CHRISTMAS BOMBINGS: GOD IS POWERLESS!

If there is God for goodness sake! Why can’t He protect innocent churchgoers from Boko Harem killing spree, on Christmas Day? God’s powerlessness and complacency to secure believers leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of everyone watching. How followers of God were mowed down to death same day Jesus the son of God was said to have been born, will be a trending mystery of all times.
God is not a superpower as sang in Nigeria churches needlessly. God is powerless power. If God could not take the backs and fronts of His converts for safekeeping as bespeaks an omnipotent.
The USA and Germany would do better to protect their citizens from crazed religions misfits than any God which is ice cold and inexistent. Better surrender your precious life to decent country powered by incorruptible leader before you profess any God by blind faith. We should all be going through life with our eyes wide open instead of toying with manmade Gods which are worthless. So could anyone not die in vain in any Church or for any deficient deity. If God can’t protect His or Her followers and can’t fight for itself – then, you should chuck God in the trashcan. And take the control of your life into your hand before you ruin your life in any Northern church or via pastor’s deception.
What a sorry tale. It is even on the BBC how pastor Ortisejafor went on air announcing Christian’s readiness to fight back and protect their Christian cult people. I thought they have, and use to tell us about their all-powerful doer God who can do and undo. So, cant their God protect and save them anymore now – that, they want to turn outlaws? I use to ponder their over-flogged mantra of turning the other cheek when slapped. How time has changed in the negative in Nigeria since Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor became the CAN president. That man is not better than some Warri boma or jaguda. Who pay their house rents from touting and rolling gamble dice in house filled with marijuana smoke.
I have bad news for Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, his co-macho pastors and their Christian Association of Nigeria top dogs. Who’ve been spoiling for religious war between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. I don’t know how far Christians in Nigeria can go to duel a crusade war with Islamists. Nor do I know what bravado they’re made of. But let it be told. To pastor Oritsejafor and his Christian masculine gang who have been belching a storm of religious fracas that. Muslim terrorists and political freedom fighters of Islamist cult had told USA and Donald Rumsfeld that Muslims love to die while Christians love to live or if you like, fear to die.  You can take that truism or warning to Christian to the bank. The jolly happy and carefree way Muslim converts kill and die In order to forward their religious mindsets for Allah is my testimony. It was with high sprit that Middle Eastern Islamist terrorist told Christian America they’ll lose the terror fight due to their lust to live and enjoy their materialism.
I beg ordinary Christians not to hearken calls for religious war. The pastors should brace up for the battle themselves without suffering everyday Nigerians therefore. It is the common man who has been paying the price and bearing the brunt ever since.
Pastor can’t be going about with bodyguards and bulletproof cars and yearning for war between Muslims and Christians. Let pastors be on firing line in the warfront as a way of leading by good example. And this time around, none of the pastors should run away to strange country and hand over to his or her vice-pastor. Let bygones be bygones. Those who solicit religious warfare should tug it out spilling their own blood in the process. To hide in bulletproof car with enough bodyguards is deceivingly awkward for the records. As if they have no hope their God could be their saviours. According to Delta state street-smart wisecrack ‘who de cry, dey see road.’
However, it is grave madness of all times. That, some Nigerians are killing others for nothing sake for perverse religious sport. Just to satisfy the weird bloodlust of the two imported Gods to Nigeria and their sons Jesus and Muhammad. I pity Nigerians. Just see now. How the an-eye-for-an-eye philosophy of Mid-East as embedded in the two religions has come to ruin Nigeria to the ground. Jonathan shouldn’t only eat and promote cassava bread. He should henceforth start hugging and worshiping our local Gods and telling Nigerians to join him. Our local Gods and religions have never been so senselessly masculine and destructive as Muslim and Christian Gods are.
But behold! Your best bet and manifest destiny is to steer off from all Gods and religions. Whether local or imported, all Gods are nonexistent and impotent. The God-line and religious philosophy is mere Disneyland delusion. Man was not born religious. Religion started once upon a time in mans’ life around the Old Stone Age. During the Ice Ages there was no proof that man implemented with religion. During this time man had so many palavers to worry about. It was after man started to get organised and some comfortability that mankind started to toy with religion. Palaeontologists and archaeologists discovered that dead people were buried with swords, amulets during the Old Stone Age. Swords and knives are to be used to fight their ways and charms to escort the dead to hereafter.
Knife and charm to the side. If you reside in Nigeria, your salvation lies in buying bulletproof cars. And surrounding yourself with bodyguards as President Jonathan Goodluck does. Pastors Adeboye, Oyedepo, Ayo Oritsejafor might deceive converts of the superpower touch of God. But they’re not stupid enough not to employ bodyguards and buy bulletproof everything. The time has come when we all should stop distorting reality. Deceiving oneself that there is sky God. God doesn’t exist. And He has no practical empirical effect on human affairs. That is the simple reason why those Christian were murdered on Christmas Day unprotected. Take care of yourself this New Year by not attending the Church if you reside in the Northern part of Nigeria. Better still, stop going to church to enrich fraudulent Nigerian pastor as Adeboye, Oyedepo and Oritsejafor. They distort reality whilst you pay the price.
... to be continued


By Sunday Njokede
rig2015electionyoudie@rocketmail.com

SUPER-RICH "GODFELLAS"

