20 Mar 2006 |
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Helloo village people, There has been a lot of ranting and raving going on in the village, you know, about such issues like a hidden third term agenda, inadequacies of our political system, the shortcomings of our politicians, ethnic incompatibilities and a whole lot of other poignant issues. As far as I am concerned all these problems are sequels of a grander hidden agenda long imposed upon us by alien powers that have been sapping our resources and synergy. Below are excerpts from my collections. The book in hand they came and offered us education. Ankles though unshackled our minds they dispossessed. Behind this strange religion came an alien confession. Our dignity yet to salvage, why wait for whom to come? In this debilitating discord, whose primeval seeds were sewn among us long ago when our forefathers were naïve and unsuspecting, we the modern day generations of the black Race seem completely powerless and incapable of self-rescue despite the relatively high standard of education and sophistication we have generally attained with the times. More frightening is how this hydra, once introduced, quickly developed a peculiarly vicious dynamism, which seems to be capable of infiltrating even unborn generations. In our disarray the inept and inapt twins proliferate while our detractors comfortably sit back and watch us perpetuating their malicious designs. From Ironically, we unabatedly engage ourselves in inexplicable internecine ruination. By some perfidious and reversed resentment, we distrust each other and hate our own very guts. We often accost one another, whether individually or ethnically, with fiery belligerence. Sometimes though we try to be nice and humane with each other but no matter how hard we try we just end up living in rancor and acrimony. Look at our living conditions, environmental conditions, infrastructures, educational systems, medical institutions, and our polity. No matter where you go to in How can he and his lieutenants feign blindness to such jarring realities? Perhaps they see the huge and disorderly throng of people desperately jostling and hustling for their daily breads along our dilapidated township roads, amidst beaten up omnibuses and trucks that are neither worthy of traffic nor human transportation, garbage mounds and gaping stinking gutters as wonderful tourist attractions. One is confronted with such destitute and squalid abandonment everywhere and in every institution one goes to, regardless of the huge and impressive fiscal budgets read out to the nation every year. While the average citizen toils with gritted teeth to eke out a miserable living, the undertakers plunder the public funds and siphon their loots into foreign accounts, to those already wealthy nations who are partly culpable for our dismal conditions. Tell me if this is not madness! Impervious to public outrage our so-called leaders simply carry on with their villainous attitude. They seem to have forgotten that it was this same unruliness that torpedoed our previous democracies and subjected this nation under the long and excruciating military dictatorship, which we have only recently been rid of. With impunity they toy with our constitution aiming to arrogate to themselves the right to rule, not to serve, this nation as long as they will. The problem with the Nigerian polity is the unconditional adoption of the Rather than adopt an alien political system en bloc, we should research and dig deep into our cultural background to invent a democracy that is congruous with our mentality and traditions. The Germans, Italians, French, et al, are all democracies but theirs are tailored to suit their indigenous backgrounds. We surely have versed political scientists who would be capable of producing the best suitable political system for us if we would engage their services. This we owe our posterity if we want them to stand at face level with their peers abroad in the future. The political campaigns in One cannot but wonder why we all behave like a bunch of lunatics. What is the root of these insanities? Why is it that nothing works? No matter how hard we try the results of our efforts are simply somber. Whereas here in the western world everything seems to function with little or no effort, back home we toil and toil and toil and everything keeps deteriorating. I believe that the answers to many of these whys are cached in the gullibility with which we accept everything alien and the callousness with which we discard everything indigenous to us. Before the white man came to The only way he could break us was by enslavement and later colonization, the same way they break wild horses to make them mountable. As soon as that happened we threw all our values over board and embraced his with an overwhelming voracity. We adopted his culture; his political system, his religion, his language and everything hook line and sinker! Today, Nigerians feel more esteemed speaking English sometimes even better than English people. In many families tots are made to speak English first and then their mother tongue, if at all, as a second language. Many parents feel proud to be called mummies and daddies by their children rather than call them in their ethnic diminutives. It is an abomination to be caught eating with your fingers in the bourgeoisie. Many of our sisters take pride in bleaching their skins white, a la Michael Jackson, and wearing white women’s wigs, more embarrassingly even blond wigs! I often wonder if they, especially those of them in the limelight, like nollywood stars, etc, ever worry about what message they are sending to the younger ones. Invariably children of such mothers or those that idolize such stars will grow up perceiving African qualities as inferior, and the circle continues. There is nothing wrong with adopting other cultures. After all culture is a living thing, which grows and gets better with the