The Politics and Religion of Ransoms: Rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s

“Pray, should we pay taxes to Caesar?”

It was intended as a trap. To say Yes was to accept Caesar’s rule and, perhaps, make him a deity. A No would put Jesus at cross purposes with the ultimate ruler. 

Jesus called them hypocrites. And rightly so. God and reason are not always at loggerheads, except when they should be. To be sure, taxes, not prayers, repair roads, build schools and equip hospitals. Sometimes, the demands of Caesar might be inconvenient, hurtful and even unfair. But you obey all the same, having considered the implications of disobedience. In some circumstances, you choose disobedience. “This is not Caesar’s,” you firmly assert. In the former, your faith excuses your obedience while denying obedience in the latter. It is the way of faith and reason. In essence, faith keeps us on the higher grounds of belief and conduct even when reason suggests otherwise.  It is a no brainer choosing one without the consideration of the other. For how can we know the limit of reason without the triumph of faith? And how can we savour the beauty of faith without the discipline of reason?

So, Caesar should have his taxes. And he doesn’t have to be a deity to enjoy that priviledge. He should even have more, much more. He should have obedience to lawful and reasonable demands. He should also have the respect and honour his office demands. Even then, we should never hesitate to say to Caesar, “This is not yours but God’s.” The question is: who is Caesar? He is the one who has power over you, who can put you in a difficult situation from which you cannot easily extricate yourself. The power may be a force of love or of coercion. Caesar is the armed robber that demands your car key at gunpoint. He is the rapist that overpowers you in the dark corner of a deserted street. In either case, you pray fervently for help. You also assess the situation reasonably in an interplay of faith and reason. In one possible scenario, the chilling sound of a police siren may be the divine intervention you need to save you from the armed robber. In another, it may be the succumbing to the brutal force, while trusting the Lord to keep you safe. You may miraculously overpower the rapist, or you may choose to live to tell the tale of God’s miraculous help for a rape victim. 

Recently, the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria - His Eminence, ArchBishop Samuel Kanu-Uche - and two of his co-travelers were before their Caesar. The notorious band of eight Fulani herdsmen had made them trek for several hours in the wilderness and under the cover of the night. Their Caesar showed them the gully of dead bones of victims that had failed to render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar’s. Tortured, wounded and desecrated, the Prelate engaged his Caesar as we should all do ours. He negotiated the ransom and their release. Meanwhile, the Church and the nation were praying. In a matter of hours, N130 million was raised, out of which N100 million was rendered to Caesar in five sacks of N20 million each. 

After their release, the Prelate in a press conference announced that their release was made possible by God that enabled the Church to pay the negotiated ransom. Before then, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State had attributed the release of the Prelate within 24 hours “to the grace of God, the fervent prayers of the Christian community and the well coordinated response from security agencies in Abia State.” He was right about the grace of God and the fervent prayers of the Christian community. However, the well coordinated response from the security agencies the Governor spoke about only existed in his fertile imaginations. It was a mere political grandstanding designed to give a false impression of security in an obviously dangerous environment. 

Simply put, the Prelate rendered unto Caesar what was Caesar’s, despite being aware of the National Assembly’s attempt to criminalize ransom payment and the tough but empty boasts of “well coordinated response from the security agencies”. In essence, there were two Caesars the Prelate faced. One Caesar was the fearless and the seemingly invincible band of abductors he was locked in with in the wilderness and in the dark of the night. The other Caesar was the government, whose representatives were asleep in comfortable mansions, oblivious of and detached from the existential security threat the nation was wallowing in. Another set of representatives of this Caesar were on the streets harassing and extorting from traders, motorists and any young person with evidence of means. 

The Prelate pragmatically chose his Caesar. And he rendered to him the things that were his. By doing so, he wittingly or unwittingly refused to render his trust and confidence in the promised protection of the other Caesar. He is alive to tell the story without shame. If anyone should be ashamed, it would be the other Caesar, whose security policies are long on promise but short on performance.

