Drawing Parallels

Whenever i look at the drama in
Nigeria
I am tempted often to draw
parallels with the scripture
Ken Saro Wiwa reminds me of
Sheba son of Bicri
Bola Ige reminds me of Abner
Obasanjo reminds me of Mannasseh
Late President Yaradua reminds
me of King Uzziah
Abacha reminds me of King Ahab
Babangida reminds me of King
Herod
Late MKO reminds me
of King Zachariah
Chinua Achebe reminds me of
Prophet Ahijah
Wole Soyinka reminds me of
Prophet Jeremiah
All the politicians remind me of
the priests of Samaria
The garb may not fit perfectly
but human nature is the same
regardless of culture, tradition,
and language
The Lord Jesus lamented that
Jerusalem was a prophet killing city
And he was right but so also is Nigeria
The voice of a prophet is a voice
of dissent
The one that took the side of Biafra
died in exile
The one that tried his best to stop
the war is still lamenting
A country that cannot be
helped by foreign ideologies
Just like Israel, a country that
refused to thrive under the
Babylonians, Medes and Persia,
Macedon, and Rome
A country with an identity that
wouldn’t conform to behavioural
science and systems of rulership
The Parliamentary System of
Government,
The military dictatorship of every
type, the unitary system of government,
the federal system of government,
state creation, the interim system
of government, and even the
American system of government
had all been practiced and all had
failed
You can sow as many garbs as you
desire for the leper and play pretend
Clothes do not heal leprosy
Insincerity has no cure
Tribalism is still as rife on Twitter as
it was in 1957
Corruption is woven into our core
as a people, it is what we are as a
people
It is in the blood, it is coded in our
DNA
Wonderful!
Many pretend they are tired of it
but they are not
You see you cannot overlook an
evil within the citizenry and call
out the same evil in the government
The people become the government
If you hold an anti-police brutality
protest and overlook the internet
fraudsters running rampage
How sincere are you?
If you were offered incentives to
make a hashtag trend and you were
motivated by that incentive
(Even if it is 10 Naira recharge card)
to tweet and rave, you are part of
the problem
True change does not come to any
society except the people truly
desire it
Nehemiah and Ezra led a successful
reformation in Israel because the
people cooperated
Nehemiah recorded that he
harassed those trading on the
sabbath day (Not with guns
and force)but with conscience
and the fear of God and they
stopped their ungodly ways
He was able to lead a people
who wanted to be led
In the last few months, I have
come to see leadership beyond
its theories
If the leader is sincere and the
people around him or her are insincere,
his or her sincerity will be for naught
If the people around a leader are
sincere and the leader is sincere,
the leader’s head will soon be
hanging on a pike
An emir was deemed to be too
progressive and dethroned
A governor was found to be too
vocal and was promptly impeached
The youth had a protest and they
were scared of sending
representatives to the government
because they know the lure of the
Ghana-must-go bags changing
hands in the corridor of power
Insincerity is as evil and
misinformation
How can a nation heal and grow
when both sides resort to lies
A claimed massacre without victims
A claimed “no-massacre” with
doctored evidence
Why is everyone so scared of the
truth?
Was it the inconvenience or the
discomfort?
Abductors and Kidnappers being
offered money in the name of
amnesty would only breed more
abductors and kidnappers
The system protects these evil
mongers
If you catch an abductor and he
is from the north
his people will quickly brand him a
martyr and the same goes for the
other tribes
We sit on a keg of gunpowder
because of the unaddressed unrest
we all refuse to acknowledge
Israel suffered from this same fate
and it led to the dividing of the
Kingdom after the death of King
Solomon
At a point, a people of one mind will
flock together
It is inevitable, but that time is not
now
Many of the youths are still being
weaponized by the power brokers
Money is still the motivation for
many and as long as money is the
motivation the money bags will
decide what and where
It is not as hopeless as I once
assumed it was
The rapture is close… Glory!
Jesus is coming soon and the
injustice of the systems built on
the knowledge gleaned from the
tree of good and evil will be no
more
It is only then that we can have
true and sincere leadership
Until that time, the politicians will
continue to politic, the traitors will
continue to betray, oppressors will
oppress, the agitators will continue
to agitate, criminals will continue
in their crime, hypocrisy will
continue to thrive and lies will
continue to sit on the throne
The one hope of humanity is the
gospel
It is the only proven panacea to
the ills of human nature and
societal ills
It has transformed many societies
wholly and it is still doing so one
man at a time
If you are a believer, please preach
the gospel
If you really love the Lord and
your neighbors, tell them about
Jesus
Get them filled with the Holy Spirit
and watch their lives change for
the best
It is the only solution God gave to
mankind and it will be the only
solution that works from eternity
to eternity
Those who shun it, will forever
walk in darkness