A Comprehensive Deconstruction of Falsehood: Refuting Max Gbanite’s Falsehood in “IBB the Man is Still Standing”

By

Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

ogbunwezeh@yahoo.com

 

 “It is only in immoral climes that thieves have cheerleaders” --Ogbunwezeh, E. F.

1. Prologue to Our Exploration

 

Society is an interconnected network of co-operation. It is a great collaborative effort. This is predicated on the fact that it took its origins and moments, from the very nature of existence itself. To this end, society so to speak, is nature in dynamic self expression. Nature is therefore a huge laboratory for social and relational experimentation. Every thing in being exists in relation to others that are distinct from it. This fact of relationship banishes solipsism; the unthinkable depravity, boredom and frozen loneliness, that characterises the narcissistic existence of an egocentric “self”, which banishes the “other”. This is more instructive when one realises that in the pan-humanic arena of religion; there is present in the myths and mythologies of almost all peoples and races of men, which evolved into a natural theodicy; a picture of God as community, or a community of gods. This explains the Trinitarian life or the hypostatic Triad of Christian theology; the Amphitheatre of the Greek gods in Mount Olympia in Greek mythology, as well as their Roman equivalent; the community of the gods in many African traditional religions, as well as the religious traditions of various peoples the world over. To this end equally, society exists not only on the human level, but at all levels of all beings in existence ranging from the subatomic world of quantum physics to the Universe beyond the stars. That no man is an island unto himself is a truth with an applicability, which transcends the narrow confines of human society alone. We find society everywhere, and in everything in nature. In the subatomic world of quantum physics, elements exist in communities called atoms, while atoms exist in societies called molecules. This social structure rises in a pyramidal fashion according to corresponding increase in complexity. Relationship at this mysterious universe is characterized by names such as ionization, electron affinity, etc. Ionization interesting mirrors what can be appropriately termed “give and take”. Here atoms lose or gain electrons, which in most cases are their points of contact with other atoms. This is relationship. It is interesting to note that the word used by scientists to denote the social relationship operative in this sub-microscopic universe is “Bonding”-We revert to that shortly.

 

In the animal world, society is the key to evolutionary survival and existence. Society came into being on this level on that day, when every animal was created unique but in plural; that is to say, when every animal was made in pairs: male and female, with capabilities to reproduce their own kind. Survival commanded society into existence. Survival wrote some rules into the manufacturer’s or operative manual of society; of which bonding, which connotes a relational escape from the yawning depths of egoistic solipsism, is one. Bonding connotes and primarily presupposes a reaching out of the self to the other. Things must relate to others. Either tangentially at the edges just to survive, or radially at the centre of their beings to assuage their ontologic needs of self expression, relationships are called into existence. This connotes our going out of the narrow confines of self to embrace the other in fellowship, co-operation or brotherhood. This same principle explains why bees live in colonies and ants move in great linear waves. The great collaborative effort seen in the world of the termites; their architectural opulence, ingenuity and pragmatism, as well as their great engineering capabilities; which are minitiature, biological anticipation of the human society, are all thanks to the existence of that essential arena for communication and collaborative co-operation, made available by their existence in a society. To facilitate existence in a society, things learnt to communicate. It is around “communication” that reason built the primary ethical metaphysics, upon which falsehood is to be challenged. To this end, what should be communicated must be the facts or Truth as it is. Any other thing apart from this is a perversion and hence unacceptable. In Thomistic metaphysics, Truth became simply identified as “adequatio intellectus ad rei”- This means that Truth is correspondence of the thought; and I dare to add, words, with the facts as they are. Facts here must be as they are, and not as we would tailor them to be, or as we would like them to be. Truth in this regard is not our slave to be subject to our whims and caprices or to our unhealthy wiles and propensities. Truth is majestic and transcends our parochial insularities that tend to mangle and distort this royalty of truth.

 

Society on the human level is equally a huge collaborative network that has communication as its essence. When we go out of ourselves in any to reach out to others, we are communicating and expressing ourselves, both in verbal and non-verbal dimensions. Truth is the essential bridge connecting every member of this social community to sanity. Nature made it a law that to survive, man must create society; and to create society, man must relate; and to relate, man must communicate. To this end, for society to assume a functional role for the survival of man, the dynamics of social interaction must converge at an equilibrium, which ensures order and social felicity. Social order is predicated on Trust, Truth, and Faith as its fundamental pivots or fulcrum, without which inchoate randomness will reign and the Hobbessian state of nature enthroned.

 

To bring this home from the high pedestals of theorizing to the dinner tables of ordinary discourse: Can one imagine, what society will turn to in a just a split second, if trust and truth were to be banished from our social firmament. Do not crack your head so much as the effect is too fearful to contemplate let alone imagine. If my people, Ndigbo were to describe such an unimaginably hypothetical situation, they would say: “Na aru ga eme” or “Na ebenebe ga egbu”. This is to say that topsy turvydom would be called immediately into being. The darkness of human destructive potencies will rise to prominence. It is will translate to a festival of self cannibalism, where man will not only self-destruct, but will bring an unprecedented, cosmic catastrophe or apocalyptic Armageddon to fulfilment. It will be the reign of insanity. The society will instantaneously implode upon itself and self destruct. Man will grow extinct in the very first five minutes after the legalization or diametrical liberalization of lying as our ontological status. For instance, can we imagine the depth of chaos, death, destruction and public panic that will attend a scenario, if we are to wake up one morning, to hear the radio announcer/news caster, who had decided to tell a lie to his audience; say New Yorkers, that in 10 minutes, New York will be levelled by an atom bomb that is cruising at the speed of 100 miles away in that direction? Or Can we imagine the number of deaths and amount of human capital loss, and destruction that will attend a hypothetical situation where all the pilots wake up one morning and decide to tell a lie to the whole air passengers the world over, and not fly their planes for a day, or take their passengers to destinations not of their choosing. Can we imagine what becomes of public peace, health and tranquillity, if doctors were to perpetually lie to us when we are sick and urge us to take medications for headache while other ailments afflict us, or when we are suffering from Cancer or AIDS? You know how much you swear and curse under your breath, when your flight, bus or train is late, delayed, or when you are stuck in a traffic hold-up that mirrors frozen immobility: then can you imagine the kind of cardiac arrest that many people would cap, when they are told that their trains or flights or buses are on schedule only for them to wait for eternity on end for it, or could you imagine the kind of misery your day will turn into when you are asked to wait patiently in a traffic hold up that is not a hold up, but a dead end? We know how painful it is to lose money to a fraudster or 419er who promises to sell something to us and makes away with our hard earned finances? Yet people still tell lies and thinks it does not matter. Can we imagine what happens when everybody lies to everybody in the same breath? The farmer lies to us about food and gives us rat poisons instead of wheat; the baker gives us faeces instead of bread, etc. Can our imagination simulate the kind of scenario that will unfold in the society when everybody lies to everybody? The answer is that the few that will survive, if any at all will, will escape into themselves and spend the remainder of their miserable existence waiting for death which will be a far better option in that circumstance. The few that will make it alive, will suffer a massive malfunctioning of their faculties, which the shock will induce, and there will be an irreparable erosion of trust and corrosion of human sanity. In fact, trust will cease to exist. Just like air travel the world over suffered irreparable psychological-security damage after September 11th 2001, which I will call Post 9/11 Traumatic Syndrome; humanity will suffer an irreparable damage to its sanity if lies is to be hypothetical liberalized for just one second.

