Olukorede Yishau
I had wanted to have a tete-a-tete with you guys last week, but I shelved the plan. Between then and now, you guys have been up to more mischiefs and, no matter how I tried to let you continue in your foolishness mixed with stupidity, my spirit refused to oblige me. So here are my submissions.
Our world has turned upside down in such a way that we are battling to understand it. A new strain of the Coronavirus known as COVID-19 descended on our world and took us by surprise. In my over four decades on earth, this is the first time that places that were ever busy have become empty, it is the first time that billions of people have had to work from home, it is the first time billions of pupils and students have had to take advantage of technology to continue learning, it is the first time that Israel and Saudi Arabia have had to stop pilgrims from their countries. It is indeed a moment of so many firsts.
Understandably, we should seek answers in the right places, but for you guys, this is another opportunity to drag in the Anti-Christ and such other arguments that struggle to fit in. You have come up with all kinds of videos, one shows birds dead near an antenna and another shows trees with dead leaves. The birds were said to have died as a result of the so-called radiation from the 5G mast or antenna. We are also told the leaves on the trees withered because of the fifth generation antennae installed near them. The blame was taken away from the fact that most trees are like that during winter and spring. They only regain their bloom in summer.
One of you theorists did an audio note in Yoruba in which he sounded so brilliant, but the only snag is that what he had to say reeks of senselessness. Like the theorists in the videos, he was out to make us believe there is a link between the 5G technology and COVID-19. He claimed that the new technology was launched in Wuhan, where COVID-19 started. According to his warped logic, the Chinese knew the technology was going to lead to so much radiation that would kill people and so decided to introduce COVID-19 using the bat. This, the self-acclaimed expert, argued was to confuse people about what was killing them. He also put forward this false claim that many people in Wuhan were suddenly shaky and subsequently fall and die before help could come.
Many theorists will green with envy when they see what the great Dino Melaye has been up to since the 5G conspiracy started. He has been posting videos after videos to back up the conspiracy theories. Trust ‘Pastor’ Melaye to bring in the religious angle. He claimed the new technology is evil and that he would fight it. Days after he began the ridiculous campaign, he claimed he had received international calls threatening him to back down on his ill-advised propaganda against 5G. He claimed the callers said 5G was bigger than him and he should desist from trying to stop it. He added that he was not afraid and would keep up his foolishness.
Whatever Christian bent ‘Pastor’ Melaye tried to introduce was amateurish. Enter Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, who brought a professional touch to it. In a live broadcast on his Love Word television, the Christ Embassy Overseer, with the aid of a chart, linked the 5G with COVID-19 and, of course, the Anti-Christ— that dreaded monster Christians like me have been prepared to look out for. With his smooth delivery, Pastor Oyakhilome laid bare the facts as his researches showed. There is even a second video in which he claimed the Federal Government ordered the closure of Abuja and Lagos so that 5G antennas could be mounted. He added clinchers: Social distancing was introduced as a way of stopping people from protesting the 5G take-off, deaths are high where 5G has been installed and 5G is behind deaths in Wuhan.
But a day or two after his beautiful submissions, his colleague, Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo of the Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC), released a video on those he described as foolish theorists. He did not mention names, but the allusions showed us unambiguously where the fingers of guilt were pointed.
Ashimolowo: “How come it (Coronavirus) got to my village where there is no 5G?”Ashimolowo wondered. He added that the Church has always suspected the Anti-Christ anytime the world is faced with a pandemic. He gave the examples of Napoleon Bonaparte, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and how their actions made the Church assume the Anti-Christ was finally here.
”Sickness is out there killing people and I am very disappointed in pastors who have hastily shown graphs to show that there is a conspiracy theory to take over the world and put some chips in people’s bodies. We know the Anti-Christ will play all those pranks, this is not it; this is a pandemic. Jesus spoke about this in Mathew 24 verse 8. This is a disease. It doesn’t make any sense. Carry the Dettol in your bathroom and you find Coronavirus written on it. There has been Coronavirus before now. It is just that this particular strand or strain (whatever they say in science) is mutated to become what we have no cure for, and that is what we are finding a cure for. America will not destroy its economy to the tune of almost 20 trillion in order to put a chip on your body. Britain will not destroy its economy to the point of … trillion in order to put a chip in your body. I am ashamed and embarrassed by pastors who are ill-informed, badly-informed, take videos, patch it together and misinform the body of Christ. It has to stop. God will expose the Anti-Christ when the time comes, but let’s not put fear in the people. This is a disease killing people.”
Truly, there is no fun fishing in rivers without fishes. All those energies being dissipated on sounding like scientists or God’s second-in-command will not help our world. Booker prize-winning novelist Margaret Atwood, in her Handmaid’s Tale, said: “Watching a movie about the past is not the same as the past.” I am sure cobbling all sorts of things together and calling them facts is not the same as facts.
The facts that will heal our sick world is that we should continue to social distance, we should wash our hands properly, we should sneeze into our elbows, we should desist from shaking hands or hugging, we should isolate if we have been exposed to danger zones and we should refuse to be ambassadors of falsehood. This is not a time to “forward as received”. Before pressing the forward button on your mobile device, ask yourself these questions: Will it be beneficial to the world? Will it damage the person who receives it and the person he or she chooses to forward it to? Only forward when you are sure our world will be better for it. If you have any iota of doubt, please do not forward.
I really will rejoice if you guys will just chill, but I also will not be surprised if you do not because in this world where people do things for different reasons, including ulterior motives, conspiracy theorists will always seek to let us feel beans is all protein years after scientists have shown its complex carbohydrate content.
Please try to rise above this pedestrian level.
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