Looking for LAUGHTER

Laughter, where are you? Have you gone with the winds? Gone are the days when you held court in our human life and experiences. In your ubiquitous presence, you surrounded our dinner tables with so much joy, you lighted our dark moments and enlivened our workplaces. In your purest form, you are hearty and unpretentious; instantaneous and genuine. You were a delightful companion, a soulmate. In your absence we now frown. And frowns go for ten a penny. But we would rather spend a billion to have you back. So far, our money has only procured an array of comedians but not laughter. We still have medicines on our shelves but they don’t heal our wounds like you do. We still flock to religious houses but the joy of the Lord you bring still eludes us. 

If we may ask you, Laughter, why did you choose to leave us? Why did you walk away without a warning, without fanfare? You couldn’t even wait for a befitting send off. How greatly we must have angered you. Did we naively take you for granted, thinking we would always have you? In our naivety we never asked what brought you to us and what kept you with us. 

In retrospect, you didn’t leave us, we left you. We left you to pursue fame, power and money, at the expense of genuine happiness. Little wonder we are left with short-term grins and long-term frowns. We now know you mirror the love we have for self and for others. You reflect the undying hope we have for our life’s endeavors and echoes our faith that holds firm in times of trouble. As we stayed in our lane, refusing to compare ourselves with others, you flooded our hearts and faces with joy. Our laughter was from inside out. It wasn’t an external stimulus, but an inner voice of peace. As God’s peace garnished our minds, you lighted up our faces. You routinely depicted the happiness we had on the inside. We laughed because we were happy, and we were happy because we laughed.

It’s fruitless looking for you, Laughter. We know where you are and have always been. We will come to you and not you to us. As the Lord lives, we shall do the needful and start laughing again.

The Nexus Between Hunger And Death

There is the story of four lepers that stood transfixed at a crossroad of history, their stomachs empty and growling, their hopes in the air. It was at the gate of Samaria as recorded in the seventh chapter of 2 Kings. The lepers were stuck between a battered economy and a buoyant economy. Behind them was a decimated nation, before them a Syrian camp of soldiers stocked with food supplies and all, ready to pounce on a fear-struck adversarial nation. There had been a famine in the land as a result of the Syrian siege. The resulting hunger was so severe that mothers took turns to boil and eat their sons to stave off total annihilation. Call it a tragedy or a calamity and you would be right. But to the helpless people of Samaria, it was a most undignified necessity, an excusable indignity, and an explainable cruelty. After all, hunger and death are like Siamese twins. Extreme hunger almost invariably leads to death. And death may be a more attractive option in the face of an excruciating hunger.

The four lepers thought with the small ounce of faculty remaining in their hunger incapacitated minds. They could stay back doing nothing and die invariably. Or, they could break into the Syrian camp and face possible death like men. They chose the latter. Facing uncertain death was more appealing to the hungry lepers. 

Last Saturday in the oil-rich city of Port Harcourt, there were thousands, not four lepers, that thronged the Polo Club. This throng of people, made leprous by the circumstances of life, had heeded the call of their agonizing stomachs. A church had provided them the last straw to cling unto. They were promised gifts and food supplies. The sound of that was enough for them to risk their lives in a struggle. After all, they thought it was better to struggle and die than to die of hunger without a struggle. For this, they neither feared the crowd nor the possibly of death from the expected stampede. At the last count, thirty nine of them had lost their lives.

It was a sad but recurring tale. We have watched with dismay the young and the old scooping petrol from fully loaded petrol trucks that were involved in accidents. In some of the instances, fire had consumed many of the scoopers. We have seen and are seeing many at the political rallies looking for handouts from the political class, risking their lives for their only opportunity to receive the dividends of democracy.  

The saddest part of this normalized anomaly is that the multiple incidences of deaths do not serve as a deterrent to future stampede and further deaths. I have read about some commentator blaming it all on our culture of disorderly conducts. Such commentators should know that hunger does not answer to reason. As long as governments at all levels, corporate and religious houses, individuals, families, associations and communities continue to neglect the poor, we shall continue to breed hungry lepers, who will risk any danger to heed the call of their stomachs. In the hungry man’s thinking, it is better to struggle and die than to die without a struggle.

