On 30th of October, this year, 2016, it was my brother-in-law’s wedding which coincided with our normal Sunday church service. For a usual Sunday service that spans over 4 hours, an additional marriage ceremony was no doubt belabouring and time-sapping.
But as if the day was not loaded enough, an elderly woman insisted the church must find a way of squeezing in her thanksgiving ceremony. Indeed her request was granted and everything was going-on successfully; one after the other until the thanksgiving woman, as the last event, retired back to her seat, where she slumped almost immediately, prompting some members to carry her outside the church for a first aid before taking her to the hospital. In all, she never made it alive to the hospital.
As I recounted the incident later to some persons who were not at the event, I saw the usual attitude of people trying to launch into explaining God’s every reaction to our actions:
Just as some of my church members earlier had concluded it was wrong for the woman to insist on having her thanksgiving at all cost; on her preferred date. And not even one person bothered about her prior medical condition.
For most of those who slammed in their reasons for her death, no matter her health condition, it is simply preposterous for death to occur in the church. Personally, I see nothing wrong in a woman insisting on thanking God as swiftly as her pregnant daughter and her unborn grandchild survived a life threatening operation, coupled with the message of a successful journey from her only son, who had wandered through the desert into Europe.
Sometimes when doing the right things fails to guarantee the desired results, I become more philosophical about life, rather than getting more religious. This is the same feeling I have been subjected to since Donald Trump emerged as the American president. For most of us, we thought Trump was unknowingly reinforcing the wrong dispositions because God, we assume, had programmed him for a big shameful loss. And Hillary Clinton was doling out the masterstrokes because it was God’s plan to make her win the presidential election historically.
As those who hastily gave reasons for the thanksgiving woman’s death because of the pretext that every church is God’s house, which is enough to submerge all rational thinking about her health status; likewise it was right to conclude that God would never allow Trump, a considered preacher of sectarian or racial hatred, to lead unarguably the most powerful nation on earth.
Relying on such distasteful disposition we have of Trump, it was of no relevance to appreciate that the Muslim religion has become so tainted with hate-oriented carnages of late, needing a cautious discrimination until the world comes up with an app which could make it easier to differentiate a radical Muslim from the non-radical one from afar.
And because of the exigencies of electioneering, we also considered it was self-annihilating for Trump to openly recant that America’s continuing provision of a safehaven for fleeing Africans, Latinos and Asians from the tyranny and corruptive effects of their roguish leaders, was far from being the solution for the symptoms of such induced wandering.
PREFERABLY therefore, Trump should lose for not believing it is America’s lot to fix the problems in all other parts of the world even as America is yet to fix its own. For most of us, America must remain a cleansing and bonding receptacle of all that are bad, good, ugly and beautiful. As a model for the world, its benevolence must keep shinning through, and not necessarily taunting immigrants with the arduous task of returning back to fix the problems in their homelands.
But on a practical note, is Africa not a buoyant continent to sustain its own? Is its wealth not substantially confirmed by nature? Is it not a fact that plants and animals which are not bound by immigration restrictions prefer staying in Africa?Are plants and animals not disappearing or becoming threatened only because of the same misrule which has failed to replenish and protect them?
Do African men not love Black women more? In spite of Africans’ flair for Western inventions; are marriages between Blacks and people of other races not still considered as means to an end, and not an end in itself? In earnest, if not for the continuous leaching of Africa by its leaders, Africans would have been validly exempted from Trump’s snide immigration and jobseeking remarks.
All the same, it is not an all-round pitiable situation for Africans. As a matter of fact, Africans should thank the president elect, Donald Trump for reminding them that nature has already used symmetry to define where every tribe ought to find its natural abode. Africans should examine their lifestyles to rightly determine where they belong.
It is not condemnable for Americans to decide that it is time for them to look inward and address their problems first before any other people or race. Its method of solving such internal problems with the exclusion of others should also not be putrefied as discriminatory. It is simply a wakeup call for Africans to note that running to hide in a safe place with one’s wound, does not make the wound disappear or become healed.
After the Jews’ holocaust, the remaining Jews had no home to return, no family and poverty was ravaging. Between 1945 and 1948, they rallied in their thoughts and gave birth to the miracle state of Israel. Thankfully, Trump has correctly identified Africa’s problem as emanating from their corrupt leaders. Just before he starts sending Africa immigrants back home, he should please push it as a matter of America’s policy to be giving any corrupt African leader who sets his feet on American soil ‘the Ibori treatment’.
In the case of Nigeria, we shall be supplying overwhelming evidence of such present and past leaders to have them appropriately jailed. The same persons, who unfortunately in Nigeria, would have been compensated with higher political offices and stately wealth, rather than having them jailed. If Trump can simply launch ‘the Ibori treatment’ into the global perspective of justice, Africans would immediately stop foraging other continents for survival.
THANK you for this article Mr. Odion. Especially for calling out our uninformed youths who have used the anonymity of the social media space to disparage someone of the stature of WS. That he had to address the issue in order to educate these brain-dead Lilliputians is in itself heart-breaking.
Funso Famuyiwa YOU confuse us the more with your grammar. What are you talking about? The man promised to tear his green card after Trump’s victory and it is running to two weeks now. Instead, what we hear is grammar.
The honour of a man is for him to honour his word. Oluwatobi David, Ikoyi, Lagos.: 08128801999 RATHER than resort to hurling cheap insults and abusing the messenger, it will be beneficial to some of you who comment here to learn first, the simple art of reading and comprehension.
It is evident from some of the comments here, that many of you either skipped or missed completely, their English Comprehension classes while in school. It is a crying shame that Nigeria used to take pride in its education but sadly, it has now become a “dumbed -down” society where many “so-called” school graduates can neither read, write nor spell properly.
People no longer have the ability to either think critically or read between the lines or to engage in a debate in an intelligent manner. Everything has boiled down to anonymous, unintelligible cheap shots and easy social media styled name-calling exercises. Learn to read, digest and fully comprehend an article first before jumping up to criticize the author.
Well, you just might learn something useful along the way. And guess what? You would at least come across as a thinking person. Don’t get me wrong.
Anyone has the right to disagree with any writer here but I hasten to say that you do not reserve the liberty or the license to respond only with sheer insults and no facts, basis or logic whatsoever to back up your errant comments.