He looks like a matinee idol, dresses like a CEO and speaks with the diction of an airport announcer. And in the estimation of his numerous followers, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome pareaches with power and is capable of providing deliverance from all human afflictions.
 Since hitting the limelight in the 1990s, the telegenic Oyakhilome, founder of Christ Embassy, a Pentecostal ministry headquartered in Lagos, has become the face of celebrity Christianity in Nigeria. Simply put, Oyakhilome is  glamour and gospel rolled into one. He moves around Lagos in a long convoy of posh automobiles, sirens blaring and shielded by a slew of securitymen.  He also has an intriguing persona. On his birthday, his followers place congratulatory adverts in major newspapers, but none of these has ever revealed his age!
  If there are doubts about Oyakhilome’s age, there are none about his crowd-pulling power. Among Nigerian Pentecostal pastors, only very few draw bigger crowds than the Edo State-born preacher.
His weekly services are said to draw an average of 30,000 faithful, more than some European soccer teams draw for their games. Many of his followers travel from far places, some of which already have satellite arms of the church, just to be in his presence. Oyakhilome’s open air crusades attract monstrous attendances. At every crusade, seats are booked in advance. The last of these took place at his newly acquired Miracles Ground–said to be about 3,000 hectares–on the Lagos/Ibadan expressway. Tagged Good Friday Miracle Night, the programme attracted an estimated 500,000 faithful. With the turnout, vehicular movement became chaotic, sentencing road users to a wait of between eight and 10 hours. Also because of the traffic gridlock, some Christ Embassy members spent the night trapped on the road.
But Oyakhilome did not have to endure the hardship. He was the star of the show and got a star treatment by being flown to the event in a helicopter. While other road users seethed and cursed, Oyakhilome’s followers were in rapture. To them, the pastor’s blessings were more than enough compensation for the hardship. Some even suggested that non-followers had been richly blessed–for spending almost half a day on a 30-minute journey!
But such is the spell-binding effect of the man fondly called Pastor Chris, an object of adulation rather than admiration. His name is mentioned with deference, a gesture extended to Anita, his mulatto wife and director of the church’s international operations. She also pastors the satellite arms in the United Kingdom. Oyakhilome’s appearance on the pulpit for crusades sparks hysteria, characterised by howling, shrieking and frenzied waving of arms. Though frequently hit by scandals and perennial public doubt of his claims to healing powers, Oyakhilome remains infallible to his followers, who explain the criticisms and scandals as persecution.
This is hardly surprising, given that they are drip-fed on his teachings. One important teaching of Oyakhilome, and of other Pentecostal preachers is “sowing the seed.” This requires followers to give part of their earnings to the church in offerings and tithes. The expected dividends on these are divine blessings. With a church full of young company executives and businessmen, every programme guarantees enormous revenue. Those without money, said a source, are enjoined to turn in their jewelry, wristwatches and other personal items as offering or tithes. As the source told this medium, followers fall over one another to do that, expecting God to turn on his tap of blessings. Others give cars, generators, musical equipment and chairs to the church. In March 2002, Lawrence Agada, an assistant pastor who was a cashier with the Lagos Sheraton Hotels and Towers, donated cash and gifts totaling N39 million to the church. Agada’s donations were in instalments. He bought a 250KVA generator valued at N4.4 million, and another 27KVA generator for N1.5 million, which he donated to a satellite branch of the church. Before then, he had given N6 million for the refurbishment of the branch, as well as N1 million for the purchase of plastic seats for the headquarters.
Agada also contributed N1million to the success of a mega-crusade tagged Night of Bliss. His parish pastor, who had no money for a trip to Australia, was given N400,000.
In appreciation, Oyakhilome wrote Agada: “May God, who gives seed to the sower and bread for eating, multiply your seeds in Jesus name.”
Rather than receive God’s blessings, Agada became a guest of the police when his employers discovered that he had stolen from them to give to the church. Agada’s employers also insisted that Oyakhilome should refund the money. But the church issued a statement admitting that Agada made donations, but refused to make a refund.
A year later, Gbenga Kehinde, another member, donated to the church in similar circumstances. Then an assistant manager with Eko International Bank, Kehinde stole about N40 million from his employers and donated N10 million to the church. That also became a messy affair.
But Oyakhilome has income streams other than offerings, tithes and donations. Though trained as an architect, he appears to have a sharp business sense which has enabled him to exploit his marketability. Like David Beckham, England’s soccer star, Oyakhilome’s name and face sell huge quantities of merchandise, which make him such a rich preacher of the gospel. These include books, video tapes of his crusades and miracles, audio tapes, CDs, VCDs and DVDs of his teachings, which are sold at the various parishes and through agents. They can also be bought on-line, via the digital media store on the church’s websites.
One of the church’s websites advertises audio and visual materials on various aspects of the Christian faith. In Nigeria, a video tape costs between N300 and N1,300. CDs are bought for between N300 and N1300, while DVDs attract between N600 and N3,600. There are also various books which cost between N200 and N450. All are written by Oyakhilome and Anita, his wife.
The most successful of these is Rhapsody of Realities, a bi-monthly devotional guide. The book, which is published in 25 languages and also has a children’s version, is considered a companion to the Bible. For Oyakhilome’s followers around the world, it is an important emblem of faith.  In Nigeria, it costs N350. Abroad, it is $5, while a one-year subscription attracts $43.20. For on-line purchases, video tapes, CDs, VCDs and DVDs cost between $18 and $20.
Oyakhilome’s messages are also received on pocket personal computers, mobile phones and palmtops.  While the steady streams of income have kept him in affluence, they have also provided the muscle for other businesses and more importantly the expansion of his church.
About two months ago, Oyakhilome bought over the ailing Minaj Television from Senator Mike Ajeigbo. Though details of the deal are undisclosed, the station’s staff, who have been unpaid for 18 months, are hoping that Oyakhilome will work his famed miracles on their lives.
The colourful preacher’s interest in television hardly came as a surprise. Until 2004, when the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) barred the airing of unverifiable faith healings on television, Oyakhilome was the biggest patron of Nigerian television stations. His Atmosphere For Miracles (ATM), ran seven days a week, on about 20 TV stations. Even with the NBC ban, Oyakhilome still retains his slots, replacing the ATM with Teaching Programme and LoveWorld. The ATM continues to run, twice a week, on Ghana’s Metro TV and throughout the week on LoveWorld Christian Network, a satellite channel owned by Oyakhilome. It also runs on TBN in South Africa.
 This, naturally, costs huge sums of money. But Oyakhilome’s business interests transcend television. These new business dreams, which when realised, will establish him as a genuine tycoon. Lined up are an airline, named Skypower, and Dickson’s, a fast food chain conceived to rival the behemoth Mr. Bigg’s, owned by United African Company (UAC). For the airline, the pastor is said to have begun acquiring planes for its operations. He is also said to have interest in music, with his debut CD due for release soon. The initiative to go into music, all things being equal, should yield even more income for the handsome preacher.
 Oyakhilome may dominate the airwaves, but he does not own the biggest church facility. That honour, allegedly, belongs to Bishop David Oyedepo, founder of Living Faith Ministries a.k.a. Winners’ Chapel. Situated in Otta, Ogun State, the six-sided church–named Shiloh or Faith Tabernacle–has a capacity of 50,000 worshippers and features a 5,000-strong choir. In Lagos, members are given free bus rides to the church.
The church auditorium, which took just one year to build, is touted as the world’s biggest church building. During construction, carried out by architects and engineers who are members of the church and who worked for free, a trailer was said to have made a smooth U-turn inside the hall without having to engage the reverse gear.
Famous as the Faith Tabernacle is, it is just one structure on a vast tract of land known as Canaanland.
Also situated in Canaanland is the Covenant University, of which Oyedepo is chancellor; a secondary and a primary school.
The primary school, named Kingdom Heritage, charges N10,000 as tuition fee–per term–for its kindergarten class and N7,000 for its upper classes. It has branches in 12 other Nigerian cities. The secondary school, named Faith Academy, charges N150,000 per session. The university charges different fees in its three different colleges. Students at the College of Human Development pay N228,000 per year; those at the College of Business and Social Sciences pay N238,000, while their counterparts at the College of Science and Technology pay N250,000.
Lecturers housed by the university also pay rents deductible from source. Assistant lecturers pay N100,000 annually on two-bedroom flats, while senior lecturers pay N240,000 for three-bedroom flats. Aside from the funds realisable from these sources, it is the duty of members in all branches of the church to contribute towards the development of the university.
Members of the church call themselves winners, an allusion to their perceived victory over poverty, demons and disease.  Oyedepo, affectionately called Papa, is an exponent of prosperity preaching. According to him, it was while on a trip to Tulsa in the United States, during the 1980s, that God said: “Make my people rich.”
Oyedepo’s followers believe that his teachings inspire them to see themselves as winners.
The Bishop can be rightly described as the winner of winners. Every Sunday, his followers congregate at the Faith Tabernacle for weekly services. As they stream into the vast auditorium, they are handed envelopes for offerings, tithes and other donations. They also get pieces of paper on which they are expected to write what they request from God. The routine is also repeated during Shiloh, a week-long annual camp meeting which draws members from Nigeria and abroad. Oyedepo has missionaries working in about 30 African countries.
His foreign outposts also send revenue to the headquarters, for which he has unfettered access. Two years ago, the leader of the church in Ghana, Bishop George Adjeman, was dismissed for his decision to stop the remittance of money to the headquarters.