Deborah’s Blood on Their Hands

Like every girl of her age, she had dreams and eyes on the future. She had looked forward to a day she would receive  her certfificate, earn a decent living, start a family and assist her poor parents. Again, like every girl, Deborah had a passion. But unlike most of others, her passion was neither fashion nor drugs, neither prostitution nor yahoo-yahoo. It was a faith - a faith that made her believe and behave differently in a community dominated by another faith. Those differences led to her gruesome murder. It was not supposed to be so. The constitution to which Deborah and her murdereers subscribe (or, are obligated to) guarantees the freedoms of speech, association and religion. In a discerning society, these difference are assets and not liabilities. Because they open the door wide to inclusiveness. Different shades of opinions and practices make a nation robust enough to deal with its challenges and strong enough to advance its commonly shared values and dreams. A nation’s robustness and strength are hinged on not obliterating or removing its differences but effectively managing them through mutual acceptance, tolerance and cooperative or legal resolution of conflicts. To be sure, mutual acceptance is a tall order, judging from the claim of every religion as the only way to God. Even then, mutual acceptance is the shortest route to peaceful co-existence and the survival of a multi-cultural and multi-religious nation such as ours. Tolerance is the effective management of our short fuses. Tolerance restrains us from acting disorderly or illegally to the behaviors we dislike or disagree with. It is the capacity to endure pain or hardship arising from differences in opinions, beliefs and practices.  Even then, we cannot prevent conflict altogether because as humans the mismanagement of our misunderstanding is inevitable. A nation that is not committed to resolving its religious and other conflicts by following due process is without a soul and will take its ignoble place among the banana republics of this world. 

Happily, the two major religions in Nigeria preach tolerance and abhor violent attacks on non-adherents for whatever cause. At least, as enshrined in their holy books. Christians, for one, are enjoined to love their enemies and pray those that despitefully use them. Koran, according to informed Islamic scholars, has no record of injunction to Moslem faithfuls to retaliate on behalf of Allah when under blasphemous provocation by people of other faiths.

Which means that Deborah’s life was cut short in its prime by criminals hiding under religion. You might say, death is death. But Deborah’s death is the saddest display of our beastly nature and the worst case scenario of man’s inhumanity to man. Think about it, she was snatched from the custody of the College’s security, dragged like a criminal into the waiting arms of an intolerant mob, beaten black and blue by lawless people, and burnt like a sacrificial lamb by some of the worst specimens of our nation. 

Since then, there has been a cacophony of noises, from the sane to the insane, from the sublime to the ridiculous. A religious leader and a college don openly supported the dastardly act. Miscreants took to the streets denouncing, my apologies, defending the gruesome murder and demanding the release of the arrested suspects. In one rarity, a presidential candidate allowed his humanity to take preference over his religion and politics. But as soon as he was threatened with a loss of a million votes, he denounced his denouncement. It is a season of fear as most other presidential candidates have avoided the issue of the murder like a plague. Even the judge sitting over the case of the two suspects hides behind anonymity for fear of backlashes. But unlike the politicians and the judge, the team of 34 lawyers defending the suspects boldly announced their appearance. Such audacity only lends credence to the fact that the miscreants are not without backers in high and low places. 

Which makes Deborah Samuel Yakubu’s untimely death a blight on a nation that calls on its people to arise as compatriots to obey a National call. Obviously, compatriots we are not, and the National call we are flaunting is hard to sell, having been dampened by ethnic and religious bigotry. Until and unless Deborah’s killers are treated as criminals and the law enforcement deploy its full strength to prosecute them, the National call will continue to be a mirage. 

In the meantime, let it be known to all that the blood of Deborah is on the hands of all those that excuse criminality on the altar of religion and all the faint hearted that keep quiet for fear of retribution.

Enough!

One word strikes at the heart of the situation you detest and the change you earnestly desire. Enough! That word, uttered from a determined heart, moves God and the universe into action. 

All of a sudden, the impossible becomes possible. You stand up with gusto ready to dare the demon that has long tormented you. You witness the momentous switch as the tormentor becomes the tormented. From that point, you take every step with courage, charge like a wounded lion and move ahead with fortitude. In the end, you create a new narrative, a new future. 