 

This is the kind of damage that liars actively perpetrate on the society at various levels and scales, which if we are to collate them and act on them, is capable of destroying the human race and society as we know it.  We don’t grasp the full import of a single lie, because we cannot imagine that our gigantic universe could ever be hurt in any way like this. But we are compelled to posit this hypothetical scenario, to bring home the cosmic import of our actions on humanity and society.  We equally took a universal perspective on this, in obedience to Kant’s categorical imperative, to make us see the reason why lies and lying is not only abhorrent or reprehensible in all moral and ethical traditions, but evil. A liar in the spirit of the Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative should always ask himself: What will the society look like if lies and lying is to be universalized or liberalized without sanctions, so much so that everybody tells it as a matter of course. These are the questions that Max Gbanite and his likes in the Nigerian social arena have not bordered to ask themselves, when they spin forth lies with reckless abandon, turning reason on its head, in their bid to score cheap sleazy, political points or to make some money, battening at the pains of Nigerians.

 

When a man lies, he wounds himself; he undermines society and he erodes the confidence of humanity on itself. He wounds himself by perpetually finding it difficult to believe others. He always entertains at the back of his mind that everybody is out to sell him the kind of dummy he peddles around in all his interactions. Lies seriously strains the social bonds and renders it weak. It compromises social progress because it hawks shadows as realities, and the people are inadvertently condemned to waste the precious time that should otherwise have been invested in progress, in going around in circles or trying to unravel the knots tied by falsehood, in order to find their way out of the dark, unlit grottos, where falsehood dumped them. A very current instance is America’s present misadventure in Iraq, where vested interests sold lies to a president; a congress and a people grappling with the tragedies and boiling anger occasioned by September 11; justifying the levying of war on a man, who may have had his own dictatorial faults, but in no way contributed to the terrorist attacks on the American homeland.  Today, the bodies of courageous American service men and women, coming back in body bags are all regrettable footnotes to that tragic miscalculation; a bird eye view into the tragedies that lies are capable of plunging society into.

 

A liar‘s playground is the marketplace of deceit. His currency is impious cant and pretended sensibilities. Hollow euphemisms and rhetorical embroidery of falsehood trails his every word. The cellars of history houses evidence witnessing, that liars are the crooked timber out of, which hypocrisy and sycophancy were sculpted. They have always been traitors to their people and the causes at the heart of their people’s existence. To this end, peddlers of falsehood belong to the infernal realm of hell, where their webs of seductive deceit awaits them as eternal recompense. Dante Alighieri was quite clear on this.

 

Coming to the concrete realities of the Nigerian socio-political situation of today; the challenge is cast: Anybody who can, in truth and honesty, ascend the podium in the courts of public opinion; look the Nigerian people straight in eyes, and intone that Ibrahim Babangida is not a thief should come out and do it in front of the Nigerian people. Not hiding under the cryptic comforts of a keyboard. In fact anybody who dares come out in good conscience to do this will either be telling a lie or his is a certifiable nincompoop. To that end, battle will most certainly be done with his roguery and a cure found for his recessive kleptomania by the people righteous anger.

 

Fragile consciences are not amazed that some compromised personalities like Omo Court Jester Omoruyi and faceless simpletons like Max Gbanite could rise up and try to hawk veritable untruths in any civilized forum, about a gangster who raped Nigeria and scuttled her developmental trajectory for years to come. In fact, any Nigerian of today, who can truthfully and honestly say that Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida is not a thief is a crook, a brigand or a gangster himself, for it takes a thief to defend one. There exists no midway. Besides, anyone who peddles the image of this discredited kleptocrat is either mentally challenged or ethically compromised by greed and sordid money. That there are debauched hirelings and rented crowds, jostling and falling over themselves to “beg“ a rogue to come back and rule Nigeria and to present a thief as the most credible political option for Nigeria is not a surprise to men of integrity. The Nigerian situation has shown that Ibrahim Babangida is a hardcore thief who, like his sleazy counterpart; namely hardcore pornography holds an irrepressibly seductive sway over the polymorphously perverted. But the facts remains that he can only conscript already compromised consciences to his cause with his stolen booty. This is because; Money according to Henry Ford doesn’t change men. It merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish or arrogant or greedy, the money bring that out, that‘s all.

 

Most recently, IBB organized a wedding of the century for his daughter Aishat in Minna. Words circulating around had it that over 48 executive private jets littered the Minna airport, disgorging puppets and deeply inserted saboteurs, who have come on a political pilgrimage; to pay their tribute of infamy and subservience to the all powerful, corrupt master, who progressively conscripted them into his army of loyalists by corrupting them and buying their loyalty for himself, with the stolen money belonging to the Nigerian people. The model of cars in attendance was an intimidating spectacle of rotten opulence. The wedding cake commissioned for the poor Aishat, was imported from Harrods of London, one of the costliest shopping centres for the debauched rich in the world. This wedding, true to type was more of a debauched assemblage of thieves, political gangsters, wandering minstrels, compromised intelligences, pretenders and dishonest men, than a matrimonial exchange of vows. That wedding quickly brought to the fore an analogous parallel: though an imperial birthday, where the money and wealth of the poor was devoured at one sitting, amidst sickening debauchery and lascivious over-indulgence. This parallel occasion which mirrored and challenges similar comparison to IBB’s wedding  bash took place about Two thousand years ago, at the atrociously hideous courts of Herod the Tetrarch of Galilee; equally against similar backdrops of political intrigue, realignments and gang-ups, which resulted in  John the Baptiser, the Forerunner of Truth, losing his head to the daughter of an Adulteress. On that day in Minna, the crème la crème of Nigerian EX(ECU)-THIEVES and a great percentage of all those who constituted themselves into the trouble with Nigeria; descended on that city to stage a dress rehearsal and perfect their plans of re-hijacking Nigeria, which has been in the pipeline, since IBB was forced to “step aside“ in 1993. The raw and insensitively, criminal ostentation of that wedding remained an eternal insult on the millions of poor Nigerians whom IBB contributed greatly in impoverishing, and equally hides the fact, that Nigeria and all forerunners of the Truth battling the falsehood represented by IBB have been primed to lose their heads to this rapist of the Nigerian dream.

