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Tag: rebirth

  • Society in need of value rebirth

    Change, they say, is constant. There is no human being or human process that can remain the same forever. In fact, several things are undergoing changes as I penned this article. Some other things have metamorphosed from how they were just a moment ago.

    So, everything changes. The fact is that, most of the changes – negative and positive – happen spontaneously. The contradictions that bring about changes in societies are different and have their peculiar origins. Some changes happened elsewhere and they are shipped down to other climes where the conditions are different. Most have also taken place here due to circumstances, good and bad.

    Like everywhere in the world, there have been changes in Nigeria and we have our peculiar contradiction propelling these changes. In our own case, the up is down and the down is up.

    The first time I heard of this phrase was in a movie series I watched while waiting for admission into higher institution in 2007. The movie was titled: Boston Legal. I am always fascinated by lengthy on-screen stories popularly referred to ‘series’ or ‘season films.’ Boston Legal was about the shenanigans of lawyers in a law firm and the strategies they applied to win court cases.

    I have been thinking about that expression since, because it has taught me how things have turned on their heads. How logic has lost its lustre, leading to lack of capacity for critical thinking among the populace.

    Critical thinking, Francis Bacon says, is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture. True as this quote is, I sometimes shake my head in disbelief over the number of ignorant people the world has created. The rationality of the world is what is at risk. Too many people are taking advantage of processes because of their lack of critical thinking, logic and deductive reasoning. These same people are raising another generation without skills in critical thinking, which, in turn, would create a new generation of clueless people.

    However, good as technologies are, they have also brought with them vices that have made it easy to manipulate the society – mentally and otherwise. Faking a life and object is now about the will, not knowhow. One can almost learn anything today if the will is there. Thanks to the avalanche of audiovisual instructional materials. Thanks also to the Internet. In fact, even intelligences are being faked in the world of today and it has swiftly affected the pyramidal spin.

    It is now about capacity to churn out fake news and everyone buys them hook, line and sinker. The society has become so used to cutting corners and making celebrities out of nonentities. It is a phenomenon that has made it easy for public manipulation because the people have been preoccupied with what is ‘trending’ than the substance.

    Information is now being digested, using emotive appeal than rationalisation. It is now about the physical aesthetics of the purveyors of the information, his creed and wording rather than informational fidelity.

    Fraud pervades the earth. Everyone wants to cut corners for meaningless purposes. People are feeding on the fake news with so much gusto. It is like several of us have become lost in the prevailing confusion and unmitigated flood of the unreal that have helped turn the tide, causing it to flow upward rather than down.

    I doubt if there was any time the level of decadence and value substitution and aberration was ever this high anywhere in the world, much less in Nigeria. One can steal and become famous; celebrated by all, including religious leaders, as long as they get to share of the spoils.

    In fact, they would even organise ‘prayers’ and ‘wealth cleansing’ for such questionable persons, who they know came about their wealth through dubious and dodgy means. When they are not supposed to have condoned such persons, they turn blind eyes and partake in the ‘sharing’.

    Sadly too, many mothers of today hardly ever ask their jobless daughters how they come about the gadgets they use and the new dresses they wear. In fact, some of the mothers even descend as low as borrowing monies from their daughters. The same thing applies to parents whose children engage in advance fee fraud; some of them rather praise their wards for being ‘smart’ despite being engaged in the illicit activities.

    The list of how lack of logical thinking and value replacement with ineptitude and total subjugation of right for wrong abound every moment of every day. When will this society undergo a value rebirth?

  • 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?

  • Christmas season…season for rebirth, not revelry (1)

    During a Christmas season, I strive to rise in spirit beyond the din and glare of revelry, lest the serious import of the High Mission of the Lord Jesus to the earth fog before my gaze and the blessings pass me by. In many Christian souls, the Christmas Festival has lost the seriousness it deserves as a time to stop all hurly burly and bread and butter endeavours and bestir oneself inwardly, as though one were standing on a scale, to weigh how one stands before the Will of God which Jesus came to enlighten humanity about. From the High Origin from which He came, it was seen that the End-Time was nigh, that, if left to its own devices, there was little humanity could do to escape damnation in the darkness in which it had entangled itself, that, except One Higher in Origin and mightier than the Darkness bore Light to the earth once more, a majority of mankind would be unable to find its way out of the suffocating morass that the earth had become before the Last Judgment.

    Jesus of Nazareth, then and even now, cannot arbitrarily save humanity from damnation, irrespective of the claim and belief of many Christians that His Blood, shed on the Cross, had washed their sins away.

