rent the room. He
didn't beat about the bush in informing the room had been taken the next
day I had called as agreed. Well I had expected something like this
from my encounter with him the previous day.<br />
I never quite realised I was Black until that particular evening.
Being a first experience I wasn't sure whether to be angry, sad,
indifferent or simply laugh it off. I could have gone ahead to brand the
whole White race as racists, but then I would have to account for the
countless kindness and friendship I had met in many Caucasians that I
have come across. A similar incident occurred about two years ago in
Germany, when I had gone to (again) look up an apartment for rent. I had
this time gone with my colleague and friend, an Indian, and the German
owner bluntly stated she could not rent the apartment to foreigners.<br />
I live in Europe, and issues like these boardering on racism are not
far-fetched. And expectedly, I had received calls from friends in
Nigeria wanting to know how I had coped with such. And in my quiet
moments of reflection I have found it outrightly dishonest to put forth
life within the Nigerian boarders as devoid of similar attitudes from
fellow Nigerians. That is, being Nigerian and living within Nigeria is
likely to expose you to similar treatment from other human beings who
generally consider you as less deserving of certain considerations for
no other reason than you belong to a different tribe. Or a different
religion. I considered our national politics, where the Northerners
famously claimed power belonged to them. Or should one now consider the
Igbos and the Yorubas who, among others, would in many cases not give
out their children to marry members of the other tribes?<br />
This might appear trivial, but then it's in context: during my
undergraduate education at Ife an Igbo boy had blantantly refused to
sell an extra bedspace of his to a non-Igbo student. A Yoruba person
close to me had also jokingly raised an objection to my having an Igbo
female friend.<br />
How about cases where only individuals from particular families are allowed to monopolise certain political offices?<br />
We find the same pattern in corporate bodies, in sport, in education,
in health,... in fact, in the entire social structure we've come to
know as Nigeria. What right do I have then to blame a Caucasian, an
Indian, or a Chinese for discriminating against me for being African?
And historically speaking, what right do we have as a nation for
speaking and standing against apartheid of South Africa? In my opinion I
think we've spent so long discriminating against fellow Nigerians on
the basis of tribe and religion that this pervertion has come to be
viewed as normal in the Nigerian context. The picture becomes more
deplorable when we consider that this tribalistic tendencies are daily
being fuelled by the parents, and other respected members of our
societies. How many Nigerians can confidently say their parents and
persons close to them have never made malicious comments about members
of the other tribes? And when they do this, do we not join in in
laughing against the Hausas, Yorubas,and Igbos, as the case maybe?<br />
Our entire culture and subcultures have been founded on this tribal
divisioning, how hyprocritical of us to stand against neo-apartheid in
different countries around the world. Hardly would an unfortunate
incident affecting most of the tribes in the country occur in some parts
of the country and certain tribes not cry out that it's nothing short
of a conspiratorial cleansing of their tribe. I allude to Boko Haram's
murderous campaign that has seen countless Yorubas, Hausas, Igbos and
other tribes and aliens slain, and yet some tribe fuelled by a tribal
paranoia keep alleging it's an attempt by Nigeria to expunge them. This
in their case is a a peculiar manifestation of the same tribalistic
outlook.<br />
I have been to different parts of Nigeria, and also to several
countries around the world, and everywhere I have noticed that human
beings are essentially the same, with both kind aspects and at the same
time with a predisposition to maltreating other races and tribes of men.
On a lighter side now, an Italian-American had once asked me in
Philadelphia if there were actual houses in Nigeria. I suppose she
thought we were living on some trees or inside some caves. Such
stereotypical view as this, is usually not an evidence of a defect in
the victim of such view, but on the other hand it is nothing short of a
demonstration her shocking and shameful ignorance. And yes, that was
just two years ago, not two centuries ago.<br />
I have heard Yorubas who have never been to Northern Nigeria tell me
things about the Hausas. The Igbos do the same, the same thing the
Hausas. The sad thing is that such stereotypical and entirely ignorant
branding of other tribes is not aways caused by illiteracy. When I was a
kid I had been made to believe that education should liberate a people,
in our case it seems to drive us further down the path of bondage.<br />
Let's for a minute consider how it has affected every splinter of our
national experience. Do you need me to write about the politics of
blood and greed, where each tribe sees the privilege to serve the nation
as no more than a golden opportunity to divert the nation's bleeding
wealth to his own part of the country? And as a result of the
competitive scramble for loot, no one cares that the nation remains
stagnant, once the misguided politician is from your tribe. How many
politicians do we have that can claim exemption to this? It has become a
status behaviour for them to establish a university, a hospital , or
any other such structures in their own states and villages once elected.
And we all look away from the fact that such institutions could have
better served Nigerians in some other parts of the country.<br />
What of sport? Some weeks ago the whole world gathered in London to
watch the open shame of Nigeria, the self-acclaimed giant of African
(too sad being merely numerous isn't enough to merit such description). I
am sure not many Nigerians were disappointed or shocked by the outcome,
that we didn't leave London with a tiny medal. Had they included
copper, or wood in the awarded medals I am not so sure we would have
come home with enough wood to light our frozen national heart. One would
then ask, how come such a country with so many people could not lift a
single medal? Well, we are from a country where the last time we heard
of merit spoken of was in the fairy tales told by our parents, in turn
told them by their own parents. Instead, in the name of being faithful
to some spurious Federal character, we ended up enlisting athletes who
were below average. Should it really matter which tribe the athletes
come from as long as they are the best the country could find? If for
instance we have 15 slots to fill on a football team, and out of all the
interviewd candidates 12 Igbos (or Hausas or Yorubas) possess
performance superior to every other person, one should think it makes
more sense to choose those ones rather than to push in members of the
other tribes who have no competing chance, not even within our own
country.<br />
The educational sector and the principle, for instance, of catchment
area scores. I wish I could laugh at this policy's silliness, but that
it's a very sad phenomenon. That smarter candidates are turned away from
an institution just because they are from different states: Then we go
ahead and lower the <i>pass mark</i> for the indigenes of our own
states. The sad thing is, that poor boy from another state who probably
gave his best to writing the exam, is turned away empty-handed. And if
such individual has no such institution in his own state, he though
being a Nigerian becomes an education-destitute in his own country. But
then you'd ask, shouldn't the state be able to actively enhance the
education of its indigenes? By all means, it must. But then should it be
by lowering the standard and thus prematuredly aborting the surviving
notion of merit? Certainly not. Lowering the pass mark (catchment score
it is called) for the state is analogous to Britain deciding its own
sprinters would only need to run half track to qualify for a medal. But
instead of adopting the Nigerian model, it spent billions of pounds in
training its citizens so they had more chance of qualifying without
having to selectively beat down the pass mark for the Britons. Any
serious state interested in enhancing its indigenes education should be
read invest in infrastructure acquisition and students' training
especially at the the primary and secondary school levels. If a state
invests in hiring exceptional teachers and in equipping the education at
these indicated levels, it can then be expected that its indigines will
have no problem meeting a unified entry qualification into the higher
institutions. In addition, the state can also (and should) give worthy
scholarships to exceptional and hardworking indigenous students, which
should directly stimulate and motivate their interest in knowledge
education. To round this paragraph off, I must say University of llorin
is about the worst in terms of ambushing university education (a Federal
university at that) for its own indigenes. Perhaps there are other
universities like this within the country, and one only needs to
interview more students to find this out.<br />
Racism, tribalism, nepotism and all the other forms of negative human relational <i>isms</i>
are a disease inhabiting the dirty crevices of the human soul. They are
often symptomised by absurd stereotypes, fuelled by ignorance and
thriving in the mind of the mentally, morally and spiritually stunted
regardless of whether such predisposition is found in an illiterate
person or an Emeritus professor. As Nigerians we need not look too far
afield for a demonstration of its unfortunate effects, it's right here
in our homes, in religious and educational institutions, and in
governance. And until we shed this contemptible cloak of immaturity, we
are going no where as a country.<br />
jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-10258236140213365832012-06-26T02:26:00.001-07:002012-06-26T02:30:00.792-07:00For GEJ and cronies on asset declaration<b>"A person elected to the office of President shall NOT begin to perform the functions of that office UNTIL HE HAS DECLARED HIS ASSETS and liabilities as prescribed in this Constitution and he has taken and subscribed the Oath of Allegiance and the oath of office prescribed in the Seventh Schedule to this Constitution."</b> -Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Section 140(1)<br />
