Is the Lord’s rejection final? Will He never show favour again? Is his faithful love gone forever?.. Does God forget to show mercy? In anger, does he shut off his tenderness?.. We are the scorn of our neighbours, the butt and laughing-stock of those around us; how long will you be angry, Yahweh, Forever? Psalms 77,7-9; 79:4&5
The weekend of 24th March was a very busy one for the Son of Man.
It started at Olabisi Onabanjo Teaching
Hospital, where I paid a courtesy call on the Chief Medical Director, Dr
Olubunmi Fatungasi. You will recall that I was on ‘voluntary house arrest’ at the hospital for about
2 weeks in November 2021. On
that Friday, I met a vibrant, humble and friendly lady, the first female and
the youngest to occupy the post and who appears
determined to make a GRAT difference on the cultural, physical and
policy landscape of the hospital. I also
interfaced with some of the management staff, especially those involve in
patient-care. From there, I went for the First Convocation Lecture of
Christopher University (originally conceived as University of Management Sciences), founded by Chief Chris Ezeh, a social cum
conventional entrepreneur. I had to be
at UNICHRIS that day. The founder is a townsman; the Chairman of the Council,
Professor Ndolo is a friend and former colleague at ESUT Business School, the Chairman
of the Board of Trustees, Chief Eric Nwobi, is also ‘my man’ and the Guest
Speaker, Chief Anthony Idigbe, SAN, PhD, was my student turned friend, whom I
saw last about 5 years ago. The topic, ‘Social Reengineering, Justice and
Ethical Reorientation as the Panacea to
Nigeria’s Quest for National Integration’ was germane at a time like
this and resonated with my spirit. I was glad to have been there as I also had the
opportunity of reconnecting with Okey
Osuji, my classmate at UI (1977-1980); Dr Mrs
Ifekwem, my Doctoral Classmate at UNILAG and immediate Past President of
ASWAL(Umbrella body of ALL Anambra women in Lagos) and Bar. Chinwe Ezenwa-Mbah
who was one of the organisers of Achina Community Retreat, where I was the
guest speaker about 5 years ago. I also
met some new friends, including Dr Noel Saliu, an amiable gentleman, who
represented the Executive Secretary of NUC as the Chairman of the occasion. The ambience of the young University is so
wonderful that you need to ‘come and see’ in order to understand and appreciate.
With CMD, OOUTH; @
UNICHRIS Lecture @ CMO-AGM
On Saturday, I attended the 10th Annual General Meeting of the Catholic Men Organisation of the Lagos Archdiocese, hosted by my Parish, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, Okota. I had to be a ‘good citizen’ of my Parish, a loyal member of the CMO and I needed to catch up with my good friend, Barr Otiono, the President, whom I had lost physical contact with due to his busyness as demanded by Archdiocesan CMO leadership. And throughout the occasion, he was always telling us to go to court, whenever we ‘protested’ against anything! It was well attended and lived up to its billing. On Sunday, I had 4 meetings to attend, all of which had to do with my community service responsibility as demanded by my calling; they all revolved around the Igbo-Ukwu community and its affairs. I attended 6.30am Mass, had my breakfast and decided to rest so as to reconfigure my BVAS to free it for the four meetings (You have to reconfigure before you transit from one event to another) of the day. And for me to reconfigure my BVAS, I had to shut down temporarily or enter the aeroplane mode. It was in the process that I reminisced about the insalubrious (BIG Grammar) lots of ‘we the people’ in the recent past, especially the 2023 elections and the Naira recolouration policy, in which we witnessed ‘one-step-forward, two-steps-backward and three steps inside the bush’. It was then that the spirit led me to my days at Federal Government College Enugu and I remembered my history class and then…the French Revolution, especially the arrogance of power that made it difficult for Louis XVI, an emperor in name and in deed, to see what was coming.
By the time the insurgents stormed the Bastille, the equivalent of our
own Aso Rock, on 14th July
1789, France was the epicentre of commerce , culture and tourism and indeed the powerhouse of
Europe. It ran a very expensive feudal
system with about 8000courtiers and the
emperor, Louis XVI, was imperious, powerful and arrogant. He lived like his predecessor, Lous XIV who on
13th April 1655 told the
parliament that, L’Etat c’est moi( I am the state). The queen, Marie Antoinette, who was already
used to palace life (she was imported as a Princess from Austria), lived very ‘queen-fully’; with
interest in fashion and other such things that appealed to most women in her position( if she were alive
today, she would have been a slay-queen). Things were getting tougher for the
people but the emperor, surrounded by thousands of fawning courtiers, including
jesters, and influence seeking officials, was far away from the real situation
of things. The causes of the French Revolution
included the personalities,
inadequacies and tendencies of the king
and queen, whom the people held responsible for their woes, inherited
problems, including economic distress, which was worsened by the 7-year
American war and an opaque, inequitable
taxation system in which the wealthy pay little or no tax and used their power
to prevent any reforms; a three-tier class system, clergy, nobility and
everyone else, in which people could only move up by climbing on top of others,
with the aggrieved hoi-polloi( the Third Estate) at the receiving end; the
activities of social philosophers like
Voltaire and Rosseau. who were preaching strange and revolutionary
ideas like liberty, equality, tolerance,
constitutional government and the separation of church and state. The battle
cry of the revolutionists, liberté, égalité, fraternité (Liberty, egalitarianism and fraternity) could
only have come from the ‘satanic
verses’ those ‘troublesome’ philosophers.
