The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Christmas

  • 1,000 people benefit from free healthcare services in Kwara

    1,000 people benefit from free healthcare services in Kwara

    No fewer than 1,000 people have benefited from free healthcare services, including eye examination and care and other different eye ailments in Omu-Aran, Kwara.

    Reports say that the two-day free healthcare services, being the fifth in the series since its inception in 2013, was organised by an NGO, Aro Bamgbose Empowerment Foundation.

    Its Coordinator, Dr Musa Bello, said that it was a programme set up to coincide with the Sallah, Christmas and New Year periods in order to cover large number of beneficiaries.

    Bello said that the programme also attracted residents from the three wards of Omu-Aran and other neighbouring communities of Ajase, Oko, Oke-Onigbin, Oro, Ipetu, Aran-Orin, among others.

    According to him, apart from free diagnosis, treatment and drugs, beneficiaries were also offered basic tips and rudiments on fire safety and prevention.

    He said that the beneficiaries also received detailed counselling on A to Z of Lassa Fever and similar diseases in order to guide against unwarranted infections.

    Read also: Aisha Buhari provides free medical services for 3,000 patients in Zamfara

    Bello said that most of the beneficiaries received free medical test, treatment and drugs for diseases like malaria, typhoid fever, hypertension, arthritis and diabetes, among others.

    He said that the programme was basically targeted at bringing healthcare delivery closer to people in the rural communities, especially the less privileged.

    “The free healthcare services are designed to complement the government’s efforts geared toward improving the health status of people, especially in the rural areas.

    Bello said that the foundation was in the process of making a comprehensive documentation and analysis of its medical findings over the years as a reference point for improving healthcare delivery.

    “It is our hope that this documentary will, in no small measures, assist the governments and other relevant health institutions to strategise and plan ahead.

    “We were able to discover that malaria, arthritis and hypertension are more prevalence among the people.

    “Many of the beneficiaries, especially those from remote villages and communities, are ignorant of their health conditions.

    “This is why the foundation organised this programme as part of its support to ensure unhindered access to improved healthcare delivery to people at the grassroots,” he said.

    In his remarks, Chief Adekunle Oyinloye, the foundation chairman, said that the programme was his way of contributing to the development of the society.

    Oyinloye, who is also the Managing Director, Infrastructure Bank, Abuja, urged Nigerians to always avail themselves of the benefit of free healthcare services being provided nationwide.

    “I got to know that many people, as a result of financial challenge, have turned away from the hospitals in seeking medical assistance.

    “Many of them have become bed-ridden and lost hope, even over an ailment that could not cost more than N1, 000 to treat and manage.

    “So, it is our hope that if we can assist to bear their medical needs to some extent, they can then channel their resources to other things as education and welfare of their wards,” he added.

    NAN

  • Christmas season…season for rebirth, not revelry (2)

    I had my first Out of Body Experience (OBE) at 24, a few months before I went to the university. I lived in a single room apartment in Shomolu, in downtown Lagos. That wonderful night, I dreamed that a man I read to be of dark and evil intent wished to psychically attack me in the head. I fought back. The fighting violently disarranged and damaged furniture in the tiny room. One leg of my writing desk broke. The refrigerator was overturned. The standing KDK electric fan fell. Co-residents in the house gathered in the corridor, near the door of my room. Outside, our neighbours gathered in front of the house. In a twinkle, my would-be assailant disappeared from my gaze. I saw my body on the bed. Till this day, I do not know how I undid all the three or five security devices on the door, and rushed out into the corridor. I could not sleep in that room alone the rest of the night. So, I was taken to my grandmother who lived two streets away. A staunch Christ Apostolic Church woman, she conducted what was akin to a “deliverance service”, going by today’s church vocabulary. From her, my patenal uncles took me over. They were more used to traditional remedies for psychic and other attacks. They made a wooden effigy which I had to keep under my pillow before I retired to bed for the night. But, as much as this gave me the confidence to sleep, because I believed it would keep away that man or any other, I knew this effigy would be embarrassing in the university. So, I began to think about how I could defend or protect myself against such attacks with that recourse to external, physical aids or weapons. Little did I realise that, through the exercise of will, I was opening the door to a vast, new world in the course of my spiritual development.

    This course was to help to deepen my understanding of many concepts and to lead to the recognition and deepening of many more. I was happy to learn that there is only one world, not two, here and the hereafter, or here (earthly) and the beyond, as we always say of that part of this one world which our physical senses cannot experience, and which we have not developed those other inner senses within us to interact with. I began to wonder: If this man came through the medium of the air which I could not physically see, I, too, would like to be able to experience life in that mode, not to frighten or to hurt people, but to protect myself. Afterall, is it not right for one to own a gun if thieves are likely to invade one’s home with guns at night?