 

Today, the convulsively repulsive lies been generously peddled on the Internet, in attempt to re-paint the irreparable, kleptomanic features of Ibrahim Babangida; one of the cruellest rogue ever to rule and steal from the people of Nigeria, by one common and pedestrian liar, who hides under the name Max Gbanite; a name that would only fittingly belong to a dog, whose ethics would always be compromised by its unholy appetites and voracious avarice; is really a nauseating piece of mean spirited mendacity. In fact, this guy that calls himself Max Gbanite has shown the world that he is an inveterate and scurrilous liar. This guy was very ingenious and superlatively economical with the truth about IBB and his ruin of Nigeria. But thank goodness that all his crooked and mercenary efforts amounted only to a grotesquely, extravagant indictment of himself and the rotten sepulchre he essays to repaint. Reading that piece of concocted falsehood, brought home to me, a very funny and fundamental truth, so very hilariously told by Joseph Heller, to the effect that “Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them“ In fact, I can only defer to a very good liar, but Gbanite told his lies in such a nauseatingly pedestrian fashion, that he would have been fired that very second, were he to be earning his keep under me. I thought that anybody who wants to sell a public lie should first of all stoop low and learn at the feet of Goebbels in order to perfect his art. This is advanced because whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. But our man did not. That he cannot tell a good lie is indicative of the fact that lies are not worth telling. But he, quite oblivious of this elementary logic, went on ahead to tell cheap lies. He just stood and watery nonsense started oozing out of his pen into the arena of Nigerian public discourse.

 

 I never knew that thieves could be so brazen until I came across the mean roguery of the IBB and Abacha’s thieving conglomerate. I never believed that a government could be out to diametrically defraud it’s subject to the extent of impoverishing them without hope of escape until I read about Mobutu Sesse Seko and witnessed IBB and Abacha’s robberies of Nigerian people’s wealth firsthand. I never could imagine equally that liars could have the kind of profligate effrontery nursed by Omo Omoruyi and Max Gbanite respectively. But I have always known that if the price is right, a moral ruin would sell off his mother to a syphilitic rapist, without qualms of conscience. Just like George Washington said, “Few men have the virtue to stand the highest bidder”. Be that as it may, woe to the country, where these men of easy virtue are allowed to mould public opinion. They would immediately justify the worst crimes because they are always hand in gloves with the crime capitals existing in the corridors and balconies of power. Having compromised individuals like Max Gbanite and Omo Omoruyi dictate or contribute to the formation of ethical principles of any society is like having five lions and one sheep voting on what to have for supper, or asking prostitutes to seat on a congressional committee voting to cut down the price paid by their customers. IBB may have committed a crime that insults heaven and wounded humanity, but the greater crime is with those who wilfully and criminally tried to sell the truth off for sordid money and to justify that crime by telling lies and mutilating history. Just like Christ the Truth pronounced of Judas, Son of Simon Iscariot and all other inglorious men following in his footsteps, who love money better than eternal values: “Better were it for that man not to have been born”. For those who are out to re-engineer falsehood with the scandalous veneer of truth “Better were it that a millstone be hung around their necks and their bodies cast into the sea” where they would constitute dinner for the fishes consequent on their scandalizing of the kids, by teaching them lies in place of truth.

 

Suffice it then to note, that since this guy decided to come to the public forum to spew forth unfounded and dangerously baseless lies about the “saintliness“ of HIS HOLINESS Alhaji Ibrahim Badamosi  Babangida, GCFR(Grand Crook of the Federal Republic),  a  deconstruction of his superlative lies becomes imperative. Our task here is to make simple clinical incisions at the right junctures, so that this snake will effectively and naturally shed himself of his deceptive skin. And to that task, now we turn. I crave your patient indulgence to walk this convulsively ugly path of dressing down a moral leprous patient with me. It is really a sorry sight, but it is a task that must be done, if others are to be saved the agony of contracting this infection, which mangles one’s tongue and makes him superlatively impervious to reason and allergic to the truth.

 

2. The Songs of a He-Goat[1]


Max Gbanite wrote an article titled “
IBB: The Man is still Standing” an article which he posted on   www.gamji.com, with the following link: http://www.gamji.com/NEWS3742.htm This writing much more than a depraved piece of arrant nonsense, transcends itself to embosom and crystallize into some nine pages of fossilized imbecility and coagulated meanness. This ranks as one of the most brazen expressions of convoluted falsehood, sweeping inconsistencies and premeditated crucifixion of facts and invention of fictions to suit one’s untenable fancies. That piece really was the song of a castrated he-goat[2]. This morally obscene miscarriage of facts placed an imperative burden on the shoulders of every true Nigerian, whose heart burns with love for his country, and whose goal is the truth; whose objective is the salvation of African people from these horde of buccaneering gangsters, that we call leaders, who have simply succeeded in debauching our structures and bastardizing our institutions together with their collaborators. Lies invite a refutation or evil will have an unchallenged walkover and triumph over the good. That will mean that good men are no more. To this end, we are going to effect a hermeneutical, factual as well as a logical analysis of this sleazy piece in question, for the world to see the extent that principalities of evil can go to achieve its aims.

 

Our Most dishonourable Impostor, Mr. Falsehood Gbanite started the very first paragraph of that ill-fated article, with a tacit and unintended acknowledgement of the waves upon waves of truth; courageously told and hold aloft by men of conscience, about the impending doom that awaits Nigeria in the planned return of the thief of Minna on our national political scene. The inescapable inadvertence with which he ironically achieved this feat, witnessed to the eternal dynamics of truth, which has a way of forcing its epistemic authority upon falsehood; compelling it to bow, even for one second, to the majestic divinity of truth, so that the wary can really perceive that the victory won by falsehood in the minds of a liar was but a pyrrhic one; won at a great cost, when he for whom the hosts of truth were fighting betrayed the cause. He wrote as follows:

 

“The return of Evil“, “The Sins of IBB“, “The Road to perdition“, and “Can we Trust this man, IBB”? are titles and subtitles used recently to describe former military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, GCFR, mni. These obviously ill-intended essays and similar missiles stream into the media on a somewhat regular basis since it became apparent that the enigmatic and amiable leader will undoubtedly play an active role in the upcoming elections of 2007 (IBB: The man is still standing, P.1, Par.1, Lines 1-7)

 

This opening fusillade immediately recommends itself to any careful reading, as both a betrayal and an acknowledgement. It is a betrayal of the fact that this man has joined the new crop of dry cleaners or image launderers, whose self-imposed and IBB-funded assignment, is a huge press OPs or Publicity stunt, aimed at ensuring the re-creation of IBB’s image, which unfortunately, his quick, stealing fingers did a lot to damage; all in time for his 2007 comeback bid. Gbanite’s assignment and job detail as betrayed by his use of the underlined words above involves the replacement of IBB’s bloodstained iron-fangs and dangerous claws with some false amiability, and also to repaint this congenital, social carnivore in sheep-friendly colours. But like all purveyors of cant, he failed.

