DEAD WEIGHTS AND FALSE HOPE

I discovered that my ATM card was missing a few days ago and I started looking for it frantically, not because I had money to withdraw from the account, but because I am used to having it in my cardholder, just not seeing it there had some effect on me that I was missing something important...and for days now, I'm still searching for it, I am almost sure it wasn't stolen, I can't remember being robbed of it...

I woke up yesterday 28/01/2015 to another one, my phone was blown-out from the charging port, probably a result of power surge from changing over power supply. I tried turning it on but the screen flickered and bang! it went cold, never to respond again... I was like God, how will I survive without a smart phone. I searched my drawers for a spare battery that I'd always kept, hoping it was just a battery thingy but I couldn't even find the precious spare, I almost went into a rage, wondering why is all of this happening then something bigger came to me in my frantic search, I found two of my former dead phones in one of the drawers I was scouring through and unconsciously i told myself "why you dey worry sef, you go buy another one when you get kudi". I dropped the newly dead phone in my pocket and headed to work, hoping it will reset someone and come back to life.

By the time I got to the office, a million and one things had gone through my mind that I couldn't even remember the phone was in my pocket, it was until i pulled it out again that I remembered I was holding a very dead burnt smart phone. I pulled out a charger from my desk was like "let's try again", I didn't finish hitting the power button on the phone before I saw the smoke and a popping sound, I quickly turned it off and unplugged and somehow something within me dropped two phrases that literarily defined the way things are in Nigeria today, two things that we ignore by creating a cloak of sanity in our insanity, yes our political indemnization... "False Hope" & "Dead Weight", two powerful phrases that works hand-in-hand to guarantee that Nigeria is thrown in utter darkness without anybody being held responsible for her woes.

Before I proceed, I will like to sight a political example, a perfect precedence for what Nigerians are satisfied with at first and then decry in the loudest of voices from their comfort zone when it is obvious that they are responsible for their woes.

 

The Esama of Benin, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, the father of the former Governor of Edo State came begging in 2002 that his son Lucky Igbibedion should be given a second chance to fail again, in his words; If a child fails a particular class in the academic world, he's suppose to repeat the class and pass. The people of Edo accepted his gospel of "false hope" knowing that Lucky will always be Lucky and they carried the dead weight for another four years.

The totality of our polity in Nigeria since the death of Military rule has been filled with "Dead Weights" preaching the gospel of "False Hope" on the altar of our democracy. The doors of democracy opened in 1999 to an army of dead weights dropping in from our past to take over our present, and define the not so distance future we are in today. It's been 16 years already and they are still here. The dead weights were the heavy weights when the doors were opened and they got heavier, so heavy that they can't move on their own.  The sad end of their heaviness and immobility is that they appeared to be stuck on our leadership sledge, and unlike Santa that brings good tidings and good will to all men, the magic that moves the sledge without the reindeer feeling the weight, our own dead weight politicians preach false hope and with no magic to wave at us, and yet we pull their weight like reindeer, hoping that their falsehood will turn even, although we are sure it won't. It is sad that we know we have the power to drop our dead weights and ride free, but still we cling to their false hope without dignity, defending their deadness with phrases like "dry bone shall rise again", pouring water on dead concrete slabs, waiting for it to sprout a leaf, a surface that we all know cannot be dug to plant a seed.

Back to the matter, the real reality we deal with today… the truth about our status as a nation in the hands of our ruling identity, the PDP, the dead weight that has nothing but false hope in it.

For the last six years of our existence as a nation, the ruling party at the Federal and State level (considering the ratio at state level) has been an institution that has paraded very heavy dead weights, false hope and a very robust accentuation of deceit. From Obasanjo to Gbenga Daniel, Sule Lamido to the local government chairman in the remotest part of Kogi State. I will start from the identity of our current presidential element and the truth.