    Christians caught in this misconception either do not understand the words of their Lord aright, or, like the five foolish virgins who did not have oil in their lamps, do not trouble themselves for personal investigation of concepts handed over to them from several generations. For the foolish virgins are simply sleepy or slumbering souls, who are too weak to be inwardly at the alert. The Lord Jesus said severally that it did not matter if anyone called Him Lord from his cradle to his grave but did not fulfil the Will of His Father, such a person would not be admitted to Paradise. He also warned that sins against Him, Jesus, and God would be forgiven, but those against the Holy Spirit would not. For awise virgin this is an insight that the Holy Spirit is the Author of Judgement. Elsewhere, the Lord Jesus advised that “…He will reprieve the world of sin and proclaim the Judgement”. Jesus, therefore, only came as an act of emergency before that Judgement to show those who are willing to salvage themselves from perdition the way, in the Will of God, to follow. With regard to the expression in the Book of Revelations about “the Lamb of God Who beareth the sins of the world,” the traditional conception and understanding is that of a Jesus of Nazareth Who, resurrected from the grave, bore the sins of man away from this earth. Little or no understanding is shown by Christians who think like this for the LAMB, one of those four Animal-Beings at the foot of God’s Throne. These Animals-Beings, the LAMB, the LION, the EAGLE and the BULL, represent the four pillars of Creation, or transmission channels for God’s Power. The LAMB inclines powerfully to the human spiritual species of Creation, and bears THE WOUND OF THEIR FAILURE. In modern versions of the transmission of this Revelation, we now read of “who TAKES the sins of the world away” instead of the more meaningful original of “who BEARETH the sins of the world”. We may ask: where were the sins of the world taken to, if they were taken away? To Paradise which admits of no dirt? If we recognise that whatever is done in lower spheres of existence reflects in higher spheres, we may appreciate why the Lamb Who inclines in a special way to human spiritual species in creation, reflects or bears their sins against the Will of God.

    The Fourth Wise Man

    As suggested, a Christmas season should not be spent idling or in revelry but in deep spiritual (not religious) contemplation. Here, I have made a distinction between “spiritual” and “religious”. Spiritual belongs to the activity of the Spirit. Religious simply refers to acts of religion. The religious person is not necessarily a spiritual person. Everyone is a human spirit. Religion is what man has made of the various Messages which the Almighty Creator once Willed to be sent to different peoples at various stages of spiritual development, each message tailored to the needs of each people. Even before the bringers of these messages departed the flesh, powerful groups in their followership interpreted the teachings to suit their understanding of them or to strengthen their power and influence over the followership. Such has become the faith of Messages handed down from one generation to another and not meant to be questioned without the wrath of the leaders of religion. It was not different in the days of Jesus of Nazareth. He had come to show man the light, and mankind was expecting Him. But when He came and upturned some existing teachings, He was branded a troublemaker and told their Father Abraham did not teach them so. Jesus once replied that He existed before Abraham, kindling their fury. So, the man of today, should not swallow line, hook and sinker all the transmissions of the life and teachings of the Lord Jesus without first subjecting them to spiritual scrutiny. It is not enough to say the human channels who transmitted them were guided by the Holy Spirit. Who cannot be, or who is not, even today, Who opens his or her spirit for guidance? One of the concepts I wish to discuss in this regard is the Fourth Wise Man. We are taught about the THREE WISE MEN who came from the East and trailed the star of Bethlehem to the cradle of the Baby Jesus. Actually, there was a fourth wise man who failed to make the journey with the other three and probably did alone, according to some reports not included in the bible. The story of the three wise men and of the fourth wise man holds important lessons for everyone striving for spiritual salvation. Many Christians long to return home…Paradise. But they do not know where Paradise is, or of the worlds or the spheres of existence which lie between it and the earth. At best, they know paradise is in heaven. Which of the heavens they cannot tell. Yet Jesus always spoke of this earth and the heavens, not just heaven. He once said that “in my Father’s House there are many Mansions”. As I was writing this column, I asked Udeme James, a church goer, to describe for me a mansion. She said it was a mighty house with many rooms. I asked her how could there be many mansions in one house. She had no answer. I then taught her that, by HOUSE, Jesus meant Creation and that the “mansion” represented many spheres of existence or worlds or heavens within Creation. That statement now made more sense to her.

    Earlier, I mentioned the four Animal-Beings at the foot of God’s Throne representing the FOUR PILLARS of CREATION. These Animal-Beings are equidistant from one another. If you project straight lines upwards from each of them until these lines meet at a common point, you have constructed a PYRAMID. Spiritually speaking, it conceptualises the common meeting point as the SOURCE, Life or God. God’s Power is channeled downwards to these Animal-Beings who transform and pass it to the worlds which lie below and are structured after these pillars. We learn of these four pillars again in the Acts of Apostles 11:5-6. In the city of Joppa, Simon Peter had a vision in which a large sheet was let down from Heaven by its “four corners”.

    The forgoing shows that Creation (House) is not just the earth and one Heaven but Heavens (Mansions). Paradise is the summit or apex of Creation. The four Animal-Beings exist far above Paradise and far above the worlds of the ArchAngels and Angels. Jesus came from that unfathomable world far far above the worlds of ArchAngels and Angels. This unfathomable world is separated from the fathomable worlds by worlds made up of surging oceans of fire. As the Love of God, the mission of Jesus from this unfathomable world was to offer those human spirits on eatth who were struggling to return to Paradise the possibility of doing so in the knowledge of the Will of God which He would bring to them and which they must fulfil. The Book of Revelations would invite us later to “behold those who have washed themselves clean in the Blood of the Lamb”. Jesus would be prepared to shed His Blood as a seal of Truth for the Message of God’s Will which He brought to the earth.