 

The questions arising from this paragraph which Gbanite, in his deceitful majesty did not essay to address are as follows:

First and foremost, how many essays of reproach were or have been written about Ekwueme or Ojukwu when they contested with Obasanjo in 1999 and 2003 respectively? And how many essays with such foreboding titles were written about Buba Marwa, who from all indications seems to be in the same contest? Why were all this (dangerously “seditious and Ill-intended essays in Gbanite’s view) all directed at one man. How many of these letters were written about Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo in 1979 and 83 respectively when they took a shot at the presidency after playing principal roles in the ill-fated first republic? Why such a volume of despondency-laden vehemence from a cross section of Nigerians about IBB? I saw no article detailing all these men I listed above, as thieves or rogues. They may have had other weaknesses, but stealing was most unfortunately not one of them, despite the fact that almost all of them were principal players at one time in their lives in Nigeria politics. But IBB has attracted for himself the most pervasive repulsiveness from across a broad spectrum of Nigerians due to his too many corporate and executive sins, some of which Gbanite tried so very unsuccessfully to explain away. Our deconstruction would cross that bridge when it gets there.

 

In addition to that, how many men of integrity have ever spoken well of IBB’s past plunder of Nigeria or endorsed his present political madness? Some of the greatest men of integrity that Nigeria ever produced in this sea of discordant and relative morality, as well as the most consistent voices of reason in this our dark grotto of falsehood and national tears, include greats like Gani Fawehimi, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Matthew Hassan Kukah, Abubakar Umar, Balarabe Musa, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, Alex Ekwueme and Anthony Cardinal Okogie. These tall men of integrity have at so many occasions than one, essayed categorically without equivocation, to write IBB off as a moral buffoon, who cared no hoot about the welfare of Nigerians, but who was only hell-bent on embezzling Nigeria out of existence. They were right. What other assessment does one expect from one who conducted the orchestra of plunder that ensured Nigeria’s admittance into the halls of poverty and bankruptcy? What other fitting tribute could our anger pay to a man, who headed a government of gangsters peopled by arrant thieves?

 

The onus now lies on Gbanite to show us who, among these all time universal greats that ever dared to endorse IBB’s present madness; or would like their impeccable names, honour, integrity and transparent credentials dragged through swine shit, by being associated with such crass opportunism as displayed by men like Gbanite, IBB, Omo Omoruyi, and other corruptibly debauched Nigerians, whose consciences were nothing but gambling emporiums, where every principle is fluid and follows the directions of money; and who are presently hawking stinking falsehoods as truths?

 

Gbanite should come out with the name of one non-debauched Nigerian, who rides on this IBB train and we will meet his brazen falsehood; marshalling over 10,000 debauchees, many of who attended the morally obscene display of crass insensitivity on the plight of Nigerians, which Aishat’s wedding was, to meet his challenge. We would equally present him with the bottled anger of over 70 million honest Nigerians, who want this man docked in court to answer for his crimes. That Nigerians are cowards does not translate to stupidity as to be hoodwinked by the wooden apologetics of an intellectual pedestrian, hawking the tainted wares of political roguery. Some example of men who have spoken out is apposite here. Lateef Jakande, the second Republic Governor of Lagos State as reported in the Guardian Newspapers of Sunday, July 25th, at the occasion of his 75th birthday told the world how Obasanjo and IBB ruined Nigeria. Listen to what Jakande has to say: “It is a pity that Nigeria has been done a great harm by two military leaders. The harm they have done will take a long time to cure. One of them is my good friend, General Ibrahim Babangida. He succeeded in destroying PUBLIC MORALITY AND PARTY DISCIPLINE.”  This is Gbanite’s role model been discussed here. Abubakar Umar and Balarabe Musa as reported in the Guardian Newspapers of Tuesday, July 27th, 2004 in the report titled: “Resentment brews for political generals up North” with equal vehemence and loathing asked our ex-dictator to forget his unholy ambitions for 2007 as he has no moral right to come out again to seek public office after the wounds he inflicted on Nigeria. For Umaru Shinkafi, a third republic presidential aspirant, in an interview granted to the Guardian newspapers of Monday, the 26th July, 2004, with IBB and his Khaki boys in mind, stated in no mean terms that “It is indecent for former heads of state to run for presidency”  come 2007. Melford Okilo, the second republic governor of River State lashed out against IBB’s sleazy ambition, when he stated on the pages of Guardian Newspapers of Friday July 23rd, 2004, that “if Nigeria was a place where people were disciplined, NO RIGHT THINKING PERSON (Attn. Gbanite) would be talking about the return of any former military ruler to power” I would not think that I could do a better job than Okilo have done. All I can do is to add a caveat: attention Gbanite, immediately after those words of Okilo that summarize people like Gbanite, to the effect that they are not right thinking. This drives itself home more forcefully, when one realises that a political non-person like Gbanite, could muster enough effrontery, to refer to the above views and that of other men of virtue and valour, as packaged fabrications (See Gbanite, P.1 Par.3, line 1). The mental balance of Gbanite to this effect is called into question. We concede him his entitlement to this senile submission and surrealistic opinion. This concession flows from the recognition that since the human imagination is a liberal creator, he may be referring to an IBB that was created in his own image and likeness, by an imagination compromised by greed and irrepressible lust for crumbs of money or political appointment; and not the IBB that over 120 million Nigerians had the misfortune of been forcefully saddled with for an 8 years that was described by George Ehusani as the Years Eaten by the Locusts. This IBB, which is a diseased creation of his fractured synaptic meanderings and neuronal disequilibrium, is unfortunately a far shot shy of the Babangida that Nigerians know and history witnessed.