    These efforts have paid off with more OBEs, day-consciousness in some dreams, and the knowledge that “the Lord gives to His Own in their sleep”. In this regard, one of the experiences I would ever cherish is the passing of my father. On the Monday which preceded the Wednesday of his passage, a woman I perceived to be my mother walked past me in a dream and announced that my father had left the flesh. I told my wife I would see him on Saturday. Back in the office at The Guardian newspaper that Monday, I asked Mr. Gbenga George, who worked with me, to take him to the Guiness Eye Centre of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) where he was billed to see his ophthalmologist, Professor Bukky Adefule-Oshitelu. Everything went well. Then, at about 3:40a.m two days later, on Wednesday, he came to me in a dream. He announced in Yoruba language…”mo ti lo o, ranti gbogbo ohun ti a so, se ehin mi ni ire oo” (I have gone, remember all we discussed, tidy up my affairs). I  woke up my wife, my heart pounding, and announced to her what I had just experienced. She called me Joseph the dreamer on account of my dreams which came to pass. I prayed that he was alive and ill, so I packed some herbal first aid remedies for ailments I knew were his challenges. By 5:30a.m, one of my brothers who lived with him and one of his tenants were at my gate. I knew the ultimate had happened. The first question I asked was:

    “What happened?”

    My brother answered:

    “It’s daddy.”

    “What happened to daddy?”, I asked praying he would still be alive. But I was wrong.

    “He passed on”, my brother replied.

    “When?”, I asked.

    “At about 3:30a.m”, he said.

    That was about 20 minutes before he appeared to me in a dream. I asked them to go, promising to rejoin them in the family house for a meeting. For he had willed that his earthly remains be interred not later than the Saturday after his passing. We honoured his will.

    People who understand these matters will know which of the many possibilities may have taken place. It was possible the silver cord which bound the soul of my father to his just discarded earthly body had not severed, and his thoughts had taken up such powerful forms (thought forms) which I easily picked up as pictures because we were emotionally close while he lived. In this case, his thoughts may have bound him to his body for longer than he probably needed to be chained to it. So, on the day after the funeral, I went to the cemetery at about 5:30a.m, to advise him to turn his gaze away from this earth, and seek helpers in the so-called beyond, remembering all the concepts we discussed about the continuation of life in the beyond after life on earth.

     

    The Inquisition

    I have told the foregoing stories to invite attention to some of the concepts misunderstood by many Christians today. The scent of the Christmas season still hangs densely or heavily over us in Nigeria, inviting us to expend this season judiciously, as the first part of this series advocated last Thursday. But what do we find everywhere? Revelry. Even the sex clinic programme of a Radio station is staging a Christmas party for its listeners and the big companies are falling over one another to donate prizes as a public relations strategy!

    Concepts are keys which open the doors on earth and beyond it. Wrong or misunderstood concepts bar the way to paradise. I dare not tell the stories I have just told if I lived in the era of the INQUISITION. This was the period Christians who had or expressed views contrary to those of the Apostles and the Church were severely punished, sometimes with stoning to death or burning on hot plates. It was a weapon of the Church to enforce conformity with its teachings, right or wrong. Jews were the first targets of the inquisitors and their tribunals. The Spaniards and the French were to have bitter tastes of it. Historians believe thousands of people were savagely killed over about 700 years, ending in about 1820. Jewish Christians who held beliefs of Judaism alongside their Christian faith were ignonimously massacred. The Roman inquisition, forcible suppression of Reformation of the Church, originated from the Vatican and was abolished about 1908. But it was merely reformed and renamed the HOLY OFFICE. The office was run by Cardinal Josel Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI. It keeps an eye on what theologians write or teach. The Roman Inquisition created the INDEX OF FORBIDDEN BOOKS to wage a war on books which advance ideas which the Church did not like. The index was not abolished until about 1900. The church has not, even today, stopped its clampdown on the opinions of Christians different from those of its leaders. The content remains the same, but the form always changes. As stated in the first part of this series, the leaders of religion rose against the teachings of Jesus because they thought these teachings would dispossess them of their authority, power and influence over men. So, they conspired and executed Him. When the people sought to rise against the execution, the Sanhedrin, highest religious order, told them Jesus had come to die for their sins and had taken the sins away. A huge bureaucracy was set up to maintain this deceit. In AD 553, the fifth ecumenical council of the Christian Church took place in Constantinople, then capital of today’s Turkey. King Constantine was the first Western Christian monarch. He forced his people to become Christians and built Constantinople as capital of his country which, today, has become an Islamic nation. The AD 553 Council was under the Presidency of Eutychius, Patricia of Constantinople. Emperor Justinian wanted the council to abolish certain long-standing beliefs established by early Christian Fathers, including ORIGEN, who taught about re-incarnation. Pope Vigilius of Rome disagreed with the proposals. To upstage him, Emperor Justinian invited to Constantinople equal number of Bishops from the East and the West of Europe. Bishops from the West boycotted the conference when the intent became known. Eight African Bishops attended. Pope Vigilius was summoned to Constantinople. Avoiding the meeting, Pope Vigilius took refuge in a church from  May 5 to  June 2, 553 AD. About 160 Bishops attended. Only 16 Western Bishops were there. Africa was represented by eight. None came from Italy. The Council was to confirm condemnation by Emperor Justinian of “THREE CHAPTERS”, a series of teachings which he said were heretical. Pope Vigilius had earlier condemned these teachings but later re-recognised them, setting the stage for a show of power and authority by the Emperor. The Council did the bidding of Emperor Justinian. Italian Bishops and French Bishops opposed him as did most, if not all, Western Bishops. Pope Vigilius caved in and approved the Council’s decision on February 23, 554 after, as reported, the Emperor threatened to depose him. The decision were 14 anathemas (rejections) of Nestolannism. This doctrine was advanced by Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople. It made a distinction between the Divine nature and human nature of Jesus. The church was divided. But as Islam advanced, taking over Turkey for example, Bishops from across the East and West divide made compromises later passed on as coming from the Holy Spirit. Christians should ask: does God compromise?