<br />
It has never failed to amaze me that many refuse to understand this requirement of our Constitution, and that GEJ die-hard supporters must interpret every effort at demanding transparent and competent leadership from the Federal Government as an attack on the personality of GEJ from the opposition. I submit, if this is how we think, then Nigerians rightly deserve to be treated as slaves and mediocre in our very own fatherland. [I'm taking an offside stage right now to talk to <i>us</i> as <i>you</i>]. Come to think of it, Nigerians, what exactly are you good at? Your economy resides in the pocket of a numerically few public officers, your roads are pathetic and in shambles, your power supply non-existent, your agriculture amiss, your national football team a perpetual disgrace, your education...I indeed cry for your education. I cry for your science research and technology, with your professors exchanging gossips for want of resources while graduate students in neighbouring countries make useful discoveries for their own countries. Your children walk barefoot and scavenge every dunghill for the next meal, your graduates now beggars lurking on every street corner, or selling plantain chips on Lagos' busy roads. Your jobs are absent. Your airline killed hundreds of your own people. Your oil has been commandeered for heirloom by the very people you hail "Ranka dede!". Your police officers are thugs decorated in fearsome black uniform donning guns and a vacuous head clueless how to tackle crime. A scion of religious wickedness in the North kills your children and brothers and sisters and parents and friends in broad daylight and right before your eyes. Religious scammers rob you of your pittance, rape your breast-less children, and encourage you to keep quiet lest the wrath of God visits you. Your females prostitute themselves in exchange for Blackberry. Your houses are unlit yet you pay higher electricity tariff.<br />
<br />
And you suffer it all, like an imbecile suffers disease-bearing flies to feast on his wound. <br />
<br />
Your hope daily vanishes, and your lazy hearts petitions God to deliver you a saviour from Heaven and while He is at it He should also send some manna and deliver at your doorstep. You cry and weep and fast and pray while your very hands install robbers and thieves and the incompetent to rule over you. O foolish Nigerians, who has bewitched you?! Who? Your spiritual leaders, or your public officers who have continued assuring you of better days to come. Foolish Nigeria, isn't it better to now give up your misdirected and ineffectual hope, than continue finding comfort in this sad comedy. Foolish Nigeria, with your many professors and learned, and huge wealth of human resources you still are no more than a lame, dirty and pitiable giant! Foolish Nigerians, supporter of all that is evil as long as it hails from your own tribe and from a corner of your stunted village! Foolish Nigeria, biting everyone that requests that justice and equity contained within our common Constitution be served! Foolish Nigerians... how on earth will you not remain vulnerable to your own stupidity and suffer agony from your sectarian politics!<br />
Let Nigeria live, let her live; perhaps our brains someday will work aright and we shall then happen on a fresh hope.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-5263673490112542772012-01-05T02:03:00.000-08:002012-01-05T02:03:52.274-08:00Jonathan, bad move. Bad, bad move!We have been very unfortunate with leaders in Nigeria. I will, however, contend it has nothing to do with ill-fortunate and everything to do with <b>us</b>. Weren't we the ones that installed thieves and looters and unqualified individuals as leaders? Imagine, for a second, how many time-proven administrators, and managers, and executives, and professors and brains... we have both in Nigeria and abroad...And all we could come up with were clueless persons like Yar'adua (let's ignore OBJ for now, we all were smarting from the military rule we were only too eager to accept anybody as a democratic leader), Bankole Dimeji, like Jonathan and the different mediocres we have at the state level. How does one explain that? <br />
Someone tell me, how much does the government plan to expend on the planned massive procurement of mass transit buses? Let's remove that amount from the $8bn they said would be saved from the removal of the subsidy; how much do we have left? Who are the individual contractors to import these mass transit buses if not the very families and friends of Jonathan Looter and co.? Then, why do I feel like this decision for mass transit buses is only merely an afterthought? Or why did the government not clearly lay out the plans before so whimsically removing the subsidy? <br />
Ample examples have been cited of countries like USA and all where there is nothing like government subsidy on petroleum products. These countries have some form of social security or the other. In our case, Jonathan removed subsidy and sent the price of commodities and services rocketing through the roof overnight without a kobo increment in income. If you were earning #50,000, before the subsidy, per month and you're lucky enough to save #10,000 every month. Now, the government has removed that with a single stroke of its callousness. Not only will you not be able to save a kobo from now on, you are also now officially in debt. Not with the fact that you have to pay about double for every article now. Thanks to Jonathan Looter & co. And guess what? The friends and families of Jonathan are already lined up for the contract to import the buses, some more redundant millions in their already uncontainable personal accounts while Nigerians daily languish in pain. And all the government could do was install a shifty hope in front of us that it will eventually be to the benefit of Nigerians, say in 10 years. If you starve the people from now on, how many of them do you wish to see 10 years? We all understand perfectly the mystery of goal settings in Nigeria, how so easily we retreat further into the future once we have failed to deliver. <b>MDG</b> Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger in Nigeria. My foot! <b>Seven Points Ageda</b>. <b>NEEDS</b> and <b>SEEDS</b>. And now it is <b>Nigeria Vision 2020</b>.<br />
Who is fooling who?<br />
It's high time we reminded the government that this is the government <b>of</b> the people <b>for</b> the people and <b>by</b> the people. Even with the extremely fat salaries and allowances they pay themselves, the executives are still no more than the <b>ministers</b> (meaning servants) of the desires of the people. They are <b>our</b> staff, <b>our</b> employee. This executive has failed the mandate reposed in them. And just like any business owner should not hesitate to fire a self-serving employee, we should put in motion an engine for the prompt removal of the president and any such persons that facilitated this assault on the Nigerian populace. It is not done, that only fewer than 1% Nigerians will determine the living condition of 150 million people.<br />
Our contention does not stop with the reversal of the subsidy removal, we as well, as a matter of national urgency, want the president gone. He has failed on many fronts already, this is only an anticlimax. On his watch about 500 Nigerians were murdered in 2011 alone, and he did <b>nothing</b> about it. Not even firing the service chiefs, the IG and all. He is not fit to be a president. He is simply too weak, too dazed and too clueless. He himself recently confessed to being slow, and when he would eventually act, it was to insult out collective sensibility. Now tell me, how many of the profiteers of the subsidy have been made accountable for the loot? How many corrupt officers have been prosecuted during this time of his colossal inactiveness? How many Nigerians have been killed while some misguided sect daily grew stronger taunting the powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? How many people still collect less than #20,000 (<€100) during his time? How much improvement have we in the power sector? How many jobs? How much has the price of cement being left to the exclusive mercy of one of his friends? How much failure and mediocre has he inherited from Yar'adua's adminstration? And Jonathan, be sincere and tell us, how much you have profitted from your unrepentant failure, from the squandering of your stewardship while Nigerians, hardworking Nigerians far better than you, struggle on the steets of Lagos selling banana chips and children toys, roaming the scotching heat of Katsina in search of non-existent jobs, or labouring on building sites in Okigwe hauling bricks and sand and water on in order to feed the next morning? While you and all other politicians receive millions for sleeping through some meeting needing to do no more than say, <b>"Aye"</b>, to the, <b>"Say nay!"</b> We do not only demand the removal of the president and his accomplices, nor just insist on the reversal of the callous removal of the subsidy at a time like this. We also want a comprehensive review of the pay (salaries and allowances) of all public office holders-all politicians. If they collect no more than average Nigerians, their heads would work more correctly, they would get their economics right, and they would understand what we mean when we say the price of bread has doubled. They are meant to represent us in all things, and when the majority of Nigerians are poor, it is only proper that these too should reflect the general state of our poverty. Nigerians should de-monitise politics. Without this we can never <b>ever</b> be rid of corruption. For one thing it will ensure individuals that go into polititcs do so not because their fathers or uncles or brothers (the Sarakis of Ilorin, the Yar'aduas of Katsina, the Obasanjos of Ogun, the Patience of Jonathan and all the first ladies we never voted for) hold political posts, but because they are competent at effecting plans to improve the lives of Nigerians...<br />
For, that, is their first and last assignment. Improve our living conditions.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-84766711880555162762011-12-29T18:37:00.000-08:002011-12-29T18:37:41.790-08:00The Quest: Genesis and before.It was just a few metres now separating him from the gentle rise, the more reason Kate thought it weird that he should stop and refuse to approach it. Fine, the rise was bare and not what one should have hoped for, but there seemed to be no other way out, that's if the possibility of turning back is not considered. <br />