I found a statement credited to the president, a statement that formed an essential part of his campaign manifestos in 2010/2011 and this was repeated in more than one address. Jonathan said: "I remember the day I was chatting with a group of elders and they said after the war there was electricity everywhere, they travelled out and so on. "I came to live in Port Harcourt in 1955". Even then, it was only Port Harcourt that had electricity, even the big city, Bonny does not have. But now, government must make sure even the smallest village and settlements have electricity".

Beyond the fact that those words were empty promises that created false hopes, it bares the lies that presents his identity as a dead weight . How come somebody that claims 1957 as his official birth year  would say "I came to live in Port Harcourt in 1955"? It is clear evidence that Jonathan actually falsified his real age before joining the civil service to work in his advantage. Perjury in the highest office in the land but still we hold unto this dead weight and naturally our chant is " that's how everybody in the service change their age", my answer is that is why Nigeria is where she is today.

Odili as the Governor of Rivers state invited the president to commission the same bridge and road twice from the two different ends, Obasanjo found out and it was kept a PDP thing. The good news is that the multi-billion naira bridge collapsed 2 years later and neither Odili nor the builders are in jail. He was even in the same town to commission a fake power plant between the second christening of the same bridge, the commissioning was lighted with a generator kept miles away from the commissioning point, Dead weights, False Hopes, Lies, Deception, the hallmark of our PDP government. The irony of those years was that Obasanjo was never in Lagos to commission a single project, not because none was happening, it was simply because he was at war with BAT, he even tried selling off all federal presence in Lagos, including the National Theatre in Iganmu.

Since PDP arrived, "they have awarded Enugu-Onitsha express way to contractors on different occasions, including recently through SURE-P, YET the road is moribund", worst than it was under even the dreaded Abacha. Sand and gravels which are meant for the road project are dumped on one lane and they are already overgrown by weeds and probably home to wild life initially leaving across the road. According to us, we hold unto false hope, we give it to the dead weight "they need more time".

Our sitting President has earned a perfect dead weight status by not only continuing the PDP streak that was almost redefined by his predecessor but for ill-health, he is currently the champion at it. He's surrounded by heavier dead weights and to cap it all, he's got no hope to offer, false or true. The President has been more evasive in both falsehood and deceit and the hall mark of his administration has been the loss of lives and properties, and a vehement approach of blaming everybody that dare to complain or advise from outside his circle of being either the sponsor or directly responsible for everything that goes wrong while he's responsible for nothing, a monumental case of dead weight with no hope in sight. As usual, we are behind him in drones, ready to vote for him again, our chant as usual, "he's a Christian", "It's the South South's turn", "He's trying" as if he was elected to pastor a church, represent the south or try.

I choose not to list the failing of my dead weight president beyond the facts that I've laid out, even those of us clamouring for the so-called continuity, I will like to ask, what exactly do you want him to continue? This question is for the sake of clarity of purpose, what do we want GEJ to continue? The death, insecurity, corruption or ineptitude in leadership or lack of sense of direction? Until I get a million answers to these simple questions, I will assume that we ready to pull this dead weight called PDP upon us again, knowing fully-well that there is only false hope, no light at the end of any tunnel because indeed, PDP is not a tunnel, but a circular pit that leads to nowhere.

The moment you realize that no one is your enemy, except yourself, you become truely free -- Babaolowo

I'm Abidemi Babaolowo Oderinlo

I Write What I Like

I Ate My Tithe

Before you read this, please grab a Bible because you will need it to confirm the truth. I got to writing this today after reading the post my brother Williams JFK titled "Men Of God Nigeria Plc" .

I learnt the truth about tithing and giving a while ago but I am surprised this just gave me a profound reason to reshare it. I will continue to share it for as much as I can and I hope that we as humans can jump out of the cloak of religion and embrace the truth of the word of God. Before I proceed, I will like to remind you that Jesus is not a Christian so I don’t call myself one (be the judge of that). Jesus is not a respecter of men; in fact, he dealt heavily with the pastors of old aka Pharisees so it is my duty today to do the same. I don’t fear position or people, I fear God and I speak the truth of his word. Don’t jump to 1 Chr 16:22 start reading from the first verse and you will see that the anointed the Bible referred to were the Children of Israel aka You and I and not your Pastor so when you hear “Touch Not My Anointed”, remember this, God is talking about me, NOT YOUR PASTOR. I hope you are with your Bible.