    As the tidings of a forthcoming Mission of Jesus spread throughout the worlds, there was rejoicing everywhere. Many human spirits sought to be permitted to support that mission in one way or another. These were prepared for their tasks on earth. John the Baptist, as His forerunner, was one of them. So were the 12 Disciples. So were the Four Wise Men, each representing a pillar of Creation. So were people like Pontius Pilate, who was to employ the high political office in which he would find himself to protect the person and Mission of the Lord Jesus. He was not to seek them out from the masses of men. At the appointed hour, they were to recognise Him in the Word He proclaimed, remember their vows and calling, consciously or otherwise, and follow Him, standing in their duty posts. Three of the four wise men recognised the Star of Bethlehem as a greeting from the Father, put their earthly pursuits aside and hastened to Bethlehem. The fourth needed more time to re-arrange himself. Even today, many of us are like him. Earthly considerations superceed our spiritual tasks; we are found not at our duty posts when it is critical we be. The three who were faithful to their calling visited the Baby Jesus and gave Him presents. But, in my understanding, they probably blunder afterwards. Their calling was to soothe the path of the Lord on earth with their wealth and influence. He was not to be in want. Being eminent and influential, the positions they took in matters connected with His Work were to protect Him and the Mission. But they fell before the Tempter whose ambition was to derail this Mission. For as soon as they left Baby Jesus, the Wise Men went to visit Herod, the Emperor, to inform him that someone who would be greater than him had been born. Lucifer, the Anti-Christ, the only possible fighter against the Mission of Jesus Christ, encouraged king Herod, His mission on earth, to wage war on the High Mission. Herod ordered the murder of babies the age of Baby Jesus. Under high guidance, Joseph and Mary, parents of Jesus, fled with Him to Egypt for three years. Meanwhile, the three wise men returned to their earthly pursuits, not to be heard of again, not even when Jesus was arrested and brought before Pontius Pilate, who could have employed his high office to protect the Son of God. Pilate wished to fulfil his vow. But he feared the emperor may depose him as Governor of Judea and execute him as an enemy of the emperor. To help Pontius Pilate overcome his impending failure, his wife was guided three times in her dreams to ask him to free Jesus. But each time, he merely symbolically washed his hands free of the Blood of the Innocent that, in the name of earthly office, he was going to order be shed.

    Like the four wise men and Pontius Pilate, we all fail in our callings. The wise men were not sent to gossip to Herod. By overstepping their brief, they caused the death of many children. In addition, they forgot their vows and exposed Jesus to danger. We can learn from them.

    There are more than 50 signals in the Bible that Jesus did not come to this earth simply to be murdered so His Father will forgive His Creatures their sins against Him, which the Lamb continually bears as testimony against them. Last Sunday afternoon, I listened to a radio programme of the God’s Kingdom Society (GKS). The GKS said “Jesus was killed by wicked Jews”. I am not a member of the GKS. But I        agree that Jesus was murdered. The GKS said also that the Second Coming of Jesus had taken place and that God’s Kingdom on earth was already being set up. I believe that the second coming of Jesus would be “like a thief in the night”, and not gladiatoral. It would be a simple process to close the cycle of His Mission, begun in Bethlehem and usher in the Third Age or the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit. Spiritually speaking, the First Age was the age of the Father. The Second Age was that of the Son, Jesus. Without the return of Jesus, proceedings of the third age cannot begin. In my understanding of this event, this proceedings have begun. Trumpet of the World Judgement are the multiplicity, rapidity and quantum of devastating events. I parted ways with GKS over its belief that the Holy Spirit is not personal and is not the World Judge. Jesus told us that “when He the Spirit of Truth is come, He would reprieve the world of sin and proclaim the judgement”. The Book of Revelations 1:4-6 tells us: “Peace from Him Which was, Which Is and Which is to come…and Peace also from Jesus Christ the faithful witness”. This Revelation is about two Persons, the One who is coming and the one who bore witness of His coming.