    Origen, whose teachings were as widely respected in the early Church as the teachings of the Apostles, taught about reincarnation. But the anathemas employed by the church in the struggle for authority and power effaced his teachings.

    Many Christians do not know what goes on in the leadership. Politics often decide doctrines and dogmas which are handed down as having been inspired by the Holy Spirit. Thus, when the Bible was compiled from an array of Books, so many that are even more educative of the times and Mission of Jesus were left out because the Church leaders did not favour them. Today, followers dare not believe that anything exists outside the Bible that is of more spiritual benefit to man than the literature in the Bible.

    The forgoing is why I said earlier that, if I shared my experience about my first Out of Body Experience (OBE) and subsequent day-consciousness in dreams during the time of the inquisition, I may have been tortured by being forced to drink boiling water, thrown into a pitch-dark dungeon, executed at the stake or flung onto a hot metal to roast to death.

    Persecution goes on nevertheless for challenging Church Order. But for the irrepressive soul with oil in its lamp (the Five Wise Virgins), Christmas season offers an opportunity to step out of the cage of dogmas, and to “seek” and “knock” at door of the Eternal spring of Wisdom. It is in this regard that I share the following experiences.

     

    Clairvoyance

    This is the gift of seeing what the physical eye cannot see, even with the aid of the most powerful microscope. Many Christians deny this gift or ability, regarding people so gifted as belonging to the “principalities”. Such Christians forget that the Three Wise Men saw on Holy Night the heavenly host which accompanied the Baby Jesus to this earth. They forget, too, that Peter, James and John beheld Moses and Elijah, long departed from this earth, with the Lord Jesus at His Transfiguration. They forget that Elijah was not taken up into Heaven in a earthly chariot of fire, that no-one can go to heaven in an aeroplane or a motor car or in his physical body, and that the event was ethereal. Balaam in the Old Testament was permitted to see what his horse saw and thereafter disobeyed him…little nature beings preparing that part of the earth for remodeling and development. Unfortunately, Balaam misnamed them Angels! They belong, rather, to the specie of beings called elementals. One of their leaders is so huge that one button of his belt is bigger than our earth! The elememtals and their lords helped the Egyptians to build their pyramids at a time mankind knew nothing about machines for building construction!

     

    Re-incarnation

    After the anathema against Origen’s teachings, the church till this day rejects this idea. I suggest an earnest Christian seeker for knowledge in this area read Stephen Lampe’s THE CHRISTIAN AND RE-INCARNATION. Evidence abounds in the Bible that re-incarnation is a reality. Jesus asked His Disciples: WHO DO PEOPLE SAY I AM? Only Simon Peter gave the correct answer: THOU ART THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD. One of the Disciples was surprised and wondered why the Son of God would have come without fulfillment of the Scriptures regarding the return to the earth of Prophet Elijah before this event. Jesus replied that Elijah had come, but he was unrecognised as such, and had been treated as such. Thereafter the chronicler of these events injected his personal opinion in the next verse when he said: AND IT BECAME CLEAR HE SPOKE UNTO THEM ABOUT JOHN THE BAPTIST. Knowing ones recognise that Elijah was not a re-incarnation of John the Baptist. This diminishes nothing from the reality of re-incarnation. Rather it shows that, in the days of Jesus, re-incarnation was a well accepted fact of life that He did not have to speak about it, or that His Ministry was so short that He had no time to deal with misconceptions about it. The major weapon of the Christian critic of re-incarnation is the statement that IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MAN TO DIE BUT ONCE, AFTER THAT, THE JUDGEMENT. Little is it known that this statement refers to the FINAL JUDGEMENT or spiritual death in the End-Time. Lazarus did not die once. Jairu’s daughter did not die once. The widow’s daughter did not die once.

     

    Life After Life

    The Bible tells us of the Lord saying I KNEW THEE BEFORE I FORMED THEE IN THY MOTHER’S WOMB. That means we existed somewhere before we surfaced on this earth. We cast away our tangible body to come here, and we would cast away the tangible body of this earth before we leave the earth. When we live the earth, we would not make the grave for our physical, earthly body our new or next home unless we are stupid, and have destined ourselves for the grave through our thoughts.

    For no-one can rise beyond his or her thoughts. Were Moses and Elijah in their graves when they were sighted with Jesus at His Transfiguration? Ever since I was in high school Biology class learning the skeletal system with human skeletons procured from different parts of the world, I knew it was not possible for these discarded bones to rejoin and form themeslves anew in THE JUDGEMENT. The body is only a shell or carrier for the spirit, which is the entity slated for Judgement. Even Paul the Apostle told us the body in which he saw Jesus after His Resurrection was not the body of this earth. If Jesus, our example to follow in all things, does not reside in the grave, so should we not.