 

I would not end my declension of his first paragraph without actually sterilizing the truth from this invasion of lies. I underlined two words above that hold great interest for my analysis, as they were deployed by our negatively venerable Gbanite; namely Enigmatic and amiable leader used in describing IBB. Max Gbanite, like all peddlers of rumour and manufactured falsehood did not let us in on what made this smiling thief an amiable leader. Is it the debauchery of his government? Is it his liberalization and globalization of corruption across the circumference of the Nigerian social structure? Is it his unparalleled skill in stealing and scrubbing the Nigerian treasury clean in conspiracy with Julius Berger? Is it his maradonic dribbling of the Nigerian populace, with his a “little bit to right and a little bit to the right” which is equal to no-movement political philosophy, which cost the Nigerian treasury some 40 Billion naira and the cancellation of the freest and fairest election in Nigerian history? Is it his arrant thievery which saw him stealing the $12.2bilion Dollars First Gulf War oil Windfall that accrued to the Nigerian treasury, which the Pius Okigbo commission indicted him for, and stated that our economy today would have received an unimaginable boost had that money been used in servicing and retiring our external debts? Is it his auctioning off to his private fronts of the public utilities that formerly bore our collective names and imprint; all of which Arthur Nwankwo risked his life to document in his book “The Stolen Billions“? Is it the mangling and destruction of the Nigerian middle class that would have constituted the bedrock of a credible opposition to his criminal excesses? Is it the murder of Mamman Vatsa, one of the most beautiful minds to don the Nigerian Army officers’ Corp uniform in 1986? Is it the systematic elimination of the crème la crème of the Nigerian army officer’s Corp, in a well planned Plane Crash at Ejigbo in September 1992? Is it his presiding over the parcel bombing of Dele Giwa out of mortal existence? Is it his presiding over the gradual impoverishment of Nigerians? Is it the destruction, pollution and politicization of the academic environment of the Nigerian Ivory tower, which would have been a seed bed for our industrial revolution and development? Is it the brazen debauching of the Nigerian army and turning it into the largest armed political party on the African continent? Is it the smuggling of Nigeria; a constitutionally recognized secular state into the Organization of Islamic countries, OIC? Is it his massive deception, crude survivalism as well as the overwhelming presence of national incoherence, which his Machiavellic government engendered and actively encouraged? Gbanite should answer. I tell you, that history will never forget this infantile attempt to doctor facts to suit fictions that arose out of some fevered imagination that is slave to falsehood.

 

On the second word; namely “Enigmatic” I share totally Max Gbanite’s identification of this gangster as enigmatic. Successful gangsters in history have always been enigmatic. For instance, Lawrence Anini ruled Benin City in the late 1980s with such unparalleled mystique and enigmatic awe, that he was attributed with so many enigmatic endowments and powers like unparalleled bilocatory powers as to appear and disappear at will, like an apparition; super high auditory facilities as to hear when he is been talked about and when the police are closing in on him; great olfactory endowments that sniffs out whiffs of money, wherever they are, etc. IBB is enigmatic. It is really nauseatingly enigmatic that a single man could single-handedly steal the kind of money this guy stole and yet have the effrontery to appear in public. It is really unimaginably and stupidly enigmatic for a man who lied to the people for 8 years to come back and state that he intends to seek the people’s mandate on his fractured and broken reputation. It is really enigmatic that a man who had no special talents as to stumble on a great discovery or as to contrive a great invention, and whose salary as a military officer could not suffice to drown him in stupendous luxury, no matter the extent to which his legitimate entitlements were to be stretched; to rise up one morning after plotting a coup and holding the Nigerian people to a ransom for 8 years and walk off the stage as one of the wealthiest thieves in Africa! Gbanite was right. Babangida is enigmatic. Fela, were he to be alive to read Gbanite today, would have really identified and defined IBB’s enigma for what it is, namely: Stealing and Smiling.

 

In his second paragraph, Gbanite resorted to the classical but neotonic tactic of men in the tyrannical thraldom of subservience to sycophancy, lies and hypocrisy; namely the intimidation and subtle psychological blackmail of the bearers of truth. This is always the case because truth fundamentally remains an eternal affront to falsehood. Let us build a base for our analysis of this second paragraph, which serves a logical conjunct to the rest of his submissions.  In the cosmic scheme of things, Untruth in its ontological restlessness, will do everything and deploy every fatal psycho-motivational juice, to floor the truth and bring it down to its own base level, just like the Devil used every sort of psycho-cybernetic juice to floor Eve’s guards and opened her eyes to the deceptive beauty of some infernal culinary delicacies, mirrored in the forbidden apples. Once Eve’s insecurities were played upon with an admixture of praise, feigned expertise, lies and subtle persuasion, and greatly aided by the yet-to-be-explained absence of Adam, she, against stiff opposition of right reason, condescended to eat of the apples that were clearly marked POISONOUS by the “Divine Manufacturer”. Despite the contraindications contained in the Manufacturer’s manual, which clearly screamed prohibited the oral use of the product in question; Eve’s lustful eyes overwrote all safety precautions. She ate it. And on that unholy day she took culinary lessons from the Father of all LIES, she ate man out of paradise.

Gbanite wrote:

 

Sadly, the peddlers of poison, who otherwise parade themselves as “Political Pundits“ would not wait for the man (IBB) to exercise his constitutional guaranteed right. Instead of participating in building a base for the future, these literary agents provocateur shove their bland brand of political epistles down the throats of ordinary citizens and in the process poison the minds of the next generation (IBB: The man is still standing, P.1, Par.1, Lines 1-6)

 

Against the simmering doublespeak and intimidating as well as the manipulating intents of the above paragraph, Truth has sworn in anger that since falsehood could be so daring as to intimidate; never shall falsehood have a walkover. It will be battled in the air, on the internet, in print, on the mouths of their inglorious bearers and in the market place of ideas, which falsehood assiduously essays to pollute.

 

The first matter to arise from this second paragraph is Gbanite’s accusation that the “peddlers of poison parade themselves as “political Pundits“. I cannot agree more to this very right observation of his. He is 100% correct. He is simply stewing in his own juice. He has been peddling a socio-political poison; coaxing Nigerians to swallow of his deadly wares. Most appropriately, poison, as obtains and applies both to his purposes and ours, have a common tangent. Flowing from our metaphysical conjugations above, one could deduct our situation of the origin of the underlined poison from the episodic encounter between the father of lies and Eve in the vicinity of the forbidden tree. Most unfortunately and perchance Eve ate and tumbled out of the beatific vision in paradise, consequent on the persuasive promptings and motivational style of the evil one, the blueprint, which was so generous copied and faithfully reproduced in Gbanite’s above cited cant. As the devil sold Eve a lie with cosmic consequences, which saw them thrown out of paradise, Gbanite sells Nigerians a poisonous lie dressing it as truth. This lie; were we to consent to it, opens us to the risk of been thrown out of socio-economic and political paradise, which a good government engenders. 


