Men who play God

No prize for guessing, many of such men are women; some even children. You see them in our homes, in bedrooms or corridors of power, in politics, in worship centres or such other altars of high and low places; in business, in offices, in schools, in the streets, everywhere. These ubiquitous, godless human-gods are upstarts, misfits, opportunists who suffer terrible complex. These impostors are mean, lily-livered, incorrigible, brash, cocky, and arrogant.

Almost always, men who play God do so because they are in possession of stupendous money or power, or both. Infrequently, one stumbles on extra-foolish men who play God. Those have neither money nor power; just mouth capacitated by alcohol or drugs, or ignorance. This piece is not about them, though; that will be tantamount to double tragedy.

Our brothers and sisters and spouses and friends who play God carry on as if they own the world plus everybody and everything in it. They hate who and when they want and once in a long while they try to love how they deem fit. Most of them are criminals or scoundrels foisted on us by us because there’s a drop of them in us or by nature for purposes of atonement or reparation. This class is peopled in the main by leaders enraptured by the allure of wealth and position.

Men who play God are a peculiar lot: they are loud. You could tell by stories you hear about them, by their speech style, looks and actions; even the way they give or dispense favours. Also, a tiny minority of men who play God are as meek, humble, taciturn and amenable as some of the most hardened criminals you know. They come across as or pretend to be good, benevolent, and genuine.

Yet, men who play God have no feelings, no cares. They love or respect not God let alone other human beings. They care a hoot not about tomorrow, not about what becomes of them or their memory or lineage. They believe that if they ever die, that would be the end of the matter.

How can you convince them otherwise? Which firsthand experience would you recount to sway them? Apart from what you may have read or been told, what do you know for sure transpires at death? Does that knowledge come from a personal experience or via the human commonalities of history and religion?

The foregoing battery of questions reinforces my belief that nature abets men who play God. Yes, nature is on their side. That’s how to explain away the fact that they always outlive the few good men of their era. And, eight over ten, they always record success -if that’s what that is.

Interestingly, there’s another side to men who play God. They don’t all play in the same league. Agreed, it is those of them plying their trade in the premiership of ego who popularise their brand; a decent mention cannot but also be made of their colleagues toing and froing in minor leagues. Alas, men who play God are bonded by the singularity and universality of their ungodliness.

Up and down, big or small, men who play God have identical character traits. Always and always, they talk down on everyone; they deploy contemptuous language. They don’t respect age nor sex. They judge hastily, unfairly, drunkenly.

Men who play God don’t fear God. They act like Satan: Unaccountably, dishonourably, dismissively. They believe they hold all the aces. In fact, there’s no end to the oxymoronic idiosyncrasies of men who play God: they kill with abandon; belong in very ungodly cults and claim occult capabilities; they believe that no cock crowed before them and none would after them.

Anyone, worried about this class of men, can achieve closure by realising that they don’t believe God exists. However, an atheist who anoints and ordains himself to deputise for God might not have committed any abominable sin, might he? That might be the reason nature allows them such long rope. I mean: someone who thinks God doesn’t exist and so transforms himself into one somehow acknowledges the need for God in a profound, even if troubling, way, right?

Wrong, all such little people are in danger of missing heaven and spending the future in regret. Stop playing God today, you small mind. Start treating people aright; talk gently to even the poorest; never withhold help even from enemies and sinners; and above all, remember that you are not God and can never ever be. God bless Nigeria!

Osinbajo: Why does politics do this to people?

No pun intended, things haven’t quite panned out well for the Buhari administration that rode into power escorted by a cacophonous entourage of integrity, goodwill and expectation. Things are so bad that one cannot spot out even one figure in the entire architecture of government who sparkles. You now see why with general elections due in under a year, there’s monumental desperation to shore up ratings.

That’s how to contextualise the puerile stunts being pulled all over the place. Everyone is being muddied up, in the process. Even the last man standing, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, believed to be incorruptible, had since been initiated into the barefaced club.

Imagine the Grade A professor of law, who ought to know better, playing politics by reporting former President Goodluck Jonathan to the court of public opinion rather than of law. This Jonathan-this Jonathan-that strategy now sounds like a broken record. Our dear No. 2 citizen should note that 2019 elections would be decided not by lousy politics nor by what the predecessor did or didn’t but by what the incumbent has done or not done!