     

    Distorted Souls

    Distortion means alteration. A distorted soul is one altered from one gender to another. The animating core of the genders are different. The female is finer and more delicate than the male. This expresses in the outward forms as the spirit forms the body. Both genders are designed for different roles in creation. The female is given to tending and caring and inclines far more readily to the higher regions of existence than the more obtuse male which has a more earthly flair. Thus, while the male works the earth to give it a paradisal flavour, the female mediates strength and values to him which she absorbs from currents of power from Above to which she is more readily connected. When a woman leaves her ordained sphere of activity or a man departs from his, the volition or expression of will causes a change in the consistency of the animating core. This slowly impacts equivalent alteration on the physical or outward body, as the spirit forms the body. Thus, at the next incarnation, a female soul inclining towards manly life may be reincarnated in a male body and vice versa. This is the cause of many sex changes which surprise many people today. What do we expect to happen to female boxers, soldiers, paratroopers, wrestlers, politicians et.c? And what do we expect to happen to effeminate men? Why will two men not seek to be “husband” and “wife”. And why will two women not desire this lifestyle if they are distorted souls? It is the Law of Attraction of Homogeneous Species at work. Birds of a feather must flock together. And since the church, too, comprises many distorted souls at its leadership, distorting many natural concepts, why will they not distort the marriage concept?

  • Ashafa: let’s share love, joy this Christmas

    Ashafa: let’s share love, joy this Christmas

    The senator representing Lagos East, Gbenga Ashafa, has felicitated with Christians on today’s Christmas.

    In a statement yesterday, Ashafa said: “I felicitate with our Christian brothers and sisters in the Lagos East Senatorial District and indeed across the length and breadth of our dear country, Nigeria, as they celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas.

    “This Yuletide season does not only commemorate the birth of Christ of ‘the Prince of Peace’, it also signifies to the Christian community the arrival of good tidings of love, comfort and joy.

    “I, therefore, seize this opportunity to call on all Nigerians to meditate and act on this timeless message. It is a good time to love by expressing love to one another, no matter our religious or ethnic differences.

    “I also use this medium to identify with all Nigerians as we go through this challenging period of unavailability of petrol across the country. Let us comfort one another with good cheers as I am certain that the Federal Government, ably led by President Muhamadu Buhari, is working assiduously to tackle whatever the cause of these temporary challenges may be.

    “Let the present circumstances not rob us of another critical component of the season, which is joy. Let us, therefore, ensure that not only are our tables filled with the goodies that characterise the season, but also that the tables of the less privileged among us are filled as well. This is a good way to share the joy.

  • PDP: Christmas presents us strong lessons in hope

    PDP: Christmas presents us strong lessons in hope

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the Christmas season presents the country with strong lessons in hope and collective triumph.

    In a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the opposition party called on Nigerians not to despair but to use the occasion to show love, care and encourage one another regardless of religious, ethnic and political inclinations.

    The PDP described the nation’s economic situation as a national embarrassment, which it said cannot be glossed with deceit, lies and propaganda. It urging Nigerians to overcome this very sordid situation by rallying around one another in true love as epitomized in the birth and teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.

    The statement said, “Indeed, this is the worst Yuletide ever. There is no way one can sugarcoat the fact that the anguish Nigerians face today is because of the incompetence of the APC government, which has also amply demonstrated that it does not care about the welfare and happiness of the citizens.

    “Our country’s economic situation has astronomically gone from bad to worse in the last two years and painfully, there is no hope in sight under this APC regime.

    “As we speak, many families are completely stranded; many more can no longer afford their basic needs.

    “Nigerians have become ravaged by economic hardship because the APC-led Federal Government has abandoned them and refused to channel the abundant resources available in the nation for the good of the people. Instead, they are heartlessly diverting such resources for their selfish political purposes while the people suffer.

    “These horrendous realities imposed on us by the APC notwithstanding, we must not become despondent.

    “This Christmas season presents us very strong lessons in hope and our collective triumph over adverse situations as exemplified in the birth and teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

  • It’s Christmas

    • The celebration calls for sober reflection 

    Christians worldwide are today celebrating God’s gift of Jesus Christ to the world. Since his departure from the earth more than 2,000 years ago, he has greatly influenced world affairs. He is regarded as the Saviour of mankind who was sent to the world to reconcile man to God.

    His birth and death define the world calendar- B.C. – Before Christ’s Birth; and A.D. – Anno Domini – after his death. The two leading religions – Christianity and Islam, though they have their points of departure, agree that Jesus Christ came from God, accept the immaculate conception, that is, his birth by the Virgin Mary, an event that remains unprecedented, and acknowledge the great miracles he performed.

    As Nigerian Christians join others the world over to celebrate his birth today as is the case on December 25 every year, it must mean more than the hollow rituals many have reduced it to, and the sheer mercantilism that attends it. Christ, a royal high priest, was born in a manger to the family of a carpenter from Nazareth of Galilee. It is a great lesson in a country where many people are either riding, or look forward to riding a high horse. Through many of his sermons and teachings by his disciples, we are taught that pride is a destroyer.

    Today, a strange gospel of material prosperity, over and above all else, has seized the space, even in the churches. His birth teaches that no one can stand against the will of God. While the wise men from the East to whom his birth was revealed passed through Bethlehem and inquired about the birth from King Herod and the King, driven by jealously, sought to kill the child, he merely ended up eliminating all the babies in his kingdom.

