Let’s Start The Festival Fire (II)

Again, making her giant contribution to the struggle for women liberation, Mariama Ba writes in her novel “So long a Letter”:

•Princes master their feelings to fulfill their duty. Others bend their heads in utter silence, accept a destiny that oppress them…….

If a coup was staged against Alhaji Shehu Shagari because he was corrupt, then who accounts for the U.S $12b which Nigeria earned during the gulf war.

Going by some emerging facts, it can be deduced that the reason for the death of General Sani Abacha and Chief M.K.O. Abiola was not to clear the ground for the planting of the seed of democracy on the Nigerian arid soil. Rather, it was the price for the purchase of a political umbrella which would in the future exclusively and arrogantly provide a shield and a security for the meeting of 21st century vampires and Santanists. Questions must therefore be raised along this line.

If Gen. Sani Abacha was a murderer, then who killed Dele Giwa?

And if zoning is decisive for peace to reign in Nigeria after the general elections, then what happened to Chief M.K.O Abiola who was popularly acclaimed to be the winner of the freest and fairest election in the history of Black Africa, the greatest symbol of unity and the most authentic face of a home grown democracy? Why did heaven not fall because of this great injustice done to the Yoruba land?

And if NADECO had to surrender “June 12” at gunpoint and go into exile so that peace could reign in Nigeria, MEND, MASSOB, BOKO HARAM, etc. must do a re-think of its activities.

And if Chief Obafemi Awolowo is a great man, then I invite all easterners to celebrate “APGA”.

But if it is true that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria was at the head of an oppressive government that massacred millions of Easterners during the civil war for daring to demand for their basic rights, who are those sponsoring kidnapping, militancy and bunkering in the East? And what happened to Alex Ewueme’s Presidential ambition at the 1999 PDP convention? And if this was a party affair, then who sponsored Adolphus Wagbara’s impeachment as the Senate President and in whose interest?

If zoning is a do or die affair, then here comes Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a gallant soldier, a great disciplinarian, a man of honour, and integrity, a visionary leader on mission, a tested administrator with a passion for change and compassion for the poor and oppressed.

If Bola Ige, Marshal Harry, Funsho Williams and fourteen members of Adoration Ministries, Enugu Nigeria were murdered in cold blood by People’s Democratic Party and yet nobody takes responsibility for these and other numerous political killings across the length and breath of Nigeria, then let whoever claims ownership of PDP come and explain to me, before The Mystical Mirror Of Justice, what happened to my brother Mr. Charles Chinyere Enyereibenyem Evurulobi. If my brother’s name is Charles, then what happened to all these other talented young men and women of the Ukwa Ngwa extraction who are being short-changed and then turned into kidnappers and thugs?

I invite you fellow countrymen and women to study the statements below and judge whether these in any way reflect your ideological presupposition for representative democracy and satisfy your appetite for good governance. If they do then I hereby tender my unreserved apology to you all and hurriedly take leave of this debate.

My advice to Mr. President is to refuse that his family compound which, as the President he is has to come to depict the entire Niger Delta region, be turned into a battle ground for terrorists. Terrorism is a Nigerian factor, not a Niger Delta branded product. If he succumbs to this temptation, he may not have a family to go home to, or a Nigeria to hand over to the new president.

The way forward which demands every reservoir of courage as a man and shows his commitment to the Nigerian project and to the Niger Delta struggle is to give a tacit approval and solid support to Sovereign National conference in the guise of a Constitution Review that is independent of government interference including both houses of the NASS. And then turn around to adopt the New Constitution by prevailing on the NASS to pass it into law. With a positive disposition towards this challenge hanging on his shoulder more than a pursuit for tenure elongation, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has been placed on the road to being one of the most popular and most respected world leaders of the 21st Century.