What your pastors have been telling you about tithing and giving is just pure lies...My brother, you've been scammed heavily. God did not ask you to bring money as tithes, he never did, and in fact the Bible categorically instructed that when you convert your tithe to money, EAT IT. I use to pay tithes too; I believed their lies heavily but hey! I found the truth somehow.

I started with reasoning. Why should I give my money to a pastor that has his own business, a business he probably started with our money...is my Pastor a Levite? NO! Is he or she a widow or destitute? NO! so why should I share my tithe with him because those are the people God instructed me to share my tithe with...and that's if I choose to tithe sef.

Let me give you some background.

In Gen 14:20... Abram gave Melchizedek 10% of the spoil he took when he defeated Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him and gave the remaining 90% to the king of Sodom without taking anything.... He didn't give his money or profit or anything from his livestock, he gave them the spoils of a war he won and he did that only once, not every month or every year, just once in his life time.

If any pastor comes to you screaming "Abraham gave a tithe of all" tell him you have not won a war recently... so there is no spoil to share.

If you think I’m wrong, read your Bible yourself and stop waiting for your pastor to read it for you. If you want to know why I eat my tithe, I will tell you, the Bible instructed tithers to eat it.

Read Deut. 14 from verse 22 to the end.

Jesus didn't ask me to pay tithe, the only time he mentioned tithe in the bible, he was scolding the Pharisees for ignoring the weightiest matter of all which is Godliness. Jesus does not need my 10%, he needs me, HE owns me 100% and HE does not need my money... If HE owns you, then he owns everything you have because HE gave YOU in the first place.

The truth is not what your pastor says; the truth is in the Bible. I don't pay tithes anymore, in fact I don't work under any law because I am not cursed. God does not bless you because you paid your tithe; he blesses you because he wants you to be a blessing to others and he doesn’t need your tithe to do that. Don't be scared; don't let anyone bamboozle you with Malachi 3:10... If you allow that part of the Bible to be used to trick you into paying into their kalokalo, then Jesus must have indeed died for nothing because when He died, be paid a debt and when He rose, you became God's temple... Stop living like you are cursed.

The temple was a building during the days of Malachi; you are the temple in the Kingdom established by Christ... Now the role is reversed, the pastors are the ones saddled with the duty of filling God's temple with the truth of the word of God, they owe God the truth, the owe him the duty of telling his people the truth which is the word of God and they are the ones robbing God by telling you lies about tithing, they are the ones robbing God and they are the ones under a curse.

Read your Bible, eat your tithe, I eat my tithe and I GIVE, that's what my Bible told me... EAT your tithe, stop feeding people that already have pot belly, don't let anyone play the emotional card on you. Study to show yourself approved, know the truth, it will set you free. EAT YOUR TITHE.

PS: For those that will like to quote  Leviticus 27, please read it from the beginning before you quote wrongly. Only land owners are expected to even tithe as defined in Leviticus, and it's suppose to be from the produce of their land.. so how come tenant dey pay tithe in our own interpretation of tithe?

I Write What I Like

@enyola

Letter To Goodluck Jonathan in Response To His Claims of Increasing The Life Expectancy of Nigerians

Dear Mr. Goodluck Jonathan,

It is with a very sore heart that I read your uncultured, and blatant expression of stupidity on your official Facebook page a few minutes ago, I could have ignored it as one of your supposedly manipulative but fangless campaign moves, but the heaviness it bored in my heart would not allow me puff past this demeaning expression of yours. It's a slap in our face and I'm not going to turn another cheek, I am hitting back.

I will be hitting the nail straight on the head so you will know that you and your media team or whoever you've kept in charge of your publicity are only digging your grave beyond you losing your the presidential election this coming February.