In your reflective moment, you look out of your window and wonder how far saying the word, ENOUGH and meaning it, has taken you. As the music blasts from your phone, you laugh heartily at yourself, striding into a new life and into an uncharted but exciting future. You are ready and happily so.

Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential Elections Nominations - The Theatre of the Absurd

The drama is playing out before our very eyes. The race for the presidential nominations of the ruling party and the main opposition party is assuming a comical, if not a tragic, dimension. Fifteen candidates have cleared the first hurdle towards the nominations under the banner of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Each had coughed out N40 million ($68,376). As at the time of writing, about twenty candidates of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have paid N100 million ($240,884) each for the nominations. It’s been speculated that about ten more may pick the nomination forms before the close of the exercise today. 

The wanton display of the nomination forms in photo ops on Instagram and other social media platforms is bizzare, if not scandalous. The parties are cashing out bigly while the nation’s inflation is in double digit and its poverty index is on a downward trend. The Naira rain is being staged in the middle of unbridled insecurity and as the government - funded universities are closed for more than a quarter of the year. 

It would seem the aspirants or the pretenders don’t give any qualms about our sensibilities. Each claims to have come out after consultations with stakeholders, even when they had only conversed with their shadows and dialogued with their ambitions. In what is a dubious and self-deceitful posture, most of them claim the nomination forms were paid for by some faceless supporters or coalitions of interest groups. One aspirant in charge of the nation’s critical economic institution is still seeking a divine direction even though he has already registered as a party member in his ward and has obtained a nomination form. And you wonder why only a quarter of the so-called aspirants are actually traversing the nation, connecting with and wooing the delegates. 

Which begs the question: have the parties settled for a coerced consensus as against direct or indirect primaries during their forthcoming conventions? And could that be why each candidate in APC has been allegedly compelled to sign a ‘voluntary’ withdrawal form?  Is there a hidden agenda in the proliferation of candidates from the South to give the North the advantage of crowning a malleable Southerner? With the Northerners at the helm of the two parties, the natural reasoning is that the the parties are poised to produce Southern presidential candidates. But will crass opportunism and brazen regional jingoism cloud reason and keep the presidency in the North for additional eight years? 

Meanwhile  Nigerians are immersed in the theatre of the absurd with a mixture of disbelief, distrust and disinterest. They hope the pretenders will leave the stage for the serious contenders. They pray that the crafty will be taken in their own craftiness, that the hands of the deceitful will not be able to perform their enterprise, and that the evil men will grope in the day as if it were darkness. In agony, Nigerians hope and pray for rejoicing in the land as righteous and visionary leaders bestride their political landscape in 2023. 

Will their hope and prayers make the difference? How long more shall Nigerians wait?

Putin’s Macabre Dance

He arrogantly jumped out of the starting block long before the gun roared. He was deluded into thinking the race was a sprint but now, he is faced with an agonizing marathon. Yet, he rages on like a bull in a china shop, shattering windows of hope and breaking the utensils of peace. In his recklessness, he displays no regard for lives, both of his own people and of his opponents. In his unpreparedness, he underestimated his opponents’ will to resist his tyranny. In his hurried adventure, he disregarded his forces’ morale and bungled logistics. He is frustrated to see his firepower curtailed and his aggression repelled by what he thought was a ragtag army. His military reverses belie his claim to a world power status. In place of victories, he is counting corpses and hauling his men into hospitals at unprecedented rates. Out of desperation and to assuage his people’s restlessness, he placed price tags on the dead and the wounded. Yet, like the historical Pharaoh, he doubles down on his misadventure, driving his forces furiously to the edge of the precipice. 

Putin is in a macabre dance urged on by fewer drummers than he had anticipated. Having been isolated into a pariah status, he goes cap in hand, begging for supplies and trade. How are the mighty fallen? In the meantime, he emasculates the growing opposition at home and feeds his dominated sheep with unbalanced hay of propaganda.  

Sure, his end is near. His dark cloud of terror will not long possess the sky. There shall be a rain of joy and the dawn of peace. He will drink from the cup of his fury and stray into the pit of destruction he dug. And, to be sure, Ukraine shall know peace, and Russia shall be free.

