Comparing notes with Issa Aremu a few days ago, we wondered why things are always upside down here (apologies to Fela). Issa Obalowu Aremu clocks 60 on January 8th, 2021; more of that here next week, God willing! Christmas is the period when prices of goods are deliberately crashed in other parts of the world, especially by Christians and Christian organisations, to celebrate Jesus Christ, to show love or charity, and to give, especially to the needy and poor. Jesus summarised the 10 commandments that God gave to Moses into just one word: LOVE. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength; then, love your neighbour as yourself. Adumbrating this, the apostle Paul said love or charity is the greatest of all gifts, much more preferred than all the other gifts of prophecy, healing, miracles, signs and wonders, speaking in tongues, name it! Paul added that if we have all other gifts rolled into one but are without charity or love, we are empty. Ex-Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State enthused that giving is not a function of having but a gift or grace from God. How do we show or demonstrate love: Jesus said whatever we show or demonstrate to our fellow human being is exactly what we have done or shown to him. Paul said emphatically that we cannot claim to love God if we do not love our fellow human being. How can we love God that we do not see if we do not love our fellows that we see?

So, to show love, prices of commodities and items that will make life meaningful to common folks are crashed during the Christmas/New Year season in other climes. Christians especially roll out household items, clothing, food items, etc. and push them outside of their homes. They just junk them, as they say! Anyone is free to just come by and cart them away – for free! Many serve free meals. Many people dash out cash! Every act of charity you can think of is commonplace in other climes during this season- but not here in Nigeria! This season is when prices go up – all prices! Prices of staple foods! Prices of foodstuffs! Prices of chicken – live and frozen! Prices of pepper, tatase, rodo, onions, vegetables, oils, beef, ponmo, shawa, name it! Transport costs hit the roof.

This is the time you find an uncountable number of police checkpoints, VIO checkpoints, Road Safety checkpoints, not to talk of LASTMA, Customs and Immigration checkpoints all over the place. It has got so notorious now that almost on a weekly basis, Customs must kill one person in Ogun state. They have learnt nothing from #EndSARS. This is the season when PHCN goes about with their ladder disconnecting people. And this is the same season when the Presidency decided to link the National Identity Number with a SIM card. Come and see the “confusion break bone” all over the place! Yet, this is the same government that won't let us rest over so-called Covid-19 second wave or what-have-you nonsense! Policy summersault! Ojuelegba mentality! So, this way, are they curtailing or controlling the spread of coro or they are helping to spread it fast, fast? Now, in all of this kosi-kosi, the Presidency has added to the suffering of the people. Emergency NIN number registration companies and individuals now roam the street; one came to my church last Sunday charging N3,000 to help people register for NIN. I was told some of these emergency NIN contractors charge as much as N5,000!

What is the government giving to the people this festive period and season of love? What love are the various governments showing to their many publics? What are the rich people giving to the poor? What slashing of prices are the industries doing? If anything, this is the time they, too, hike prices. Prices of soft and other drinks produced here have all gone up. Prices of wine, locally-made and imported, have gone up. I cannot speak of beer since I do not patronise that any more. To the best of my knowledge only Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has promised to pay the Oyo state workers the 13rd month salary. It is tokenism quite well but it is something all the same. How many other employers of labour will act similarly? Will Buhari?

Now, let’s talk of the constituency of Jesus Christ himself – the church leaders. How many of them are showing love to their long-suffering members or congregants in this season of love? How are they remembering the lowly birth of Jesus and his self-effacing life of humility with their life of opulence and arrogant display of riches as well as of power? How many church leaders will give to the pastors working under them this season? Instead, it will be the poverty-stricken pastors and members that will still be forced, cajoled, threatened, and deceived to give to the church leaders. Many church leaders have mastered the art of collecting from the have-nots. “Agbalowomeri”! Even the little those wretched of the earth possess, to quote Frantz Fanon, is dispossessed of them by guile and subtlety. Scripture is turned upside down to rob the poor of the little that they have. This way, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Too little people got everything already, said Jimmy Cliff, with too many people having nothing but rather than reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, the rich act selfishly and unconscionably to widen it every passing day. But the rich only dig their own grave because the day of reckoning is around the corner.

Stop acting like the Sadducees and Pharisees! Stop being hypocritical! Remake the world! Run from the wrath to come! This is the season that many Missions still plant churches. All nooks and crannies of the country brim with worship centres of all hues. Finding places to plant worship centres these days is hard as in hard. Yet, the planting continues! In beer parlours! In brothels! On canals and flood plains! Everywhere! Anywhere! Yet, many of the existing places of worship are dying, not able to survive because, once planted, they are left unattended to. Poorly planted! Left to fend for themselves afterwards! Yet, they are whacked by all manner or levies and remittances that must be sent upstairs! Nigeria must have the highest concentration of places of worship in the whole world. Religious people; yet one with the highest crime rates! Who are those committing the crimes: Demons from Hell? Many places of worship that I know of are heavily yoked. They carry burdens too heavy for the wobbling feet. Their neck is sunk into their shoulders as a result of the heavy load placed on their head. Whenever a semblance of effort is made to lighten their burden, the bureaucrats and bourgeois elements eating up the church in the name of administrators have always found a way to thwart such efforts and tighten the noose on the hapless underdogs.

But the day of reckoning soon comes! Times are changing rapidly. What came upon the Western world will soon come upon the church, especially in Africa if care is not taken and the right things done at the right time. This is the time to begin to build factories and not plant churches or mosques! This is the time to begin to create wealth and not appropriate or mop up what is in circulation. This is not the time to tear the pocket of the poor but to load it up. Enrich the congregation, don't enslave and impoverish them! Thousands are losing their job on a monthly basis. Tens of thousands graduate yearly with no hope of securing jobs. Recession has pauperised the people. As insecurity drives farmers away from the farm, famine looms. Places of worship cannot pretend as if none of these is their headache. Or that prayer without positive action will work. They think it is the government’s responsibility? Their good grief! This is a clear care of heavens will fall – no one will be spared.

Let religious leaders note that it is in their enlightened self-interest to urgently take steps to stave off the looming crisis of the collapse of governance. Have they not noticed already that less and less people attend places of worship? Have they not watched their income dip? Do they think this is a passing phase? It can only get worse if the looming crisis is not arrested fast. Businesses are closing shop here and relocating to saner climes by the day. Places of worship and events centres are filling the void and we think all is well?

LAST WORDS: Last week’s “My opposition to an Atiku presidency” in which ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was referred to as “little read” was computer error. Obasanjo is well-read by all standards. In “The North’s Frankenstein’s Monster”, the Yoruba proverb of “Pansa o funra, pansa j’ona...” was mistakenly referred to as “Papa o funra...” I remember seeing Grandma preserve meat, fish, etc inside “pansa” by the fire-place. Errors regretted, please!

• Bola Bolawole

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