    By choosing to reveal the birth first to Maggi from the East, the view and tradition among the Jews that they only were men of God was shattered. The Creator of the world hates none of the people he created in his own image, and wishes that none would perish. This fundamental truth was to be later established many times through a vision shown Peter on Cornelius the Centurion and his household, as well as settled by the Council at Jerusalem where James, Peter and John presided. It points to God’s will that the world should be united.

    Today marks the birth of the Prince of Peace. In a turbulent world, a continent where wars, conflicts, strife and famine prevail, and a country where life is unsafe, with a free reign of kidnappers, armed robbers, cattle rustlers, murderers, rapist and terrorists, there has never been a greater need for an agent of peace than now. Christ preached meekness, gentleness and pacifism.

    When agents of darkness came to arrest Christ, he rebuked the disciple who drew the sword, and on the cross, he refused to respond to taunts, the scourge, even the crucifixion, thus teaching perseverance, steadfastness and a forgiving spirit.

    We urge the authorities to remember that truth and righteousness define god-fearing leadership. The Bible teaches that only righteousness exalts a nation. Corruption has eaten up the soul of a once vibrant and well-endowed country. Christians in politics must beam the light.

    In a multi-religious country, tolerance is needed for progress and development. Today, as we mark another Christmas, Christians and non-Christians alike should absorb the real reasons for the celebration.

  • Of Christmas, grace and angst

    Of Christmas, grace and angst

    Here we are again, that season of bright colours is upon us again. But this year, it seems to have come like a thief-roused-you-in-your sleep! You get up groggy-headed wondering what the heck is going on; then you realize an intruder is in the house. And your medulla races rapidly from bemusement to anger, then angst – in that order.

    This is the situation for Hardball and surely, for many of his compatriots. (You may take it to the bank for this Hardball fellow has the best hunches in the land).

    For a clime that bottomed out last year and has been roiled in the muck of recession since then, it is understandable the bright, red and green colours of Christmas are dulled. No country operates at sub-optimal; at sub-zero and expects its citizens to be gay at Christmas. Which other country, a major oil producer at that, is working and living at below zero percent?

    And speaking of a major oil producer, how can citizens  spending most of the season on queues at the filling stations be happy?

    Fuel scarcity ; poor power supply; queues at filling stations spilling into the highways impeding traffic especially for travelers… they sit there for hours cursing the day they strayed into this land, hauling pellets of abuses to whoever they believe is responsible for their woes. In this cycle of angst and abuses, who says there is no mystical potency to the tongue?

    Now is it the stars of the Black man or some malevolent sprites that would not allow him make good? How come a country that’s bequeathed with billions of barrels of crude oil cannot refine the product and maximize her immense bequeathal? Hardball must have asked this same question over a thousand times in different media and at different times.

    For over three decades; yes thirty years, Nigeria has been importing the bulk of her petrol needs along with over one dozen other petroleum products! All by-products of crude oil which she exports on the cheap and imports at premium prices.

    Why has this most important solution to Nigeria’s economic ills eluded over half a dozen successive governments including the current one? Stopping petrol products importation is the magic wand any government needs to wave. Why is everyone blind to this fact?

    Refining is almost as old mankind; so is power generation technology a commonplace knowledge. Yet most cities of Nigeria are in darkness even on Christmas Day… degeneracy continues to creep in on us like evil worm. Payment of salaries becomes cardinal achievement amongst our governments…and many of my compatriots would sing the carols on empty stomach today. Angst in a state of grace…

  • Bindow cancels Christmas homage

    Bindow cancels Christmas homage

    Adamawa State Governor Muhammadu Bindow has cancelled the traditional Christmas homage to the Government House by traditional rulers and associations. He urged them to pray for the state instead.

    A statement by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Ahmad Sajoh, urged the people to reflect on the message and spirit of the season.

    The statement reads: “In keeping with the governor’s desire to ease the difficulties associated with mass movement during the yuletide, and in consideration of the security challenges experienced recently in some parts of the state, the governor has called-off the usual Christmas homage paid by traditional rulers, top public officers, organised groups and other stakeholders.

    “Instead, stakeholders are requested to pray for the state and exchange fraternal visits across all divides as a means of strengthening our bond.”

  • Let Love, peace dominate Christmas

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State has enjoined all Christians in the state and their extended families and friends to have a pleasant celebration, dominated by love and happiness and moderated through discipline in an atmosphere of peace.

    In a message of goodwill to citizens of the state the party’s chairman, Prince Gboyega Famodun, said that ‘the centrepiece of Christmas is love, without which human society will be in a state of perpetual conflict.

    ‘No matter what faith we profess, Christmas is a time all humanity ought to have a feel of love’, he said, adding that ‘Osun should not be different.

    ‘In the coming days, it will be Christmas when all attention hopefully will be focussed on the significance of the ‘birth’ of Christmas in Jesus of Nazareth, the unquestionable symbol of God’s love. ‘Thus, this is not the time for hate, envy and man’s inhumanity to man’, the APC noted, adding that ‘the central teaching of Jesus is the love for God and neighbour.

    ‘That is the spirit in which Osun should observe Christmas’, the party said.

    ‘This period should also be one of the reasons to be grateful to God, not only for sending His son to the world to teach us the way back home, but also for His mercy, in seeing us through this long and difficult year.