times as you expel some of the deficient and outdated aspects of yours while adopting new and more progressive ones. However, completely supplanting the fundamental elements of your culture with alien cultures amounts to throwing out the baby with the bath water. This is when the trouble starts. A caring mother would immediately rush out the door to salvage what she still can as soon as she realizes that the baby is out through the window! Far from that, rather than readjust we obdurately cling to these alien cultures and religions even though we have long recognized that they are mostly discordant with our fundamental African tenets, obstructing instead of enhancing our progress. Manipulative religious doctrines were intrinsic elements of these alien detractive stratagems. They were applied physically and psychologically to alienate us from our ancient beliefs in other to severe our ties with the guarding spirits of our ancestors. They told us that our religion was idol worshiping and brainwashed us into embracing their own religion, which was basically connecting to God through the spirits of their own ancestors who are all, without exception, Aryan pantheons. We gullibly accepted and committed the capital crime of ancestral betrayal! Rather than tell them that it was sacrilege to refer to our religion as idol worshipping, we sidelined our ancestors and since then have been washing everything with the blood of Jeeeesuus! No church buildings are large enough to accommodate the followers. They ring bells, they beat drums, they yell, they whine, they plead, they burn candles, and they speak in tongues and make all kinds of sacrifices to alien pantheons while our offended ancestors enviously watch the goings-on. They call upon the saints, Peter, Paul, Joseph, Michael, Gabriel, et al to intercede on our behalf. As far as I know none of these saints is an African. We pray and pray and pray but instead or getting better, everything is getting worse. The reasons are not far fetched. Believe me, even in heaven charity begins at home. While we are breaking our heads worshipping alien pantheons, the divine handouts due to us are landing somewhere else! Now these people can relax and enjoy their lives while we do the job for them. Go to any church in the traditional Europe, without the old people who out of habit still go to church regularly and Africans in Diaspora, their services would be virtually empty. Yet, with little or no effort everything here keeps improving. They call us developing nations, a blatant misnomer, while we are degenerating. I have witnessed the city of Munich grow to what it is today, one of the most beautiful in the world in less than thirty years and this after the second world war torments, whereas each time I go back home, I still see rusted and moss covered buildings in Lagos that were started before I even thought of going abroad. This kind of swindle is not new. It has been practiced well back into the biblical eras. Some of us that are versed with the Book will recall Jacob’s ruse on Esau. Jacob simply defrauded Esau of the blessing reserved for Esau alone by their father and made away with it, no rue nor redress. Isn’t strange to me that a dying father of two children would reserve his blessing only for one child? In any case the self-acclaimed descendants of the cheating Jacob brought their Book and told us we were the descendants of the unblessed Esau. Another linage of ours, they said, came down from Ham who was cursed by his father Noah for joking over his nakedness. I wonder how many more such curses are hanging over the black Race. Acquiescently, we carry these books on our heads, proudly displaying our wonderful legacy of a cursed Race! If this divine jinx is true, we might as well pack up and go home for no liturgy can redeem us. But these are only part of their stratagems to keep us their beasts of burden for as long as we choose to remain blind. The last time I was in my home village, a relation of mine told me that the parish priest, an Igbo man for that matter, has been campaigning for the abolition of the “Ofor.” Can you imagine, this priest told the people that the Ofor, one of the last relics of the Igbo religion, one of the last bastions of what we are, is nothing but a devilish contrivance that should be heaped outside and burned to ashes under the eyes of the public. You know, the way they destroy heaps of confiscated drugs. Hei, otio-o! Ofor is the mace of righteousness in the Igbo culture. In those days when we still revered the spirits of our ancestors, you don’t dare do something wrong and swear by the ofor. Your days are counted if you ever swear by the ofor and do something evil. If we ever let that go too, then one day they shall come along and tell us that we are not Igbos but Ogbis! Surely many other ethnic groups in If our politicians and holders of public stakes were sworn into office with such relics of our natural religions, like the ofor, their accountability would be impeccable and they’ll never joke with their responsibilities. With the spirits of our ancestors, there is no bribery and corruption and you don’t tell them, “I de come-o.” If you joke with them they simply invite you to their own supreme court yonder and there is no return. They are still waiting patiently for us. Hopefully, we shall someday turn around from our errant peregrinations and give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. If someone comes along in a white apparel and places a big book on your head, puts a piece of bread on your tongue and tells you that it is God’s on flesh, gulps down a dribble of wine and tells you it is God’s own blood and then guarantees you a clean bill of conduct before God as long as you confess your crimes before him and you simply nod your head without asking questions, any fate that befalls you after that is entirely your own fault. Do not say I told you.
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