A report in the Ghanaian Chronicle put the monthly revenue from parishes in Ghana at $60,000. Adjeman was replaced by Dzidefo Mensah, who once served as ‘Missionary Number One’ at the Winners’ Chapel in the  Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet, there are many other sources of money. One of these is publishing. According to Oyedepo, God gave him a publishing mandate in 1983 and told him: ‘‘Your books are supernatural arrows for the liberation of mankind, send them forth! My presence shall go with them and they shall subdue and devour the works of the wicked; multitudes will be saved, baptised in the Holy Ghost, healed and delivered from all oppressions of the devil. Emphasise the books and your publications, that is my task for you.’’ This task has been well accomplished. As part of his empire, Oyedepo established Dominion Publishing House and has written about 70 books covering various aspects of the Christian faith and teaching followers how to be successful in business. The books are bestsellers in their own right and have been translated into French. On the church’s website, the prices range between four and eight pounds each.
His wife, Faith, is also an author with a number of books on marriage to her credit. In 1998, Oyedepo established the Gilead Medical Centre at his headquarters in Lagos. Two years later, he opened its branch in Kaduna, where his ministry began. According to the church, the medical facility relies ‘‘on both divine intervention and medical expertise. With the firm belief in God as the healer, a number of otherwise incurable diseases have been miraculously cured.”
However, the church claims that the clinic provides treatment at heavily subsidised rates.  Oyedepo’s church also sells gift items on-line. Its website bears information on the use of these and how to buy. “Our gift certificates are the perfect gift solution–put an end to those tricky moments when you just can’t seem to find the right gift, or you need a gift in a hurry. Send as many as you want to let friends, family or customers and colleagues select the present they really want. We have something for everyone,” says the website.
With its long product chain, Oyedepo’s Winners’ Chapel is something close to a corporation.  And like a socially responsible corporation, it has made its presence felt in Nigeria and outside. In 1997, it provided food, clothing and other relief materials to indigenes of Koma Hills in Northern Nigeria, where natives had remained untouched by the winds of civilisation. In 1996, it gave relief materials to victims of the Liberian civil war.
 The Bishop himself lives like a mogul. He owns a garage of  state-of-the-art cars, had a private jet and has a list of powerful friends that includes President Olusegun Obasanjo, who frequently attends the church; former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, disgraced police boss, Tafa Adebayo Balogun and many captains of industry.
Oyedepo, however, is not the only preacher with friends in high places. Perhaps more than him is Reverend (Dr.) Enoch Adejare Adeboye, a former university teacher and General Overseer (G.O.) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
Adeboye’s style is more laid-back. He dresses simply, speaks softly, but arrests–almost effortlessly–the attention of the rich and the poor. Under Adeboye, fondly called Daddy G.O., the RCCG, which was founded in 1952 by the late Josiah Olufemi Akindayomi, has grown exponentially. In 1981, when Adeboye took over, the ministry had a few dozen parishes. It is  currently Nigeria’s most ambitious evangelical project, establishing, according to the church, three parishes daily. It has an estimated 200 parishes in the USA. It also has in about 90 nations across Africa and Europe.  It is easily the fastest growing church in the world. Every parish established within one year sends 10 per cent of its tithes and offerings to the headquarters. Those that have existed for between one and two years remit 15 per cent of such, while older ones remit 20 per cent.
Last July, the church announced its plans to build a 10,000-capacity sanctuary in Floyd, Texas, USA. The facility is to be built on 500 acres of land bought at a cost of $1million. The land will also have two lecture theatres, a dormitory, cottages, lake and a Christian-themed park.
Back home, the church’s might is unmissable. There is a parish within every five-minute drive, or in some cases less than that radius. But the church’s most famous landmark is the Redemption Camp, a monstrously vast acreage located on the Lagos/Ibadan expressway.
It hosts the monthly camp meeting called Holy Ghost Night which, according to the church, attracts crowds of between 800,000 and 1.2 million. Held on the first Friday of every month, the night-long programme offers worshippers an avenue to ask God for their desires; and the church, an opportunity to boost its finances. About 20,000 ushers with polythene bags move round the huge crowd, taking offerings and other monetary pledges.
 The camp also hosts the Holy Ghost Congress, the church’s biggest event of the year. The Congress, which holds every December, is a three-day affair which draws RCCG members from Nigeria and outside, as well as from other denominations. In 1998, it assumed a bigger dimension with the successful hosting of  “Lekki ‘98” at Lekki Beach, Lagos. The mega-event required mega-preparations which RCCG did not fail to provide. The church provided more than 200,000 benches; large screens for those seated far from the pulpit; numerous masts, each bearing 12,000 watts of bulbs. The church spent the sum of N36.7 million on lighting and providing generating sets at the venue of the event.
 It also provided toilets and two clinics for the infirm and pregnant women. It was massively supported by Nigerian Breweries plc among other donors. The church sold mementoes of the event, earning  good money as a result.
Since then, the event has grown bigger every year. It has also attracted the cream of the Nigerian society, as the President, governors, ministers, senators, traditional rulers like the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, business moguls and other prominent Nigerians, some of who, like Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos State, do not even belong to the Christian faith. This demonstrates Adeboye’s massive influence.
 The Redemption Camp is a town on its own. It has banks, residential quarters for staff and members wealthy enough to buy. It also has a good network of roads and other utilities. It is  the site of the Reedemer’s University of Nigeria (RUN) and a secondary school, Christ The Redeemer’s School Movement, both owned by the church. Already, the site is a source of friction between the RCCG and Oyakhilome’s Christ Embassy. The latter, which recently set up shop on the expressway, is said to be competing with RCCG for the hearts of the landowners who prefer RCCG which offers greater sums for land acquired.
Aside from its educational institutions, especially its many parishes which run money-spinning day care centres and nursery schools, the church also realises income from Haggai, a community bank  established in the 1990s. Yet, there is the Dove Media, a company established to oversee RCCG’s television, radio Internet and publishing ventures. Recently, the company announced its arrival on the lucrative Nigerian home video scene, producing films with scriptural themes, using famous secular actors. Many RCCG parishes also run clinics.
Though Adeboye writes books, he is not as prolific as Oyakhilome and Oyedepo. He also appears on television far less frequently than Oyakhilome. But there is no doubting his influence, built on his scandal-free image. He is known as an unofficial adviser of  President Obasanjo and was courted, with futility, by the late General Sani Abacha. Two years ago, a seven-day boat cruise organised by a company owned by Prince Lanre Tejuosho, the wealthy son of Oba Adedapo Tejuosho, the Osile of Oke Ona Egba, had Adeboye on board.
Aside from the royal presence of Oba Tejuosho, the boat which cruised through the Americas also had on board Mr. Felix Ohiwerei, Chairman, Nigerian Breweries plc; Mr. Babajide Rogers, then Managing Director, Gulf Bank; and Mr. Erastus Akingbola, Vice Chairman, Intercontinental Bank Group. Others were the late Chief Debo Akande, a legal luminary, and Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, wife of Lagos State Governor, Alhaji Bola Tinubu. Adeboye is also known to be close to the wealthy Ibru family. He is regularly seen in the company of Chief Michael Ibru, publisher of The Guardian and his wife, Cecilia, Managing Director, Oceanic Bank plc.
A church source told TheNEWS that through the contributions of members, the church funds its activities, particularly charities. Widows, the infirm and other economically disadvantaged people are assisted.
But many frown at the wealth in possession of some pastors. Olubunmi Cardinal Okogie, Archbishop of the Lagos Catholic Diocese reckons that the easiest way to make money in Nigeria is by using the Bible. “Why would a pastor give 90 per cent of his time to the body and give only 10 per cent to the soul? I wonder what kind of pastors these are. They have been skinning the flock, taking out of the milk of the flock. They give Greek gifts to their members. They will say I will give you a job without really meaning it. Of course, you must pay tithes, not only on your salary, but outside of it,” Okogie rapped.
He, however, admits that the trend has become noticeable in the non-Pentecostal churches. “As you are talking about Pentecostal churches, we Catholics are also worried. People are always talking about money. But money is not everything,” he reasoned. Last year, the Nigerian Pentecostal circuit was rocked by allegations of fraud over an unsuccessful crusade held by famous American evangelist, Benny Hinn. The American preacher committed $4 million into the project. The money was handled by a local organising committe headed by Bishop Lanre Obembe of the El-Shaddai Bible Church.
Despite the huge financial outlay, attendance at the crusade was measly. An enraged Hinn did not hide his disappointment. This led to the establishment of a committee to probe the development. The committee, made up of members of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), recommended the suspension of Obembe for financial impropriety. Obembe rejected the report, causing another panel to be raised. That also suspended him.
Aside from the unimpressive attendance at the crusade, Hinn also frowned at the decision of the organisers to put his photograph on the poster advertising the crusade. This is the norm in Nigeria, where preachers seem desperate to cultivate  box-office profiles and promote themselves rather than God. Rapu describes this trend as pastors presenting themselves as “surrogate fathers,” who see themselves as mediating between their congregation and God. “Pastors, please release the people to God. You are not the Holy Spirit. The superstar and celebrity mentality of the anointed must stop,” cautioned Rapu.
However, inviting big-name foreign preachers to Nigeria is a big item on the nation’s Pentecostal menu. The bigger the name of the foreign preacher, the more it  draws crowds and offerings.
Are followers fleeced? May be not. Pentecostal pastors believe they have a divine mandate to free their followers of all afflictions, including poverty. This freedom is contingent upon giving.  In an interview with Charisma, Oyedepo said: “Every time I see lack, it haunts me.” He also noted that poverty statistics in South Korea went down when a Christian revival swept through the country in the last century. In a chat with an on-line journal, Tony Rapu, a former RCCG pastor, said the church in Nigeria is in a mess. Rapu, who now pastors his own congregation known as This Present House, believes that too much emphasis is placed on materialism. He also condemned authoritarianism in the church and the fierce rivalry that inhibits meaningful cooperation between them.
But despite criticisms of their faith, every genuine Pentecostal Christian believes that he or she has a duty to “sow a seed” or give to God. The success of big-time pastors inspire the upcoming ones, some of who take to massive frauds. In 2003, an RCCG pastor who worked with a soft drink bottling company, was involved in a fraud amounting to almost N1 billion.  