    Apologies for the digression. Jesus was murdered. For if Jesus came to die for man’s sin’s, as the leaders of religion in those days told the multitude when the latter recognised their blunder during the crucifixion, why would Pilate’s wife be told in dreams to ask her husband not to hand Him over for execution? Jesus explained His Mission in the Parable of the Vineyard. Why did the earth quake in anger in Golgotha? Why did the sun dim and the wind rush? Why was the covenant broken with the shredding of the curtain of the Holy of Holies by unseen hands? Why, prior to all these events, did Jesus admonish Judas that, from what he planned to do, that is the betrayal, it would have been better for him if he was not born, but, having been born, it would have been better for him, still, if a heavy weight was tied around his neck and he was thrown into a river, so he could die, so he could not involve himself in the betrayal? Why did Judas commit suicide afterwards? Why has the church not made Judas a saint if he helped to fulfil God’s Will? Why will no Christian family not name its child after Judas? Why is the earth filled with stigmatas today? Stigmatists are people who bear the wounds of Jesus on the Cross in the appropriate parts of their bodies during Easter. Some of them have been found in Owerri, Nigeria. The Church does not understand stigmata. Stigmatists suffer serious pains, especially when their wounds are medicated. Unseen people flog them. They hear voices and speak words spoken in Golgotha region during the time of Jesus Christ on earth. The church describes stigmatists as blessed and honoured by God to bear this experience. Thus, Christians go to Rome, on pilgrimage, to see and to touch these people and to pray to God through them. How ridiculous! In truth, these are among the people who reviled Jesus on the Cross and even demanded that His Blood be upon them and their children. In the mercy of God, such people are being given another opportunity now, probably the last, as the cycle of events which began with the birth of Jesus, draws to a close, to be succeeded by a new cycle in which the Final Judgement promised by Jesus would take effect. On the cross, Jesus said: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”. If He came to die, He would have blessed His assailants for fulfilling the Wills of His Father. Above all, we know that God Almighty is perfect from eternity to eternity. Anything perfect never changes, otherwise it was not perfect. God never changes. In the beginning, He said: “Thou shall not kill”. As this commandment will never change because God never changes, He would not send His Son to be killed. Jesus Himself said: “I have come to fulfil the Law, not to oppose it”. The Law is the Will of His Father.

    We should now see, if we are numbered among the five wise virgins, that the Sanhedrin, the highest religious order in those days in Jerusalem, sold to the multitude a dummy that Jesus had taken their sins away. The Sanhedrin got Jesus killed to protect its authority endangered by the Mission of Jesus. Religious order after religious order has continued to re-inforce the belief that Jesus came to die for the sins of man simply because there are more five foolish virgins than five wise virgins in Christiandom. Moslems surprise me in this. They recognise Jesus as “Spirit of God”. They believe Jesus was not the one who was killed on the cross, that, in the crucial moment, God replaced Him with another person, that God would not permit that His Prophet be slain. Thus, in my view, is a much higher recognition of the worth of the Son of God than that ascribed to Him by people who recognise Him as such but defile His Mission with a wrong definition.

  • PDP’s pangs of rebirth

    PDP’s pangs of rebirth

    Since the conclusion of its convention in Abuja on Saturday, all has not been well within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Those who lost out in the power game are still seething with anger. Many chairmanship candidates are not happy with how things played out. They should have known better. I do not pity them. The contenders from the Southwest should have known that there was no way the governors, who are mostly from the Southsouth and the Southeast would have supported them.  The well known ambition of Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose, who had earlier thrown his hat into the ring for the party’s presidential ticket, spoiled their chances. As usual, he was clowning.  He knew the ticket cannot go to the Southwest after the party had zoned its national chairmanship to the South. The Southwest contenders, who wanted the post micro zoned to their region, so as to exclude the Southsouth and Southeast from running, also did not help their own case when no fewer than seven of them showed interest in the race. None was ready to step down for the other. In that wise, what is the essence of micro zoning? Uche Secondus, who emerged chairman, has embarked on reconciling with them so that they will let bygones be bygones. It is all a ploy to use them in 2019 to win election in Southwest if they can, but after that what will be the region’s fate?

  • Towards a rebirth of Nigerian federalism

    The structure and practice of Nigerian federalism have been a key topic of discussion and debates in Nigeria since the amalgamation of the North and South Protectorates in 1914, with varying levels of intensity.

    We are all witnesses to the agitations and complaints by different sections of the country at different times about being marginalized or short-changed in fiscal allocation and the distribution of such other public resources such political positions, jobs, school admissions, provision of infrastructure, and even social honour. In response many Nigerians have been calling for some form of restructuring of our federal system, while some small fringe groups insist on their part of the country separating from the federation all together.

    Keen observers of those debates and agitations will notice these key tendencies: Those who see restructuring only in terms of so-called resource control, that is, the control of resources by the states from where they are derived. Currently the loudest are from the Niger Delta where oil revenues, which our government depends on, largely come from; those who think that there is an ideal “true federalism” which we must embrace; those who argue that federal systems are varied, evolving and have their specific national and historic characteristics and that what is needed is continued improvement of our federal system, and those who think that the current structure is not the problem but just the managers.

    These are all legitimate positions to take in a democracy. What I find odd and somewhat unhelpful is the argument of those who say that we cannot renegotiate our union and who proceed from there to equate every demand for restructuring with attempts to break up the country. I believe that every form of human relationships is negotiable. Every political relationship is open for negotiations, without pre-set outcomes. As a democrat and businessman I do not fear negotiations.  That is what reasonable human beings do. This is even more important if a stubborn resistance against negotiations can lead to unsavoury outcomes.

    We must acknowledge that what got us to our current over-centralized and centre-dominated federal system is political expediency and fear, and bolstered by the command and control character of military regimes.  But after 50 years of “unitary federalism”, we are now in a position to clearly see that it has not worked well. The federating units in the First Republic had their disagreements but none claimed to lack autonomy of action, and none waited for federal fiscal allocations before it could implement its programmes and pay salaries. The current structure may be working for some elites but it has clearly not worked well for any section of this country and the country as a whole. We should take deliberate steps to change this structure to serve us better. And we should not dither for too long that we let fear and expediency stampede us into another disastrous policy shift that may not serve us well either.

