FRIDAY SERMON: ENEMIES OF PEOPLE! REVISITED

Allah commands justice, the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: He instructs you that ye may receive admonition. (Quran 16:90) It was the late Chinua Achebe who wrote in his book, “There was a Country” that, “Nigeria is plagued by a home grown enemy: The political ineptitude, mediocrity, indiscipline, ethnic bigotry, (hedonism, hereditary spiritual paganism, and monumental corruption) of the political class”.

They have turned themselves into a gang of wild gorillas, rampaging and terrorizing the populace and reveling in the looting and pillaging of the people’s commonwealth, to the utter consternation of the community and in the process impoverishing and pauperizing the people they profess to lead.

They are at it again. With elections approaching, the floodgates of looted monies hidden in graves and ubiquitous bullion vans are being exhumed and the spending binge has started. They now run to London, Dubai, and other exotic out of country venues to hold meetings at which our fate is being decided. Shaving our heads in our absence.

They are oblivious to the growing pains of the people in these very hostile times: No petrol, no light and skyrocketing food prices. With life becoming increasingly hard for all.

They have been hopping from one party to the other, their regular trademark. This is their season. But what do you expect: Chidi Amuta described them as ‘ideologically empty’. They behave like characters from gangster chronicles. They ‘act mostly out of self-interest and narrow short-term calculations rather than far-sighted national goals.

Hardly any of the major players in the drama of intrigues . . .. display any serious commitment to national ideals or even a pan-Nigerian vision. Nor do we encounter a single individual politician whose stake in the power struggles is fired by any ideological convictions on how best to develop Nigeria. . . .

People of questionable and doubtful pedigree, they have no political ancestry, being mostly political orphans with no solid convictions or even ethical moorings or moral qualms whatsoever.

In quite several cases, the major political actors possess no credible educational qualifications. Most are in politics because there is nothing else to do: businesses have failed, professional practices have collapsed, and unemployment has often driven many to the limits of creative survival.

They therefore act mostly in pursuit of their immediate personal or small group interests. All eyes seem to be fixated on the national treasury, the giant cheque book of oil royalties.” These are not the men who would effect change in the quality of our lives.

Under this tainted and odious climate, we might wait till eternity for any meaningful change; definitely, not from these gangsters and human barracudas.

When they gather in conclave at birthdays, burials and weddings, it’s an all-party affair: Backslapping each other, across party and ethnic lines and comparing notes on their next expedition on how to corner sizable portions of the national budget.

Shameless hooligans, they will not be deterred in their wanton gluttony and avaricious tendencies. They are worse than thieves who arrive in our homes at the dead of night to dispossess us of our property.

These are pit-vipers, daylight highwaymen, who go about their nefarious business unmasked. Kamikaze ‘looters of the national treasury’; they are unmoved by the plight and suffering of the people they all profess to lead. They are not leaders by any stretch of imagination but barefaced marauders.

On a good Sunday morning, they line the Lagos Mariner with their exotic cars in front of the Cathedral Church of Christ and other places of Sunday worship; paying fat-fat tithes, thinking they can bribe God; forgetting that God is not a hypocrite and will never lend His Holy name to brigandage and unholy parade of ignominy.

We see them too at the mosques on Fridays: Here too, the weekly admonition to do good deeds and eschew Alfasha, injustice and conspiracy are strange to their ears. Like the Quran said, they are blind and deaf. And would not listen or follow the straight path. (Quran 16:90).. But . .. Deaf, dumb, and blind, they are void of wisdom. (Quran 2:171)

On other days, these same evil men will be visiting marabouts, diviners and babalawos and Okija Shrines; doing ‘etutu’’ with a view to acquiring occultic powers with which to escape the wrath of God and the people they have serially raped financially, economically and spiritually.

These are our own illuminati. We need not go far in trying to know who our tormentors are. Some say they number about 1,000 at the ‘Mansion de Mafiosi’; we can safely say that the people who are causing all our problems in this country are not up to 5,000; and that is being over-generous.

Rampaging brigands who think of nothing but to steal; awon ala’i ni’ronu: Malaysia built world marvel and tallest twin towers at a time (1993 to 2004) for $1.6b; Taiwan built Taipei 101 (tallest building 2004 to 2009) for $1.9b and Dubai built Burj Khalifah for $1.5b: Here in Nigeria, our very own NSA shared $2.1b to politicians and cronies for election. You can’t beat that. What a people! And what became of that case today; silently swept under the carpet. Haba!!!

Shameless people! The hottest portion of hell shall be their abode. They forget too soon that God is a God of retribution: ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.’ Numbers 14:18

May we not share in the punishment for a crime we know nothing about?

Who will stop these men from their evil ways? Who will speak for the voiceless and downtrodden? Who will come to free our people from the bondage of ages? Where lies the hope of the common man? Will we ever get to the Promised Land? For now, it is ‘not yet Uhuru!’

Unfortunately, no one will do this job for us. We shall have to deliver ourselves from the bondage we unwittingly put ourselves into because of our lackadaisical attitude to the antics of the thieving leadership, the agberos, motor-park touts and so-called union leaders, the notorious ‘chairmen’, jobless political never-do-wells and barefaced looters. We will wait till ‘kingdom come’ if we expect God to interfere in this man-made disaster.

The so-called voiceless must find their voice and speak out loudly against their tormentors. The downtrodden must stand up and give their slave traders a bloody nose and fight for their emancipation. The time for the apocalypse is now. The poor must rise and eat the rich.

The Prophet (SAW) said: “Allah does not punish the individuals for the sins of the community until they see the evil spreading among themselves, and while they have the power to stop it, do not do so.”(Ahmad).

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” ― Dante Alighieri.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. ― Desmond Tutu.

It is therefore time when we must come out, real hard, against the licentiousness and decadence of our thieving leaders and their political prodigality and profligacy.

‘Abdullah ibn Mas’ud used to say: “Whoever aids an oppressor or taught him an argument to nullify the right of an ordinary Muslims, has drawn upon himself the anger of Allah”.