We have only analysed the import of Poison to this discourse. The second arising from that first sentence was a lie carried too far. I am going to prove how very correct he was and how very perfectly he reflected the posture and stance of the camp of conscienceless and unpatriotic cheerleaders that he represents. Here, he told us a truth by inadvertence, which is not immediately available to those ignorant of IBB’s grand complex design to re-hijack our nation and collective aspirations, and crash her like the September 11, 2001 terrorists into some signature structures of his greed. To this end, I have never seen or heard any of the men of conscience opposing the advent of the reign of IBB’s roguery, who called, identified him/herself or wished to be identified with that empty phrase dripping with pompous arrogance namely “Political Pundit”. But I can prove that Gbanite’s nearest cousin in this IBB’s laundry business arrogates himself an unparalleled omniscience about Nigerian and world politics, which even dwarfs that of God Almighty himself. We are talking about Omo Omoruyi. Omoruyi had utilized every little opportunity to tell the world that he was the former
Director General of the CENTRE FOR DESTRUCTIVE, sorry DEMOCRATIC STUDIES, under IBB.

 

3. Threatening Deathlessness; an Exercise in Futile Quackery

 

Truth is deathless and ageless. It is eternal. It has been taunted and scorned, only for its undying refulgence to be burnished like gloss. It has been crucified and buried in a stranger’s grave, only for it to shatter the walls of falsehood in a glorious resurrection: All to the discomfiture of all who thought that truth ends in death. To this end, no one can succeed in killing a phenomenon, whose ontological constitution comprises deathlessness. An attempt to kill the truth is an exercise that will end in a most certain defeat. Golgotha and the Empty Tomb of Easter Morning are eternal proofs of this. To our liars and their intrigues we turn.

 

In his fourth paragraph, Gbanite introduced his line of threats to all those men of valour who had in obedience to conscience and right reason; and who in the name of all that is good, true and beautiful, have essayed to stand up to the criminal excesses of IBB. He gave a subtle threat to our lives, inserting it so innocuously that it can easily escape attention. He warned that whenever we write about IBB, we should know that we are venturing on dangerous grounds and to that effect that our lives are on the line. Read him yourself:

Many writers... the good, the bad, and the mean mercenaries.. have given at one time or another their own interpretations and forecasts on what may likely happen in 2007. In almost all their permutations, they never stop to factor into the equation that they might not live to see the supposed 2007; none stops to reason that no one is guaranteed anything in life (Gbanite, P.1, Par. 4 lines 1-6)

 

We know that IBB’s agents of death are out to hunt down those who oppose his rape and plunder of Nigeria. We know that he is characteristically mean. The way and manner in which he ran Nigeria down shows that clearly to even a blind man. We equally know that truth is dangerous for those who tell it, especially those who tell it with a blunt refusal to be compromised. We know that they risk been parcel-bombed out of existence like Dele Giwa was, while IBB presided.

 

Anybody who decides to journey in truth for the salvation of his people is most likely end up crucified in between thieves like Jesus Christ was. Jesus Christ came proclaiming himself the Way, the Truth and the Life (Via, Veritas, Vita) His life was an essay in courage and truth. He confronted falsehood whenever he saw it without equivocation or timidity. He went about the Galilean countryside, doing just well. No guile was found on his lips. He fed over 5,000 hungry men and double that number of women and children, who were abandoned to the extremities of hunger. He the Lord became the shepherd of those abandoned like sheep without a shepherd. He once convoked a magnificient picnic on the mountains, with some few loves of bread and few fingers of fish. His love for his people was so total, that this love multiplied this bread in an unprecedented miracle that the world is yet to witness again, ever since that sunny afternoon on the rugged country sides of Galilee. He bandaged the wounds of the injured and comforted those in sorrow. He sought ways of lifting the burdens imposed by unjust social structures and the structures of sin from the shoulders of his people. He knew that the government and entrenched establishment of hypocrisy that ruled the central sensitive points of the people’s lives contribute in no small way to the impoverishment of the people. He identified Herod as a fox, which he was in terms and in fact. He identified and isolated the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He decided to attack social evils at its root which was hypocrisy of the privileged over the downtrodden. He decried blind guides who led people into socio-political, economic and cultural ditches. He opposed the meanness which avarice spins, as shepherds fed off their sheep without caring for the sheep’s welfare.

Jerusalem of his time, doubled not only as a Holy city as well as a reminder of Roman colonialism, but in time grew to become the exploitation capital hewed by Religious hypocrisy and impious ritualism. This ugly situation was a categorical affront to his nature and his mission. He could not suffer this wicked and immoral exploitation lightly. The man in him would have died in him, were he to keep silent in the face of merciless and conscienceless tyranny. It was dangerous to criticize evil let alone daring to confront it head on in its infernal majesty. Truth could not be deterred by danger. Danger knew that Truth is more dangerous than he and that they are two lions littered in one, and truth is the elder and the terrible. Truth like Caesar shall go forth.1

 

Jerusalem waited and groaned. The Master cried and wept for her. Crying alone will never essay to lift the weight off the people’s shoulders once and for all. He needed no armies to overthrow the establishment. He who has command of Legions upon Legions of “Thrones, Dominions, Angels and Archangels” knew that a simple truth is potent enough to send the empires of falsehood into interminable and irredeemable decline and extinction. To show the strength of Truth, he bore no arms nor suffered his followers to. He merely borrowed an ass.

 

An ass is not royal or regal in the class of horses. It is not a war vehicle as a horse would symbolize. It was the sacrament and sign of the majestic simplicity of Truth. He was going to war in Jerusalem but he was marching without arms. He knew that his battle, like ours today, is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and wicked forces of evil in HIGH, ENTRENCHED PLACES. The owner of the ass had to let it go willingly because not only that it was more important for the master at that point in time, but also because he shared a common humanity and destiny with all men oppressed by the weight of evil. Had he evaded this chance to co-operate in liberating humanity from the shackles, fetters and tyrannies of evil; had he not contributed his quota, no matter how infinitesimal, to this effort of liberation, he would forever have lacked moral and ontological right to lay claims to freedom, when at last, the battle is won.

 

Jerusalem, here comes the truth!

 

Truth sat upon an ass like an agent provocateur (attn. Gbanite, P.1, Par. 2, Line 4) as the Jewish beneficiaries of the oppressive structure will label him. Just like Gbanite and all beneficiaries of oppressive structures everywhere are wont to label those who essay to tell the truth. He rode in glory on the crest waves of human cosmic innocence mirrored in the pristine simple minds of the ordinary folks, yet uncorrupted by the diplomatic prodding of compromised men. They shouted, chorused and dwarfed the city with the canticle of glory and Triumph- “Hosanna Filio David”. The joyous felicity of his approach to liberate his people dwarfed the Passover pilgrimage into a distant second place of irrelevance. The authorities protested; urging him to ask the crowds to shut up. Their hearts corrupted by greed and the worship of profit bared its stupid blindness of the realities on the ground. Their sensibilities corroded by bribery and extortion failed to realise the cosmic dimensions of human freedom. It could not be offered to their profane faculties, it that even if the crowds were to shut up, the stones will jump up in joyful alliance with humanity. The glory of God is man fully alive and the glory of creation is man freed from captivity to every principality and power of evil. The stones would have joined in celebrating the liberation of man because, “Ihe emere ebune di aturu iwe”-(The sheep can never be pleased with the injury inflicted on the Lamb).  When we jump up and down upon them in joy, with the songs of freedom on our lips, this infectious joy in our hearts will radiate through our feet, and touch them in some cosmic joy. They are bound to take up refrain, as our feet lifts and lands on them in the ecstatic rhythm which will attend and celebrate our liberation.

