Another gallant soldier has fallen, violently and untimely too. He was killed in the warfront of evangelism by bigots, pretending to serve a god they neither know nor understand. For if that god needed man to fight for him, I doubt his ability to save anyone, not even the zealots longing for utopian seven virgins.
But then I’m told and I’m inclined to believe my friend that the god they purport to defend does not send anyone on such mission.
However, they have continued with this self-appointed evil task, right from the 1980s when they severed the head of Gideon Akaluka and used it to dance around the city of Kano in a macabre display of uncouthness and savagery.
Now it is Pastor Yohanna Shuaibu, who has fallen asleep, awaiting resurrection morning. Yes, the pastor of New Life for All Nations Church in Masu community, Sumaila Local Government Area of Kano State, was killed by a dissonant mob and has been buried in his hometown, Gingi, in Musawa Local Government Area of Katsina State.
Weep not for Brother Yohanna. Rather, weep for his ignorant killers, who may never know or understand the beauty in their savage act. We know Yohanna has gone home to be with the Lord but for them the end is bleak.
Those who killed Stephen in Acts never knew but the heavens opened to receive him. No sooner did they kill Jesus than they regretted it and testified that truly He is the son of God. If they had known, they would never have killed Jesus or Stephen, or any of the Apostles of old. That was why Jesus rightly prayed for their forgiveness because they did not know what they were doing.
Since these evil acts, has the church diminished? Never! Because the church is divine, and an unstoppable train, taking believers to glory.
God is holding the heathen in derision though they rage. The Christian journey is not about bread and butter but is of power, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Brethren, weep not that Yohanna is gone ahead of us. Rather, rejoice that he held forth to the end.
There was a Saul, who persecuted the early church and did much harm. He herded a lot of the believers in jail until he was arrested on the road to Damascus, where he had received official permission to go and continue his evil deeds against the church.
Herod was so full of himself, even appropriating God’s glory, until God sent worms to eat him up in public. Nebuchadnezzar trusted so much in himself, God made him a human monkey that dwelt in the forest for seven years. He confessed thereafter that there was other god than Jehovah. Pharaoh would not let the people of Israel out of captivity until the Lord drowned his army and fed them to the fishes in the Red Sea.
From the time of John the Baptist, the kingdom of God suffers violence, as the scripture says and the (spiritually) violent takes it by force. Herod beheaded Prophet John and bequeathed his head to a little girl because the prophet told him the truth.
Shall we then stop saying the truth to preserve our life? God forbid! Because those who are mindful of their lives ultimately lose it but those who care less about life like Brother Yohanna shall live again for ever though they lose it in the eyes of man.
It is so shameful the way lives are being wasted in this evil forest called Nigeria, which has just marked its 61st birthday. Indeed, it is a mystery how the toddling old country where all manner of abominable things find repose was able to get this far.
We are so busy professing religion without a soul, spending so much time in mosques and churches. Yet our hearts are black and our hands stained with blood of the innocent, calling for vengeance.
It is only a fool that does not know that the country is at war; at war with itself. A pernicious war raging all over the country; a self-destruct war without borders. There is yet no statistician fit to take stock of the carnage, mounting every passing second.
It started like child’s play, like some new madness in the North-East. Sadly, the madman has entered the market and no one knows where to get a cure for him.
Virtually all parts of the country are besieged by terror imposed by darkened and stony hearts. The politicians that created and manipulated these vicious goons are now in hiding unable to manage their bush baby. They now hide in cities and no longer claim their iniquitous creations are their kinsmen because even their mother’s kitchen is not spared.
The problem did not start today but was only accentuated recently obviously due to the unapologetic imbalances in governance. One had hoped that the matter would be contained in the North-East but it has spread like a drop of oil to all other parts.
Even Sokoto, the revered citadel of Islam where the Sultan is domiciled, is now looking for where to hide. The Yoruba want out and are pushing for their Yoruba nation, so is the Middle Belt, and the Niger Delta.
More worrisome to the South is the quest for Biafra in the South-East, which has since assumed a hideous dimension.
The region had survived a pogrom and bounced back from the ashes of the war that followed to take up commanding heights of the economy, especially in trade and business. Whatever they touch turns gold. This has attracted envy and hatred. They have suffered much official neglect and deprivation of infrastructure.
Sadly, it is as if the region is cursed and cannot get its act together. It is bereft of leadership but those content to serve their enemies. This dearth of leadership and direction has thrust up the hyena, crying in their backyard and devouring its very own today.
When Chief Ralph Uwazurike, leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), relaunched the Biafra quest, he made some noticeable gains.
A protégé of Mahatma Gandhi, the venerable former leader of India where Uwazurike studied, he dutifully applied the Gandhi nonviolence style of agitation; the gains were and are still obvious. Unfortunately, jealousy set in. Though he was not a saint (nobody is), he was accused of many things, contrived or real, it is left to common sense to discern whether Ndigbo were better with his nonviolent agitation or not.
Uwazurike was edged out and today the region is up in arms with itself under a blazing conflagration that may never be tamed.
The truth of the matter is we are all Biafra, and as I have repeatedly argued, this Biafra is not about the Igbo people. It is a collective movement against the unjust system foisted upon the peoples of this contraption.
That is why the Yoruba are kicking against their former ally in the war against Ndigbo because their eyes are now open to what the Igbo were fighting against all the while. That is why the Middle Belt, who are paying heavily for their sins against the Igbo fleeing the guillotine in the North, has become a wasteland of sorts and now looking for salvation that is long in coming. That is why Governor Nyesom Wike, despite his professed denial of his Igbo root has been crying hoarse that Peter is being robbed to pay Paul.
It is time, therefore, the Independent People of Biafra, IPOB, rejigged their strategies. We cannot sit at home and die of hunger. We cannot leave the forests where the herdsmen against whom the Eastern Security Network, ESN, was purportedly established to come into town and waste our own people. The enemy may be behind the atrocious attacks on Igbo soil and hiding behind the mask of IPOB, which has unwittingly given them the cover.
We have unconsciously brought destruction upon ourselves; nobody knows where this will lead if we don’t have a rethink.
While we bid Brother Yohanna a peaceful goodnight in the hope that we shall meet again at the Lord’s feast at dawn, let us also pray for sanity to reign, and for the repentance of the ignorant carrying out the work of their father, the devil in whatever part of this country, let love win!