How to Hammer in 2022: I Will to join SARS!!! - Ik Muo, PhD.

Yea; your eyes are not deceiving you! You read it right! I have surveyed the environment since December 2021 on the things I need to do so as to have life and have it in abundance. I am fully employed but we have always been advised to go for multiple streams of income, especially those sources that are passive; where you don’t have to be fully involved or which will not disturb your normal employment. So, after examining the feasibility and viability of various business ideas, SARS is it! However, I am still in the  seasonal mood( Christmas/Newyear) and I will start my search from two key players in the  season that is  almost eclipsing and these are pastors( not priests) and masquarades. Pastors  were and are fully involved because it was a spiritual season, though, with an overdose of socio-economic dynamics. The masquarades are also involved because it is spiritual( after all, they are spirits) and because it involves entertainment.

 It the days gone bye, there were only priests and reverends. That was the time when a note from a Priest  could open all doors. It was adequate as a guarantee, introduction, refereeing and whatever that needed a third-party validation.  Unfortunately, it is all over. I have observed the loud ostantatiousness and showmanship of some of these pastors and thought that in 2022, I would take an online crash programme or arrange with one hungary pastor to certify me so that I will hit the ground running  by converting my garage into a church( Spiritual & Bible Believing Church  Worldwide). I have already learnt all their ‘anwansi’( including diving as if in a combat with an evil spirit, fake phoenetics, arranged magical miracles, power-dressing etc) but whan I noticed what some of them did this season, I had a change of mind, moreso, as I did not want to live a double life(one as a pastor-in public and one as an ordinary person-in private).

It all started with  Liquid Metal Odumeje, who displayed a pile of cash., which he intended to share  to the needy during the season. I was about to take him up when Fr Mbaka announced that he spent N1.25bn borrowed funds on charity in 2021.  Before then, one Prophet Jeremiah had given Clems Ohameze, a medical support of N8m, CASH (in this cashless economy) and in full glare of the global community. But the Master had directed that in terms of giving, the left hand must not know what the right hand is doing (Matthew, 6.3). I saw another Pastor who was using a matchet to fight with devil on the last night of 2021, while Pastor James Mugo of Wings of Blessings Africa Church, Kenya, got more than he bargained for when he charged his parishioners 4200 Ksh( about N16000) to unluck 2022 blessings or else they would remain cursed! They gave it to him in kind  ( raw pugilism) and he ended up at the accident( sure; it was an accident) and emergency ward of the nearby hospital. In his greed, he forgot another injunction in the BOOK: freely have you received; freely shall you give(Matthew, 8:10). Then I saw a spiritual price-list with items like personal, local and foreign demons.  As expected, the foreign demon was priced in Dollars!  One of them was running a healing chamber where he was offering ‘spiritual attack’ as one of the products. GO/Prophetess Patience Akpabio ( City of Praise Worldwide Prophetic Ministries ) then declared that sex without loud moanings produced silent, inactive children who could not speak up for their rights in the face of tyrany. Consequently, she she advised women to make joyful noise when on duty so as to produce freedom fighters.

This was happening as Pastor Udofia married his 18year old chorister as a second wife while another, under anointing from above told his people that anybody who ate foofoo  beans and coconut was headed to hell. I join one Solomon Ogor in worrying why Pastors always hold fasting, vigil and other extended programs for  barren women and fruits of the womb but  nothing on low sperm-count and premature ejaculation. It is also worrisome that some people worship the MOGs( men of God), instead of the God of men. I have had enough and I decided to throw my searchlight on the masquerades

Masquerades are ancestral beings who live yonder and usually emerge from ant holes whenever the need arises. They speak in tongues and only the initiated can discern and interpret the tongues.  In the days gone-bye, masquerades belonged to the community and the initiation, during which members were given the ability to decode the language and discern the things of the spirit, was also a communal affair.  The masquerades also had names. In my kindred, we had azi-efe-aka( children cannot toy with this one) and ogalanya-opku(  one who is wealthy as measured by the size of his hat).The spirit-masquerades therefore knew all the members of the community and vice versa. Of late, masquerades have become personal properties and individuals even have a ‘group of masquerades’ and the essence has moved from entertainment, discipline and interfacing with the ancients, to cash-and carry model. During 2021 Christmas season, a masquerade in my community, did not recognize me; he or it was calling me ‘chief’! I also did not recognize the masquerade! The communality element in masquerading had gone.

Anyway, I turned my searchlight on the masquerades with a hammer 2022 mindset. After all, at my age, I am inching closer to ancestor-ship and so, it is good to get close to the ancestors and ancestral ways of doing things. That was when I noticed the threat of Abia State Government, through Chris Ezem, its SSG, to arrest and prosecute masquerades  who disturbed or harassed residents during Xmas. This followed the menace of masquerades along the streets of Umuahia. Arrest and prosecute masquerades? I wish Chinua Achebe were still around! But the masquerades caused it when they diverted from their original mission. Then, I remembered that in October 2021, two masquerades were arrested for armed robbery in Melege community in Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State. I further saw an unknown masquerade  on a hospital bed  after being knocked down by an Okada at Ikare-Akoko. The masquerade was speaking in tongues but the hospital could not decode what he was saying.

The masquerade had not taken any treatment because he was still in the spiritual form. An advert was therefore placed on the local media, seeking  for anyone who knew the masquerade. But those who would know the masquerade could only be other masquerades! I also saw a video of two masquerades being chased about by one small dog! Masquerades running away from a mere dog? And then I saw a charged one who was trying to chop a girl in the open. The girl was shouting: this masquerade is trying to ‘do me’. I was thoroughly scandalized by all these developments, especially as I remembered azi-efe-aka of old.