– Additional reports by Ayorinde Oluokun, Sylvester Asoya and Paul Adeagbo. (Sahara Reporters)

NIGERIANS: THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE AND THE MOST STUPID

The festival of life (FOL) is London’s equivalent of Holy Ghost night - the monthly gathering of Christians in Nigeria, irrespective of denominations, at the redeemed Christian church camp to offer prayers and praises to God. Although the FOL is held twice a year at the Excel centre in East London, it is already turning into a ritual similar to the one at home. The turnout is always massive and the passion generated at the event is just typical of any gathering of devoted Nigerian Christians.
Politicians, clergymen from the Church of England, and other non-governmental organizations have started to associate very closely with this event. This somehow underscores the socio-political significance of the gathering. The former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, once used the occasion to campaign during an election period and was given a tacit endorsement by the Nigerian churches but still lost anyway. Yes, he lost, partly because the Nigerian population in London is hardly significant to guarantee him any success at the polls. Besides that, the British electorate are not as dumb as those in Nigeria. That statement is actually my own hypothesis.
    According to official statistics released in US, Nigerians are rated amongst the most highly educated foreigners. It is likely to be the same in the United Kingdom. But we are easily one of the most stupid also. We might be one of the most educated but the level of ignorance on display by even the educated lot is so amazing that I don’t think anything can salvage the country from her destined self-destruction. The horrible smell of our collective stupidity has reached high heavens and I think God can no longer stand the stench and that probably explains the type of leadership in every sphere of our lives. I know I have a lot of explanations to give for this generalization. 
    Wait! I don’t think I need to go far before getting evidence to back up my hypothesis on our collective stupidity. For example, if less than one million rogues are able to suppress the will and aspirations of over one hundred and forty-nine million people, what better explanation can one give for such a scenario? Well, I trust Nigerians they will give loads of reasons. But, I don’t really care about the reasons. I am only stating a fact.
    For a start, my intention is not to discuss why the few stupid rogues are able to overwhelm the huge majority and push them into a state of unbelievable docility. Other people can talk about that. I am more concerned about the stupid one hundred and forty–nine million who believed that it is God’s will for the majority to live in abject poverty in the midst of plenty.
    There was even a poll conducted not too long ago that gave justification to our stupidity, which gave further credence to my hypothesis. The poll claimed that we are the happiest people on earth. Jesus Christ! There is nothing more sinister than such ridicule. How could any group of people stay happy when they are in pitch darkness for twenty out of twenty-four hours in a day? Infant and maternal mortality rate is continuously one of the highest in the world. And of course life expectancy is about forty-five years for male. This means that if you are forty five, male and reading this article, you are one of the lucky few who are still alive because most of your mates who could not leave the country are already dead, and you are likely to be dead before the end of the week either through a ghastly motor accident on those death-traps called roads, or through ingestion of fake drugs or one equally stupid and mad police man would simply blow your brains out and nothing will happen. Anyway, never mind; just be happy, you are just another stupid Nigerian.
    As I mentioned briefly earlier, one of the most compelling evidence of our level of stupidity can be seen in our attitude to religion. It is always God’s will. If Ya’Ardua suddenly drops dead tomorrow, as he likely would eventually anyway, (renal failure is a terminal ailment, and only transplant and not his stupid faith in some miracle can save him) and a few morons decided that Good-luck Jonathan is not from the North and therefore cannot become the next president, it would simply be God’s will. We would all write articles and scream on the pages of newspaper about the unconstitutionality of the decision but nothing would happen. We are clowns in Nigeria and the whole world is laughing at us. We all know that clowns act stupidly to make children laugh. So you can see that my hypothesis will eventually take shape.
    Therefore, I daresay that religion will remain one of the greatest impediments to our greatness in Nigeria. Alternatively, if the influence of religion is effectively utilized it can actually be a useful tool for development. 
    Take a look at the North where Islam is the dominant religion. The wretched religious clerics in that part of the country can easily mobilize more than five million street urchins to wreck havoc on all Igbo traders because an unidentified person used a torn page from the Quran to wipe his bum after defecating. Has anyone ever wondered why it was always the Igbos? Meanwhile, they have never ever organised a peaceful rally to express their displeasure at the lack of development in the area.
    The North is probably only second to the Stone Age in terms of human capital development. Even those in that age used their brains to fabricate sophisticated tools for hunting purposes. And then the joke of the century is when Forbes magazine suddenly came up with the story that the only billionaire from Nigeria is actually from that part of the country. Well, he is not the government so what is he supposed to do? I beg to differ. This guy has one of the most potent clouts in any government in Nigeria. He can advocate and strive to see that something is done. Bill Gates has used billions of dollars of his money to fight malaria. There is no malaria in America but it kills millions of children in Africa every year.
    Christianity is the fastest growing industry in the southern part of the country. The pastors are growing fat while the congregation are burdened by the harsh economic conditions. All the rogues in government are elders in one church or the other. The churches are like second homes to looters of the treasury. They are chairmen or chairpersons of one church building committee or the other. The pastors are always saying special prayers for them and have no scruples about taking their stolen money.
    The churches now buy private jets for their chief executive officers (oh sorry, pastor) and are shameless enough to claim that it is for evangelism. Meanwhile, half the congregation of those churches live on less than $1,000 in a year while most of the youth are jobless. Yes, the pastors are not the ones to provide jobs; but how many times have they criticised the government for not creating those jobs? How many times have they told them that they cannot continue to loot the treasuries and then come around to the house of God to make some bogus claims of God’s blessings in their lives?
    During the last American election, religious leaders were very vocal in their criticism of one government policy or the other. They do not keep quiet and say it is God’s will. Barack Obama’s pastor, Reverend Wright, was so vocal about his criticism of America’s racial divide that he became a big threat to his election prospect. That is the job of a pastor- saying the truth as it is, and not only collecting tithes and junketing about in private jets in the name of evangelism.
    Pastor Tunde Bakare is the only pastor that I respect in Nigeria. He told Obasanjo to his face that he is evil. That is a real man of God. I worship with RCCG but not impressed that all manner of past and present rogue governors and ministers tend to associate with the overseer. They are always present at the Holy Ghost nights. They have probably repented and God has forgiven them and they are free to enjoy the loot till they die. A thief is a thief. I don’t care if God has forgiven them. What manner of forgiveness is that anyway? How about the thousands that died on the roads that he refused to tar? How about the thousands of kids that died because there was no free Medicare?
    The Yorubas of South-West are the most pathetic. They are quick to boast of their education and sophistication. Meanwhile, Adedibu and Obasanjo were the best they could come up with as national leaders. The former was the head of street urchins while the latter has a reputation for sleeping with his children’s wives.
    I am actually fed up discussing and writing articles about our thieving leaders. They will never change anyway, at least not through our lengthy articles or criticism. If you believed that Ya’Ardua and his PDP cohorts will not rig 2011 election, then you are even more stupid than an average Nigerian. Your own stupidity is extra-terrestrial. If you believed that the electoral reform would lead anywhere, I despise your sense of reasoning. If anyone believes that Nigeria will wobble and fumble (a la Fanny Amun!) into greatness, then I leave you alone to perish as a nonentity who only came to this world to look at Eko Bridge. (Or London bridge)
    The Igbos and the Ijaws are probably the ones that have been most rebellious, the least religious and hence the least stupid. Maybe that is where the hopes of Nigeria lie. They would never accept that something is the will of God simply because somebody said so. They are difficult to subjugate and that is one of the reasons there was a civil war in the first place. Ojukwu remains a true hero. Why would some group of murderers continue to kill your people over some flimsy excuses? If I was an Igbo, I would be a low-life not to fight under those circumstances. He fought for what he believed in and the Igbo people followed him because they are not stupid like my people, the Yorubas. Although they lost the war and millions of lives were lost, but I know that they live to fight another day as long as some people continue to deter the progress of others.
    The Ijaws have taken over the struggle and though there have been some criminality in the struggle, that is not unexpected, but by and large they have shown that people’s destiny is in their own hands and God’s will has nothing to do with it. 
    Yar’Adua and the looters of the treasury, both at the federal and state level, have started to panic as MEND cripples the oil industry. MEND, a ragtag bunch of militias have exposed the weakness of the Nigerian government. They quickly and with lightening speed offered them amnesty. They knew if there is no more oil, there wouldn’t be any Nigeria. They planned to kill twenty million Ijaws to satisfy the lust and cravings of those vampires in Abuja.
    Nigeria cannot continue to be the butt of jokes in the world. We cannot continue to believe that everything is the will of God. It is not God’s will to lack the basic things of life, and certainly not his will that our children should still be dying from malaria because there are no good hospitals. Untimely death from accident on death traps called road is not the will of God. All these things are the creations of the rogues amongst us and we have aided and abetted their actions because we have kept silent and didn’t act. Our lack of action is construed as acceptability; we are therefore very stupid collectively.

PALESTINE STATE AND THE CURSE OF ABRAHAM'S LOVE TRIANGLE

As the United Nations General Assembly meets in New York, the issue of the Palestinian statehood is dominating discussion at the world body. Here is how it all started.
Following the failure of God’s Plan A – Adam and Eve, and Plan B, Noah, God chose Abraham, a descendant of Noah’s son, Shem, for Plan C. God must have known that He chose trouble. Abraham’s trouble became synonymous with God’s trouble. Then. And now.

Typically people in the Bible do not behave like real human beings. But Abraham, Sarah and Hagar did. Together they created the first love triangle with far reaching implications that continued till this day.

Abraham was married to Sarah, who was barren, when God made a covenant with him. God’s covenant was that he would build a great nation from Abraham. The problem was that Abraham did not have any child. Sarah approached Abraham and offered him her Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, and asked him to sleep with her so that he could have a baby. Abraham slept with Hagar and she had a baby named Ishmael.

Ishmael was 14 years old when Sarah had a baby named Isaac. Sarah became jealous of Hagar. She ordered Abraham to send her and Ishmael away so that they could not share in Abraham’s inheritance. Abraham was distressed by what Sarah said. He asked God for advice. God told Abraham to do what his wife said, informing him that Isaac would be the seed on which his nation would be built but also reassuring him that Ishmael would lead a nation too because he was also from Abraham.

Abraham gave Hagar and Ishmael water and bread and sent them away. As Abraham watched Hagar and Ishmael walk away, he knew they faced death in the wilderness as soon as they ran out of water and food.

This became a critical point in the Biblical world. Hagar wept. Sarah ranted. And Abraham grieved.

But Hagar and Ishmael did not die. When their water and food were finished, Ishmael called on God who sent His angel to them. The angel confirmed to Hagar that Ishmael would make a great nation. The angel made a well of water to appear. Hagar and Ishmael thrived. Hagar got Ishmael a wife from Egypt.

From Sarah and Isaac came Jacob, the father of Judaism. And from Ishmael came Muhammad, the father of Islam.

Of course, Jesus traced his lineage back to Abraham. Christians make claim to Abraham’s covenant with God.

And so the three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam emerged from one particular love triangle.