These were actually remote causes; most of them were inherited by Louis XVI but our people say that it is only
the unlucky fellow who needs toothpick after drinking a cup of water. The cost of
living was increasing steeply but two consecutive years of poor harvest led to
an unusual increase in the prices of bread, the popular staple for the masses.
They have had enough and they struck: stormed and overran the
Bastille, (constituting the armoury, fortress and political prison), which
represented Royal authority in Paris. Nobody expected that! If they were close the
people, if they had their ears on the ground, they would have seen it coming
and even if they could not do anything about it, they would not have been as
shocked and confused as they were. They also took the people for granted; even
though there was growing misery, resentment, and tension, it was inconceivable
that the poor could unite, organise and muster the courage to take on the
Bastille. And today, their great-great-grand children are again on the streets
because the government intends to raise retirement age from 62 to 64. They
don’t want to work longer but in Nigeria, we keep on manipulating our ages so
as to stay longer at work!
Hongkong,2020; Sri Lankan
Protesters @ Presidential lodge; Pension Protest; France, 2023; I left the realms of the Spirit
and returned to reality. I recalled the American Revolution ( 1765-1791), which
could have influenced the French uprising. The uprising was also based on
governance issues: ‘no taxation without representation’. Today in
Lagos State in particular, people who pay taxes cannot even vote, not to think
of being represented because they are strangers! I remembered the
Tunisian (Jasmine) Revolution of 2010, which involved 28 days of civil disobedience in protest against
corruption, social inequality, unemployment and political repression. It came
to a head when Mohammed Bouazizi
sacrificed himself(set himself on fire) for the public good. Of course,
it was the end of the regime of Abidine Ben Ali and it also snowballed into the
Asian Spring. I was also led by the Spirit to the Senegalese
resistance of 2014 against political highhandedness and oppression I recalled the 2022 Sri Lankan struggle caused
by economic mismanagement of Basil Rajapaska, (Mr 10%) foreign debt at 101% of GDP, reckless printing of
currency, and consequential hardship(
inflation, unemployment, blackout, shortage of fuel and gas- just like Nigeria!).
As usual, the government applied the KITA ( Kick in the arse)strategy involving highhanded
suppression of the unrest. Eventually, in July 2022, the people won as they
marched into the presidential abode, feasted on his dining table, and swam in
his swimming pool. Of course that was the end of the government.
In all these aluta, mismanagement of the economy, which usually multiplied the peoples’ misery, was central. When you see what is happening in this country in the recent past, it is obvious that we have passed the threshold! Inflation, unemployment, foreign debt and reckless printing of currency, widening inequality and poverty are all at record levels. Even the price of bread has risen higher than it did in France in 1798! And we now have a situation in which people cannot withdraw their cash from the banks because Emefiele, who was busy scheming for his presidential aspiration, could not execute an ordinary currency recolouration exercise. And for the first time in history, ‘hard Naira’ is being bought in Nairex Market with e-naira’, where the premium varies from 10% to 50%. Bankers have suddenly turned from the beautiful brides to endangered species and have been forced to dress down while banks are being attacked. The rich now have to live as if they were poor because in the absence of cash to throw about and fuel to galivant aimlessly, they can no longer oppress the lesser mortals. They cannot even spray because the one caught spraying is in detention as I write. And we had a cashless valentine! Even kidnapping has ebbed; no money to be transferred and even the kidnappers have no fuel to operate! My sister just paid N4500 to send N12000 to her son at the NYSC camp (see Ik Muo: Bread of adversity and water of affliction, BusinessDay, 16/2/23). And the weird Naira situation coupled with the fuel shortage is estimated to push 24m more Nigerians into poverty! As I was writing this, Lucky Dube’s ‘born-to-suffer’ was playing on the background. Really, it appears that we were born to suffer!
2023 INEC Protests
And now we have added the political dimension: We suffered and held
night vigils to register for the PVC; we suffered and held night vigils to
collect the PVCs, we suffered to vote-and many were murdered in the process-
and now the gap between what was recorded at the pooling boots and what was
announced is crying to heaven for intervention. And those in power, plus the compromised
elites, who are not affected by the mass misery, are acting as if ‘nothing
mega’; making offensive, divisive and uncharitable statements, as they
try to protect their current and future positions and loots. And as usual, they
assume that ‘it cannot happen here’ because the people are so
divided, poverty, ethnicity and ‘igbophobia’ have been
weaponised, ‘the people de fear soja’ etc. However, we now, we have ‘Mahmood must go’
and ‘half-clad’
demonstrations all over the place. I
thought that the End SARS would have thought us some lesson; that one day, our docility quotient may become negative and
‘monkey go-go market, e no go return’!
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