    We have to acknowledge that federalisms are works in progress: there is no ideal federal system or so-called true federalism. Each nation has to work out the best federal system suited for it. In Nigeria’s case we must acknowledge that it is disingenuous if not outright dishonest to say that the system is not the problem.  If the problem is just the operators, how come we have failed for 50 years to produce the right people? Should we import them from outer space? A look at our 1999 constitution, specifically Section 7, shows that there is a huge problem with the system. I challenge anyone who is against restructuring our federation to show me another well-functioning federal system in the world with that level of lopsided central dominance. Individuals operate within certain structural and institutional constraints. If all we lack are good operators, as these people argue, would anyone advocate doing away with constitutions altogether so we rely on fantastic individuals to do the right things?

    We must acknowledge that agitations for more states across the country, the clamour for more federal take-over of state institutions, and the clamour for local government autonomy (i.e. autonomy from state governments) are inconsistent with establishing a viable and well-functioning federal system. We already have too many weak and unviable states. What we need are stronger federating units (be they existing sates or zones) with a greater share of resources and responsibilities.

    I have been shouting myself hoarse asking why we should have federal roads, federal schools, federal hospitals, etc. I have called for state police, for the states that so desire, to help us provide more effective security. In 2012, I went before ALGON in Enugu and told them that their clamour for local government autonomy from state governments is misguided.  I told them that it is wrong for the federal government to be creating Local Governments and giving them money directly from the Federation Account. What is the meaning of “local” then, I asked? How does the transfer of local government dependence on state to central government translate to autonomy? Even our state governments are nearly totally dependent on the federal government, meaning they do not even have the autonomy that we are trying to give to the local governments that are below them. This is a complete absurdity. Can anyone honestly claim that our local governments have performed better since the introduction of the joint state/local government account than they did prior to the coming into effect of that constitutional provision? We must end our culture of institutional escapism in this country. By that I mean our tendency to create new institutions to solve problems for which we already have institutions just so we avoid dealing with the shortcomings of the existing institutions.

    We must acknowledge that in federal systems that work, federating units cede certain powers to the centre.  In our strange federal contraption, it is the centre that is creating federating units, giving them money and monopolizing most power and resources. Thus our state governments are no longer performing as federating units. Rather they currently seem like dependent provinces of the central government in Abuja.

    Think about this: sales taxes ought to be collected and used by states and local governments.  Of course there is nothing inherently wrong in a federal sales tax but states must agree with the federal government what items should be taxed, at what rate and how the proceeds are to be shared. They ought to be uniform. If a state is opposed to cattle tax or bicycle tax or alcohol tax, or pollution tax, for instance, it should not expect to share in the tax proceeds from those items. That is called fairness. In fact, states should be the ones collecting those taxes on behalf of the federal government and get compensated for their work, through an agreed sharing formula, rather than duplicating the cost of collection. Federal intrusion makes it more difficult for a state to collect taxes from items that may be peculiar to it, thereby narrowing the tax base. And it makes enforcement even more difficult.

    No section of this country can claim correctly that its people are better served by the current structure of our federation. When we were not dependent on oil revenues and when the federating units had greater autonomy of action and were largely responsible for their affairs, they, that is, our regional governments, did not owe workers their salaries for several months. They did not shut down schools and universities for several months because of teacher strikes and inadequate funding. Take a look at the industries that the regional governments established and ran and the quality of schools that they established, and see if you can see a state government or a group of state governments that have bested them since the emergence of our unitary federalism. And also ask yourself which of those establishments taken over or established by the federal government since, has performed as well as they did under our pre-1966 federal system.

    National unity does not mean the absence of disagreement or agitations. In fact disagreements and peaceful agitations indicate vibrant and living relationships. The key to making national progress is to manage those disagreements in peaceful and mature ways.

    Political and civic leaders from across the country must come together, discuss, negotiate and make the necessary compromises and sacrifices needed to restructure our federation to make us a stronger, more united, productive, and competitive country. Perhaps we might start with making our grievances and fears apparent. When each section or party to a dispute airs its grievances and expresses its fears and concerns, the outcome may be better understanding by others, and a quicker route to a resolution or agreement. That’s perhaps how we should proceed with the much needed rebirth and renewal of our federation.

    • Excerpts of the paper presented by former Vice President Abubakar, at the Public Presentation of a book, Nigerian Federalism: Continuing Quest for Stability and Nation-Building in Abuja on Monday.

  • Tributes on fallen heroes signs of national rebirth, says group

    A human rights advocacy group, Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CESJET) has said the show of emotion and barrage of tributes that greeted the death of Lt. Col Abu-Ali and six others is a testament that Nigerians recognise Boko Haram and its sponsors as a common enemy.