The fight between Sarah and Hagar continued. In the Jewish-Muslim divide is this fight. In the Christian-Arab divide is this fight too. To a large extend, the 9/11 terrorist attack is a continuation of this fight.

In “The Woman Who Named God,” Charlotte Gordon described Abraham as “more like an Updike character than an ancient as he stands at his tent, torn between duty and desire, his love for one woman and his responsibility to another, and tormented by faith in a God whose motivations he doesn’t always understand.” Beyond the myths, Abraham is seen as another man battling normal emotions. Others see him as one completely obedient to God.

In some historical viewpoint, Sarah is seen as a good wife who wanted her husband to be happy. She is also seen as a jealous wife who pushed away her husband’s child. Some Muslims have not forgiven her for that. Some Jews following Sarah’s thinking still insist that the children of Ishmael are not inheritor of God’s promises to Abraham.

Hagar is seen as a slave who was used and dumped. In other viewpoints, she is seen as a single woman who struggled to make it in spite of all odds. Some Muslims, children of Ishmael have not forgiven the treatment meted out to Hagar.

In this love triangle comes several questions. What is the true line of inheritance? What is a family? What kind of sexual encounter is right? Why did Abraham ask Sarah to lie to Pharaoh? Why did Sarah offer Hagar to Abraham? Why did Hagar mock Sarah?

Abraham loved two women. God asked him to choose one. What would have happened had Abraham ignored God and let Hagar live with him and raise their Ishmael together with Isaac?

Scholars believe that Abraham’s second wife, Keturah, is Hagar. She returned after the death of Sarah.

When Abraham died at the age of 175, Ishmael and Isaac travelled to Hebron to bury him. Reconciliation came at Abraham’s death. The same cannot be said of the three religions that came from him.

The real Abraham came out of a sophisticated Sumerian culture of over 4000 years ago that gave us writing, art and sailboat. He was an educated man from a successful family who was seeking greatness. He traveled along the most advanced centers of the ancient world of his time and did what every Sumerian immigrant would have done.

It was over 1000 years after Abraham’s death that his story was recorded in the palace of King Solomon. Imagine recording your grandfather’s story some 1000 years from now. How much of what really happened can anyone capture?

Biblical scholars believe that the story of Abraham as recorded in Genesis emerged from 6th and 5th century literary ideas. It aimed at reassuring Israelites in exile that despite the destruction of Jerusalem, there is hope. Historically, the 2nd millennium history of Canaan has nothing in common with the stories in Genesis. What the story of Abraham did was to translate the concept of the Sumerian personal god into a creator-personal god of a people. The new god was non-human but yet humanized enough that he needed Abraham.

Whether we believe these characters actually existed or not, Abraham, Sarah and Hagar’s love triangle have continued to define how we see ourselves. Theirs was what Rev. John R. Coats called the first soap opera.

Like in all soap operas, the issue of the Palestinian State has a cast of colorful characters. Some are backstabbing. Some are backpedaling. Some are badmouthing. Some are plain bad. For our president, trapped in the paradox of Nigeria, he finds it hard to play his assigned role- to bleat while he is led to the slaughter.

The curse of Abraham’s love triangle is angular.

By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo (SR)

