Nigerians love predictions. Who doesn’t? Imagine having a preview of a movie heralded by a storm of hype. It is, indeed, a rare privilege to have a glimpse into the future, especially now when there is so much uncertainty and anxiety in the world.
But it is not given unto all men to have the oracular knowledge of telling the future with the clinical precision of a surgeon. It is highly spiritual. Deep. Even then, spiritualism is not to be mistaken for some psychic capabilities or clairvoyance or telepathy or necromancy and its numerous varieties that have been commercialised by some men who are neither called nor chosen. No.
In case you are wondering whether Editorial Notebook is on a voyage into some ethereal realm of mythological angels, fairies, apparitions and gnomes, you are not right. Even then you are not far from the truth. Not being gifted in matters spiritual nor trained in the art of fortune telling and palm reading, yours sincerely can only report such affairs with the finesse and accuracy that are the hallmarks of this column.
So, this, in a nutshell, is mere reportage of what the wise ones – and those who some impatient fellows have dismissed as Bar Beach charlatans – have said lie in the belly of 2017. And boy what a rain of predictions for the new year.
Take a bow Governor Ayo Fayose –yes; the Ekiti helmsman . He, surprisingly, flung open the floodgate of predictions. In that methodical style which his admirers credit him with, he took out two full pages in a national newspaper to advertise his 2016 predictions which he swore came to pass. He thereafter laid out in clear, bold and cold print the predictions for this year.
His Excellency, apparently to caution those fellows who are wont to dismiss him as a loudmouth, chatterbox and stuntsman, swore that the Holy Spirit spoke with him. As if stung by bees, the busybodies descended on him. Where? When? Any witness? Was the governor in the spirit? Was the gubernatorial throat splashed with a gulp of spirits? In which language did the Spirit speak?
One of them, an obviously charitable fellow who could easily pass for one of the governor’s numerous admirers, replied succinctly that he “reliably learnt” from a source close to an agbo jedi drink hawker who swore that the governor is one of her clients, that the Holy Spirit spoke one day as he bent down to pick his favourite lunch of roasted plantain and groundnuts at a roadside shack.
The governor claimed that the Holy Spirit told him, among others, that the dollar will exchange for N600, the economy will move from recession to depression and a former head of state may pass on. “Hardship will be more as poverty continues to ravage the country. EFCC’s Magu may face prosecution,” the governor said after the encounter with the Holy Spirit.
Now many, among them those who claim to have identified some purveyors of doomsday prophecies, are asking: “Is Fayose also among the prophets?”
Since the pre-Christmas predictions of His Excellency, many others have followed. Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, the revered General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, is quoted as predicting that “those troubling Nigeria will be relocated”.
Relocated; where to? Sambisa? Panama? Aleppo? Banjul? Mogadishu? Won’t they begin to trouble their new location? Why can’t we just deal with them here? Must we always wait for others to lend a hand in tackling our trouble? Will they be relocated with their heirs who if left behind may become our new tormentors?
The suggestions, permutations and postulations have been many. In fact, a cheeky fellow has reminded us all about a leading politician who vowed to relocate should then candidate Muhammadu Buhari win the presidential election. Buhari, needless to say, won the election and became the president. The politician, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, has since refused to relocate, despite being taunted by his opponents. His party, as you may have known, keeps sinking deeper and deeper into its self-inflicted trouble .
Bishop Mike Okonkwo of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM) also has a word for those troubling Nigeria. They will face enormous problems, he predicted. “I know that presently those who have one way or the other destabilised the country, there will be more problems for them. There will be a demand from the government that they should return the money they looted,” the respected man of God said.
To his prediction, I learnt, there was a roaring “amen!” from the huge congregation. But the critical audience who would not just take it all as spiritual are asking: “Who will demand that they return the loot? Senators? Magu? Will Magu survive now that corruption seems to have regained its breath and is fighting back desperately? Or will he be fed to the wolves? Will they, those troubling Nigeria, surrender their loot even if the government demands for it? Or will they elect to go to jail, return, visit a church for thanksgiving and stage a one-in-town revelry?”
Rev. Okonkwo predicted that those who look unto God will have a turnaround. He described the year as “a year of new things”. He advised the Buhari administration to speak more to Nigerians on its challenges and its solutions so that the confidence of Nigerians in the government would not wane. He cited the bloodletting in southern Kaduna, saying the government’s attitude could give the impression that it approved the killings. Is anybody listening?
The leader of the Northern Inter-Faith and Religious Organisations for Peace, Bishop Musa Fomson, in his new year message, predicted that Boko Haram’s fiendish leader Abubakar Shekau will be captured and brought to Abuja. What a spectacle that will be. Loquacious Shekau, who mocked Buhari and the military and told us that he would marry off and sell the Chibok girls, bound like a Lagos pick pocket being prepared for jungle justice and flown – boots,rifle and all that – to Abuja.
Will he be allowed to name his sponsors? Will he let us into the workings of the insurgency that has taken thousands of lives, ruined homes and battered the future of many? Will he tell where the remaining Chibok girls are? Will he let us know the truth about his flag and his Koran that our gallant soldiers captured? Are they truly his or some other fellow’s as claimed by some social media irritants?
Is he the original Shekau, the bearded one in those periodic videos? Is Shekau a name taken up by any sect member on whose shoulder the mantle of leadership falls after the death of the incumbent? If so, how about the beards; grown and groomed to cover the face like the original? How about the voice and the drama? Make – believe? Who are his foreign backers?
Alas, we may not resolve these and many other riddles of Boko Haram. I doubt if Shekau will not get the Mohammed Yusuf treatment, if he is ever captured. Yusuf (remember him?) was the young leader of the sect who was killed after soldiers captured him and handed him over to the police.
Of all the predictions, one stands out for its scintillating political dimension. Prophet Wale Olagunju, the presiding Bishop of Divine Seed Chapel Ministries, Ibadan said in a 52-point prophecy that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar will succeed Buhari in 2019.
The prediction has elicited debates. The world is yet to recover from the hangover of maverick billionaire Donald Trump’s victory in the United States election and Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU). Is an Atiku presidency a possibility now that it has been seen in the spiritual realm?
Atiku, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has not announced that he is running. It is too early, many would say. But the Turaki has since launched into what is considered in political circles as a scurrilous attack on the Buhari administration.
On which platform will Atiku run? Can he wrest the APC ticket from Buhari should the latter decide to run again? Asked to comment on Atiku’s plan to contest, former President Olusegun Obasanjo once said derisively: I dey laugh o! What will he do now?
A cynical fellow, one of those “internet hyenas” on Facebook, asked nobody in particular: “Please, has T.B. Joshua released his 2017 prophecies?”Needles to say, he got many comments.
Another released what he called his own predictions and swore with his wedding certificate that they would come to pass before the end of the year. “There shall be 28 days in February. Any car with an empty tank shall be immobile. If your bank account is in the red, you won’t be able to withdraw money. Every woman delivered of a baby shall have a boy or a girl. The volume of your urine shall be a function of your water intake. Hunger shall disappear the moment you eat. A new president will take office in the U.S. “
He concluded with the confidence of an expert: “If these prophecies don’t come to pass, then I’m not a man of God.”
Compliments.