    Executive Director of the group, Joyce Adamu, at a briefing yesterday in Abuja, said the reactions that followed the deaths of the gallant military officers bear witness that Nigerians must unit in the fight against terrorism.

    She described as unpatriotic and sacrilegious attempts by some individuals to politicise the death of the army officers.

    Adamu said: “We are beginning to see that there are people manifesting their loss of humanity and see nothing wrong in attempting to cash in on these tragedies by making insinuations that have no place among right thinking people.

    “Most of this depravity is manifested in claims that the army suffered casualty in the Boko Haram attacks because present conditions are worse than what obtained under former President Goodluck Jonathan. One would have expected that the army and the Ministry of Defence would be allowed to properly investigate what went wrong to account for such casualty instead of jumping to conclusion.

    “We observed that these claims are being attributed to people who are not bold enough to reveal their identities and their so called interviews are mostly reported by cloned sites that attempt to pass off as objective, hardworking and credible news organisations.

    “To say the least, this is the height of irresponsibility. The deaths of gallant soldiers who laid down their lives to keep the rest of us safe should not be reduced into parodies and the subject of falsehood.”

  • Oke promises industrial rebirth

    Oke promises industrial rebirth

    The governorship candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Olusola Oke, has promised to revive moribund industries and complete abandoned ones.

    He blamed the unemployment rate on the comatose state of industries in the state.

    The AD candidate spoke at Idanre during his campaign tour of the rocky town at the weekend.

    He, however, promised to reverse the economic situation by creating the enabling environment to attract investors and encourage farmers with necessary implements and aids.

    The AD candidate told the people that his administration would complete reticulation work on the Owena Multi-Purpose Dam and the Golf Course began by the Olusegun Agagu administration and other necessary amenities.

    Oke visited the Owa of Idanre, Oba Fredrick Aroloye; the Aladeokun of Alade Kingdom, Oba Olusegun Akinbola; the Awosunye of Atosin-Idanre, Oba Gilbert Ogunlowo; and the Alajowa of Ajowaland, Idanre, Oba Sunday Akinbo, and their chiefs.

  • Alaafin seeks cultural rebirth for economic development

    Alaafin seeks cultural rebirth for economic development

    Modern lifestyles and technological advancement have combined to undermine the sense of identity that people had in the past. The need to be identified with one form of culture or the other has continued to propel many who feel “lost” or “rootless” to engage in a search for their ancestral heritage. BODE DUROJAIYE reports that the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi 111, at this year’s Aje Festival in Badagry, Lagos State, stressed the need for government to evolve policies that would enhance cultural rebirth for economic development.

    Culture gatekeepers have said that if individuals and communities are to flourish, they must have a sense of identity and of their history. These are what their culture could give them.

    But sadly, it seems that the way the world is developing deprives individuals and nations of their culture, their roots.

    In the industrialised countries, modern lifestyle has continued to undermine the sense of identity that people had in the past. More and more people are feeling lost or rootless. The search for cultural and historical roots has recently become something of a trend in some developed and developing countries; but the need is a genuine one.

    It was on the basis of this that the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi 111, has called on the three tiers of government to evolve policies and programmes that would enhance cultural rebirth to enable it to play fundamental role in the country’s economic development.

    Describing culture as a way of life or total behavioural patterns and beliefs of a people which are communicated from generation to generation, the monarch also stressed the need for people to identify with their respective cultures. He urged government to recognise specific contributions that culture could make towards the nation’s overall development, saying that contributions of culture as a sub-sector of the economy could be either tangible or intangible; which comprises heritage, cultural and creative industries as well as cultural infrastructure. These, Oba Adeyemi 111, said, have helped in achieving sustainable economic developments such as poverty alleviation, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

    Oba Adeyemi spoke at this year’s Aje Festival held in Badagry, Lagos State.

    This year’s festival was in commemoration of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Infamous Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its Abolition.

    He said: “The tourism sector has become one of the world’s fastest growing economic sectors. Gross worldwide tourism receipts grew at an average rate of 7 per cent from 1998 to 2008, with 12 per cent for the least developed countries for the same period.

    “Cultural tourism-that relies on tangible and intangible cultural assets-accounts for 40 per cent of world’s tourism revenues. Investment in culture and creativity has proven an excellent means of revitalising the economy of cities.

    “Today, many cities use cultural heritage and cultural events and institutions to improve their image, stimulate urban development and attract visitors as well as investments.”

    “Most middle-income countries,” Alaafin continued, “are developing vibrant culture sectors and initiatives and request assistance in this area. Culture-led development also includes a range of non-monetised benefits, such as greater social inclusiveness and rootedness, resilience, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship for individuals and communities and the use of local resources, skills, and knowledge.

    “Respecting and supporting cultural expressions contribute to strengthening the social capital of a community and fosters trust in public institutions. Cultural factors also influence lifestyles, individual behaviour, consumption patterns, values related to environmental stewardship and our interaction with the natural environment.

    “Local and indigenous knowledge systems and environmental management practices provide valuable insight and tools for tackling ecological challenges, preventing biodiversity loss, reducing land degradation and mitigating the effects of climate change.”