MARK OF THE BEAST

With the “Saving African’s witch children” programme aired by the UK channel 4 television, we don’t need to be told that the mark of the beast is on the prowl. I could not watch the film when it was being aired, but a friend recorded it and sent me a copy. I had to sit back and watched the programme with concentration. Now, of all the horror films I’d watched since I was born, there was none so nauseating, crude and bestial, as the Akwa Ibom witchcraft programme. I could not believe what I saw. Those are typical good examples of wickedness and cruelty personified. I just could not, and up till now, comprehend it.
Those children are in hell, real hell. How could adults visit their children with such torture, wickedness and cruelty? How can a woman carry a child for 9 months in her womb, give birth successfully with or without complications, only for the same woman to turn around and say the child was a witch just because a prophetess or prophet said so? I just cannot figure. Where were the local government chairman and the councillors? Where were the SSS, the police and other security agencies attached to those local governments? Above all, where was the press?
Where lies the social responsibility of the press? All of us are guilty of this crime! Yes! All of us are guilty. We have all focused our attention on Abuja to the detriment of other sections of the society. It is either we are busy talking or writing about the President’s health, OBJ’s idiocy, PDP tin gods, or we are castigating Hajia Farida of the EFCC while bestiality and butchery are daily going on in the local government areas, under-reported or unreported. Those adults who aided and perpetuated those acts are animals. Those ‘men and women of God’ combined animism and traditional beliefs then mixed it with Christianity and claimed they are practicing Christianity while in actual fact, they are extortionists, sorcerers, perverts and criminals. Those men and parents of those children should be identified, arrested and dealt with. Helen Ukpabio’s Church ought to have been sealed up for a start.
I cannot understand how an oil producing state cannot afford to provide free and compulsory education for its citizens from primary to secondary school level. Governor Akpabio cannot claim not to have the resources to do just that neither would he claim ignorance {even before the children came with placards to his office} about the plight of these stigmatised kids in his domain. The state govt, as a short term measure, should infiltrate communities and embark on massive enlightenment campaign to disabuse people’s minds and thoughts about such dangerous belief. A closer look at those communities showed clearly that those people are stack illiterates. There are no quality social infrastructure one can really point to that is helping to transform the lives of these people. It is a people living in squalor, misery and indigence. Fishing and subsistence farming are their source of livelihood. Their rivers are polluted with spill-over effects of years of flowing crude oil spillages. As a result, their fishes are either dead, dying or have moved up stream. Yet, they put the blame on witchcraft.
Their buildings and surroundings looked unkempt and bushy with a lot of breeding spots for mosquitoes. In fact those fake pastors have already passed judgement on themselves. They will die and rot in hell for eternity. But before then, they should be arrested and put away by the law. They have muddled up the teachings of Christ. The undue emphasis on the teachings of the old testament has become the undoing of most of these proliferating Pentecostal conglomerates. Christ made it abundantly clear that unless a man is as clean and as innocent as a child, he will not enter the Kingdom of God. When the disciples asked HIM in Matt 18, 1-5: “who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven? Jesus called a child, made him stand in front of them, and said, I assure you, that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the one who humbles himself and becomes like this child”. Could those Akwa Ibom prophets and prophetesses translate the power in that message in the present Nigerian corrupt context?
Again, in Luke18, verses 15 to 17, while the disciples were pushing the children away from Christ. HE slightly rebuked the disciples and said: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it”. HE then placed HIS hands on the children and blessed them. The people Christ wholeheartedly blessed are the people being abused, stigmatised and condemned in Akwa Ibom. Could Helen Ukpabio and those pastors interpret those statements by Christ to her gullible followers? Can they? Apart from the Biblical injunctions, let us now look at it critically from scientific perspective. In the sociology of family, infants are just tabulae rasae.
They are born with “no innate experiences”. Put differently, at birth, their minds and hearts are blank and empty. They know nothing. They only begin to be conscious of their surroundings by what they later begin to see and hear from adults. Their hearts gradually begin to take shape and to internalise whatever garbage purportedly passed on to them by “mental adults” through the process of socialization. Now, if a child begins to grow up in an environment, like we have in that programme, infested with fear and panic, witchcraft beliefs, magic, necromancy, sorcery, animism, and faith mammon, we can then imagine what such children will become! If Nigeria has no Ministry for children, I advised the government to create one as a matter of urgency.
All local council should create, without waiting for Abuja, a department for Children Affairs. Britain recently created one to help checkmate child abuse and to further protect children. In the clip, I saw an idiot and a shameless man with ‘gori-makpa’ head and ‘poundo-yam’ bare chest brandishing a machete daring to butcher her daughter. Can the man use the same zeal to confront either his councillor or local government chairman, daring them with the same ferocity, for non-performance? Why can’t he use the same anger to mobilise his people against political thieves in his community and state, or go alone to governor Akpabio’s office to commit hara-kiri ? Why should adults channel their displaced aggression on innocent children? One animist who calls himself ‘Bishop’ even confessed to having killed 110 children. The government should know that the souls of these innocent children, who are automatically in heaven, are crying out for justice on mother earth.
Whether you believe in God or not, is not the issue here, the fact is that those of us who believe know that God is watching, to see whether those people would be brought to justice. How can Nigeria move forward with so many souls and innocently spilt blood crying out loud from their graves for justice? The police ought to have arrested this man because the evidence is self-evident. This is where I often give kudos to the British police. You don’t mess around with British police. They would have arrested this crook, get more confessions from him and then the forensics would go into action to exhume the remains of all those 110 kids to establish, painstakingly, the methods used by this sorcerer to kill each and everyone of them. The SSS and the Police should leave journalists and newspaper houses alone and go after these vampires.
A lot of atrocities are going on, unreported in most of these local government communities because of the urban based nature of our mass media. Having said that I want to state that people should not loose faith in Christianity. Christianity is in the heart and not in the head. The moment one carries it into one’s head, one becomes not only a lunatic but a fanatic. Since the coming of Christ, emphasis is on the new testament and not the old. The teachings of the old testament has been negated by the teachings of Christ. That is why when you read the new testament what you read and assimilate is love, kindness, righteousness and altruism. You have to love God with all your heart, might and soul and love your neighbours as you love your self. Do not steal, honour your parents, pray always and help the needy. Christ has died for our sins on the cross.
By HIS death, she destroyed those forces of darkness, spirit mediums and elemental forces. Consequently, whoever believes in Him should not fear such forces because the spirit in you, as a true, honest and sincere practicing Christian is greater than those spirits. You are completely covered and shielded by His grace and His blood. No weapon fashion against you can harm you. Remain steadfast in truth and strive to be just and fair. Do not partake in evil practices because others are doing them. And, this is one area where most Christians are found wanting. That is why there is wide spread corruption, crass ineptitude and indolence in governance. The beauty in the new testament is that it is written in simple prose, it is a didactic and practicable message.
Of course, as a human being, you are not infallible. Temptations will always come your way but one enduring fact in your heart is your solid love for God, self, neighbour, and mankind. And God knows it. Now, if these people read their Ibibio or Calabar translated Bible, they should be able to discern these things. The New testament Bible precept is simple and that is why a true Christian can vouch for himself and fear no fear. As far as you speak and stand on the side of truth, the grace of God will be with you always. Salvation is not a collective thing, it is an individual obligation. God is not going to judge you as a Catholic, KICC, Christ Embassy, Winners Chapel, Redeem, Methodist or Anglican member. These are vessels through which true Christians could appeal to HIM. HE will judge you based on your sincere, honest, voluntary acts and positive contributions to humanity.
So, true Christians should not despair. They should stay firm in truth and be of good courage because the mark of the beast is on the prowl. Besides, it is unfortunate that in this era of globalization, some cultures in Nigeria, are still living out the medieval Great Britain and European past fantasy. During the medieval times, and between 1542 and 1684, Great Britain and Europe never spared witches. In fact they used to dump witches in boiling waters and overheated oils and left to scream, disfigured and to die with unbearable pain and agony; some others are forced to confess and burnt at the stakes; some are chopped off in bits and pieces until they give up the ghost while some others are either stoned to death or crucified and hanged in the most gruesome and unimaginable manner.
The Britain and Europe of today is seemingly repentant and ‘born again’, whose debased primitive past of crudity, wickedness, ignorance and backwardness, were bleached away by the advent of the renaissance. The renaissance was later negated by the era of Enlightenment, then came industrialization which fast forwarded the decline and final demise in witchcraft belief . Even “children as old as 6 years were made to testify against witches” in the Britain of old. In all, nowhere was it established, through scholarly research, how to really know who is a witch. The then British courts and numerous assizes sitting in dispositions of those cases could not even establish how to objectively identify who a witch was, but they still went ahead to hang those accused based on hearsay. The mark of the beast is therefore on the prowl. It is not 666 or 999, no, it is the criminal and sinful acts consciously committed by “mental adults” who, if they are resident in advanced countries, proceed to court, to claim the handyman bogey - “diminished responsibility or guilty but insane”. The mark of the beast is clearly depicted in that programme, where innocent children where randomly abused, traumatised, maimed, bruised, tortured and killed with effortless ease.
The mark of the beast is shown in Western paedophilia ( where “mental adults” make love to children as old as six months and strangle most of them} and practice sodomy. The mark of the beast is shown in Okija shrine where political “mental adults” consciously go, take oath of allegiance on the throne of Satan and put conscience on sale. The mark of the beast is depicted where educated and enlightened political office holders sequestrate and purloin public funds meant to develop and provide for local communities. Just some few weeks back, the BBC carried a news item where it was revealed that more than one million highly vulnerable elderly parents are living with the daily fear that they would die in such manner that nobody in the vicinity of their homes would know that they are already dead in their house.
Most of these old women and men are lonely and alone in their houses and are suffering from one form of debilitating ill health or another. A number of them have arthritis, dementia, rheumatism, waist and back pains. While some have had one form of delicate bone surgery, some others are seemingly bedridden. Now, the question is; does it mean most of these old parents do not have grand children? In the same UK, in middle of this year or there about, it was reported that an elderly woman died in her house. Neighbours for almost six months, never cared or got to know until a passer-by saw “anthills of the Savannah” casually strolling in and out of the house like landlords.
As expected the Samaritan saw these fat ants, sensed danger and called the police. They came with the ambulance services. The police broke the door down, went in, and discovered only the skeletal bones of a woman in a lying position, on a long chair. The body has decomposed and dried up. For six months, neighbours who lived close by did not care nor ventured to find out whether she is dead or alive. Now, we may ask the simple questions: what about her children and grandchildren, did they care to inquire or even visit their mum? That is Britain for you! Unlike Africa, there is a complete absent of community here in the UK. People just wake up and go about their business in whispering tunes. Britain is one of the most suspicious societies I have lived in.
And I hope, it would be the last. You could help somebody only for you to discover that your kind gesture has landed you a police invitation or trouble. Your fingerprint, toe print, mouth print, knee print, face print and all the other prints would be taking and put on a data base, especially if you are a Black. So the urge to help is there but sometimes the consequences of that could be interpreted correctly, misinterpreted and reinterpreted later, depending on circumstances. Such is the atmosphere, that people just work to live. According to the BBC report of Monday, the 17 of November, children’s charity organization, the Barnardo, recently commissioned YouGov polls to do a survey on people’s view on weird UK kids.
The result of the poll shows that “more than half of the population believe that UK children are “feral” and behave like animals”. The survey shows that these children are erratic, dangerous and uncontrollable. Now, if you live in London, please do take a casual stroll at night to most high streets. You see stubborn kids who have refused to listen to parental advice perambulating at midnight virtually looking for sin to commit before going to bed. Before you could say Peter to these kids, they have opened their wild mouth to make cockney sentences that you will simply loose count and walk away. The mark of the beast is on the prowl! And, these are the grand children of lonely grand mums. Grand mums that are left to live and die alone in a “me, me, me society”. Children in the UK hardly go and visit grand mums on weekends neither do they go there on holidays.
No, they prefer to go to Australia, Thailand, France or Spain or, preferably, join gangs, stab, knife and shoot one another in the streets of London. Who do you blame? The govt and law says parents cannot smack their children. They say, that there is convincing evidence based on research that if you spare the rod, the child will grow up well and disciplined. But the reverse has so far been the case. UK children have gone and are going wild. They have been left off the leash. The same govt is now turning round to put the blame for such weird behaviours at the door steps of parents. The mark of the beast is on the prowl! The British welfare capitalism has generated one of its own peculiar contradictions, which is, the ever increasing rate in crime, especially very, very vicious criminal acts of murder and wide spread anti-social behaviour tantrums. The mark of the beast is on the prowl!
The London METRO of 18th November 2008 screamed this headline: I butchered Family With 300 wounds. The paper continues: “A possessive father stabbed his two children to death, along with his ex-girlfriend and her brother, knifing them more than 300 times, a court heard yesterday…..Neil Crampton {the attacker}, admits killing his 12-year daughter Abigail, her brother Steven, five, their mother, Olufunke Sobo, 36, and her brother, Yemi Sobo, 41.…..Mr. Sobo was found first, in the hallway with 67 stab and slash wounds. His sister was also discovered downstairs, with 105 knife injuries. Abigail’s body lay under a duvet and had 105 knife wounds, many to the head and neck.
Her younger brother was on his bedroom floor with 25 injuries”. The attacker, who “denies murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility”, committed these outrageous crime in Newcastle. He attacked the family in a jealous rage and then dialled 999 to tell the operator: “I have murdered my entire family”. Wonders shall never end! The mark of the beast is on the prowl! This report is just one among numerous outrageous but very vicious killings going on in the UK, a developed economy where quality education, functional social welfare system, excellent health programme, clean potable water, food, low unemployment, good social Housing, industrialization etc., and, where virtually all hallmarks of development have taken firm roots. The crucial question is: what is going on in the world? What do homo sapiens want? Perhaps the “bang theory” will provide the answer! But for now, that Biblical mark of the beast is on the prowl! Yes, it is on the prowl! I rest my case!

BY SR

ADAM AND EVE MY FOOT

On original sin: This is one of the most important concepts in Christianity.  We are told that mankind  inherited a sinful nature brought about by the acts of Adam and Eve.  To support this position we have: Rom.5: 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.  Rom.5: 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners…. 1 Cor.15: 22 For as in Adam all die…. In other words, we are all doomed because Adam ate some rotten apple.
Contradictions: Deut. 24: 16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers.  2 Chron.25: 54 Every man shall be put to death for his own sin.  (Also 2 Kings 14: 6).  Ezek.18: 20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die.  The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.  Ezek.33: 20 O ye house of Israel, I will judge you every one after his ways.  Jer. 31: 29-30 In those days they shall say no more.  The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.  But every one shall die for his own iniquity:  every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.  Rom. 2: 6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds.  Ezek.18: 4 ….the soul that sinneth, it shall die.  Rom.3: 23  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. 

