By
“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]
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.
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.
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