    ‘In particular, the people of Osun have a lot to be grateful, for the flood disaster ( omiyale) has become a phenomenon of the past. The environment of Osun is now a lot better; our children now go to school in facilities that are comparable to any such structure in the world.

    ‘We have less crime to deal with and above all, this state has been acknowledged as one of the most peaceful in Nigeria, and perhaps the best investor-friendly area’, the party said. ‘So, let’s make progress by also becoming one of the friendliest and loveliest places to be at Christmas time’, the party urged.

     

  • Dear Santa, here’s a list of what I don’t want for Christmas…

    No matter… what nukes are pointed at every throat on earth, still have yourself a merry time. As we said before, life is short. Who knows how long the person holding the nuke has? We just may get lucky.

    Once again, it’s Christmas, and I have brought my long list for Santa. You don’t believe in Santa? Too bad, but that’s really beside the point, like. Me, I have enjoyed his patronage over the years because he has brought me things like… well… things like… like turkey and other stuff Christmas is made of. So, each year, I have dutifully prepared the list of the things I want for Christmas, stuffed it in the most conspicuous place in the house and been rewarded by the sudden appearance of turkey. No, I do not have a chimney, so I guess Santa comes via someone’s pocket, I really don’t know. Here goes.

    ‘Dear Santa. I have been good this year, honest. I have kept up PU all through the year, no matter the weather or troubles. I know I have occasionally slept on the job, taken some illegal forty winks and all, but those were times I had been overcome by the stress of living in Nigeria. I guess you don’t know anything about that. Nevertheless, I’m not here to moan. I have come instead to talk about the festive season.

    This year, though, I have prepared a different list; I have a list of the things I don’t want for Christmas. No, it has nothing to do with old age. It may be true that I’m no longer able to afford the teeth to sink into that box of chocolates or tub of ice cream so carelessly. These days, I have found to my chagrin that I have to prepare my teeth to even be able to eat anything that has the slightest sugar content, like one banana finger! Imagine!

    First, I brush my teeth with warm water, then give them a pep talk about the body still needing some sugar no matter what the figures or scales are saying. Then comes more brushing after the terrible deed is done and I’m left holding the banana peels. Finally, the prayers bring up the rear. Oh yes, I need to pray that neither will a terrible tooth ache wake me up in the night nor would the hips have increased by morning on account of that one banana. So, for practical reasons, ice cream is the last item on my list.

    While we are still in the kitchen, what else I do not want for Christmas is burnt chicken. I know exactly what you are thinking. You’re thinking that I’m so lucky I still get some chicken to eat. Many people have to imagine it lying on top of their few grains of rice. I apologise deeply for this and I promise to pray harder this coming year that all of us will get to actually see the chicken lying on our plates. Then, we will all be able to appreciate the frustration of eating burnt chicken. Last year, the fire inadvertently overwhelmed my multi-thousand Naira small chicken. I forgive it because life is too short to hold any grudges. I’m just determined it doesn’t happen again. So please, Santa, I don’t need no burnt chicken.

    One thing I definitely do not need this Christmas is any more blackout. As many Christmases as I can remember, there has not been electricity supply to celebrate that day with. Not that the days before or after were any different, it’s just that one would think that the devil would put on his best dress on the Sabbath day. Instead, what we have been having so far has been some kind of orchestrated blackout from NEPA, NEP, PHCN, and now IBEDC on Christmas day! Seriously, one would think there was some kind of relay race, with them passing the stick of darkness on that day. Well, I forgive and overlook what’s past, but I don’t want this it-was-dark-in-the-manger kind of Christmas anymore. For how long are we going to keep using the excuse that electricity had not been discovered when Jesus was born?

    And while you’re working on the electricity problem, dear Santa, please see your way clear to also do something about this dry, dusty, harmattan haze that goes for our own winter here. Why should the rest of the known world enjoy clean snows that add water to the grounds and make plants and other foods grow but all we get here is this dry weather that sucks the life out of us? It makes the sun blaze like lasers and every other thing white! You really need to see some people’s lips during this period. It’s white and chapped. Again, you might say they’re lucky they have lips, but what about their heads? Those are practically white with this sheet of dust covering them like holy halos when you and I both know they are anything but holy.

    The one item that I don’t need most of all this season is any tiding of billions being spirited away by unknown individuals. Even when they are known, it is still painful to me. Unfortunately, there are so many of such tales flying around that my ears are anything but pleased right now. Why should these stories of billions of Naira be flying overhead, passing over my head and refusing to touch down in front of me so that I can at least touch some of it? Why, eh, why? What is my sin? Santa, you either remove these unsavoury tales from Nigeria’s airspace and let them go fly in some other people’s airspaces or you let the jets spiriting these billions of money around touch down in my vicinity. Either way, something’s got to give.

    You remember the Ikoyi Towers’ tale? It involved billions of Nigeria’s currency, but none got to me; yet Christmas is right nigh me. You remember the Mainagate? It also involved billions too being spirited away to places that are off the map; yet, nothing, zilch, zero, zip, nada, nix of it all came to me here in my little corner. Now, everyone tells me Merry Christmas, and all expect me to believe them. Well, I’m not fooled anymore; I know better. Whenever anyone gives me the yuletide greeting, I now know exactly what to think. You guess. Anyway, I don’t need those kinds of tidings hovering over my airspace anymore.