1 Kgs.8: 46 For there is no man that sinneth not…..   (2 Chr.6: 36)   Pro. 20:9 Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?  Eccl. 7: 23  For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.  Mark 10:18  And Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good?  There is none good but one, that is God.  Rom. 3:10  As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There is no righteous man ever, we are all sinners. (Also 1 John 1:8 and 10; Rom. 3:12, 5:12; Gal.3: 22).
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Contradictions: Gen. 6: 9 Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.  Job 1: 1  There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.  Job 1: 8 My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? (Job 2: 3).  Gen.7: 1  And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.  Luke 1: 5 - 6  In the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abia: and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.  And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

When my book, God is Black, first came out in 1993, there were protests from around the religious world over the audacity and affront by an African writer for that matter.  God is White was acceptable but Black, isn’t that shit or worse?   Who was the Black turkey challenging the world of White ideas?  But the ‘God is Black’ book was not about God.  The few paragraphs about God in the book played on a twist in language.  All scientists and historians (Black and White), agree that human ancestors originated in Africa.  The Christian Bible says God created man in his image and likeness and if human origin is Black, the Old Man must be Black too.  When this logic was used on a Canadian radio programme in 1993, Whites phoned in to say QED.  It was a three-hour phone in programme in Toronto.  Listeners were asked to phone in to re-act to the title of the book: God is Black, written by Naiwu Osahon.  They had not read the book.  Most Blacks that phoned in, abused Naiwu, the radio guest, rather than offer any counter argument.  This demonstrates the level to which most Blacks have been messed up in the head by foreign religions and ideas. 

The Catholic Church in Toronto, however, put on a two hours programme to disparage the radio guest after the phone in programme.  The Church thought that the radio guest was a student in Canada, taking advantage of their country’s scholarship scheme to study there.  They could not match the radio guest, logic for logic, so they said he was an aberration to be avoided like a plague by other Africans.  A few years back, the radio guest would have been declared a heretic and roasted at the stake or may be they still do it quietly in Rome these days?

The Christian Church cloaks their lies and abuses in religious garbage and other hegemonistic instruments.  To prove that ‘God is Black’ book is irrelevant about human origins, some Jews, in an unholy alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and some blockhead French ‘Scholars,’ led by a certain Dr. Gustave Courbet, produced a monumental fabrication almost rivaling the Bible in bovine crassness.  The story was first published in the Sun newspaper of London and culled by many Christian oriented African newspapers in April 1993, less than two months after God is Black book was launched.  Of course, the visionless article was targeted at the gullible world, and particularly the unquestioning Africans, who take everything the Bible says as the gospel truth. No serious media house outside Africa published the lie, as far as one could tell at the time, but the highest circulating newspaper in Nigeria at the time, the Daily Times of May 1, 1993, used it under the headline: Adam and Eve’s tomb found. Excepts:

“Experts in the field of science and religion are agog over the astonishing find of the skeletal remains of Adam and Eve lying side by side in a shallow tomb-like cave in Israel…archaeologists uncovered the well-preserved bones while digging near Jerusalem…the couple were laid to rest some 300,000 years ago…Identification was made from detailed scrolls found alongside the skeletons.  In addition to naming the tomb occupants as Adam and Eve, the scrolls described their lives as farmers and gatherers in the lush Garden of Eden…. 

“The male skeleton is missing a rib, while the female includes an extra one…..it appears Adam and Eve died in their early 40s  …..no obvious cause of death…..They must have been placed in the cave by their offspring, who then put together their written history and sealed it up with the deceased.  Adam and Eve learned how to tend the bountiful bushes and trees that provided them with more fruits and vegetables than they could possibly eat.   The scrolls indicate Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden by drought.  It is unclear whether the fateful drought was brought about by God because the couple disobeyed his orders.  But it did doom paradise on Earth and force Adam and Eve and their children to struggle to survive in their cruel New World…..”

The following was Naiwu Osahon’s response at the time and it was published in some newspapers and in his book entitled: THE CRADLE: the ultimate cosmology, now turning the world of ideas on its head to enthrone truth: It is not difficult to imagine the fortunes Israel has been making from gullible Christian tourists, particularly from Africa, since the announcement about Adam and Eve’s find..  Since the Vatican has not denied their alleged involvement in the disgraceful hoax, it deserves response from serious minded people.  Obviously some Jewish dupes, after burying some scrolls and skeletons in a shallow (not even a deep) grave for a while, invited their equally demented European friends to come to Jerusalem to dig for archaeology. The diggers did not need to work too hard before unearthing their hare-brained booty of scrolls and skeletons, which they promptly sold to their Pope and their already carefully nurtured naïve world, as dating back 300,000 years.

Adam lost a rib to the bargain and Eve had an extra one they said, not bothering to explain how modern Eves lost the extra ribs gained from the men.  The Bible says Adam and Eve had two children, Cain and Abel, and the maudlin team of European grave diggers (for instant fame and fortune regardless how), implied that Adam and Eve had a University where Adam was the Vice Chancellor, Eve the professor, and the two children the only students, since no other human was on earth at the time of White Adam and Eve.  The family manufactured scroll materials in their factory obviously, and the children learnt to write on the scrolls to preserve the history of their parents.  I wonder what ancient European language was used to write the scrolls 300,000 years ago, English, German or Italian, none of which existed at the time? 

Then Cain killed Abel and drifted out of the Garden of Eden’s vicinity in search of a wife that the Bible at first claimed did not exist.  He did not have a car because for some strange reasons, he had not produced one at the time, but he did not have to walk for long either, because just down the road paved in gold, as if by magic, materialized his wife from another clan.  Yes, another clan, according to the Bible’s warped logic, because Adam, who died at the age of 40 or so, (the Bible says he lived for 940 years, which obviously must have been as a brainless Chimpanzee, since it happened 300,000 years ago, 200,000 years before Homo sapiens man emerged on earth), had obviously treacherously produced other clans when he was a teenager before he, at the ripe old age of 15 years, married Eve. 

Eve was actually a few minutes old when Adam married her, and by the age of twelve months, she had given birth to Cain.  There was no other human life before Adam and definitely no female before Eve manifested from Adam’s ribs, but Adam still managed to leave clans all over the place mating with gorillas and chimpanzees, no doubt.  The Bible’s fathers did not want Cain to follow in his father’s footsteps of mating with monkeys.  Cain could not be trusted also to produce the human race by himself or through masturbation so they conjured up a phantom wife. 

We do not know who this hapless woman was, how many children she had for her husband and what happened to her and the children.  What is clear is that Cain could not be bothered to educate his own off-springs, thereby allowing his parent’s university to lie dormant for nearly 300,000 years, when a form of writing was first introduced 40,000 years ago, and formal education invented in the Nile Valley, some seven thousand years ago by Africans.

Of course, we should ignore Gustave Courbet and his religious collaborators, after all, the Pope just recently signed a protocol of understanding to exchange Ambassadors with Israel and sweep under the carpet, after two thousand years of mutual hostility, the Vatican’s lie that the Jews killed Jesus Christ.  But that is how we ignored for two thousand years, their insane distortions of the history of humankind.  The Bible assumes that humans are fools, (we are not the sons of God like Jesus is anyway), so Gustave Courbet was only capitalizing on this to add a modern testament to the Bible for his ethnic group.

It is like the story of the supposed blood stained shroud of Jesus Christ, which the Vatican kept under lock and key for years until public pressure forced the Pope to allow sane experts examine the shroud in modern times.  The shroud was found to be a fake.  It did not belong to the period claimed for it by the Vatican.  In fact, like the new Adam and Eve scrolls, it was less than 300,000 minutes old.

In response to the above statement and other profound revelations in the book: The Cradle, the ultimate cosmology, written by Naiwu Osahon, and mentioned earlier in this book, the Vatican mounted an exhibition of the Shroud of Turin at the Cathedral of Turin for two months from April 18, 1998.  The fakeness of the Shroud of Turin is palpable from its distortions of the Africanness of Horus (the original African Son of God myth), who was given European nose, hair, and other strange features, and called Jesus. Historically, Horus or Heru was the mythical African Jesus in the early Church. 

Auset was the Virgin mother and Horus, the Virgin son, until the Nicaea Council removed the African leadership image of the early Christian religion in 325 CE. Even then, Horus continued to be depicted symbolically as the only son of God until 500 years ago. It was the European artist, Michelangelo, who used family and friends as models to paint his image of Jesus in the Gisen Temple in 1509 CE.  He was commissioned to do the painting by Pope Julius II, and he became famous with his blue-eyed, blonde man, flowing hair and bearded image of Jesus. The image was replicated by European Christian organizations all over the world.  The box office musical hit, Jesus Christ Superstar, continued the Europeanization of Christian images by featuring not only a White Jesus but tendentiously a Black Judas Iscariot, the supposed betrayer of Jesus. 