Quietly she walked up and leveled up with him. When she was about two feet ahead she turned towards him and asked to know why he refused to proceed.<br />
Saul looked long at her, his eyes feebly roaming from her hair to her dress then back to the rise and beyond. There were footsteps approaching from behind them, some stopping right behind, some running eagerly towards the rise, scaling it and disappearing behind.<br />
"It's night here", was the only response she got from him. <i>Of course, it is, but then not such a dark night. There is a light ahead beyond the rise, filtering through from time to time. The more reason we should scale the rise and approach the town. That's the only thing stopping us from..."</i><br />
"No, that's not what stops of us", he cut in, his gaze still fixed on the hill in front.<br />
Kate turned it over in her mind whether to move on and leave the strange man behind. But there was something about him that got her curious. She looked at him more closely now and managed to read his name tag in the darkness. Saul. He was wearing an old brown shirt with two or three of the buttons gone the way of time, a matching brown trouser ragged but rugged. His shoes too were brown, and so was the hat hanging over his back on a thin black string around the neck. <br />
"What do you mean, that's not what stops us?" She said as she frisked through a hand bag she was carrying. She brought out a water bottle which she promptly downed. With a gurgling sound she asked if he minded sitting down awhile. He said no, she might sit but that would be a mistake.<br />
"I really could use some company on the way, but you apparently are determined to remain in your frozen stance... Alone."<br />
Saul looked at her, again from hair to dress to shoe. "Who talked you into the quest?"<br />
"What do you mean?" She replaced the bottle inside the bag, and produced a handkerchief to wipe the invisible sweat on her face and neck. "What are you talking about?"<br />
"You know." Saul fell silent again, and with the same grave demeanor turned around to look at the other quest seekers settling down all around them. Some group of seekers not too far away were apparently holding a meeting with a massive-looking man speaking to the rest-about 10 in all. He was wearing the same brown outfit like Saul, and like the rest of the people listening to him. He, however, seemed to have found away to make the wretched clothing bearable, even presentable. Kate and Saul were too far to hear what he was saying or to explain why his audience would suddenly stand up, run to the gentle rise and back to him without actually scaling it. After about twenty minutes of watching without a word from either of the two seekers, Kate spoke up contemplatively,<br />
"I do not see why this gentle rise should prevent anyone from moving on."<br />
"Neither did I", was his response.<br />
"But why should <i>you</i> be prevented?" <br />
"By this rise?" He asked pointing feebly at the bare-topped hill, about three metres high with well-trodden path on its gently rising side. "Not so, this rise has never prevented me."<br />
She decided she would fair much better to proceed on the quest, and so she bid him farewell hoping that he would someday have enough strength to join her in the town. With that she took her leave.<br />
Saul watched her walk decidedly towards the rise as someone abundantly prepared to overcome any invisible challenge the rise must be throwing at the other seekers. Then, with a loud voice, he called after her after she had started climbing,"You were also deceived! We all were! But never be deceived to sit on the way...rest if you must, but that standing!"<br />
She momentarily stopped to listen to his words after which she continued on the quest. The people sitting around looked at him with irritation,how so unmannered he was.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-65755610236608485032011-09-07T01:53:00.000-07:002011-09-07T01:53:06.622-07:00Nigeria, our house of anaesthesia.My first instinct should have been to commend your style of writing, but for fear that I might by so doing triviliase the grave issues your writing raised I shall steer clear of praising your writing for the time being. And now to the title, a few years ago I might have declared how unnecessarily pessimistic your title was. Or I might have feigned clueless-ness and asked you for what you in your opinion thought the way out was. But now I believe we all are past such attitude of anaesthesia. We all know what should be done, no one needs a doctoral degree to figure that out.<br />
The ills of our society have never at any time defied defining, which also means we have all along been aware of what should be done ...for instance to make living a little less degrading and a little more human. We simply are not doing it. As you rightly pointed out each man does everything for himself and his family. He digs himself a well, he fills the 'hell' connecting his homestead to the remaining slum of a society to make it more motorable for his 4th-hand car, he is the vigilante of his street,... in short he is the remainder of the semblance of government in his own experience. At the head in the Rocks (Aso) the lucky opportunists run a different kind of family business.<br />
But we all know what is right, what is deserving of our humanity however vague that sense of<br />
our basic basic human and national right is. But then our religions teach us to accept what the<br />
government we have as having divine support. We pray for them for wisdom and health and they<br />
busy themselves digging private wells into the remainder of our resources. Religions again tell<br />
us our prayers aren't enough, we should include a little bit of fasting. So the poor man live his life fasting (his national service) and the politician his feasting (his national service???) with cries and mournings and deaths trailing the path of his action and inaction. It's a way of life our fathers got used to. The way of life we inherited. The way of living we consider normal.<br />
But until the religious preachers start preaching the right side of the holy books we as citizens of this raped nation will keep believing the right way to be patriotic is by praising the loot-fattened public officers/politicians and by granting them right of way to the future of our children. And why do I keep mentioning religion? Anyone who grew up in Nigeria will immediately understand how this foundation is the spring of our national life. How our sense of rightness has been redefined inside our religious palaces. How the harbinger of our woes receive endorsement inside our religious palaces, and we the congregation celebrate them as chosen of God to lead us into the promise land. How the 'chosen of God' rise up from the altar of approval, climb the Rock of Aso, loot and loot, and sleep and sleep, while the preachers children and the congregation of the children of Nigeria get robbed, and raped, and murdered first in their fatherland, then everywhere across the globe... And the chosen of God continue unhindered. After he has run down the economy he again returns to the altar of approval and again we clap and raise him a prayer of approval. For he is chosen of God.<br />
Oh Nigerians, who has bewitched us!<br />
The foundation is falling in several places. We have inherited a culture of indolence that breeds corruption. The students progress on the back of 'orijo', the civil servants spend the working hours sleeping, or making small talks, a doctor leaves a pack of gauze inside mummy Akin's stomach, the policeman robs under the mid-day Sun at gunpoint collecting N20 from the driver who also volunteers a grin and a joke to entertain the robber, the IG sits on his stomach pathologically extending. "Up NEPA", adults rejoiced as kids, power has been restored for 7 hours in a week and at the end of the month the toiling Nigeria scavenges every nook to pay for the electricity he never used.<br />
At the end of 4 years, the ruler that divides us is again brought out from behind our collective amnesia and dusted... We must vote the man from my part of the country into office regardless of the fact that he doesn't even qualify to run his own family. I wouldn't entrust my pet into his hands to manage (had a pet) for he has no clue how to manage anything. But he's my man and that settles it. At the end of 4 years the Churches and Mosques again sing their fast that God will send a savior (as long he's from my tribe, he's a saviour, rigging or not)...<br />
Who has bewitched us!<br />
Until we make the matters of our land our individual priority we are only joking. It is sad but true, that we have exactly the leaders we deserve. Democracy was never meant to function outside the active participation of the citizens. In our model of democracy, the citizens sleep and pray that God we catch the thieves that we in the first place invited to rob us.<br />
<br />
I really wish more people we respond like you have done, Abiola, to these problems and say it's<br />
NOW enough. <br />
<br />
Response to the post by Abiola Olaifa at http://www.cp-africa.com/2011/08/09/opinion-i-give-up-on-nigeria-part-1/jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-8360854359572463122011-08-13T18:56:00.000-07:002011-08-13T18:56:07.124-07:00Death from the podiumOn Madison Street a girl hugs the street lamp<br />
On Wiseher Street her light dies from the pastor's blowing<br />
A lectern, a thick lectern, a rich lectern<br />
Jesus' voice prisoned inside the chained tome. <br />
Psychology and philosophy strut on a brightly lit podium,<br />
They sing and clap and make a celebration out of Christ<br />
<br />
Woe is me, Jesus raised me and my pastor killed me!<br />
<br />
On Madison Street our pastor commissions a revival<br />
On Wiseher Street a hall is decorated with clapping, with whistling<br />
He took the voice of Christ and parades in costly ties and a vacant heart<br />
Winged on jets and choppers and the hunger of a fasting Mary:<br />
<br />
Tithe, oh tithe, a thousandfold tithe!<br />
God is working and the bowls are filling!<br />
<br />
But <br />
Jesus bleeds on inside the ancient tome watching<br />
Mary clap to the crash of her lamp and the silence of her murdered light<br />
To the growth of her penury, and the <br />
Rising cost of her pastor's ties.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-80377078495951341992011-08-13T17:47:00.000-07:002011-08-13T17:47:05.985-07:00in love he diedHe scoops and lifts up his handful of vanity<br />