 

The crass selfishness manifested in this protest of the Pharisees, is the spiritual disadvantage that is the lot of liars, and oppressors of the people of all times and climes. They can never see the handwriting on the wall like King Bethzelzar failed to see it in his time. They are blinded to the holes in their illogics, like the old debauched he-goats, whose prurient desires saw them attempting to deflower Susanna; another man’s wife. They are blinded by their vaulting evil ambition, just like Macbeth was blinded by his, until he murdered sleep to marry insomnia. Not distracted from His mission, Truth headed straight for the temple.

 

4. In The Den of Robbers

 

What crooked dynamics distorts the blueprint of pristine innocence? Which crosspollination of factors lead thieves into relocating to the temples of prayer? What social evolutionary forces could transform thieves like IBB, Abacha, Mobutu into leaders of countries; a higher platform upon which they can swindle a nation and seal their doom for years to come? Jerusalem of Christ’s time may hold some interests for our insight. Let’s go there.

 

Jerusalem; the Holy and eternal: The City of God. “De Civitate Dei”. The Import of Jerusalem transcends Judaism to incorporate the theologies of both the Christians and the Muslims as well. The temple of Jerusalem at Jesus’ time was the centre of the Jewish life.  The Jewish Poets who authored the Psalms gave words to this most sacred longing of a Jewish heart, when they wrote: If I forget you O Jerusalem, Let my right hand withered. Let my Tongue cleave to roof of my Jaws (Psalm) One of the principal things that gave Jerusalem the Most preferred Status above all else, is not only its geopolitical designation or importance as the Capital City of David; one of their greatest Kings, but equally the religious fact that their temple is situated on Mount Zion; which grew to become synonymous with Jerusalem itself and all that it represents. The temple which connotes the Shekinah glory, or the Most Holy presence of Yawheh Sabaoth, rendered Jerusalem a holy city. This temple is at the centre of all Jewish religious, political and cultural life. They cannot afford to joke with it. They would not have joked with it. But immediately selfishness forged an alliance with Mammon, the temple was positioned for an Abomination of Desolation; just like in all places where sordid money meets egocentricism: Then can the master be sold for pieces of silver, like Christ was at the hands of Judas; and the people auctioned for mere pittance-like African slaves were during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, etc. At this alliance of evil forces, this Most Sacred abode of Holiness was so much desecrated by human greed, which it arose at the time of Christ to play host to one of the greatest abominations of desolation, namely man’s use of his fellow man for his selfish ends.

In the temple, the people were cheated in the presence, and in the name of God to enrich the few, privileged holders of power; who prayed publicly and preyed privately. To understand the evolution of this syndicated religious gangsterism akin to IBB’s gangsterist gang-banging of Nigeria, one has to understand that the Passover is the central point of the Jewish history, just like military intervention in Nigerian politics paved the way for the emanation of this gangster. At this feast, they celebrate God’s intervention in their history and their birth as a people. To this end, every pious Jew dreams of making a journey back to Jerusalem on the feast of the Passover according to the laws and in order not to forget his origins. Jews from almost all their diasporas come home in droves and make it to Jerusalem to celebrate the most momentous point in their history; namely their escape from Egypt. Passover is such a mandatory ritual that every family is obliged to celebrate it. It calls for exquisite rituals and sacrifices and an external manifestation of commensality by their dinning together. These pilgrims from all over the then known world cannot manage the harsh logistics of travelling with sacrificial animals over long distances from their stations to Palestine. They preferred to buy this in and around Jerusalem. With time, in order to meet this need and ameliorate the hardship borne by the people, in their bid to meet their sacrificial obligation, a trade in sacrificial animals arose around the temple. And like a receding coastline, it kept shifting its place a little nearer until it went past the doors of the temple and saw itself into the temple vicinity and courtyard. With time, the Pharisees and temple officials realised the profitability of this thriving business, they bought into it, thereby exercising a monopoly, which threw up the unpleasant consequences that monopolies everywhere are bound to create; namely exploitation. To this end, stringent rules came up to force compliance to their new exploitative price regime on their products. Since they double both as the judge and the jury of the right sacrificial animal ordained for sacrifice, as well as the sellers of the animals; any other person who in reaction to the cut-throat prices at the temple tries to circumvent this by buying from outside the temple, runs the risk of his own animal being disqualified and rejected; most unfortunately, not by God, but by greedy and avaricious temple officials, whose only consideration is their profit maximization.

 

Another interesting dimension to this was that the Diaspora Jews come with the currencies and coins of their various countries of domicile. To get to buy these animals will require a conversion of these currencies into the local Shekels used in the temple and around Jerusalem. This gave rise to a money market, which ended up equally been hijacked and monopolized by these avaricious temple officials. This money market in reaction to the market dynamics, moved in unison with the sacrificial animal market; both finding their way into the temple under the clutches of avaricious monopolistic men of God, who instead of worshipping God, bended their knees at the altar of Mammon. The battened on the poverty of the people; feeding off them like ecto-parasites would, on their hosts. The people groaned in ignorance, cowardice and timorous inaction, as corruption, extortion and oppression of the people galloped away. This is the simmering cauldron of corruption that confronted Jesus the Christ, as he made his way into His father’s House that was supposed to be a house of prayer. Little did he realise that a House of prayer, through the criminal excesses of the leaders had metamorphosed into a den of robbers and a paradise for brigands, like Nigeria did under Ibrahim Babangida and Abacha.