    Alaafin further said that cultural and creative industries represent one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the global economy with a growth rate of 17.6 per cent in the Middle East, 13.9 per cent in Africa, 11.9 per cent in South America, 9.7 per cent in Asia, 6.9 per cent in Oceania and 4.3 per cent in North and Central America.

    “Promoting this sector requires limited capital investment, involves low entry barriers and can have a direct impact on vulnerable populations, including women.

  • The rebirth of Celestial Church of Christ (CCC) Olu Ayela

    There is a conversation currently going on in some quarters of the Celestial Church of Christ about seven decades after the establishment of the Church by late Bilewu Oshoffa and it is indeed a confirmation of the eternal and timeless wisdom of God as contained in the scriptures. Aptly captured in the memorable statement, is the gem in Ecclesiastics 3:1 that “to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

    Among the collectives of the academic pastors of the Church, notable among whom are; Superior Evangelist Folorunsho Omooluwa, Most Senior Evangelist Beleyeke Yomi and Superior Evangelist Michael Akinbami, a permanent secretary in the Ondo State civil service, who is also the Pastor-in-charge, Testimony Parish of the church in Akure, Ondo State Capital is the conversation that is reflecting after a long time of skirmishes in the Church on how and where the wolves crept into the fold, sent the shepherd scampering and scattered the sheep.

    They are critically examining some of the issues that brought the Church down from its glorious height to the mud level and made it a canvas to draw all kinds of ill fitting sketches of rancor, discord and dissention that has brought the Church to disrepute and odium. They are concerned about how to end the drift from the Church which in time past was almost a Church of first choice for many families in the South west of Nigeria. It was such a happy time that there was hardly a single family where a member of the Church could not be found then. But not any longer as can be testified to following the ill wind that has ravaged the flocks since the past three decades.

    Their vision which is quite noble commendable even though at the same time appearing to be very ambitious is they attempt to recover from the tremor that has torn the Church into pieces following the death of the founder and the spiritual head, S.B.J Osofa in 1985. There are not a few efforts to retrace the steps to normalcy but they had all faltered on the rocks of ego and ambitions. There is plenty of hope that this will finally be the cure to the crisis of leadership in the Church.

    The leadership crisis erupted first from the household of the late founder where the tussle over who should be the rightful on with the vision of the father. There is the certainty that with contrasting experiences brought about by the scuffles engender by the problems of polygamy that even the celestial can be trounced by human abilities.

    The rivalry between Tosho Oshoffa who declared himself as a factional pastor while his elder brother, Emmanuel Mobiyina Oshoffa was the spiritual head ensured that the battle for the exalted leader of the Church burned so fiercely that those who were looking to take advantage of the crisis quickly declared independence and hurried away from the unfolding drama leading to many splinter groups including the Evangelical Celestial Church of Christ (ECCC).

    The breakaway of the ECCC which is just one of the groups that broke away was an added fuel and impetus for many parishes under the church to unilaterally changed and modified the established doctrines and ordinances of the church. This power tussle which almost consumed the church to the extent of losing more than half of their membership to other churches is still burning unabated till today.

    The events in the Church seem like a re-enactment of the Bible after the Prophet Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, 400 years, before the emergence of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible recorded that the Israelites were on their own without their God to direct and lead them and were given to ways that had everyone doing what pleased him or her. Today many members of the CCC are doing whatever pleases them including setting up their own parishes without the consent, authority and the approval of the church. It is not uncommon and nothing out of the ordinary to hear and see one member who would just wake up from her bedroom and prophesy that her husband or concubine is the right and authentic spiritual head of the church.

    The abominable practices are unending and even some of the female members of the church who are audacious and acrimonious are now setting up Parishes in a process that violates the tenets and the constitution of the church. This is a totally unacceptable blow to the Church that has been known for years for its orderliness and respect for its rich traditions. It is one other motivation for the urgency to rally the flocks.

    Expectedly, some of the practices that were left unchallenged at the beginning are rearing their ugly heads to compound the Church’s problem. One especially noted for stirring the rupture is a system referred to as Shepherd/Landlord practice. This means that a person (Shepherd) is the owner of the land where the church is built. These Shepherds/Landlords are difficult to sanction and do not respond to any form of disciplinary measures imposed, would not brook the mention of being transferred from the Church they have so ‘planted’. They prefer to have a showdown with the Authority of the church, insult and rail at any attempt at order and eventually prefer to pull out of the Church in the event of a confrontation.

    However, today, after darkness, light cometh. The academic pastors of the church have bonded and are coming together to salvage it and offer relief from the long agonizing period of strife. They are organizing series of seminars, conferences, and workshops to educate, enlighten, galvanize and re-orientate the members in a blitz that is going nationwide. It is a radical departure from many of the reconciliation efforts that has been brokered by eminent Nigerians even including one by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta.

    This move is scripted to allow for an interactive process in a broad and wide consultation among the members of the Church across the nation in a bid to get their input and stir their love for the Church that has been them for them through thick and thin. It is their belief that this consultative process will help usher in a new era of peace and return to more spiritually recharged Church that will drop some of the rituals and practices that are not in line with the expectations of the Lord.