    So, what do I want for Christmas? Well, my needs are very simple. To start with, I would like a new set of teeth that will not begin to shiver and shake at the sight of a bowl of ice cream. That new set should be so strong it can stand the sight of several bowls this season. While you’re at it, please add a new, slimmer waist.

    More importantly, I want world peace. This means essentially that all the nations currently at war should cease and hold their fires while I talk. Thank you. This means that North Korea should understand that no good ever came from squaring up to other people in wars except to display muscles of armoury, after which there will be this deafening silence. It also means that every other nation should understand that everyone came to find the world already in existence and we will all leave it, possibly, still standing. I told you, my needs are simple. Thanks.’

    Most importantly of all, dear reader, I want you to have yourself an awesome Christmas this year. You have earned it. Look at you, you kept with PU through the year! No matter what the situation around you or the world is saying, or what nukes are pointed at every throat on earth, still have yourself a merry time. As we said before, life is short. Who knows how long the person holding the nuke has? We just may get lucky. Happy Christmas.

  • Christmas will come and Christmas will go, alas

    Give us this day, our…/

    Give us this day, our…/

    Give us this day, our

    daily mmanya!  From a rousing

    drinking song of the Pyrates Confraternity, U.I., circa

    AD 1969-70

    NO, this epigraph from one of the songs in the repertoire of dozens of drinking songs of the Pyrates Confraternity was not sung exclusively or even primarily around the festive season of Christmas. We sang it lustily fairly regularly, before, during and after Christmas. But because of the song’s inversion or subversion of the famous second sentence of the Lord’s Prayer – Give us this day our daily bread – by the substitution of the word, “bread” with the Igbo word for palm wine – mmanya – we found this song to be the very essence of what Christmas, or more appropriately, Christmastide, meant to us – unrestrained, life-affirming festivity. And it pleased us, I remember, to note that far beyond the circle of our Confraternity, many young people like us also regarded Yuletide or Christmastide, as a time for great feasting, merrymaking and, yes, carousing. What we did not know then, what it would take most us years and even decades to find out is the fact that this feasting, partying and jollification that we associated with Christmas had deep, historical and cultural “pagan” roots. This is the theme of this piece that – need I remind the reader – will appear the day before Christmas, i.e. Christmas Eve, 2017.

    In a literal sense, by the time that this article appears on December 24th, like all Christmases before it, indeed like all of Time, the Christmas that will be celebrated this year will already be on its way to having come and then gone into the sands of time. Thus, in terms of factual happenstance, all Christmases come and go. But that is not what I have in mind in the title of this essay. What I have in mind is, shall we say, more thoroughly saturated by the complex and fascinating processes of culture-making and culture unmaking. In other words, the marking and celebrating of Christmas changes, shedding old forms and taking new ones, many of them of questionable cultural value and significance. That is what I have in mind when I say that Christmas comes and, alas, it also goes. Let me spell this out carefully but also clearly through a discussion, first, of big changes that have taken place in the way(s) in which Christmas is celebrated in our society in my own lifetime.

    Even before I was out of my early teens, the kind of Christmas that I knew as a child, the kind of Christmas that we celebrated was already on its way into the depths of historical oblivion and cultural disapprobation. It seems quite unbelievable now – in the context of the contemporary uncontested dominance of Pentecostalism in Nigerian Christianity – that while eating and drinking were the things we loved the most about Christmas, for us the essence of its celebration was the donning or mounting of secular forms and idioms of Egungun masquerades. On Christmas Eve especially, one of us was completely clothed in an “eku” – is the special ritual garb of an Egungun masquerade from head to toe. Acting as our leader and chief celebrant, this “masquerade” led the rest of us around all the major “quarters” of the city, singing, drumming, dancing. Since we were kids, the masks and mummeries that we enacted were children’s versions of the adult, sacred Egungun masquerades. They were known as “Tombolo”.

    Tombolo? Well, this word was meant to indicate the fact that as much as we tried to mimick the dreaded ritual powers of adult Egungun masquerades, we were not the “real” thing. In my memory, the thing that we enjoyed the most was, compositely, the songs that we sang – songs of blessings to those who gave us gifts of money and/or culinary delicacies; but also ribald, satirical songs of ritual curses and maledictions to adults who, unimpressed or irritated by our performances, chased us away with ridicule or, sometimes, with cudgels! One song especially stands out in my memory: “Olopa ko le mu wa; odun t’ode la n se! [No policeman dare arrest or harass us; our festivity honours Time itself!]  Dear readers, please take note: we were mimicking adult, “pagan” Egungun masks and masqueradery in what was supposed to be a Christian festival, but absolutely no one questioned the validity, the positive, identity-forming nature of these performances. Why? Well, because we were African Christians drawing on pre-Christian traditions of Nigerian/African peoples and cultures to mark and celebrate Christmas.

    At this point in the discussion, it is important for me to state that I am not a cultural conservative. In other words, it is not my intention in this piece to argue for the restoration of the forms and idioms through and in which Christmas was marked and celebrated in my childhood. I suffer no delusions on that score: what is gone is gone and if it is brought back in any form at all, it can only be brought back in a form that is in no way a reprise of what used to be. And neither am I an opponent of, or a crusader against how Christmas is now celebrated in our society. That said and duly acknowledged, I wish to argue that we should not take for granted any emergent, historical form of its observance and celebration, most especially when so much seems to be at stake in the changed forms.