A knee bends, petals wither under Katherina's table<br />
Candies and a box of pain<br />
Solitude, a stifling hug<br />
Solitude of a dancing moth<br />
Evenings thin as folly thickens on the he-brow <br />
<br />
Passion crawls down the lifted hand<br />
His heart grows weak, his frame ill<br />
The pate, <br />
His pate quivers as a sparrow beneath a threatening sky<br />
Plastic roses and chocolates and wines,<br />
Pizza, ice-cream - vanilla flavoured,<br />
Stroll on the beach, hands locked, jaws locked<br />
More ice-cream, more plastic, more wines<br />
His pate heats up with pulsing febrility<br />
Kathrina's cavern grumbles loudly from stranded moths<br />
More plastic, more wines, more folly!<br />
And a ring.<br />
<br />
A ring?<br />
<br />
Blood crawls down his frozen hand<br />
The knee rises from the finished grave<br />
Candies and a box of pain<br />
Astride the distance she watches with her stuffed moths<br />
In his hands rests a remainder of vanity and<br />
love.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-28188889684940138802011-05-28T11:55:00.000-07:002011-05-28T11:55:34.880-07:00Lunchtime Dilemma-Part 3"Now there was this Croatian lady that came across one of her dead friends on the way to the supermarket one sunny afternoon". Tim noticed the frantic clatter of cutleries against the plates had stopped. Right, it worked again, it always does. Start a story with an impossible concept and you get your audience quiet. Except that some of them are refining some dangerous posers in their minds.<br />
He looked at Claire and hadn't she been her supervisor he would have been forced to manually rearrange her face and make her look less serious. Yeah, there it is, I said it-anyways in my mind. She frightens me when she's that serious...<br />
"Now this dead friend was sitting on one of those weather-beaten benches erected beside the roads for, well I suppose, retirees...when Miss Croat came along..."<br />
"Who's that?"<br />
"Who's who?" He looked at Ohrft for a minute pretending he didn't understand why they wouldn't find it self-explanatory to know who Miss Croat was. Of course, they ought to know, he had only mentioned two characters in his story, only one of which happened to be a lady. It's really tiring how a scientist's mind works needing to explicitly declare all variables. <br />
"That's the Croatian lady, the friend of the dead guy who was waiting there on that weather-beaten seat that I will hence refer to as WBS. Okay?...Super"<br />
"You could also say, 'Genau'", everyone looked up to tie a face to the self-announcing voice. Everyone, of course except Claire who happened to have lived for the past few months under the overwhelming field of that voice, Tim later gathered. And except, Lee who had quickly built a complex algorithm for handling that voice consisting of quickly stuffing whatever remained on his plate, looking for the salt and listening to his teeth slowly grind the complaint of the content of his mouth into subjection... And except Steffen who simply ignored the voice, or then exploited it on the very few occasions when silence became more unbearable than the voice.<br />
Well then Tim was the everyone.<br />
"Pardon!" <br />
"Super could have genau replace it". He sat down heavily on the cringing chair, looked around for salt which he promptly shook without looking on his fries but most of which ended on the food tray. "And actually the S is not S, it's a fat S, to get it right I first swallow the American S, and then replace it a dampened Z..."<br />
Steffen looked up briefly from his battle with a crusty pizza and injected, "American Z". Then a returned to his war, scratching and cutting and digging into the soft inside of his lunch-crust leaving the newcomer to sustain the talks.<br />
"Yeah, American Z which in actual fact is different from the German Z. The Germans always keep a T somewhere in the side of their mouth when saying a Z, which for an American is really annoying"<br />
"But technically you're not an American and your getting annoyed with a German Z is inappropriate" That was Ohrft looking all benign and desperate to have an unyielding voice stuffed, permanently, this time.<br />
"Yes, well...well, you could... but really.." That was the non-American American stuttering.<br />
"Also, English as a language inherited its substance from Deutsch," Steffen again turned his back on the battle of his plate to fan this ember of...well, Tim had no word to describe that yet. "And, if there should be any annoyance it should be a right of the Germans at how the English have so badly altered the pure form..."<br />
"American, not English" That was Tim's nameless newcomer. Should he still be called newcomer seeing he already spoke more than all the people he met at the table. Tim at first had expected someone introducing him but now he dreaded it. Perhaps that could be postponed till when he was ready to leave the office and an unspeaking eve would resuscitate him ahead of the second day.<br />
"What!" Steffen.<br />
"You had referred to English and I corrected you that it's American" Nameless suddenly buried his gaze inside the fries he was stirring furiously as the little salt particles that gained footing jumped off the edge of the dish scared by his fury. But he needn't stay buried inside the fries as a malignant Steffen soon gave way to an indifferent one saying no more than a psst before returning to the battle closer to his stomach. He admitted his surrender there, pushed the plate away, scratched something onto his PDA and then sat back, smiled under this glasses at Claire who appeared torn between being amused at the development and being left alone to enjoy the pleasant meal.<br />
"He didn't allow you complete the story of Miss Croat," She was trying to return Tim to the story but he thought Mr Nameless had just killed the excitable part of everyone's senses so it's better to wrap it up in a sentence.<br />
"Actually, she got killed just minutes later on a plate of fries". It's also not bad to borrow some smiles in the present imbroglio. The amusement went swiftly round the table, got to Nameless seat and turned back with a frown.<br />
"American fries." Steffen.<br />
The amusement again went around the table and again got its butt kicked back at the dish of fries. So Tim took him back in into his breast pocket.<br />
"And actually that's correct," Nameless again."Fries is American"<br />
On hearing that every stood up deciding to save that line of argument for the next lunch but allow what's left of digestion that their systems could yet perform.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-7813077115493303852010-08-12T09:15:00.001-07:002010-08-12T09:15:18.034-07:00Vision in allIn Him everything falls into focus, and every single thing, good and bad, becomes meaningful in the grand scheme. Outside of Him darkness of blindness reigns.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-59256868026785339762010-05-17T23:36:00.000-07:002010-05-17T23:36:39.698-07:00CeaselessTime passed to You is time predicted, time planned <br />
For us time keeps all happening at once<br />
But to Him...,<br />
How dizzying it's to imagine what awe <br />
Surrounds Him living in seamless eternity...<br />
I stand in awe of You!<br />
I stand in awe of God!jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-19214996943842917792010-05-06T02:22:00.000-07:002010-05-06T06:31:53.520-07:00Yar'adua: Thorn-promoted Rose. AdieuHow should one remember you?<br />
How shall I tell your tale to my sons?<br />
<br />
He was a gentle man,<br />
So gentle his affliction became <br />
A prospering game in the hands <br />
of an evil caucus. <br />
I will remember you as a victim <br />
Of those profiting from your illness<br />
I will remember you as a thorn-promoted Rose,<br />
A comely Rose. <br />
<br />
But,<br />
In your sickness and death <br />
The voice of a waking nation challenged to duel<br />
The hold of your thorn-ly brethren. <br />
<br />
You sleep and we wake.<br />
<br />
Adieu, my President.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-80339934894312453202010-04-24T17:48:00.000-07:002010-04-24T17:48:28.280-07:00How easy it is to dieHow easy it is to live without a dream<br />
To die on the knees of peace<br />
<br />
How easy it's to live without a mission<br />
And be slain by vocation<br />
<br />
And at the end the miracle that man is<br />
Lies lost on the bed of the Sea.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-11395884461980226172010-04-09T13:06:00.000-07:002010-04-09T13:06:44.285-07:00To Josephine LegogieHow are you doing? Good to hear from you. Ma binu jare; but even you, you have not been doing a good job of keeping in touch. In times like this I guess what matters is the realisation that you have a friend and a brother here in me, and I a sister and a friend over there in you. Our paths may lead us farther from each other as the days mature but I trust God that our closeness will converge more and more in Christ. That brings me to this: how are you doing with God? How's your walk? I hope you are allowing yourself space to consider what matters more to you: the 'bread alone' or 'every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord'? Also understand that we only really fellowship with the word of God when we are continually soaked in prayers that attend to the voice of the Lord, most especially praying in the Spirit. When we separate waiting-prayer from the study of the word of God, we by the same doing rob ourselves of the aspect that makes the word of God 'quick' and 'sharper than any two-edged sword'. We submit ourselves to the part called letters and to the danger of fleshly thoughts taking hold of and interpreting the word for us. "The letter kills..." then comes to bear on our situation. We can notice such times when we have taken support in the very word of God to proceed on actions that are against His will. At such times we have, by not submitting our vessels as instruments of righteousness unto continuing steadfastly in all prayers and supplications, submitted ourselves as idle and ready vessels for execution of every ungodly counsel. By continuing steadfastly in prayer we identify with the necessary pattern established by our Lord. Study of the word, prayer and the fellowship of the Spirit thus constitute the three pillars on which the maturity of our faith in God rests.<br />