GRACE

Undeserved, yet given.

Unmerited, yet bestowed.

Unimaginable, yet granted. 

Unsought help,

Unexpected intervention. 

Stranger than fiction;

Unbelievably true. 

Grace pushes the envelope,

Erases history,

Cheers the present,

Redefines the future. 

It’s water in a wearied desertland,

A light in the dungeon,

A hope that despatches despair,

A strength that trumps weakness. 

It’s futile trying to unravel God’s grace -

It’s way beyond the realm of humans. 

It’s just enough to enjoy it.

It’s just okay to bask in its glow.

Lord, Have Mercy On Twitter

Lord, have mercy on Twitter, for it has sinned. The proud and arrogant Twitter has dared to fiddle with the tail of a cobra. Basking on the euphoria of its successful ban on Donald J. Trump – the then most powerful man in the world, Twitter has last week moved to quickly delete the Nigerian President’s harmless tweet.  Twitter has sinned and must crawl on its knees for mercy. Twitter has an exaggerated opinion about its self-importance and powers. Just because its annual turnover of $3.72 billion is 10% of Nigeria’s 2021 budget does not give it the audacity to vet our President’s tweet.  Not even the fact that its army of 353 million daily users overwhelms Nigeria’s projected population of 200 million gives Twitter the effrontery to challenge our highly revered leader.  It was a gross miscalculation on Twitter’s part. The company should have known it could only flex its muscles in climes where institutions were strong and where human rights were inalienable rights. 

Dear Lord, have mercy on Twitter, for it has sinned.  By its unpardonable sin, Twitter has angered our nation’s indefatigable Minister of Information and frustrated our cerebral Attorney General and Minister for Justice. These are men that are not just in government but also in power. They are the very best of our nation and speak the truth eloquently and consistently on behalf of the government and the people. To anger them is to court our trouble.  Nigerians are ready to take up arms in defense of these men who have the ears and the mouth of our president.  Which explains why Nigerians are as mad as hell. In their anger, they have been using VPN to bypass the Twitter ban just so they can lambast the micro blogging site and praise the action of their quiet and uncompromising leader and his cohorts. Twitter should have let the sleeping dog lie and not disturb the celebrated pace of our nation’s legendary go-slow and laissez-faire governance. 

Lord, have mercy, for Twitter did not only sin, it has caused our respected Pastors Enoch Adejare Adeboye and Williams Folorunso Kumuyi to sin against you and the divine authority. They each twitted in defiance of the ban instead of praying for God to prolong the life of the president. They should have seen that the president meant well with his timely tweet that only disgruntled elements consider an insult on the nation’s  sensibilities. This unscrupulous Twitter has made two of the nation’s most popular clergies find their voices and fight on the side of the people - a feat that the seeming collapse of the security apparatus and the dehumanizing economic woes could not achieve. 

Dear Lord, have mercy on Twitter for deleting our leader’s tweet. Have mercy on our leaders for deleting ‘we the people’ from being their first constitutional responsibility.  Have mercy on us all for deleting our leaders as inconsequential to our individual and national aspirations.  Lord, have mercy!

NIGERIA @ 61: A Curtain Drawn

I see a curtain drawn

On drift and graft;

On indiscipline and inefficiency;

On shame;

On poverty. 

I see the Light shining in, 

Displacing the thick darkness. 

I see the sickening cloud 

Giving way to abundance of rain. 

Hope in the horizon

Makes my heart glad. 

God forbid that I curse

A nation the Lord has blessed;

That I contribute to your pain;

Or, hasten your slide into perdition. 

I pledge to be a foot soldier, 

Displaying and promoting the best of you. 

Till the promised deliverance I see. 

Happy Independence to all that work and wait for your rising.

I’VE GOT TO BE RICH - The Confession of a Nigerian Teenager

What’s the hullabaloo about the teenage secondary school boys that recently killed a girlfriend for rituals in Abeokuta? And what’s the noise about the three boys (14-16 years) that left Delta State for Edo State, with alleged knowledge of their parents, to hustle and get a share of a multi-billion naira Yahoo-Yahoo business?

