(An Open Letter To Fellow Nigerians Vii)
Dear Fellow Nigerians
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and women. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered…. If there be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. – Thomas Paine (1776), Commonsense
We thank the Creator of Heaven and Earth for a wonderful and memorable year. Many reviewers of 2002 have described it as a year of gloom but for us and to most common people of Nigeria it has been a year of revelation, of spiritual blessings and of abundant grace. 2002 was the year in which most Nigerians regain their sight and hearing and when they begin to understand the simple facts of life hitherto hidden from them. Common Nigerians saw with their ‘korokoro‘ eyes the true state of their nations, the type of characters managing the affairs of their country, the insatiable tasteless greed that controls the life of their so-called eminent Nigerians, the fickle mindedness of their so-called leaders, the treachery of the so-called politicians and the clandestine mafia-groups behind the power game in Nigeria.
The kinds of mind-boggling revelations of ugly skeletons that tumbled out of the odious political cupboards of Nigeria in the last twelve months have no parallel in the annals of Nigeria. We are yet to fully see and understand the impact of these momentous revelations. Nevertheless, and for now, the peoples of Nigeria through contact with the revelations have become pregnant with ideas. By the natural laws that control every pregnancy, the common people of Nigeria are bound to give birth to bouncing babies of joy very soon. The babies of freedom growing in the souls of every awakened Nigerian shall be born definitely at due date. From what we see under the scan of the spirit of truth, we are confident the babies are doing fine and there is no fear of a stillborn or a breech birth. It shall be a smooth and safe delivery because the spirit of truth has duly taken care of every exigency that might likely arise. With this wonderful news, we have no reservation in declaring that 2002 was a very prosperous and productive year. There was no gloom of any kind in our lives. It was a year of high hopes and high expectations as it afforded us the opportunity to prepare the ground for a brilliant future that is still ahead of us.
In the last twelve months, we saddled ourselves with the task of producing letters of inspiration to intimate and alert fellow Nigerians with our personal convictions, beliefs and hopes. We begged and pleaded with fellow common and concerned Nigerians to read these letters since we were sure of the seriousness of the revelations that came our way through the grace of heaven. We sincerely believe, as many as are able to see and read the letters shall surely have a change of perception and conception and a change of heart and consciousness about the problems bedevilling us as peoples and nations. We have strong confidence in the power of true words and we believe the power of words can heal all spiritual ailments of humankind. Because of our solemn reverence for words, we have tried as much as possible not to use words carelessly. We have carefully chosen every word we presented to fellow Nigerians in order to convey what we truly mean to say without any pretence, fear or favour.
Apart from the politicians who we cannot stand because of what they stand for, what they believe in and what they do with the lives of fellow Nigerians, we have tried to be moderate in our language but not in our principles. Even when we throw scorn at the politicians, it is specifically to wake them up to their foolishnesses and to help the people to see through their phoney pretences so that fellow Nigerians can put a stop to the habit of building their hopes and putting their faith on the clueless and hopeless politicians. As much as possible, we have tried to be fair, neither exaggerating nor sensationalising issues. We checked every word we presented as much as humanly possible to ensure it was free of lies and we have refused to get involved with character assassination of fellow Nigerians. We were more concerned with issues than mundane events. We only tried to use specific events to drive home noble principles and to highlight core issues in the life of our nations.
When we wrote the first letter on National Sovereign Conference, we were extremely over ambitious. We tended to forget about natural processes that ought to take place before reproduction can occur. We forgot that there must be a period of gathering and nurturing seeds either in the nursery or in the ‘pouch’, of seeking reproductive partners or farmland, of fertilising the ovum and of waiting for the growing foetus or fruit to develop fully before birth or harvest can take place. Since we tended to overlook this natural process, we went ahead to call the essays, 2002: National Year of Sovereign Conferences. In fact and with hindsight, we ought to have called the essays, 2002: National Year of Awareness Campaign for Sovereign Conferences.
Indeed, the letter writing exercises of the last twelve months have turned out to be principally of an awareness campaign. We are now hoping that in the cause of the past year that we have touched the lives of many Nigerians and we have helped them to see and to understand what the real problems are. We hope Nigerians will share our convictions that it is definitely possible for us, as a people working in truth and in partnership, to solve these problems. If so, let us look forward with eagerness to 2003 as the actual year of Sovereign Conferences. In this essay sub-titled, End of Year Report, we shall focus our attention on two core issues, Mammon Worshippers in Politics, and Demystifying the Contributions of Politicians.
Mammon Worshippers in Politics
In the month of November, Nigerians witnessed a hilarious but shameful performance by the Honourable members in the National Assembly, as they entertained poor and long-suffering Nigerians to one of the most despicable scenes in the life of Nigeria’s ‘nascent democrazy’. The one and only maverick of Nigeria, the superstar and the supporting actor – the ‘supreme-star’ and the main actor of Nigeria Political Theatre Troupe cannot be anybody else but Messiah IBB – Dishonourable Senator Francis Arthur Nzeribe alias FAN gave a first class performance of his life in the film drama titled ‘Mammonism in Nigeria’. The epic story of debauchery written, produced, directed and compèred by FAN had other notable guest stars drawn from serving politicians in the Senate. In November and to popular ridicule the producer released and presented the premier of the long awaited film at the Nigeria National Assembly of Shame, Abuja. This superstar and a recurring personality in the annals of perfidy in Nigeria treated Nigerians to a well stage-managed and duly publicised drama of shame. He gaily brought the news, which we all knew but hitherto lacked material evidences to back up, on the serious matters of state that our Dishonourable Senators have been conducting on our behalf and in our names.