Any seemingly divine direction received at times when our knees have long refrained from the altar of waiting-prayers is a direction that must be critically and seriously validated by hours spent seeking the Lord's face. This is especially crucial because we often think it an act of disobedience to ignore what we perceived came from the Lord be it vision, perception in the spirit man or any other channel of divine communication. We immediately think, "The Lord has told me...!". That's where the danger is, attributing the communication to divine Source. And later when our spirit is through prayers and the word of God come into a better state to receive from the Lord, and we received something different from the first communication we immediately get confused not knowing which to trust.<br />
God is not the author of confusion, confusion comes when vessels as we, created to dwell continually in His Presence, have stayed away too long from Him. Like Eve we have moved out of safe company into a place where we get confusing information from the devil and from the flesh (ours and others).<br />
It's a divine fact that every believer hears the voice of Jesus Christ, that the unction we received teaches us all things, that we know the voice of the Saviour apart from that of the enemy (John 10:1-5; 1John 2:20; Psalm 18:28); that our spirit is the candle of the Lord...It will be a good start of effectual confidence to mutter it within us and to ourselves acknowledging that by spiritual genetics and hereditary the Lord has configured us to hear His voice. He has modeled us to be sensitive and respond to divine leading. The second step is to begin a habit of praying long everyday; praying in tongues 30 minutes or 1 hour consistently each day is a great way to begin. First for a week, then you'll cover a month and before you realise it you are at a point where you're addicted to the word of God and to effectual fervent prayers. At that point we have become vessels the Lord can trust to reveal divine purpose to and beckon on to take hold together with His Spirit to execute specific assignment in our lives and in this generation.<br />
Trust me, I have tried it, there are just no other way to walk in the Spirit. Whenever we draw back from fellowshipping with the word and from long waiting-prayers we become no more than un-anointed scribes, debaters of scriptures. I trust the Holy Spirit to mantle upon your heart as you read this and persuade you to draw back the curtain of your own understanding and blindness into deep and consistent waters of fellowship where you can really get to know the Lord to whom you gave your life. May the good Lord sustain you together with me in walking with Him in Jesus name. Amen.<br />
P.S.: I intended to send no more than few lines of reply but I felt the hand of the Lord urging me to write thisjide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-81216061201905709602010-03-13T13:26:00.000-08:002010-03-13T13:26:17.019-08:00GOD IS BEST WORSHIPPED IN SILENCE<i>I stand I stand in awe of You<br />
I stand I stand in awe of You<br />
Holy God unto You all praise is due<br />
I stand in awe of You.</i><br />
<br />
What does one say about a God one has never seen? How does one describe in worship a glory beyond the context of man’s highest experience? Worship is a description of the qualities of the Godhead…, but then, how does one express the qualities of a God beyond and without any terms of reference of man?<br />
At best worship is silence, stunned silence, awe-inspiring silence. Marvel. Speechlessness before the Presence, rendered bereft of all eloquence or even the smallest trace of expressiveness.<br />
God the maker of all things dwells outside all spheres of time and laws of nature without and outside which all creation cease to exist… What does it mean to exist without having yesterday, today and tomorrow as terms of reference? How does it feel? How do we describe it? It isn’t amorphousness but a state best described as… indescribable! And this only using time to try to understand who God is, every other points and aspects of contemplation we may choose to turn to we always find Him much infinitely loftier than our best and most reverential thoughts. Is it His mercy you’ll think about? It should be enough revealing to understand that His mercies cause the living to live and give the dead-in-Christ a certain hope. Without it none, I mean not one person out of the many trillions that have passed and will yet pass the face of the earth, would ever qualify to either be or remain a Christian. Not one! Or yet will you consider the marvel call creation?<br />
<i>Set thyself on a mount most tall<br />
Or yet on the Ocean and call<br />
To know the beasts and waters<br />
And rocks and sky and Sun<br />
The roll call shall turn thy heart<br />
To know a glory beyond thee.</i><br />
<br />
How then do we worship Him Whom our words do not know? For every little splinter of divine knowledge we glean with imperfect fingers from an imperfect vine that nature is cannot even in any ambitious extrapolation be considered sufficient in describing Him. This little splinter overwhelms, how much more the whole tree. His holiness is so loftily high it’s more than an absence of sin: for ever before transgression came God was holy. His holiness is living, and breathing. It predates the world and it becomes rather presumptuous to start to see the Lord only in the context of sinlessness whenever His holiness is mentioned. So also His faithfulness, glory, majesty, power,… and love. They all cannot be conceived of with regards to what men understand them to be, and neither should they be understood against their contrasts that we very well know (e.g., unfaithfulness, and hatred). God, and so all His attributes-anything we could worship Him by, predates men and their languages and their understanding and their recognition of attributes by which they describe God. The holy angels worship God night and day without ceasing not because they are paid to do it, not because they are creations by nature lacking in the will not to. No. But they are fully rational and conscious and will-having beings that at every gaze they have of the Ancient of Days they are struck with wonder and awe and marvel. These themselves are holy by what men commonly know holiness to be. Otherwise they wouldn’t stand a second in His presence of fiery holiness. The glory they see each time they behold Him surpasses everything that ever was seen in all the ageless time they had lived in His presence. Glory so high they are struck with such lack of words they could only utter the near speechless word: Holy! Holy! Holy! At each instant they behold His glory all the archive and memory of who He used to be vanished.<br />
“Holy!” will suffice for all days for the worship of our Eternal God. Anything more wordy and creative and eloquent will easily mean we have not come face to face with His glory and majesty. While I do not disdain or disapprove of worshipping God with worthy words crafted by reverent hearts-for then I would have to also concede that the Psalms are worthless- I only try to observe that at the highest of worship when suddenly confronted by the Lord’s glory all eloquence shrinks into awe-inspired speechlessness.<br />
When we come to worship with abundance of words not of sweet reflex, then most likely than not we haven’t encountered the Shekinah, the glory of fear and awe and dread and worship, the glory that left Ezekiel and John the Beloved as dead before Him. The glory that Peter saw at Transfiguration and could do no more than say words he never intended to utter. The glory Isaiah saw and couldn’t but consider himself in trouble: he beheld God’s holiness and with his experience as a prophet he couldn’t see any man in the history of the world as possessing a tittle holiness,<br />
<i>“Woe is me! For I am lost: for I am a man of unclean lips,<br />
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for<br />
my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”- Isaiah 6:5</i><br />
Job beheld His glory and could only say:<br />
<i>“I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear,<br />
but now my eye sees You; therefore I despise myself,<br />
and repent in dust and ashes.”- Job 42:5-6</i><br />
Here was a man that our God Himself considered most blameless on the earth! (Job 1:8) If Earth’s most holy repented in dust and ashes and became speechless before God I wonder what we demonstrate when we come with volumes and volumes of words which often mean nothing to us. Words we picked up from men that also picked them up in certain cold religious ritual. We have so much grown cold and estranged from the life of God that the basic duty, yet blessing, of our faith-worship- has been lost. I would rather become silent and muse upon the lofty holiness of God than utter words that are meaningless to Him. For worship is highest when the tongue goes dumb. I do not encourage that men hold all form of public worship in contempt, but this I do, I urge that the eye strives to see what the mouth utters in worship. That we begin to attend our confessions, during worship, with the holiest intentions, with a sacrifice of willingness and love and reverence. <br />
The sum of all is this: when we are faced in worship with the glory of our God, the response left to us as unto all mortal is that blessed dumbness, or then its inherent reflex incoherence of Peter. Either way the Lord delights in and accepts it. No human experience has ever, neither will ever be, sufficiently equipped and programmed to express the Lord’s worship, and not with our limiting languages that have in fact failed to accurately express human feelings. How much less divine worship. (With the language of the Holy Spirit, I believe never in the history of the world has men been so favored to express the beauty of God's worship- but in an heavenly language. What a grief it must be to God’s heart that the sons of the dispensation of grace when He has so generously equipped them have fallen so dismally low in His worship- John 4:24) <br />
May we learn to worship in silence and with worthy Holy! Amen in Jesus' name.<br />
Written 2009.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-50030586933289106762010-03-13T13:09:00.000-08:002010-03-13T13:09:30.065-08:00And you shall be witnesses unto Me<i>“And while staying with them He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, “you heard from Me; for John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now... But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”<br />
Acts1:4-5,8</i><br />
<br />
