PART 1: WHERE ARE THE RIGHTEOUS
NIGERIANS TO RULE OVER THEIR OPPRESSION?
By Dr. James C. Agazie,
jamesagazie@gmail.com
The purpose
of this essay is to amplify a sermon this writer heard a Pastor preach at one
of the locations of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). To amplify is
to intensify, increase, augment, enlarge, or extend meaning or the effect of
something. The good pastor took his sermon from Isaiah 14: 5, which reads: “The
righteous shall rule over their oppressors.”
That topic
of oppression is both pertinent and germane or relevant to the problems we are
facing in our fatherland. In the absence of the righteous Nigerians, oppression
has the capability to annihilate or destroy individuals and extinguish the democratic
process.
A Nigerian
woman enlisted the help of her brothers to kill her husband who was a professor
at one of the colleges of technology in Nigeria. In order to hide the crime,
they threw the husband’s body into Katsina Ala River. The professor’s crime was
adultery with women other than his wedded wife. The woman explained her grisly
crime on the basis of jealousy.
Her husband
commuted to college each day but would be home on weekends to stay with his
wife and children. She said that the husband had a habit of committing adultery
with several women. It appeared that this man, like many sexy Nigerians, could
not keep his trousers zipped up; the zippers were often open for quick actions.
Therefore, killing the husband was the
last straw that broke the proverbial Carmel’s back and resulted to her
husband’s murder. It is obvious that this woman was under stressful oppression.
That there
is a heavy oppression in Nigeria is irrefutable. The effect of the oppression
is dire, overwhelming, and severe. Fulani cattle herders enter into gardens in Anambra,
Benue and Plateau States. The Fulanis allow their cows to eat up hard earned crops
and vegetables belonging to Nigerians’ farmers. Nigerians are hungry and
stealing from one another. Gangs of unemployed emaciated Igbo teenage boys in
rags are terrorizing villages as a result of severe unexplained oppression.
When the
police arrested these marauders, many of these kids admit they have killed some
people while committing robberies and raping as many as ten or more girls and
women. Why do men deal with oppression by zipping their trousers open and
raping women? If you don’t see these as oppression, then your heart is made of
stones and the milk of humane feelings and compassion does not flow in your
breasts. The milk is dried up, leaving behind a residue of I-don’t care
meanness or unkindness.
Whichever
way you see it, the fact remains that our Nigerian family members are being
oppressed in more ways than you care to know. Nigerians are complaining
vehemently. When Nigerians complain, three things are likely to happen. First,
nobody is listening. Their leaders are too busy robbing the treasury to listen.
Secondly, If someone is listening, the listener either may not be interested in
the problem or unable to offer a solution. Thirdly, the message is not even being
understood due to other issues clamoring for attention (such as embezzlement money
or rapping women with the zippers wide open). Suffice it to say this: there is
a great oppression in the land.
What is oppression
in the Nigerian context? Oppression is any painful act that puts the oppressed
person at a risk or disadvantage. The effect of oppression can manifest in
different forms. It dominates the oppressed person’s thought processes and
actions. A 17-yer old Nigerian lad was paid 50,000 Naira (143 dollars) to lure
his neighbor’s 6-year-old son to a vacant school where the older boy killed the
6-year child. The 17-year old had just harvested the heart and pancreas of his
victim when the police descended to arrest him red-handed in the very act.
Oppression
led the poor criminal to believe stories he had been told that charms done with
human blood and body parts would extricate or free him from the bondage of
poverty and nobody-ness. He dreamed of riding agbagba (long and slick) Mercedes
and living in nnukwu (large) mansions. He believed that the witchdoctor’s
concoctions would enable him to attract millions of Naira so he would own several homes and
employ a number of servants who would be serving him (their Oga) barefoot.
Oppression
serves several purposes one of which is to put fear in the heart of the
oppressed and render the victim apprehensive. Apprehension is a form of fear,
and apprehension is the expectation that something unpleasant is bound to happen
unless a certain action is immediately taken. A Nigerian senator siphons
billions of Nigeria’s dollars to banks in Switzerland or Saudi Arabia because
he fears that a change of government would confiscate his ill-gotten wealth or
imprison him for life or kill him as the lessons he learns from the case of
Abiola. A thief runs when on one is pursuing.
Have you ever
wondered why many Nigerian secondary and college girls to take to prostitution
as a way to avert starvation (hunger) or to have the clothes and jewelry they see
on richer counterparts? Be assured, if you have not reckoned that yet, that gang
activities in Nigeria, Satan worship and kidnappings for ransom are the works
of the most nefarious (baddest) forms of oppression.
Oppression
can subdue a man or woman to such an extent as to reduce the individual to feel
like nothing. If you feel like nothing, then you are nobody. Feeling like
nobody leads a politician to rob the Nigerian treasury and siphon billions of
dollars overseas and billions of Naira
to private accounts. Stealing millions of public funds makes a thief to
overcome nobody-ness and acquire a powerful somebody.
A man or
woman (a lawmaker for that matter) with the spirit of “nobody-ness” doesn’t
stop to consider the effects of what his powerless nobody does to millions of
his/her country men and women: Nigerians live in darkness without electricity
for days; Nigerian roads are non-drivable because of potholes and highwaymen;
Nigerian college graduates remain unemployed years after graduation; Nigerian
children often go to bed with unfed stomachs that growl with hunger all night;
and Nigerian health is being marred by malaria and dysentery which cut many
lives short.
The World
Health Organization estimates that Nigerian life expectancy is 43 years while
people in other developed countries live to be 82 years or more. It might
interest those who have continued to oppress Nigerians that they are denying nourishing
minerals in the life –giving-and-life-saving clean drinking water to a
population of 170 million plus inhabitants.
Where are
the righteous Nigerians to deliver us from those who oppress us? Delivering
Nigerians out of the clutches of the enemies’ oppression is a duty each
Nigerian ought to take seriously and perform painstakingly. What affects one
Nigerian affects us all. We cannot keep silent when Fulani herders are
destroying people’s farmlands and killing villagers. Don’t we know that
destroying farmlands creates hunger and increases the importation of foodstuffs
which in turn saps our foreign exchange?
We must make our president and leaders hear
our voices of condemnation. We must talk to our public servants who serve at
out pleasure. We must use our telephones to call attention to instances of oppression.
We must write letters in support of good laws and deed and letters to condemn
evil legislation. Absolute power resides in We The People. We are the voters.
It is We Democracy is for, isn’t it? We must condemn evil actions and
legislation that support the killings of protestors or the marginalization of a
Nigerian tribe.
We must take
to the World Wide Web (internet highways) to reach a wider circle to make known
our stand against oppression. We shall endeavor to vote troublesome lawmakers out
of office by the use of out ballots in peaceful elections. We cannot keep silent and allow our nation to
be vandalized by oppressors. If we keep silent and Nigeria is destroyed, we are
just as guilty as the bad persons (Looters, Boko Haran, kidnappers and others) who
are actively bent on demolishing our democracy. We say No to the forces of
oppression.
Nothing
in
this essay should be misconstrued to mean the writer is advocating a change of
Nigerian government through the use of force, violence or intimidation. This writer does not belong to any political
party and is not interested in holding any office.
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