It is a rather very well known phenomenon that God writes straight, but often with crooked lines! The meaning of that statement is usually that though the purposes of God are excellent for the human persons for whom He allows them, He does not always lead those human beings to those ends with sweet events, all the way through to those ends. Even for those of us who normally would prefer to take ourselves as pagans, in the face of so much religiousity in the modern world, especially in relation with Christianity and Islam, we also recognize these universal truths concerning this universal God.
We do not only desire and indeed claim to be such pagans, but many of our fanatical religionists actually take and (in both their minds and openly) tell us so! They often assure us that we could not be of the same religion that they profess, because we do not behave like them. It is often our delight in these regards to remind such people that pagans, which we would rather be associated with, are not atheists. On the contrary, they are people who approach God with no previous person’s predetermined formulae thereof; at least, not as the primary or most important way to access that their God – who actually dwells inside their very being! Such pagans often end up showing themselves to be more honest with this our universal God. After all, such pagans was what our ancestors and all native peoples usually were until some foreign originating religions come in to alter those their on! Perhaps if many more of us are such people, the level of religious fanaticism and corruption that is one of the banes of the present day Nigerian society would have been done away with; and we would have become a better nation thereof, at least by 50%.
It would seem to me also, that there is no doubt that all Nigerians are people looking for a better country and a better world; as happens to be the case for all human beings globally. So, all Nigerians would be able to understand also that there can be no such place as “a better world” or “a better country” if injustice reigns supreme there; or indeed exists to any sizeable extent there. For wherever there is injustice, then, there can be no peace. And wherever there is no peace, there will not be progress or improvement of anything! Such facts are as A, B, C for any honest person to see and to know. If there is any Nigerian who does not know that there is injustice all over the country, I will naturally delight to learn of such a person. If such a person reads this article, I will like the person to please reach out to me so that we will discuss it in the most brotherly manner possible. If anybody knows of such a person who claims the same for sure, I will like to get the contact details of such a person also; so that I will reach him by myself. I believe that it is only by such brotherly contacts and mutual discussions behind the madding crowd that we can make progress as a people and as a country.
So, where are Nigeria’s injustices and corruptions coming from, you will like to ask! In my most humble opinion, these injustices come from two primary sources; namely, religious and tribal fanaticisms and corruptions. These are the tools and avenues by which “the heart of man, which is desperately wicked” because of ravaging selfishness (which is the lack of basic human love), recklessly go on destroying the human societies. If we are ever going to get anything out of “this geographical expression and entity of a country called Nigeria, but which is not a nation”, as said by “Our Heroes Past”, we must deal with those two monsters of human existence, both at the personal as well as in our corporate relationships!
Many people are gradually coming to the very clear knowledge (or at least conviction, even if they did not know it before), that there is and perhaps had not been any Nigerian who can be taken as the best example of those two negative dispositions (of religious fanaticism and rabid tribalism) as our very own President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) or General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB) as others would prefer – God bless his seemingly humble soul! It is not just his enemies such as Nnamdi Kanu that has said so, even many of his (at least former) friends are also beginning to say so! Again, if there is anybody in Nigeria who does not know any of his former or current friends who have publicly said this, I will like to know such a person. We will, as I had explained earlier, like such a person and I to share the records and explore the reality of these facts. And such a person must know that I too consider PMB as both my brother and my friend, even if he does not know me at all. That is why I am able to tell him the compassionate truths of his particular anointing by God to come and reveal the entire truths about Nigeria’s age-long problems to us all, so that nobody may be in any more ignorance or doubts about them.
So, if our most dear PMB is such a complete combination of all the two main inadequacies that is plaguing this country, how would it be that he is a blessing to us? Well then, that question returns us to the very first thoughts in this article. God writes straight but usually with very crooked lines. Our very dear PMB is surely one of those crooked lines! When he first came on the scene of Nigeria’s governance as a military head of state from a military coup, he came with his intended forced disciplines, a clearly fanatical Muslim-Muslim ticket, and many more of these ever crooked lines also. It was my privilege to write in the Nigerian newspapers that I used to write in then, that nobody should think that goodness that these activities were apparently expecting to arrive at, can be achieved by force! That is how simple that truth can be. Goodness, including self-discipline, is only achieved by long personal living example and encouragement, most especially started at home or the other primary places of self-formation and socialization. Any other way of trying to do is, will in the end prove itself to be wrong; and very often, a wastage of resources. And so it had been. If we desire those, then we must restore possibilities for healthy marriages and homes as well as spiritually sound (mission) schools as before, for this to be!
The value and blessing of this second coming of our most dear brother GMB is to once again, and most fully, show Nigerians that they should stop allowing themselves to be deceived by anything that our most selfish politicians do to deceive them. With some 250 ethnic nationalities, for presidential candidates to be brought out for us, year in year out, from the same ethnic minority of some five million people in a population of a claimed 200 million people, and people go and vote for such continuing ethnic jingoism would mean to me that the blessing that God Himself meant from this GMB’s patently disastrous second political coming to have missed that person. If that happens, surely many more blessings will bypass such a person also, in all likelihood; possibly including the truly great nation (or perhaps nations) that will surely emerge from this long defrauded geographical entity by the past political jingoists that had been performing here.
Those interested in the healthy politics of the possibly emerging Nigerian nation must begin now to look for these formations. To do otherwise, to continue to look for ex-military or other such well-known corrupt people for the needed emergence of a Nigeria capable of becoming a nation, is surely to go in the way of the present GMB – a broken and ever to be forgotten entity called Nigeria. Let him who has ears hear; or otherwise let him stay as he is.
God bless Nigeria!
Asuzu is retired professor of public health and community medicine, University of Ibadan.
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