“When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry And children of harlotry, For the land has committed great harlotry By departing from the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”
Hosea 1:2-3 NKJV
If you are easily offended, please waka pass. It is my intention to provoke, but I have no interest in offending anyone, and I have no apologies whatsoever, for anyone who might elect to take umbrage. I come bearing a mirror, quarrel with the image that you behold, I bear only a mirror and no more.
Happy New Year? I do NOT wish you a happy new year. I wish you a year where you feel the pains of each and every one of your collective decisions and indecisions, and where the consequences of the actions and inactions, are as painfully etched into your consciousness, as they are etched onto mine. I want you to feel the pain in this year, it might just be the enduring cure for our collective inability to understand cause and effect, and serve as the catalyst for the urgent need for a radical transformation of our society and country.
We party like there’s no tomorrow, as we have in the succinct words of my brother ‘Bayo Ayo, “rearranged deck chairs on a sinking titanic” Nigerians have been researched and found to be the “Happiest People on earth” some would declare proudly, not unlike the praying idiot who was said to have declared that our problem wasn’t money, but what to do with money. What is painfully lost on those taking pride in this measurement of inanities, is that the researchers are also aware of the collective inability to connect cause and effect. We have as a collective become junkies for “Happiness”.
God commanded Hosea to marry a harlot. The harlot is not running anything. No be “Runs Girl”. She is ensconced in a brothel, rather like Madame Rahab’s girls in the story of Jericho, that is named amongst the ancestors of Jesus Christ. She services all who are able to pay her price: money for hand, back for ground. The Pololo must be a working lass, not retired. This was before condoms became a thing, and the customers were uninterested in interrupting any coitus. Hosea was to become father Abraham by her, and he literally became the father of mongrels.
Olorun ma fi’wa da’ra ti ko wu wa! May God not elect to use us in manners unpleasant to us. Amen. God’s sole purpose as declared, was to make Hosea feel the pains of Israel’s idolatry. My fervent demands of God, that He does not spare you the pains of your decisions, are also moored to reason.
Ki’ni idun’nu Elewon to n’fi ago so’wo? Of what use is the wristwatch to a jailbird? What right has the adult Nigerian, to be happy? Exactly what is he happy about? He’s alive? He should be happy to be alive? What use has been made of the life he lives? What are the consequences of his life? Exactly what is it about his objective realities that elicits or is meant to elicit happiness? Which one of the basic challenges of life has been addressed by his collective?
I do not wish you a happy new year. I pray you a year where you reacquire the capacity to feel the pain, and not remain numb to the trauma of your existence in a country where reasoning has become an anathema, and where the societal focus is suggestive of a people that have been lobotomized and thereby disconnected from their sickening reality. Tell me about suffering and smiling! Be opening rotten dentitions when the air should be suffused with tears. Awon alainironu ara Galatia!
2023 is a year of great pain for the foolish, and it is my prayer that God shall not spare us the pains of the consequences of our actions. Pain concentrates and consecrates the mind, and if ever there was a time for God to lift the illusion of happiness that has held Nigeria and Nigerians bound, literally and figuratively, it is now.
A conscious people cannot behold the ruination of their lives and land, the bleakness of their future prospects, the serial evil and disrespect of their rulers, the frightening reality of their very existence, the crass and rampant impunity in the land, the imminent threat of systemic implosions, and be wishing themselves happiness. Anoint your heads with ashes and weep!
May you feel the pains of your decisions in this year and beyond. Amen!
Politics of Power and the Moral Imperative in Authority…
I saw the link, I clicked, I read, I was sober, I reflected, I made a decision and a prayer.