    In one of the most recent initiative of the enlightenment campaigns which held at the Testimony Parish along Idanre Road, Akure, and sponsored by Superior Evangelist Akinbami, the following resolutions adopted were far reaching and believed to be preparing the way for the rebirth of the Church. The participants demanded;

    That the Church authority should urgently abolish the issue of shepherd/landlord dichotomy and that all Parish properties should belong to the church and not individuals.

    That there should be a standard theological school by the church at the Headquarters in Lagos where every shepherd or would-be shepherd must pass exams before being allowed to head a Parish.

    That there must be a total abolition of the so called spiritual works, that emphasis must be placed on pure Salvation of Souls of the members.

    That the church must de-emphasise the influence of the prophets, prophetess and their prophecies asking that an immediate embargo be placed on members of the Church be stopped from patronizing them.

    That the word of God and the love as it was in the beginning of the church should be preached in all the Parishes.

    That henceforth, when the spiritual head of the church dies, it is the pastors-in-council that should select the new spiritual head and this should take place at Imeko only.

    That the original love and respect among members as of old should be restored and a total return to spirituality and not reliance on flesh as being witnessed today in the church.

    That efforts should be made to identify and flush out undesirable elements who have entrenched themselves today as shepherds and pastors in the Church.

    There is no doubt that expectations are high and the world is watching to see how this exercise will work in the long run to bring sanity back to the Church where the seed of disruption planted long ago has seen the rise of even people with questionable characters and affiliations becoming not just members of the Church but becoming Shepherds and heads of Parishes.

    It may be morning yet in creating a new template for the Church but there is no stopping an idea whose time has come. Perhaps, this is the time for the Celestial Church of Christ to re-invent itself and get back not just its lost glory but to get the Church back into the right leadership.

     

    • Olu Ayela, Veteran Journalist, based in Lagos

  • Delta urges moral rebirth, as it celebrates international peace day

    The Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC) ,Asaba branch has admonished all aggrieved groups in the country to sheathe their swords as the world celebrated the 2016 International Day of Peace.

    It canvassed the adoption of mediation and concilliation in the judicial process to foster peace and unity in the Nigerian State, adding that Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is flexible ,quick at dispensing social justice , less expensive ,less time wastage, friendly, and conducted in private and strictly confidential.

    The group in collaboration with Delta State Ministry of Justice penultimate week organised a one-day workshop to train legal officers in the Delta State Ministry of Justice on mediation and concilliation as the primary mechanism for resolving disputes.

    The workshop with theme, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals:Building Blocks for Peace’ calls attention to the United Nations three prong approach to ensuring world peace I.e ‘end to poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all’.

    The group said the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Mechanism can ‘greatly help in fostering peace and unity in the Nigerian State even before 2030 which is the target date for achievement of the 17 sustainable development goals by the United Nation (UN)’.

    The ICMC is the professional body of Nigerian practitioners that trains prospective candidates , and encourages organisations and institutions to adopt mediation and concilliation as the primary mechanisms for resolving disputes.

    Its President, Dr Louis Ogbeifun in an address at the occasion blamed ‘some stakeholders in the judicial process of hindering the anti-corruption fight of the present administration’, rand urged support for the anti-corruption crusade.

    He urged the federal government to take proactive measures to tackle the current recession,warning that the ‘sole catalyst for people’s revolt in almost all ages is poverty and hunger’.

    His words, ‘ Government can fight corruption with the teeth of the law.It can fight militancy ,insurgency and other wars with guns and bombs, but the war orchestrated by hunger if allowed to rear its ugly heads does not respond to any law ,arsenals and armament.’

    He said to prevent a masses revolt, government must provide necessary support to farmers, while encouraging citizens to cultivate small scale gardens and poultry farms.

    Ogbeifun said bailout funds should not be geared towards salaries but be channelled into employment generation ,reduction of poverty ,hunger and incentivising exportation to earn foreign exchange.

    On the successes  recorded by ICMC, Ogbeifun said, ‘So far, the ICMC is happy to have partnered with Delta ,Bayelsa, Ogun  and Edo States in setting up or in the process of setting up their multi Door Courthouses’.

    He harped on the imperatives of ADR in resolving disputes, adding that in ‘Delta State many lawyers have been trained to ensure effective administration of justice, and promotion of peace and harmonious coexistence among the various ethnic, religious and socio-political groups.’

    Delta Commissioner for Justice, and Attorney General  Mr Peter Mrakpor in his remarks said the fight against corruption should be attitudinal,adding that except Nigerians imbibe values and principles the war on corruption is doomed.

    His words: ‘It is an attitudinal change we need in Nigeria. Nigerians should understand  that what they need to live a qualitative life. Since we do not need a billion Naira to live a qualitative life, then someone should remind us that we do not need a billion to live a qualitative life.Food clothing and shelter are the basics in achieving this goal.We need to have a re orientation of values. You can take people to court, you can charge them or even send them to prison,despite these measures, society is still grappling with large scale larceny of our commonwealth.”