The Mark Of The Beast

With the “Saving African’s witch children” programme aired by the UK channel 4 television, we don’t need to be told that the mark of the beast is on the prowl. I could not watch the film when it was being aired, but a friend recorded it and sent me a copy. I had to sit back and watched the programme with concentration. Now, of all the horror films I’d watched since I was born, there was none so nauseating, crude and bestial, as the Akwa Ibom witchcraft programme. I could not believe what I saw. Those are typical good examples of wickedness and cruelty personified. I just could not, and up till now, comprehend it. Those children are in hell, real hell. How could adults visit their children with such torture, wickedness and cruelty? How can a woman carry a child for 9 months in her womb, give birth successfully with or without complications, only for the same woman to turn around and say the child was a witch just because a prophetess or prophet said so? I just cannot figure.

Where were the local government chairman and the councillors? Where were the SSS, the police and other security agencies attached to those local governments? Above all, where was the press? Where lies the social responsibility of the press? All of us are guilty of this crime! Yes! All of us are guilty. We have all focused our attention on Abuja to the detriment of other sections of the society. It is either we are busy talking or writing about the President’s health, OBJ’s idiocy, PDP tin gods, or we are castigating Hajia Farida of the EFCC while bestiality and butchery are daily going on in the local government areas, under-reported or unreported. Those adults who aided and perpetuated those acts are animals. Those ‘men and women of God’ combined animism and traditional beliefs then mixed it with Christianity and claimed they are practicing Christianity while in actual fact, they are extortionists, sorcerers, perverts and criminals. Those men and parents of those children should be identified, arrested and dealt with. Helen Ukpabio’s Church ought to have been sealed up for a start.

I cannot understand how an oil producing state cannot afford to provide free and compulsory education for its citizens from primary to secondary school level. Governor Akpabio cannot claim not to have the resources to do just that neither would he claim ignorance {even before the children came with placards to his office} about the plight of these stigmatised kids in his domain. The state govt, as a short term measure, should infiltrate communities and embark on massive enlightenment campaign to disabuse people’s minds and thoughts about such dangerous belief. A closer look at those communities showed clearly that those people are stack illiterates. There are no quality social infrastructure one can really point to that is helping to transform the lives of these people. It is a people living in squalor, misery and indigence. Fishing and subsistence farming are their source of livelihood. Their rivers are polluted with spill-over effects of years of flowing crude oil spillages. As a result, their fishes are either dead, dying or have moved up stream. Yet, they put the blame on witchcraft. Their buildings and surroundings looked unkempt and bushy with a lot of breeding spots for mosquitoes.

In fact those fake pastors have already passed judgement on themselves. They will die and rot in hell for eternity. But before then, they should be arrested and put away by the law. They have muddled up the teachings of Christ. The undue emphasis on the teachings of the old testament has become the undoing of most of these proliferating Pentecostal conglomerates. Christ made it abundantly clear that unless a man is as clean and as innocent as a child, he will not enter the Kingdom of God. When the disciples asked HIM in Matt 18, 1-5: “who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven? Jesus called a child, made him stand in front of them, and said, I assure you, that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the one who humbles himself and becomes like this child”. Could those Akwa Ibom prophets and prophetesses translate the power in that message in the present Nigerian corrupt context?

Again, in Luke18, verses 15 to 17, while the disciples were pushing the children away from Christ. HE slightly rebuked the disciples and said: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it”. HE then placed HIS hands on the children and blessed them. The people Christ wholeheartedly blessed are the people being abused, stigmatised and condemned in Akwa Ibom. Could Helen Ukpabio and those pastors interpret those statements by Christ to her gullible followers? Can they?

