By Babatunde Jose
According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, which is variously interpreted as either a literal or a symbolic location. The term is also used in a generic sense to refer to any end of the world scenario. In Islamic theology, the Armageddon is also mentioned in Hadith as the Greatest Armageddon or Al-Malhama Al-Kubra (the great battle).
Megiddo is mentioned twelve times in the Old Testament, ten times in reference to the ancient city of Megiddo, and twice with reference to “the plain of Megiddo.
The text however seems to imply, based on the passage of Revelation 16:14, that the purpose of this gathering is “for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.”
Because of the seemingly highly symbolic and even cryptic language of this passage, some Christian scholars conclude that Armageddon must be an idealized location.
Idealized or not idealized, the modern connotation of Armageddon has to do with the End Time. This is where the world now finds itself. It is here, live and in technicolor, brought to our living rooms, PDAs, and social media.
Everywhere is war, brought about by mounting poverty, injustice, and inequalities of gargantuan proportions, laced, and garnished with religious intolerance, fanaticism, and extremists’ ideologies.
It is the worst of times. Everything seems to be completely wrong. The mighty nations of yore are falling in the killing fields of the mountain dwellers. The first is becoming the last and the last is taking the first position.
America just wasted One trillion dollars, twenty years, and thousands of innocent lives in Afghanistan with nothing to show for it and an ignominious return to the status quo in that country. Commenting on the events in that country, erudite Professor Adebayo Williams, masquerading as a talking-drummer had this to say: *“The world is changing indeed, but not in a manner we envisaged and which any pundit could presage. Whereas the affronted Vietnamese nationalists waged a war of self-determination distinguished by its ideological clarity and immense self-possession, the toughened Taliban warriors are waging a war of ethnic determination based on a crisis of civilization and a differing perception of global political values based on religious orientation. It is a duel unto death.”*
The worst has been the untold human tragedies wroth by man on his fellow man.
Yemen has been troubled by civil wars for decades, but the current conflict intensified in March 2015, and it is still raging with no end in sight.
Syria has been burning for a decade now with the country polarized between the Russian and Iranian supported government and the United States supported Syrian opposition. In between was the combined war against ISIS before a return to the status quo bellum.
Lebanon has not known peace since the beginning of this millennium, ditto for Libya, Iraq, and many of the North African countries. Chad has oscillated between one crisis or the other, while Sudan has known no peace, even after its partition.
There is the forgotten war in Western Sahara which the world has conveniently ignored. Yet, the peace of the grave reigns in several countries too numerous to mention.
Ethiopia closed the last millennium with a civil war that lasted from 12 September 1974 – 4 June 1991. It resulted in Territorial changes with the independence of Eritrea in 1993 which occasioned Ethiopia becoming landlocked.
Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a border war from 1998 to 2000, killing tens of thousands of people. The Tigray War is an ongoing armed conflict that began in 2020 in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with attendant humanitarian problems.
Mali was going through several crises at once that favored the the establishment of a Tuareg state. Mali has been in a constant struggle to maintain its territory.
Jihadi groups have not only spread across Mali but in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, and transnational crime, including drug trafficking, kidnapping, and smuggling of migrants, has become a lucrative income source for militants.
Over the last couple of years, the crisis of displacement in Burkina Faso, a small country in western Africa, has become the most pressing refugee situation on Earth. Violence and lack of resources have forced many into displacement and extreme poverty. The conflict and violence have led to the displacement of more than one million people in just two years and has left 3.5 million people in need of assistance.
The crisis in the Lake Chad Basin continues to course through North-Eastern Nigeria, Cameroon’s Far North, Western Chad, and South-East Niger with 10.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. This complex and protracted humanitarian crisis has resulted in the displacement of more than 2.3 million people.
Half of them are children.
Nigeria is confronted by multiple security challenges, notably the resilient Boko Haram Islamist insurgency in the northeast, long-running discontent, and militancy in the Niger Delta, increasing violence between herders and farming communities spreading from the central belt southward, and separatist Biafra agitation in the Igbo southeast.
There is also the Yoruba irredentist movement and the sprouting of extra-political separatist bodies, some cultural and some of doubtful pedigree and leadership.
In Nigeria, 7.1 million people need urgent assistance this year. 1.8 million people are internally displaced; 80 percent are women and children. Thousands have been abducted since the crisis began in 2009.
The humanitarian crisis in north-eastern Nigeria has intensified after a decade of violent conflict.
The crisis has evolved over the years leading to widespread displacement and devastation as well as acute food and nutrition insecurity and a desperate shortage of essential health care.
The armed conflict in Nigeria has forced an estimated two million people to flee from their homes. Many of them are now internally displaced persons (IDP) while others have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
Development crisis in Nigeria has become a recurring phenomenon and despite the atmosphere of crisis created during the colonial era, the leadership problem has become a major issue.
Nigeria’s predicament cannot be absolutely attributed to colonialism alone, the leadership problem and corruption of the highest order that have become a Nigerian political culture in the post-colonial era will continue to fuel the fire of development crisis and even the recent Boko Haram insurgency that marked the new phase of development crisis in the country is one of the justifications for leadership failure.
Consequently, a strong accountable leadership is necessary.
Nigeria is a practical example of a country with abundant human and natural resources yet her citizens wallow in abject poverty. The problem is multidimensional, encompassing a variety of issues that have been generally codenamed the national question.
There is growing increase in population explosion and a corresponding decrease in economic productivity and the country has turned into veritable incubation center for the emergence of violent anti- state groups, some with moribund ideology, which to a greater part, is fueled by years of the state’s neglect and failure to transfer the aspiration of its people for meaningful, purposeful, and qualitative life.
The present condition of the third world countries are not in least analogous to the condition of the industrialized countries in the earlier stages of their economic development.
These present condition of the third world countries is the effect of the slave trade, pillage, colonialism, and unequal exchange says Walter Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
Nigeria development crisis can be explained from threes perspective, colonial legacy, corrupt leadership, and lop-sided democracy. A situation late Fela called ‘Demonstration of Craze’ but which I would call ‘ojoro democracy’ where the best cheat wins.
Analysis of the leadership problem in Nigeria is located within the framework of lack of effective management of human and material resource and an unjust system of authoritative allocation of values.
Undoubtedly, there is no uniqueness about our situation. Underdevelopment, mismanagement of resources, squandering of riches, kidnapping, general insecurity, injustice, inequity, and inequality are not peculiar to Nigeria.
However, on a scale of 1-10, the Nigerian situation is not only on the high side but is getting suffocating and unpalatable, and the bubble is getting ready to burst.
*When the Nigerian masses revolt, we do not know which nomenclature their revolt will take, but it will be the mother of all revolts. Woe betides the leaders that get in their way, they would be consumed by an inferno their handiwork helped to kindle: Because when the poor have nothing else to eat, they would eat the rich.*
*Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend.*
