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Last Wednesday, I posted a vox pop entry on Facebook. One of the three questions was: what are you most thankful for, this year? The respondents, all one hundred percent of them, chose life. That is, they count just being alive up until these dying days of the year as their greatest achievement.
For a humanity who are unrepentantly materialistic and bragging-conscious, the unanimity in electing life over any egocentric achievement cannot and should not be lost on anyone. What that throws up, however, is the monstrous mercilessness of 2020. This was the year of promise that waited only a month or so before revealing its true identity. This was the year of forlorn hope.
I refer to it in the past because that’s where it belongs, forever. Listen, you 2020, go away and get out of our life now. In the three-in-one name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I speed up your three days left; the same way our Saviour defeated the grave on the third day. Even as I quench your bloodthirstiness, in this injury time I demand the midnight of your 31st to appear here in three seconds, in Jesus name!
You year of pandemic, shut your mouth now. You year of covid-19, enough is enough. You year of fear, fear the Lord. You year of death, die by fire.
And, may mankind never again experience your kind -ever. Amen. What are you still waiting for, Mr. 2020? No, three days is too long; I demand you leave in three seconds!
Idiot, how could you? You spared no one. You went after the young and the old, the rich and the poor; you went after both gender, even the very professionals who hold the mantle and mandate of health. Fall down and die this instant, you cynical, sadistic, deranged, sick, evil year.
Other years are, and will always be, remembered for boom, or for invention, or for industrialisation, or for plenty, or allied goodness. But, you 2020, now and for eternity, you shall be asterisked for ignominy, and for rejection, and for lockdown, and for curfew, and for virus of death. Shame, you 2020, shame. You only tried and lost, we survived you!
Let your wickedness live with you ever after. Let the blood of those whose lives you sucked out be upon you. Year 2020, die, die, die. Above all, going forward, let no other year be even one millionth as dangerous as you.
I am sick and tired of you, 2020: Why did you consume our father, counsellor and peaceable warrior, Gen. Edet Akpan, retd.? How could you have superintended the death of the only leader in the topmost class who was also an excellent follower, His Excellency, Otuekong Idongesit Nkanga, the indigenous military governor whose iconic achievements in Akwa Ibom state remain visible and celebrated to this day? 2020, is your head correct to have swallowed Sir Val Attah, Ph.D., the only leader I know who always wanted to accommodate everyone even to own detriment? Just how could you, Murderer 2020?
For crying out loud, what did Dr. Ubong King do to you, bloody 2020? Yes, we his fans called him ‘Troublemaker’ but even you knew that the famous public speaker only spread sweet trouble which aimed at liberating the human mind. What about Rev. Uko Eshiet, the Apostolic gentleman to the core, who made everyone’s prayer points his? And, lethal 2020, why did you also sting Akwa Ibom football chief, Mr. Aniefiok Ibah, a man so full of life?
Stop defending yourself, killer year. Stop preaching that conspiracy theory nonsense to me. Stop telling me that you killed nobody; that it’s human evil and ignorance and pigheadedness that connived to do it. Just shut up and be packed off to hell, forever and ever.
And let me tell you, 2020: as a people created by, of and for God, our spirit cannot be broken. Not by you, not by any other principality. We are unshaken by the untold havoc you have visited on life, living and livelihood. We curse you, we bind you and we send you back to the abyss from which you escaped into our world.
Not only that, year 2020. We stand as well in solidarity, sympathy and empathy with those bereaved or wounded under your watch. We receive and enjoy double restoration for us and for them, in Jesus name. We declare the word of God on you, 2020 and on our situation: affliction shall not arise a second time.
Jeremiah 30:17 says, for I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast: It is Zion, for whom no one cares. Isaiah 61:7 is even sweeter: Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonour they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy. Look also at Job 42:10: And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. And, see how 1 Peter 5:10 raises the bar: And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
Let’s grab more from where the foregoing were lifted starting with John 5:4: For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 2 Kings 8:6: And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.
Sorry, 2020, God has a direct promise to us fulfillable in 2021. Enshrined in Amos 9:14, it can never fail: I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. Next year shall birth a better, glorious future for us all, in Jesus name. Amen.
God bless Nigeria!
Postscript: The earlier promoted conclusion of last week entry, on Gov. Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom state, scheduled for this edition will now come up in that of Monday, 11th January.