Apart from the Biblical injunctions, let us now look at it critically from scientific perspective. In the sociology of family, infants are just tabulae rasae. They are born with “no innate experiences”. Put differently, at birth, their minds and hearts are blank and empty. They know nothing. They only begin to be conscious of their surroundings by what they later begin to see and hear from adults. Their hearts gradually begin to take shape and to internalise whatever garbage purportedly passed on to them by “mental adults” through the process of socialization. Now, if a child begins to grow up in an environment, like we have in that programme, infested with fear and panic, witchcraft beliefs, magic, necromancy, sorcery, animism, and faith mammon, we can then imagine what such children will become! If Nigeria has no Ministry for children, I advised the government to create one as a matter of urgency. All local council should create, without waiting for Abuja, a department for Children Affairs. Britain recently created one to help checkmate child abuse and to further protect children.

In the clip, I saw an idiot and a shameless man with ‘gori-makpa’ head and ‘poundo–yam’ bare chest brandishing a machete daring to butcher her daughter. Can the man use the same zeal to confront either his councillor or local government chairman, daring them with the same ferocity, for non-performance? Why can’t he use the same anger to mobilise his people against political thieves in his community and state, or go alone to governor Akpabio’s office to commit hara-kiri ? Why should adults channel their displaced aggression on innocent children? One animist who calls himself ‘Bishop’ even confessed to having killed 110 children. The government should know that the souls of these innocent children, who are automatically in heaven, are crying out for justice on mother earth. Whether you believe in God or not, is not the issue here, the fact is that those of us who believe know that God is watching, to see whether those people would be brought to justice.

How can Nigeria move forward with so many souls and innocently spilt blood crying out loud from their graves for justice? The police ought to have arrested this man because the evidence is self-evident. This is where I often give kudos to the British police. You don’t mess around with British police. They would have arrested this crook, get more confessions from him and then the forensics would go into action to exhume the remains of all those 110 kids to establish, painstakingly, the methods used by this sorcerer to kill each and everyone of them. The SSS and the Police should leave journalists and newspaper houses alone and go after these vampires. A lot of atrocities are going on, unreported in most of these local government communities because of the urban based nature of our mass media.

Having said that I want to state that people should not loose faith in Christianity. Christianity is in the heart and not in the head. The moment one carries it into one’s head, one becomes not only a lunatic but a fanatic. Since the coming of Christ, emphasis is on the new testament and not the old. The teachings of the old testament has been negated by the teachings of Christ. That is why when you read the new testament what you read and assimilate is love, kindness, righteousness and altruism. You have to love God with all your heart, might and soul and love your neighbours as you love your self. Do not steal, honour your parents, pray always and help the needy. Christ has died for our sins on the cross.

By HIS death, she destroyed those forces of darkness, spirit mediums and elemental forces. Consequently, whoever believes in Him should not fear such forces because the spirit in you, as a true, honest and sincere practicing Christian is greater than those spirits. You are completely covered and shielded by His grace and His blood. No weapon fashion against you can harm you. Remain steadfast in truth and strive to be just and fair. Do not partake in evil practices because others are doing them. And, this is one area where most Christians are found wanting. That is why there is wide spread corruption, crass ineptitude and indolence in governance. The beauty in the new testament is that it is written in simple prose, it is a didactic and practicable message. Of course, as a human being, you are not infallible. Temptations will always come your way but one enduring fact in your heart is your solid love for God, self, neighbour, and mankind. And God knows it.

Now, if these people read their Ibibio or Calabar translated Bible, they should be able to discern these things. The New testament Bible precept is simple and that is why a true Christian can vouch for himself and fear no fear. As far as you speak and stand on the side of truth, the grace of God will be with you always. Salvation is not a collective thing, it is an individual obligation. God is not going to judge you as a Catholic, KICC, Christ Embassy, Winners Chapel, Redeem, Methodist or Anglican member. These are vessels through which true Christians could appeal to HIM. HE will judge you based on your sincere, honest, voluntary acts and positive contributions to humanity. So, true Christians should not despair. They should stay firm in truth and be of good courage because the mark of the beast is on the prowl.