Most sane Nigerians held their heads in shame, as this latter day crusader or jihadist for probity in Nigeria promised more revelations of the ignoble performances going on in the Nigeria National Assembly. It was difficult for most Nigerians to accept that what they heard was indeed true and that this show of shame actually came out of the Senate, the supposedly House of Highest Honour in Nigeria and where honourable Nigerians were expected to make noble laws for Nigeria. It was too shocking and very incomprehensible for most Nigerians to swallow the fact that their Honourable men and women, the most eminent of the eminent Nigerians are common felons, common thieves, common rogues, common highway or ‘high-office’ robbers, common pickpockets, common thugs, common scumbags and common parasites. The revelation was as disgusting and as belittling of every Nigerian that carries the name of Nigeria as an identification label in the comity of nations.
The accusations and counter accusations of money changing hands or not changing hands, of ‘you Tarka me, I Daboh you’ that engulfed the Senate in November of 2002 were the stuff common among touts in the motor parks of Nigeria. These stories should never be the kind of things we should be hearing from the National Assembly of Nigeria. Much earlier in the life of the democrazy, the signs were all there that this motley crowd were a bunch of nonentities. The sign of their character was easily decipherable as of those who are incorrigibly opportunistic, definitely unprincipled, obviously unschooled, glaringly uncultured, utterly corrupt and irredeemably unteachable. In a booklet titled, To Your Tents O! Nigerians written in 1999, this writer warned Nigerians about the nature of the characters that were then joyously matching into the National Assembly.
- “In any country where the citizens are alert to their civic responsibility, some individuals now presiding at the national assemblies would not have been allowed to contest in the first instance. These converted military royalists were the die-hards of yesterday who desired to lay down their lives for tyranny. Now they are democrats preaching the rule of law and justice in every pronouncement. Only fools would not know that they are lowbred opportunists and shameless hypocrites.
- But in the next four years these are the men and women who will be directing the affairs of the Nigeria state. Can we then trust them? Can the rest of the citizen go back to sleep believing that we have capable hands steering the ship of the state? Can these recycled political and military wolves that have dined and wined with cannibals be trusted to mix freely among the sheep? Can we allow them to have unchecked access to our treasury? Is the little money remaining in our Central Bank safe with these worshipers of mammon? Are there any evidences to suggest that the beliefs and values of these political charlatans and gangsters have changed to the point where they could be trusted to fashion out a sane democratic institution and life for the nations of Nigeria?”
Fellow Nigerians, these two paragraphs said it all as early as 1999. We have no magic eye except the gift of common sense to observe and a keen desire to reflect on the meaning of all things aided by wisdom that the spirit of truth gives freely to all seekers after truth. We are aware of the problem of legitimacy. Why should Nigerians trust our words? Why should they believe anything we write? Who/what gave us the authority to ridicule the amoral institutions and rubbish the corrupt personalities governing the affairs of Nigeria? With seven words, we can answer the questions, ‘It is the inalienable right of sovereignty’. When every Nigeria comes into the truth of existence, this right is yours without charges. It is a gift from the creator of life. With this power, you have a right to challenge anyone that makes a mockery of your life, that jeopardises your peace and that threatens your life. It is a fundamental right owned by every sovereign to protect his/her life from the kind of hoodlums playing games with our lives in the National Assembly.
The awareness of one’s worth as a sovereign created in the image of God, the Supreme Sovereign is a spiritual revelation of truth. To all those that come into this knowledge, to them are giving the power to challenge every evil on planet earth. Those awakened into this divine truth can no longer close their eyes and minds to evil, to the perpetrators of evil and to those suffering under the yoke of evil. The courage that comes with the knowledge of truth is what makes a difference between those living under the spirit of lies and darkness and those living under the spirit of truth and light.
However, the revelations of the past 43months have clearly confirmed the spiritual state of the Dishonourable men and women of our nations as a gang of idol worshippers. They have proven to us through their daily activities in Abuja that they are faithful devotees of Mammon. At every instance and at every turn, they have centred their faith without wavering on the efficacy of the power of Mammon to solve every problem in their lives. In 1998, this writer in a booklet titled Nigeria: The Darkest Moment, identified the Chief Priest of Mammonism in Nigeria as Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. In the essay, we called the religion of mammon that Babangida founded and planted in the soil of Nigeria and in the souls of Nigerians as Babangidaism. Then, we defined Babangidaism as,
- “a mystical all-consuming faith in the omnipotent power of money. Converts were brainwashed to drop all the cherished values, principles and virtues of their societies. They adopted the end justifies the means philosophy and became totally consumed with only one goal in life: to make big money by hook or by crook. Every Nigerian was converted: the traditional and the untraditional rulers; the spiritual and the non-spiritual leaders; the city and the rural women; the educated and the uneducated men; the moralist and the non-moralist; as well as the southerner and the northerner. His converts could be found in every community, in every mosque, in every church and in the length and breadth of Nigeria. Since the reign of Babangida every Nigerian has come under the spell of Babangidaism.”