Until the 15th century CE, the Madonna and child were also depicted as Africans or symbolically, as can still be observed in the mosaics in the baptistery of Florence.  Earliest set of paintings and carvings still dotting several European and Latin American Cathedrals, portrayed Madonna and her child as Auset and Heru.  The Grande Heures de Rohan, painted about 1415 CE, depicted for the first time, White Mary, White Joseph, and White baby Jesus, fleeing home to (Black) Egypt, thus opening the flood gate to the depiction of Madonna and child as White.  Van Eyck, in 1435 CE, consolidated this with his painting of the White Madonna of the Chancellor Rolin, now in the Louvre in Paris.  In 1450 CE, Fouquet (c.1416–1480) in France, painted the king’s current mistress, Agnes Sorel as Mary, with one breast exposed.  The image that now dominates Christendom was painted in 1465 CE by Filippo Lippi.  He used his mistress as model to depict Mary as a beautiful White girl holding a White baby in her arm.


NAIWU OSAHON Hon. Khu Mkuu (Leader) World Pan-African Movement); Ameer Spiritual (Spiritual Prince) of the African race; MSc. (Salford); Dip.M.S; G.I.P.M; Dip.I.A (Liv.); D. Inst. M; G. Inst. M; G.I.W.M; A.M.N.I.M. Poet, Author of the magnum opus: ‘The end of knowledge’.  One of the world’s leading authors of children’s books; Awarded; key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Honourary Councilmanship, Memphis City Council; Honourary Citizenship, County of Shelby; Honourary Commissionership, County of Shelby, Tennessee; and a silver shield trophy by Morehouse College, USA, for activities to unite and uplift the  African race.

 Naiwu Osahon renowned author, philosopher of science, mystique, leader of the world Pan-African Movement.

HEAVEN MIGHT BE BORING

I know many will say "there he goes again" a position which is quite understandable considering my notoriety at controversies. Lol. But let us all cast our minds away from stereotypes, embossed concepts and doubt-it-and-perish religious beliefs. Let's think like the rational beings God made us to be and you just might agree with me when I say that except God has some heavenly itinerary hidden from us, heaven might be boring.

In many religions, heaven is a realm, physical or transcendental in which people who have died continue to exist in an afterlife for a period spanning eternity. Heaven is often described as the holiest place and the pinnacle of architectural edification that is accessible by people according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith or other virtues. Apart from acceptance or rejection of blood transfusion, appropriateness or otherwise of tithing in the Twenty-First Century Testament, Sunday as Sabbath, Isaac or Ishmael… heaven is a strong issue of debate among religious leaders and theology scholars, theists and atheists.
In Biblical forms of Christianity, concepts about the future "Kingdom of Heaven" are professed in several scriptural prophecies of the new (or renewed) Earth said to follow the resurrection of the dead — particularly the books of Isaiah and Revelation. Not only will the believers spend eternity with God, they will also spend it with each other. John's vision recorded in Revelation describes a New Jerusalem which comes from Heaven to the New Earth, which is generally seen to be a symbolic reference to the people of God living in community with one another; in a number of sects this is taken as more literal than symbolic. Heaven will be the place where life will be lived to the full, in the way that the designer planned, each believer "loving the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind" and "loving their neighbour as themselves" (Matthew 22:37-40) — a place of great joy, without the negative aspects of present earthly life.
In Hindu cosmology, above the earthly plane are six heavenly planes: Bhuva Loka, Swarga Loka, meaning Good Kingdom, is the general name for heaven in Hinduism, a heavenly paradise of pleasure, where most of the Hindu gods (Deva) reside along with the king of gods, Indra, and beatified mortals.The remaining planes are Mahar Loka,Jana Loka, Tapa Loka and Satya Loka.
The Qur'an contains many references to an afterlife in Eden for those who do good deeds. Regarding the concept of heaven (Jannah) in the Qu'ran, verse 35 of Surah Al-Ra’d says, "The parable of the Garden which the righteous are promised! Beneath it flow rivers. Perpetual is the fruits thereof and the shade therein. Such is the End of the Righteous; and the end of the unbelievers is the Fire."[Qur'an 13:35] Islam rejects the concept of original sin, and Muslims believe that all human beings are born pure. Children automatically go to heaven when they die, regardless of the religion of their parents. The highest level of heaven is Firdaus (فردوس)- Paradise (پردیس), to which the prophets, martyrs and other pious people will go at the time of their death.
Heaven is described primarily in physical terms as a place where every wish is immediately fulfilled when asked. Most religious texts describe immortal life in heaven as happy, without negative emotions. Those who dwell in heaven are said to wear costly apparel, partake in exquisite banquets, and recline on couches inlaid with gold and other miners’ delights. Inhabitants will rejoice in the company of their parents, wives, and children.
In Islam, if one's good deeds weigh out one's sins then one may gain entrance to heaven. Conversely, if one's sins outweigh their good deeds they are sent to hell. The more good deeds one has performed the higher the level of heaven one is directed to. It has been said that the lowest level of heaven is one-hundred times better than the greatest life on earth. The highest level is the seventh heaven, in which God can be seen and where anything is possible. Palaces are built by angels for the occupants using solid gold.
In Christianity, you can be doing good all your life – you can even have your name written in the Book of Life – but a silly mistake can send you from heaven straight to hell. Even within various
Christian denominations, there are numerous variations to the heavenly story.
Considering the wide array of religious heavenly perspectives on celestial dimensions, attempting to find a midpoint description of heaven will be impossible. But it is quite safe to say that in every religion that believes in heaven, heaven is a great vacation destination after death.
But have you ever considered whether you would love to be in heaven after death if there is no eternal damnation in a lake of fire that is burning with sulfur - otherwise known as hell? I can vividly recollect an encounter I had with a self-professed end-time minister of the Gospel. The message he preached was more of a threat and issuance of ultimatums; not the glad tidings Jesus promised in the Bible. Threat of hell is what most preachers preach today in Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the world. But with the current trend of science, scientists might soon discover the antidotes to the attending woes of being in hell. Because without the heat, pain and gnashing of teeth, hell isn't that bad a place to be.
Imagine living life to the fullest on this planet – riding the fast Bugatti limited edition luxury cars, dating Victoria Secret models; owning Bishop Oyedepo’s Gulfstream private jet, Dangote’s business empire, Otedola’s yacht; and having breakfast on the Great Walls of China, lunch at the Coliseum in Rome and dinner with the Obamas – simply the best way to live. Now consider dying and finding yourself in Christians’ heaven where the only thing you do all day for eternity is to bow down, shout hallelujah and praise the Holy One that is seated on the throne. No first class flights. No exotic vacation. No fashion shows. And for the ladies, there will be no shopping sprees, Mary Kay range of products and African Magic.
Lack of privacy is another issue that can make heaven hell for many especially the few nouveau riches who might make it to heaven via the Biblical needle’s eye experience. According to the Bible (John 14:2), Jesus says “In my Father’s house are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you.” This popular verse contains a straightforward yet unpopular insight into what the accommodation arrangement in heaven will be. According to Jesus, we’ll all be in a house! Hence there will be neighbors which becomes an issue if the persons staying next doors worshipped at MFM. Imagine trying to catch a nap before the early morning praise and worship session only to be awakened by someone shouting “fall down and die at high decibels.” You’d feel like banging on the persons’ mansions.
You might say Paul is crazy and has gone AWOL. I think so too. But our God works and speaks in mysterious ways. I’ve come to realize that the evangelism approach of most early morning Gospel criers is very wrong. Threatening all with hell rarely make them born again but hardened. Even in the Bible, Quran and other holy Books, believers are not coerced into pursuing heaven because of the fear of hell but as a resting place – a rendezvous for those who lived and acted well on earth. According to Pastor Olubi Johnson, getting to heaven should not be difficult for people living uprightly. I believe it’s better to go to heaven because you lived uprightly according to your faith, and not belong to a faith because you want to go to heaven because if you pursue the latter, sooner or later you’ll be bored of waiting for transfiguration, end-time, the end, and the trumpet sound.
Every now and then, we hear one desperate folk after another try to coerce Jesus into coming back by predicting – or let me say forecasting – the date the world will end, yet we are here. These failed predictions often make atheists laugh hysterically at the travails of believers who daily look up to the skies expecting the clouds to part and for the Son of Man to come down to take them home. If I am Jesus, I won’t come now since many are obsessed with heaven to the extent that they are dead though alive.
I have a friend who joked that even if it entails bribing angel Gabriel, he’ll be in heaven and no one should threaten him with hell. I’m beginning to lean towards his school of thought.
I’ve concluded that there will be two sets of people in heaven – those religious folks who ostracized themselves and only pursued heaven, and we that daily live to be better persons, making positive impacts on people around us and though expecting heaven, we’re not obsessed with it. To us, heaven will not be boring because we are the ones that will rock heaven since we rocked here on earth. And if there is a list, our name must be under the VIP category.

 
adepojupaul@gmail.com
-This article is dedicated to the Late superstar Sam Loco Efe. Wherever you are, I hope you are rocking the place. Rest In Peace.