Just like many of us believers I had stumbled over this and similar verses of the Bible without realising the full import of its message. However while praying this evening I felt the Lord open my heart to understand it more and realise the error in which many of us have walked into. I will attempt to set this forth in the form of a question. Why did the Lord put so much emphasis in the ministry of the Holy Ghost that was to be given after His glorification, so much so that He ordered the apostles not togo away from Jerusalem until they were baptised in the Holy Spirit? From the emphasis He put into the giving of the Holy Ghost one might have wanted to ask if He, the Lord, had come to fore-run Him, the Holy Spirit. However, it is enough for us to know that the ministry of the Holy Spirit was meant to be the bricks and mortal, that finishes the building whose chief cornerstone and foundation are the Lord Jesus Christ. Our error, and that to our detriment, commences the moment we accord less importance to ministry of the Holy Spirit than the Lord did.<br />
It is clear from the above passage that believers are not meant to witness Christ to unbelievers outside of the ministry of the Holy Ghost. It was a direct order (vs 4)! The work of salvation is wholly to be embarked upon in the strength and wisdom of the Holy Ghost; that is when you can be confident that the seed is divine and it comes from God. It was a divine principle upon which the whole christian structure rests. In I Corinthians 2:4 Paul related how he brought the gospel to the Corinthians <i>“...in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power”</i>. That's when the issue of such divine service can be Gods. And that's when the new convert can be energised with Holy Spirit right from birth.<br />
We only have to look around, and that not for too long, when we start to see how we have allowed overzealousness to twist the work of God in our hands. That's why in a country like mine (Nigeria) the 'quantity' of christianity bears no correlation whatsoever with the moral structure of the society. Why? Because we are in such unscriptural haste that we draft the new converts into the field and tell them to start witnessing Christ to the unsaved. That is wrong! (And here I do not in any way suggest that new converts are inexperienced when it comes to witnessing Christ. Instead I use the word new converts as a blanket description for every believer engages in soul winning but is either not baptised in the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues or that does not daily continue in walking in the Spirit especially by praying in other tongues.) Every such work leads to a situation where the converts' <i>faith stands in the wisdom of me</i>n and rather than <i>in the power of God</i>. Simply put, those converts are products of our ability to join verses from the Bible together while throwing in some philosophical statements and communication skills. We often end up giving birth to <i>our</i> own children, not God's. Apart from the religious air and the name of the Lord that we often call at such time, such exercises are little different from the process of decamping from one political party to another.<br />
We will notice that at new birth the believer already has a 'portion' of the Holy Ghost in him, which the apostles to whom the Lord was speaking too had. In spite of this they were mandated to wait until they're <i>endued with power from on high</i> by the baptism in the Holy Ghost. That's the only time they could be called and become witnesses of Christ. That's the only time they could convert sinners to Christ. And when it comes to us of this age this commandment is essentially the same and it's in two folds. First, before we can be witnesses of Christ we must be filled with the Holy Ghost. And two for those that are already filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues we need to live continually in the habit and strength of God's Spirit, praying daily with all prayers and supplications in the Holy Ghost (which partly entails praying in other tongues, for what will it benefit you if you're baptised in the Holy Spirit but you do not daily pray in the Spirit?). This alone has great impact in birthing Christ in our spirit and ensuring that the converts proceeding from our witnessing are indeed products of the Spirit of God. I pray that the Lord will <i>re</i>-visit all such children born in haste outside of the power of God's Spirit; that He will re-order their christian life after His will. And that the Lord will remind us of this order of the Lord so that we can ensure that conversions coming through us bear fruits from God.<br />
Amen in Jesus' name.<br />
14.03.2010jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-79692635241911277892010-03-07T11:13:00.001-08:002010-03-07T11:13:00.988-08:00Life of Purpose<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE"></meta> <title></title> <meta content="OpenOffice.org 3.0 (Linux)" name="GENERATOR"></meta> <style type="text/css">
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<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b> </b></u></span></div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but of also wood and clay, some for honourable use, some for dishonourable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonourable, he will be a vessel for honourable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.</i></div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.</i></div><div align="right" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">-2 Timothy 2: 20-22<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">We often believe the purpose of God in a believer’s life is one big effort, one big activity he will do that will define his entire life and history. Some sort of climax in his Christian race. But the calling of God in a man’s life begins like a waterflow which the Lord opens in a man as a gentle flowing spring, which consistently increases in strength until it is big. Most times to him it is an ordinary thing, an everyday thing. It doesn’t have to be big before men. The calling is often a set of everyday work of love, obedience and faith that men will see in us and glorify our Father in Heaven. It is therefore good for us to begin to see every little opportunity the Lord brings our way to prove our love to Him as the requisite components that at the end will sum up as our calling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Everything in a man’s life is a tool, a potential tool for the fulfilment of the calling of God upon him. For it is not consistent with the character of God to waste resources. Every talent we notice in us is a deposit of divine grace to accomplish a particular purpose(s) in the grand scheme of God on earth. For every good and perfect gift comes from God… Esther was so greatly endowed with physical beauty she could easily have missed the purpose of it: the Lord would later save a whole race by it. Her beauty-what we can safely call a talent-was thus a door that placed her on a platform to fulfil a purpose of God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Has the Lord given you ten talents, you should know that each is a tool in the scheme of Heaven to fulfil a desire of God. And that you will account for each of them. Happy is that man that when knows perfectly the grace Heaven has bestowed upon him; and happier still is he that when called to give account will have the expected fruit to show for each.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A wise man once said that when the purpose of a thing is unknown abuse is inevitable. The danger in not knowing the graces upon us doesn’t end at the giving of account for them, but much more imminent is the danger of utilizing them against the very God that bestowed them. Talents are strengths, quarks of energy that must somehow manifest in us. When manifested in the spirit, they add up to the building of the Kingdom of God; in the flesh as vividly typified by the life of brother Paul, they actually work in the favour of Satan to pull down the Kingdom of God. Often you’ll notice that a teaching grace in a purposeless life will often manifest as talkativeness, or as a strong spirit of antagonism and criticism against the ways of God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let a man therefore be sensitive and diligent to identify those talents and natural inclinations within him and by developing a strong character after Christ submit them to the obedience of Heaven. And then he shall have taken a big step towards the fulfilling of his destiny in Christ.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> We often err and complicate things sometimes when we begin to identify and tag our calling by specific words. If not done by the Spirit this could constitute a great injury against us. One of the dangers in tagging our calling by human wisdom is that we immediately set an unscriptural limit to it. We begin to mentally compartmentalize and favour certain work above others. In the scripture above the Holy Spirit makes us understand that the vessel the Lord will use should be “ready for every good work.” Tagging callings often opens the door for pride and soon someone who sees himself as called to be a teacher will begin to have mental objections when called to serve the table in the house of God. But a wise man will direct his affairs by the word of God, will allow the Lord to call his calling as He wills, and if the Lord so chooses to make it unknown, the better he will be for it. He will be wise to know that the Lord has called us unto meekness, and that it is not what you do that matters but why you do it. Some who have done nothing more than wash the feet of a faceless believer-we shouldn’t be shocked-may end up receiving better commendation than a prophet that preached in Nineveh and the whole inhabitants of the land, man and brute, repented. Two mites from our widow’s effort often weighs more in the scale of God than giving up our bodies to be burned at the stake. What matters is who (God or us) our service serves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We take a big step towards fulfilling our calling and destiny when we come into sincere personal consecration. There are no two ways about. Any man that seems to be fulfilling the calling of God upon his life without consecration is an accident about to happen; the very nature of God won’t suffer him to complete his purpose. Just like Samson such a one is programmed to self-destruct!