I am deeply convinced that Victory has nothing to do with the number or size of human army, the wealth and influence of the aggressor and the sophistication of conventional weapons. Instead, it is about the quality of the Truth that drives the motif of war. It is only when the truth dies, not its soldiers, that the war waged on its behalf can be said to have been lost. The real term for this kind of war is “the struggle for Freedom”. But as long as truth lives, he who fights on the side of Freedom can never be a loser. Even in death, he is a Winner – forever. For, as Dele Giwa pointed out, the triumph of evil over good can only be temporary.

Definitely, I owe nobody anything. Instead all of us, you and I together owe God everything and remain accountable to the people. Nevertheless, I must acknowledge the effect of my weight on the many bridges of understanding which the Mother church has built across the many frontiers of our national and ecclesiastical lives respectively as well as the momentary exchange of epileptic currents and inputs that hang on air like high tension PHCN cables across power poles. And with a deep sense of humility, I offer a hand of friendship to all Nigerians, friends and foes alike, for giving me a role in this great theatre of the absurd which the People’s Democratic Party has turned this great country into.

You are the Hero. I am merely acting out a script written and given to me by Province. Therefore I am all the more committed to the Catholic Faith, and ever pledge my unalloyed obedience to my bishop, Most Rev. Dr. V. V. Ezeonyia CSSP, the Catholic Bishop of Aba. While time heals everything, every contradiction is reconciled in the person of Jesus Christ, the great high priest and at the same time a victim. If I am the victim – a victim of circumstances, then Most Rev. Dr. V. V. Ezeonyia CSSP is the great high priest. If I have a great high priest as uncle despite his weakness, then I celebrate the authority of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ, Successor of St. Peers, the Bishop of Rome and the supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church. And if the church is one, then I owe my loyalty to the church in Nigeria as made manifest in the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria. Nevertheless, I stand with Our Lady as regards the recommendations in the Sacred Deed.

Again in as much as I take responsibility for and therefore unrepentantly stand by whatever information I have shared with people or made available to the press in a manner that looks highly incandescent and doubtfully factual, and whereas this route was copiously approved by the Our Lady of Fatima on 26 December, 2006 by 3 a.m. during one of my most dramatic encounters with the Our Lady of Fatima at the grotto in front of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Chaplaincy CIWA, Port Harcourt, Rivers State and whereas this has practically proved to be the only alternative to violent demonstrations and thoroughly investigated publications that might otherwise be made to assume the character of libel especially given the desecration of the temple of justice in Nigeria (e.g. Weekly Insider magazine vs Gbenga Daniel, Bayo Onanuga of TheNEWS vs Bode George, Okija vs TELL magazine), and given our commitment to non-violence, I hereby appeal to you press to say what needs to be said and to leave unsaid what cannot be said. And to you my fellow countrymen, I advise you to refuse to take laws into your hands and, for the sake of our democracy, do not hesitate to rebuke now and always the sentence of jungle justice and the venom that pours out from the cruel beaks of racists, cultists, Satanists, tribalists, miscreants, militants, fundamentalists, etc.

The circumstance of this job could not permit me to meet physically with every Nigerian personally but suffice it to say that the urgency of the need was its legitimising factor, its own mobilisation, its driving force as well as the confirmation of the conditions of service that meet the barest minimum of the demands of justice in this regard.

If as a Nigerian I come to discover that a terrorist attack on my life and on the life of my family is substantively connected with the return of the post-war ‘Abundant Project’ attitude, seizure of hard earned assets, the desecration of our temples of worship and justice, the wilful exclusion of the majority from participation in the national life, the looting of our national treasury and the murder of many innocent Nigerians, and whereas there exists a secret connivance and criminal alliance between some of these vampires or satanist on the one hand and some of the key operators of government policies and projects, even if this is in the form of blackmail or intimidation, then I crave your understanding and bank on your goodwill in this regard.

Outside the circle of politics, the shape and identity which PDP assumes is the Raw Ogoni Fraternity, or to employ its baptismal name, the Nigerian Union. Beyond the shores of Nigeria PDP wears the unenviable identity of the Anti-Christ or the 666 or the World Union, the highest but most secretly and jealously guarded level of Freemason.

•Rev. Fr. Kenneth Chinkata Evurulobi.