But then, I saw a ‘young’ masquerade holding a one-man crusade, with a megaphone, clutching a Bible, casting and binding in the public square. And that settled it for me.  So, I will go into church-masquerading; masquerades that will be singing choruses, preaching, casting and binding. If for nothing, the Christian community will support my masquerades and with church patronage, positive cash-flow is assured. I will even have different masquerade troupes for the  conventional churches like Catholic and Protestant, the Pentecostals( am ready to pay tithes to the pastors) and the conservatives like Deeper life. Since I am not home-based, I will adopt the outsourced management model so that somebody I trust does the masquerading for me. The trust will not preclude me from taking precautions; the masquerade will operate with POS and other online payment facilities; I don’t want to tell stories with the cash. In such case, the  young men who usually accompany the masquerades, will be carrying POS et al, rather than canes. But money from masquerades will just provide liquidity and petty-cash; it will not be enough for me to hammer!

My attention was next drawn to real-estate. It is not the conventional real estate business of building, selling, renting or developing estates. I have discovered some vintage, houses which models and structures are no longer in circulation.

Some are 1-room duplexes, some have natural swimming pools, some are situated within dangerous forests… just wait until you see them! These unique and at times weird houses would be sold in the auction market to Dollar-surplus white-men, who would reauction or exercise some patience, hoping that UNESCO recognize and register the structures as heritage sites. In such a way, after I might have hammered, they will also hammer, though at a later date. I will do the business through Vintage Homes Unlimited!

 But ultimately, I will join SARS. This is not the SARS you know; it is another SARS of which Tunde Bakare is the author and finisher, it is the State Aided Robbery Squad. ( Pastor Bakare: Building blocks of nationhood; a blueprint for a new Nigeria. 25/10/20). I came in on Sunday,15/1/21 and learnt from the landlord that our transformer had been vandalized and that the cables in and around it were missing in action. Both of us agreed that an enemy would have done this and that the enemies could only be those who understood the dynamics of, and had access to, transformers. Two days later, the street levied every house and every individual so as to revive the transformer. One of the managers (or damagers) told my landlord that if we did not contribute for the refurbishing, then we would stay in dark ages. When he asked the damager about the loss of income to IEDC, the man unabashedly replied: that one no concern me! It is the statement of someone with salary-mindset; an owner minded fellow would not have said so. Of course, they reap where they did not sow. You buy poles, wire, transformer, meter, pay for labour and they just wait for you with a matchet at the amen’( the end of the chain), to slice as much as they can from your pocket. You are luckier if you had meters otherwise, they would just bill you any mount they fancy and disconnect you and seize the wire (which you bought with your own money), when you do not pay early enough.  And the state would provide cover for such outright thievery! No; this is more than thievery; it is robbery and brigandage. NEPA, PHCN, Discos are the most  visible members of the    State Aided Robbery Syndicate. This is where I am headed this year. Incidentally, as the DISCOS are dealing ruthlessly with us, the National Electricity Regulatory Commission has revealed that Togo and others did not pay anything for the power supplied by Nigeria!

How do I join SARS? Just wait and see. It is obvious, from our experiences so far, that most of those dancing Disco with our light do not have much expertise. Of course, this is not strange. After all, a firm, the signature with which it was registered  is still dripping of ink won the 5G license. Furthermore, what happened to Abuja EDC ( seized by a bank) and Ibadan EDC( seized by AMCON)has also shown that you don’t need to have money before joining the syndicate. At most, you know somebody who knows somebody who has money or who appears as if he has money or who has access to the vault or you pretend as if you have money. This is called packaging, including financial window-dressing. It is a complicated monkey business but I am capable of working around it. This is SARS and that is where I am headed this year. I may even consider joining the original SARS, which will give me  the power to do anything and get away with it, including murder, driving against traffic and without  seatbelt! The right to act with impunity is also another form of hammering.

If all these ingenious schemes for hammering in 2022 fail or do not yield enough cash, I will offer myself for sale! Yes, offer myself for sale. Aliyu na Idris did that last year, pricing himself at N20m. The business could not be consummated because the Kano Sharia Police arrested him  as self-sale is against Islamic law.  That is why we did not know how the index case would have ended. Well, the Catholic Church will not arrest me for this (we don’t even have Catholic Police). In my own case, I will sell myself piecemeal starting with the brain, the eye with which I see and the finger/arm with which I write. And these parts will go, live, to different buyers. I have already appointed Bismark Rewane  of Financial Derivatives as my financial adviser

Meanwhile,  2021 AFCON has favoured Nigeria and Nigerians.  That is good but my interest is on two news items. The first one, Camarounian prostitutes( relatively decently dressed) withdrew all subsidies without notice as a method of balancing demand and supply. Consequently, the cost of their products hit the rooftop! If there were no excess demand, the prices would not have gone mad, so Prof Dotun Phillips taught me in 1977 at UI.  And then, a troupe of scantly ladies from Zimbabwe flooded the venue, allegedly to distract the opponents so that Zimbabwe would have it easy. Unfortunately, going by the early and unceremonious exit of the Zimbabwean team, it appeared that the ladies succeeded in distracting their people. It was indeed an own goal, just like Twitter debacle, in which after 222 days and a loss of about N10trn, FG lifted ban on Twitter. Who lost this gargantuan sum? Nigerians and Nigeria. To what effect? Grandstanding. Twitter was accused of supporting EndSARS and IPOB. Both activities continued without twitter. The reason for the debacle was that the oga at the very top felt humiliated. And he wanted to teach them a lesson. In the process, we lost. It was also an own goal

Meanwhile, the conversation between ASUU and the federal government is still ongoing. Or is it still ongoing?

 - Ik Muo, PhD. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026624

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