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Consecration means holiness and yet more, it goes on to mean holiness unto the Lord, “sacrificed unto God.” Just like an unprofitable servant, a consecrated man does not decide what he is called to do per time. When it is washing the most objectionable toilet he doesn’t shrink back; and when sent to meet with kings he doesn’t become over-modest about it. He has come to settle it within himself that only the Lord is his motivation and His obedience his motive. The seven chosen among the believers for to serve the table might have had cause to reject the call only if they had been mindful of the flesh. Or at best they would have done it grudgingly, if they had earlier confined themselves to a particular notion as to what their callings were. But because they were faithful and allowed “this mind to be in <i>them </i>as it was in Christ Jesus…who humbled Himself to the death on the cross”, God then brought the likes of Stephen and Philip to function in other dimensions as prophet and evangelist. Our concern thus should be what we do with the opportunity the Lord is giving us to wash the feet of the brethren rather than some other ‘higher’ and showy work. The truth is that we may never begin to work in the dimensions God predestined for us until we become consecrated to the point of humility and readiness to be whatever He wants us to be per time. It is the soul that bowed to lowly duties when divine necessity so requires that will later serve at the throne. There are no two ways about it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To cap this section, it’s good to remember that every little and lowly and mundane act becomes great and noble and sublime when these three words qualify them: <i><b>for Thy sake</b></i>. This song captures it well:<i> </i><br />
<i>When it’s all been said and done When it’s all been said and done</i><br />
<i>There is just one thing that matters All my treasures will mean nothing</i><br />
<i>Did I do my best to live for truth Only what I did for love’s reward</i><br />
<i>Did I live my life for You Will stand the test of time</i><br />
<br />
<i>Lord Your mercy is so great And I will always sing Your praise</i><br />
<i>That You looked beyond our weakness Here on earth and heaven after</i><br />
<i>And found purest gold in miry clay 'Cos You've shown me heaven's </i><br />
<i>Making sinners into saints my true home</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<i> When it’s all been said and done</i><i> </i><br />
<i> You’re my light when light is gone.</i><br />
So, the Lord looks for those that are ready to reach into fetid miry clay in service of Him. Only those are permitted to bring forth and present to Him the purest gold that had lied underneath the cesspit.<br />
Talents in a man’s life often are no more than pointers to a deeper calling that lies in Christ for him. They are a guide, ensigns to get his attention riveted on God. He will never know talk less of fulfill this destiny until he becomes wholly yielded to God through Christ Jesus, for callings are properties of God; and it is written that the things of God know no man except the Spirit of God. Quoting this scripture more extensively,<i> </i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>These things God reveals to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things that are freely given to us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.</i></div><div style="text-align: right;">-1 Corinthians 2: 10-13.</div>It’s only those who are yielded to Him, the spiritual, that will be taught this dimension of the gospel called calling. This is why the Lord uses the man that has abandoned himself, his quest, and his world. For He said we cannot follow Him if we cannot deny ourselves first. The calling of a believer are hid in Christ and only revealed to those that are ready to walk the length of the road with Him. Be not deceived, it’s only these that He has promised to reveal Himself to. The destiny of a man, his calling, is the revelation-the manifestation- of the person of Christ in him and inside him to the world;<i> </i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.</i></div><div style="text-align: right;">-John 14: 21</div>So talents are only the marsh that surrounds a river, you enter the river only through consecration and discipleship.<br />
The Lord doesn’t trust a man that doesn’t have a copy of His Son on the inside of him. He that is not for Him is against Him and it’s pertinent that only those that are for Him are those allowed to labor in their calling with Him. The scheme of Heaven on earth is all about the souls of men; whether from darkness to light, or from light to worship. These souls are too precious to Him to allow just any unserious self-motivated individual to handle them. If He would leave ninety-nine sheep to recover one, then it becomes easy for us to see why He won’t entrust His children to those who have not been crucified unto self. Until you are so crucified that you are ready to stay and fight, even die, when wolves come against the fold you are not permitted to shepherd His children.<br />
We also should know that we don’t just decide and walk into this <i>deep</i> calling, He is the One who brings calling to us and us to calling. Moses tried it, his utter failure is an eloquent testimony to this truth. It would later take God, after He has led him away into a wilderness and equipped him, to bring him into his destiny. As a leader in Egypt he had noticed his leadership qualities, the talent in him, and concluded that his destiny was to deliver Israel physically from slavery. But that talent was only a pointer to a deeper purpose of God. He could never have known that he would be the one to bring Israel into the covenant of God; that he would be the one to receive the testimony; that he would be a prototype of Jesus Christ as the lawgiver until the ransomed possession was brought unto the perfect law of liberty. He never had an inkling of these strong destinies from the knowledge of his talents. Until he came and submitted in total consecration to God he never walked in these dimensions.<br />
Moses.<br />
You and I.<br />
We might as well start today to be wholly yielded to Him. There’s no way that a man will be so faithfully yielded to God that he won’t know and fulfill his calling.<br />
Everyday live for Him. Let your life daily be a holy sacrifice offered gladly to God in spirit and in truth. That is purpose. That is calling. That is the whole essence of the life of a man. He is looking for veterans of consecration, obedience, and faith to accomplish His purpose and not just anybody. He is not desperate that He’d begin to use the Canaanites to do the service of the Levites. If needs be, He will wait until He finds a man after His heart. And until then, every service rendered in the arms of flesh will be no more than cinder and fuel for the fire that shall try all works of the sons of men.<br />
The proof of your sincerity and commitment to fulfilling purpose is seen in your personal consecration and daily living a life that honors God.</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.53in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>May we have great joy when we stand before Him to give account for the gifts and the deeper callings that we have in Him in Jesus’ name. Amen.</i></span></div><div align="right" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.53in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Written 6<sup>th</sup> July, 2008.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.53in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arabic Typesetting,cursive; font-size: x-small;"><i>(All scriptures taken from the English Standard Version)</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.53in;"><br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.53in;"></div>jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-82984495302015324972010-03-03T04:22:00.000-08:002010-03-03T04:22:23.815-08:00Take Note, We Are At A ClimaxI read a newspiece in today's Guardian and, like most Nigerians, felt betrayed, insulted and robbed. Why? The politicians elected to be voice of the people that put them in office, from whose very account their often expensive lifestyles are sustained, appeared to have found a different voice. Theirs.<br />
I love the majority, you know why? We represent the true spirit and emotions of the nation. But also because we have become kinsmen and fellow recipients of political rape. We never joined PDP, but now its constitution has surplanted that of Nigeria... <br />
I felt sad, mad...I have to be careful and not feel helpless (for that's what fuels the strength of the undesired). But then I remembered there's something unique about the time, this time, in which we have found ourselves. We stand at a climax, on the height of infamy...Not base, but the very height of power and trust usurpation which cannot but change. We are at a place where a little more thrust and push against the weakened forces of political corruption is all we need to send us rolling in the direction we have always wished and prayed for. It is at such time as this that a change must take place, for us or against us.<br />
Now we have two forces pushing our fate on the cliff: some PDP members confusing our combined heritage with their regional portion, against the true Nigerians who have shared in the tears and the joys of our communal history, who have retained service and conscience toward God and man in praying ceaselessly with all goodwill for the recovery and full restoration of our incapacitated president.<br />
This is the tug on the summit. That's the battle in which we are caught.<br />
If we do no more than read about the events of out state we should remember that the opposing camp has not relented in their own efforts. They smuggled the president out of the country without an explanation. His stay abroad, the state of which has been curiously kept till now from ALL Nigerians, was funded by Nigerians. And while he was in this recuperating or worsening state [who knows] on foreign shores untold insults happened to us both from within and without: <br />
*his wife became more than his wife, she became the Queen of Niger-area;<br />
*on the account of Farouk external insults and assaults were made acceptable against travelling Nigerians [I never told you how I was touched and searched in sensitive body parts at a Nigerian port; in my own country!];<br />
*a stranger appended the national budget;<br />
*we were forcefully prevented from having proper leadership for months; *thousands of lives were lost in sectarian violence in parts of the country; *projects already running behind schedule were altogether stopped;<br />