Let me introduce myself. I am a Nigerian teenager with only one swan song: “I’ve got to be rich.” The music is sweet to my ears; its lyrics drive me crazy. I go into a frenzy thinking about it. My heart pounds with ecstasy just imagining what it will be like to be rich. What else can I be if I am not rich? A scumbag? A rejected cornerstone? An example of a son you pray not to have? I vehemently reject those descriptions. They are not my portion in Jesus’ name!

I’ve got to be rich. And that’s it! I need money to win the hearts of my family members. Yes, I mean that, as sacrilegious as it may sound. Let’s be honest, principled parents are an endangered species. The good ones are old and locked in their rooms - too fragile to discipline, too vulnerable to wield any influence. All the grandpas and the grandmas do now is eat, sleep and recall the good times. It looks to me like the sheep of integrity and patient endurance have all abandoned the staple, leaving behind ravenous wolves. Today’s parents have no qualms. They are an anything-goes generation. The child that brings in the most money wins their hearts and gets celebrated. The family bond is no longer held by unconditional love but by performance. To be sure, performance parameters have shifted from academics to money. I know that. My friends know that. We know the way to the hearts of our parents and by extension the hearts of our siblings. When they tell us to remember the sons of whom we are. We know what they mean - go out there and make it big, whatever it takes. Who will blame us for pandering to the ones we love the most?

I’ve got to be rich. It is settled. The society has no enviable place for me without money. Nobody judges the contents of your character anymore. Everyone looks at your dress, your car, your house… It’s about the outward. It’s about what you have now. Dreams are considered inconsequential and hopes are in relegation. It’s the now that matters. So, process has been consigned to the dustbin of history and results have taken the centre stage. The end, as they say, justifies the means. Examples of this maxim abound in our politics, in our communities and in the marketplaces. So, what’s wrong in me mirroring the societal values? Can one tree make a forest? How do you survive in a culture of unbridled embezzlement by politicians and public officers? How do you handle the endemic corruption on our highways, at our borders, in our schools, and in our offices? I beg, I am not seeking to be a saint. Saints are usually canonized after they die. I doubt if anyone in this century is thinking of sainthood. The hood of money is too alluring and far more relevant now than the pain of a futuristic sainthood.

I’ve got to be rich. And no one should try to stop me. The last time I was in church, which is going to months now, the pastor mentioned money more than he mentioned Jesus. Aren’t we being hypocritical when we say, ‘What God cannot do does not exist’, when in reality we mean money and not God? To this generation, the love of money is not the root of all evil but the beauty and the essence of all life. That’s why rich people have the ears of the religious leaders and earn the respect of the faithfuls. Even in the religious houses where all men are supposed to worship God as equals, the rich still call the shots. It is obvious the rich are more equal than the rest of us. Would you blame me if I do all I can - legal or illegal, decorous or obscene- to be rich?

I’ve got to be rich. I shall spare no effort, reject no trick, and exhibit no conscience. I shall fear no danger; not even death. Afterall, what’s more dangerous than living without money? And isn’t a poor man a corpse walking on two legs?

I’ve got to be rich. Please wish me luck.

Victory In Defeat

When you are the mighty pitched against the weak, you have to be careful how you win. A massive win by you might be the very loss you detest. You are left fuming at your victory parade, alarmed that no one is applauding. You wonder why the shouts of your victory are drowned by the cries of your atrocities. You wonder why your huge victory pales into insignificance when compared to the feeble but determined resistance of the weak. You ask why yours is might and his is right. You ask again why yours was an ignominious victory and his was an honourable defeat. You are left wondering why the weak, battered and shattered, limps to the wild applause of your friends and foes. You watch with disdain your defeated opponent smile in pain as he takes a lap of honour. You suspect foul play as the ‘loser’ revels in your lack of discretion and of a clear endgame. Silently, you regret your thoughtless action. But you are too much of an arrogant dog to apologize and change course. Your dog, destined to be lost, is deaf to the sound of the hunter’s whistle. You are discredited and stripped of your last ounce of honour. 

You are Russia, he is Ukraine. And you have just suffered a heavy defeat in victory.

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Please pray for peace in Ukraine.

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