He went in there and beheld first hand the convulsively ugly sight of how the people were duped and mercilessly fleeced in God’s name, just like Nigerians were duped by thieves in the name of religion and tribalism. His heart broke at the sight. Gentility and caution gave way to righteous anger. His Most Sacred heart nearly exploded on meeting this interconnected network and structures of sin and arrant exploitation. His heart wept in groans and silent tears. He dejectedly went round, reconnoitring the temple.  He witnessed the malodorous morass of corruption merging with the stinking animal faeces, as well as the mischievous smiles and sanctimonious hypocrisy of these religious thieves. He could not be controlled. He made a whip off the ropes lying around carelessly; littering the Holy of Holies in criminal negligence. He kicked the baskets housing the birds, setting them free and giving them the opportunity of absolving themselves of the crimes of this horde of buccaneers; like we are doing to the IBB sycophants of today. The birds spluttered their wings in grateful penance and flew to freedom. Would that the IBB’s singing canaries borrow a leaf from this birds deployed to sinful purposes. Surprise caught the traders. Before that could sink in, he descended on the goat and sheep sellers, chasing the four-footed animals out of the temple. As he was doing this, he reviewed the depth and progressive degeneration of human kind occasioned by greed. At Sinai, this same people worshipped the golden calf. They felt that God was not just in punishing them for worshipping a mere animal. Today, not only have they abandoned the animals they were once so eager to worship, they have appropriated the animal and sold it for money, just like Judas, representing their evil hearts will go ahead to appropriate a master he once worshipped and sold him for a paltry 30 pieces of silver. This is to show that selfishness and “akpiri ego” will always turn a man into a fearful instrument of falsehood. He turned on the money changers, who have sold their hearts to mammon and are ready to let the people die under the weight rather than get their fangs out of their bleeding flesh. He drove all those filthy hearts out of the temple, like truth will eventually drive IBB and his horde of thieving and stealing liars out of the Nigerian socio-political temple. Christ yielded no quarters to falsehood and expected none in return. And that became an eternal example to all disciples of Truth. Thou shall not yield an inch of turf to falsehood. Do not equally expect any in return. This attempt to make the rapists of the people’s aspiration change their ways was the major subterranean political factor that made the Pharisees and scribes swear in their anger that Christ must die. One unresolved and unanswered question to this who episode, remains: Why nobody even from among those whose wares were destroyed or their supporters dared to touch Christ or to beat him back in return, while he was pulling down their sheds and scattering their animals? What was the force that stood them transfixed in frozen immobility at their places like stupefied mummies, while Christ was having a field day, letting stuff fly out through every available opening on the temple walls, be it doors or windows? Can one imagine what would have happened on that day, were right, truth and justice not on Christ side, as he went about his cleansing of the temple. I bet you that Christ would not have survived to go to Calvary, let alone been crucified on it, were he to have done that in a legitimate market were people are earning their keep. He would have been lynched to say the least or a civil war would have erupted at that spot between his teeming supporters and the traders. But the difference remains first of all that truth was on his side. The temple was never meant to be a den of robbers or a market place. The traders compromised their moral rights to react, the moment they violated that first law. Secondly, the people in their innocence appreciated their being liberated from the clutches and thraldom of these rogues, whose stock in trade has been the inhumane exploitation of the people in God’s name. This was why no word was heard from them. None could talk or utter a word. They left him, swallowed up in their shame; swearing to deal with him and bidding their time. This bottled loathing of a man, who dismantled the sinful, oppressive structures erected to service of their greed, explains the excessive and dehumanizing cruelty which was meted out on him before he was finally crucified most ironically, in between two representatives of their class-namely thieves.

 

For trying to tell and live the truth; a plot was hatched to destroy He who was the TRUTH and bury him in an unmarked, stranger’s grave forever; where irrelevance will be his eternal lot. To their chagrin and eternal discomfiture, he rose triumphantly, to the eternal glory of goodness and to the perpetual discomfiture of falsehood. He rose to outlive all these detractors, who are remembered, if at all for their inglorious efforts to suppress the truth.

 

Jesus Christ had to die when the thieves in the Sanhedrin or leadership college of the Jewish people felt their obnoxious powers threatened by the liberative mission of Christ. The Sanhedrin, made up of the Pharisees, Priests and Scribes, possessed controlling interests and shares in the Temple’s Bureau d’ Change or money market as well as the parallel, Sacrificial-animal market business, which fleeced, exploited and extorted money from the people, thereby turning God’s House into a den of robbers. Suddenly finding themselves at the receiving ends of Christ’s social activism and preferential option for the poor, which calls for a radical end to all oppression and exploitation of the ANAWIM YAHWEH-the poor and the weak of the Lord; the members of this crooked establishment convoked an inglorious assembly of intrigue to find a final solution to Jesus. In the same manner was Socrates obligated to die by Hemlock concocted by the meanness of Aristocrats whose ignorant and debauched digestion was threatened by the new awareness created by his liberating truths he so very freely and generously imparted to the youths.  It should come home to Gbanite now, that even if we have to be killed by IBB and his agents, like the two greats above were by their own times, for creating awareness; calling evil by its name, which would banish political rapists from our firmament; that our people may be saved further misfortune; then we are ready to drink death to the dregs.

 

We have lost our generation thanks to men like IBB. Today, Gbanite is essaying that future generations of Nigerians will lose their tomorrow consequent on this same thief that destroyed our hope by destroying our land, in service to his vaulting avarice. Gbanite should keep on telling us what we have always known, that thieves will kill what ever they perceive as obstacles on their way to pull off their heist. Truth urges Gbanite and Ibb to get their knives ready while we prepare our necks. We shall resurrect to see his downfall, while truth will be his eternal tormentor. As for the truth, we shall keep on telling it in season and out of season.

 

5. The Gospel According Greed

 

Hear O yea! Greedy men, Mammon our god is one lord. Thou shall love money with all your might, with all your heart and with all your soul. Thou shall be ever ready to auction off your heritage for a plate of messy porridge. Thou shall consider it good and beautiful to sell your mother to a HIV infected rapist for 30 pieces of silver. Your country means nothing in so far as you do not live there. Be ready to auction off your people into perpetual slavery once your pockets are filled with stolen lucre. Thou shall have not ethics. Whoring is good so far the money is right. Money is measure of all tendencies. These are some of the fundaments of this gospel according to greed, which has Judas Iscariot as its patron saint.

 

Max Gbanite’s gospel is that according to greed. Greed blinds a man to the realities under his nose. It makes him wilfully insensitive to the facts of truth and the truth of facts in his environment. It equally renders him so very willing to excuse and justify evils that hurt heaven and desecrate earth. Gbanite after threatening the Truth seekers with death, tried to cajole us into timorous acquiescence; the type that obtains in the minds of one who is incurably ruled by avarice, irredeemably ignorant, or one whose mind is a convulsive conglomeration of unrefined stupidities. Unfortunately for him, those playing the league of truth cannot be bought with money, nor frightened by threats. Truth itself stood unafraid as it drank the worst form of wickedness that human falsehood is capable. We shall neither succumb nor abandon our responsibility in fear. Fear should wait. We do not have the time or leisure to entertain it now. Nigeria’s future is too serious a business to be abandoned to the feet of purveyors of fear.

 

This is merely the prologue. The second part comes out soonest with an analysis of the Sins of IBB as was listed and treated by Gbanite.


[1] . With apologies to JP. Clark

 

1 Julius Caesar, Act. 1.