    I look at the observance and celebration of Christmas today and above all else, I see a massive and pervasive merchandizing element, a great social and cultural bourgeoisification of most people as celebrants and communicants in the festivities of Christmas. The signs and markers of this development are legion: the visit with the kids to the malls to meet Santa Claus and receive gifts from him; the sending and receiving of upscale or “haute couture” cards and packaged gifts; the family holiday to a resort within or outside the country; pilgrimages to Jerusalem and the other sites of early Christian history and culture in the Middle East; youth jamborees and carnivals supervened by DJ’s belting out canned pop music through gigantic, deafening amplifiers; even floating Christmases on ocean cruisers on the high seas. The sense of thankfulness and joy for the blessings of the year, together with fervent, prayerful hopes for the future that were big aspects of Christmas in the past are still there, still palpable. But who can deny the obvious and not-so-obvious changes?

    In my childhood, we did know of Santa Claus, but only from what we read of him in books or saw of his fairy-tale generosity in films. As children do now, we also exulted in popping off bangers and firecrackers. But we spent nothing remotely close to the hefty amounts children spend these days buying and setting off these pyrotechnic, arson-inflected aspects of the celebration of Christmas. Sometimes, you got a new set of clothes and pair of shoes – those were the heaviest outlays of expenditure to parents, especially as the new clothes and shoes were calculated to serve you for the coming year in its entirety! At any rate, this much is clear: while for us “Tombolo” symbolized the essence of the celebration of Christmas, his place has been taken by Santa Claus. And the merchants, the money-changers, are smiling all the way to the bank – and the Church on Christmas day. From “Tombolo to Santa Claus”: this could validly be seen as the title, the broad theme of the outline of cultural evolution that I am exploring in this essay. There is a great historical irony in this development that I think goes to the heart of what I am arguing in this piece.

    To get at the import of this history, think of the following facts concerning the origin and consolidation of December 25 as Christmas Day. The first recorded instance of this was in AD/CE 336 and it was instituted by the Roman Emperor, Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor. Thereafter, Emperor Julius 1 who succeeded Constantine officially consecrated that date, December 25 as Christmas Day, the emperors and popes who followed Julius merely cementing that date and, more importantly, the forms and modes of celebration that Constantine and Julius had appropriated from pre-Christian “pagan” traditions for the first set of celebrations of Christmas. In other words, December 25 was not the actual month and day on the birth of Christ. Nobody knows of the exact or real birthday of Christ as there is no mention of it at all in the Bible. More important than even the complete arbitrariness of the date, December 25, is the fact that the form, the idioms, the ritual and the symbolism of the celebration were all modelled on approximations from pre-Christian, “pagan” Roman gods and the rites and symbols associated with them. Let’s look at this closely but briefly.

    Before its adoption as a state religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine, Christianity had been a religion of not only the poor and the downtrodden, but of Middle Eastern peoples that were colonized subjects of the Roman Empire. For good or ill, it did not fall on these peoples of the hot, desert cultures of the Middle East to institute and consolidate on a global scale both Christianity in general and Christmas in particular as one of its most important festivals of the year. It fell to the Roman Empire at the southern tip of the cold climates of the North. And this is why Christmas historically emerged as a mid-winter festival very close to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year between sunrise and sunset. Now, the Winter Solstice occurs usually between December 22 and 23. And as soon as it has come, the days start getting longer and longer, symbolizing birth and renewal from the “death” symbolized by winter. Which was why Emperor Constantine figured that since theologically and liturgically this new “God”, Jesus Christ seemed, like many “pagan” Roman gods who, like Nature itself, go through cycles of birth, death and resurrection, the best time to fix for the celebration of his birth was a couple of days after the Winter Solstice. And without exception all the festivals, all the revels of mid-winter in Constantine’s Rome were rollicking feasts and performances dedicated to the gods, the most important being Saturnalia, the festival of Saturn, the Roman name for Cronos, the head of the Titans in Greek mythology. For almost a thousand years, what Christians knew and revered as “Christmas” was actually the cultural offshoot of Saturnalia.

    I readily acknowledge it: this all sounds rather “professorial”. I give assurance that I do not intend this piece to be a “lecture”. And most important of all, I am not arguing as a disputant, an adversary of Nigerian Pentecostalism and its doctrinal prophets and popular messengers. That can and probably will come in another context, another essay. Meanwhile, I am more interested in exploring the indisputable historical fact that what we know as Christmas has changed a lot from its roots in both the Western world itself and in Nigeria and Africa. In both of these historic cultural spaces – the West and Nigeria/Africa – Christmas was for a very long time marked and celebrated very closely on models and forms of celebration that the bulk of Nigerian Christians now regard as “pagan” and idolatrous. But “paganism” and “idolatry” are very rife, very pervasive in Nigerian Pentecostalism. Who knows? Perhaps we shall see them resurface again in future evolutions of Christmas in the country? Remember, Christmas comes and goes, comes and goes.

    Merry Christmas!

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu