The Concourse
By Soney Antai
Serial award-winning columnist
If and when death dies
If there was no dying for man, and no glitches and switches in life, the world would have been, in one breadth, hell and heaven. For the haves, strong, powerful, and influential, life on this terrestrial plane would been a nonstop, rollercoaster stretch of bunches of bucks, buffets, loins, and bums. In one word, it would have been epic epicurean for these folks. On the flipside, life would have been an up-the-cliff trudge to nowhere for the poor, diseased, hungry, nonprivileged, and weak. In one word, life for these folks would have been a wasteland of wailing, whinging, and whining. But alas, such experiences are not realities in this side of heaven!
On the other side of the divide, however, those scenes would be a reality, according to the teachings of The Way. But curiously, for the most part, we allow ourselves to be guided by the philosophies of dead men, not the precepts and practices of the God-man, who lived, died, was buried, rose again, and lives forever. This is why some folks force their way into office as even vegetating Paul Diya has just done in Cameroon, but then take pride in being addressed as Your Excellency, Honourable, and Distinguished, when how they got to office was soaked in anything but excellence, honour, or distinction.
The clerical class is not insulated either, and so, the easiest way to get into the good books of an average preacher is to shower him with gifts and the new normal tithes they claim to have their roots in the Bible. Of course, their plumpy sense of entitlement and pseudo limitless higher spirituality drive them to crave absolute control of their parishioners, even when many of what they teach and practise have no foundation in Christ Jesus. Many of them have turned Sunday worship into wealth creation and market events because at its centre is Mr. Stomach!
The reverse is also the case. As their followers, you might do such unthinkable things as even the devil would be startled at their sheer oddity and crudity, but the worst such preachers would do is to make excuses for you. What about our public and business environments? An average public officer must solicit what they call ‘appreciation’ ahead of rendering services for which they were recruited in the first place. Job recruitments are now hinged on slots, not merit. Passing exams in many instances is based now on what extracurricular games the teacher and the taught symbiotically play.
If death were to be dead now, the cost and consequences of our actions and inactions would also be dead; and nothing seems to fuel evil more than absence or lack of consequences for it. Come to think of it, why are we, the privileged, though few, and not necessarily the best around, the ones at the commanding podiums of our nation’s affairs even when we are aware of the overarching power of the Leveller-in-chief (LiC)? If this is our reality, and it is, what would have happen if the LiC were to cease to be?
At the root of the inequality, suppression, falsehood and histrionics that abound around us are greed and the crave for prominence and relevance. Just last week, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said that in the last two years, it recovered, inter alia, “N566.3 billion, $411.5 million, £71,306, €182,877, and several other foreign currencies” from some Nigerians! But big as all that seems, we may have not heard one-half of the story. Perhaps, the figures not told us if unfolded, would show that the big and beautiful buccaneers (BaBB) have been allowed to keep back much more via the despicable plea bargain practice.
Nnamdi Kanu
Until he burst into our national nay international consciousness, the man, Nnamdi Kanu, 58, was just another Nigerian with a foreign citizenship. But his innocuous and near-anonymous existence ceased with his launch of the nebulous Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in 2012. His objective: attain what Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu couldn’t when in the very year Kanu was born, he declared the Republic of Biafra that triggered the civil war of 1966-1970. The Nigerian Government tracked him to Kenya where he escaped from state l-sponsored assault on his homestead, renditioned him back home and put him on trial on charges of terrorism. Sadly, when Buhari proscribed IPOB, his government was looking the other way as Fulani killer herders roamed free with assault rifles they used freely. Convicted Islamists were pardoned and rehabilitated, even as Sheikh Ahmed Gumi was touring terrorist camps and returning home to defend them. Now, why grant terrorism convicts amnesty and rehabilitation, but are trying another person for the same alleged crime?