*the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was again smuggled back into the country without the knowledge of the Acting leadership...<br />
All these and more, Nigerians have paid for both in cash and in kind. All these represent the unrelenting forces and efforts of a cabal of PDP leadership.<br />
<br />
They have insisted the North should have the presidency until 2015, and I said to them, "I didn't find that in the Nigerian constitution". They also said, our president is recovering, to which I said, "How do you define recover? I never knew coma to be sign of increasing life. And, on whose authority do you say such? Medical genius in Saudi Arabia have hit a wall in his case and sent him home via the diplomatic pouch, why should medically ignorant PDPites have a better opinion?" Now, they are getting frantic and desperate, they blurted out, "Just pray for him to recover, that's your duty as Nigerians, and leave governance to us!". I smiled knowing they are at their wit's end. They are at the proverbial place when stubborn drum hide must break down. I replied them saying,"I have prayed for him, and do hope <i>you</i> pray for us. Our duty is not a mindless followership of pseudo-religious appeals. What if he dies (or is already dead, you know, we don't) how long shall we be lead by him...or is it now you who is leading? And by the way, the last time I checked I didn't see it mentioned that it's my duty to leave governance to you. The last time we did, you shared all our heritage among yourselves, you'd run pipes to the North and drain the oil to your shores, you also made sure we live lower than a british pig. No decent water and food, no oil [lol], no job, ASUU strike continua, and worst of all no dignity for anyone bearing the name Nigerian".<br />
I tell you, I deserve to be proud as a Nigerian.<br />
We deserve to have all, including you, respect the constitution of our nation.<br />
We deserve to have you honour the state of the nation and not just the affairs of a party.<br />
Parties come and go, so must PDP, but Nigeria and Nigerians will remain.<br />
<br />
This is the time wherein we find ourselves. Let us not just read and whine in the righteous yards of our minds. Let's all use our platform to tilt and push and roll us in the direction we deserve. You've got a voice somewhere, let's use it. You've got some muscle somewhere, let's flex it. Remember, ill fortune begins with silence.<br />
Jide Olubiyi, 03.02.2010jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-58044764511944694492010-01-07T14:27:00.000-08:002010-01-07T14:27:42.103-08:00I'm NigerianHow best can I serve my people than to stop a wrong and unjust legacy and refuse to pass it on to the next generation?<br />
<br />
What a better way of serving this generation than being a christian?<br />
<br />
And what other way to be a christian than to do the works of Christ?<br />
<br />
And when the sum of time has come, I'll love to see a nation free to choose integrity above money, and honorable enough to stand up and fight for the prosperity of their children.<br />
I'll love to see a people known for their love and charisma and not by their Swiss accounts.<br />
This is what a citizen should be, a true son of his land.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-68060832116390486642009-12-06T11:17:00.000-08:002009-12-06T11:17:29.755-08:00Lunchtime Dilemma-Part 2"Pass the salt please."<br />
Tim swore he could never have understood that Ohrft was acually referring to salt but his gesticulation rather than his words did the job. Nice one, he thought, that's a new rule he must add to the growing list. He wished there was a rule to help him pronounce the weird and often cumbersome names he has been encountering recently. Not that he had not thought of making a new law, he actually was in the final stage of perfecting the testing of it before filing it as a law. Mouth it first until you feel every syllable of it, that was going to be the name-pronoucing law. Until he met Ohrft. He had known immediately it was going to be impossible to pronounce such alien name with his thickened African tongue. Faced with such name it wasn't too hard for him to discard the golden rule. Perhaps he should list the name as an exception, that's a thought for another day. Now he needs to embrace the immediate challenge, the rainbow on his plate.<br />
A casual glance around and he knew he had another exception for one other law. If he's concerned with watching first before eating he'd end up throwing up. Only diseased stool in his home country is permitted to look so pathetic.<br />
"So, Tom..."<br />
"Tim, please" He quickly corrected the alien before he too was a weird name. Who knows how it had started with Ohrft, maybe it was a human name that became so badly mutated. "As in Timothy."<br />
"O asso! I now understand." No one else was talking so it became easy for all eyes to engage on Mr Alien as he cleared his throat to speak.<br />
"So Tim, what's your country like?" He asked. Tim felt like he had been called to draw comparisons against Germany. His first impulse was to start extolling the beautiful foods that different ethnic groups had to offer. But he quickly decided against that, he would only appear like a preacher of a strange concept equipped with a strange language. Or how could they possibly understand what a yam is, or what foofoo is? And eba, and amala, and egusi...Tim smiled to himself, when the list got to amala. Amala. He smiled again. All eyes were on him now.<br />
"Well, we sure have got a splendid climate," What he didn't say was how milllions would be willing to give up its splendidness on the platter of nothing "alternating rainy and dry seasons. The Sun is always out." He could almost feel them fantasize about the Sun part. Who wouldn't with the consistently grey cloud and freezing draft.<br />
Comments passed around the table mostly in curious combiination of English and Deustch, with some French flavour now and then. They were all pleased with the knowledge that there some part of the globe with clear blue sky. Just the same way he too had longed for the cold climes while still in Nigeria. The talk soon drifted to another topic and another topic and then another. Everyone was smiling, he too was smiling quite forgetting the misery he was going through. Then noticed Lee look casually at him almost with a question plastered on his gentle face. What?, he thought to himself. Just then he discovered why, an ugly scowl attended every swallow that he took. Shit! That's not good, he shouldn't let them know what he's passing through eating this plate temptation. For the first time he is entire life he understood that eating could actually be a punishment, and in his case self-inflicted.<br />
Then his stomach rumbled. "I'm now in deep shit." He looked around. "I didn't just say that, did I?" The look of amusement in the faces looking at him confirmed his fear. His stomach's throaty murmur has now been replaced with several serious of dragging hiss.<br />
"Are you okay?" Claire looked concerned He was relieved none had heard the tirade from his bowel. "Yes I am, it's just some ugly incident that I just remembered" He lied. He quicky surveyed the cavernous dining wishing some strange genious had instructed the architect to build a toilet, a fat toilet in aseptic looking dining. I am not okay, now I am not. He tried to quickly shovel in the remaining so as to be able to excuse himself. <br />
"I am in trouble, huge fat trouble!" Everone around the table burst out with laughter and of course except Tim who tried hard to replace the depressing scowl on his face with a smile. His face partitioned into two, the forehead and the jaws were trying to frown while the lips were told to smile. It was an order from above.<br />
"It must have been an interesting recollection." Claire said as she reclined back of the flimsy chair. "You mind sharing it...with us?" They all readjusted their sitting position waiting for a feast of laughters.<br />
He felt like crying. There's no story guys, can't you see I'm suffering here! But he mustn't say that. He started racking his brain for a good joke as his stomach continued with its accusations which gratefully were low-keyed.jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3989820907466358108.post-31419806877678747582009-12-03T01:12:00.000-08:002009-12-03T01:13:10.255-08:00RE:say a word of prayer@Tokunbo. <br />
"...we have a lot to do to our mindset as a people, if this was America they will rally round their president and show him love at least even though they may not agree with him, Nigerians need to be ashamed of themselves they way they are handling this matter".<br />
<br />
Although I agree with and support the exhortation to pray for the President I still have to tell you that your words (quoted above) are both off the mark and completely untrue. If he was American president with all his history of near non-performance they wouldn't just wish him ill they would have done worse than that. It's either that you are unaware of the history of American presidency or that you have totally ignored this in a bid to make Nigerians feel shame. <br />
<br />
You know what Nigerians need? It's not being ashamed of themselves, what we need is the right to be governed justly in a fair system that aids each person's aspirations. You know what we need? We need people not to use religiosity to cover what is true and right; we have a right to be governed by a physiologically fit person. I do not support the wish for anything bad to happen to the President but at the same time I understand why people are fed up. This is a perennial ailment, the one that was there long before he was smuggled into Aso Rock.<br />
<br />
Nigerians are good and sympathetic people, but sympathy alone does not address the case on ground. We pray for him as a person, a creation made by God in His own image, we pray for him as the President of the country. But at the same time we need to have a leader who is fit and that can, without any severe repercussion to his own health, lead this country. <br />
<br />
I am not a politician like you, but I am a Nigerian and that's all I need to deserve a capable leadership. So please don't bring America and Americans into this; they are not our role model. We are Nigerians and this is Nigeria.<br />
<br />
Jide Olubiyi 03.12.09jide olubiyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788838156660491787noreply@blogger.com0