How on earth can you come out on a global platform and claim that you have succeeded in increasing Nigerian's Average Life Expectancy to 54 years from 47 years when in thesame period of five years, you have succeeded in giving away the lives of over 20000 Nigerians to extremist by ignoring your primary responsibility of defending and protecting Nigeria as a whole, to defend and protect the Ijaw community instead? We know it is your 'Oil' and 'Oil Money' but atleast protect the nation so you can have a good front for your continuous stealing spree, and not assume that everybody that criticize you is an enemy.

If I may ask, how do you wake up in the morning and swallow 'Fufu' with your foul mouth and horrible looking face, knowing that Nigerian Soldiers are out there dying and still defending the territorial integrity of Nigeria without being equipped enough for the job just because we don't have guns and grenades but because you've become an Ijaw Warlord, with interest in only the South South Army of Dokubo and Navy of Tompolo instead of being the C'in'C of our armed forced?

How do you wake up in the morning without having death wishes when you remember that hundreds of girls in Shekau's captivity, and they could have been any of your adopted or biological daughters? Or is that Olukolade told you they've rescued every woman and girl child that was kidnapped before and after the Chibok girls saga? If he did, he's been lying again... the hundreds are still in captivity.

I saw the images of what your co-president Shekau of the Borno caliphate shared just yesterday, he didn't only claim responsibility for Baga, he showed us some of his artillery, his arsenal, his personal war chest of weapon.. do you as a president have a single barrack that can boast of thesame Arsenal? It is even sad that 90% of this weapons were seized from Nigerian Military according to Shekau's speech in his last video, and he even conceded that our Army can wipe them out but that we are only cowards, So how do you go to sleep at night, knowing that your colleague in warlordship Shekau has more guns and grenades supplied to him by you and your senior military officers, Oh! I forgot, your boys in the creeks have more guns, grenades and war boats too, so you are sure you can sleep in peace in Otueke atleast.

Dear Goodluck Jonathan, I am indeed worried, not for my safety or your safety, but I am seriously disturbed about your sanity. It is scary and staggering, almost unbelievable that a supposedly lettered (not educated) individual with your experience and exposure can come out and present "life expectancy" as an achievement of your failed administration in a country that has lost tens of thousands of her citizens to your carelessness. Imagine if the 20000 that we've lost can live happily to the age of 47 and die a natural death, compared to their friends, family and loved ones living with the pain of their untimely death for an extended 5 years of their lives?

This is not a death wish for you (you are ugly) and you beautiful family but please answer this question within the confines of your heart and decide sir. What will you prefer, to lose your beautiful sons and daughters to a bloody war, ill health or the incompetency of a failed leadership and have an extra five or ten years to mourn them, or live with them for as long as the times of life permits? I know it might be hard for you to answer but I can help you with the answers. Pick up your phone and call Pa Edwin Clarke, yes the big Delta man that has been advising you wrongly and ask him if he will rather have his son (sister's son) that died in Bauchi during the post election fracas of 2011 back and die five years earlier or lose another son or daughter to boko haram bomb blast and have another extra five years to live with the pain of his loss? His answer should be your answer sir.

The logic is simple, we don't want another four years of your manipulative rulership for another five years of wailing and mourning, we will rather live short and glorious 45 years life expectancy than have 59 years of sorrow, war, death and pain. Your time is up sir.

Sincerely,

Abidemi Babaolowo Oderinlo

I Write What I Like

The Grandson of A Barren Woman

My late grandma "Sabitiu Cecilia Oderinlo" aka "Iya Alaté" (Business Woman) aka "Iya Onidiri" (Hair Stylist) aka "My First Wife" was called "BARREN" for the better part of her youthful and adult years in marriage. Was she really barren? Yes she was.

My granddad was polygamous so she nursed and raised the children of all the wives of "Pa Eniola Augustine Oderinlo" aka "Baba Ori Oke" (The man that lives on the hilltop) aka "Awole Esu" (The Destroyer of Devils House) my grandfather like her own without having a child of her own. She was called barren the abusive way and she lived with it for years and years because her husband only saw the wife of his youth and not a barren woman and that was good enough reason for her to ignore everything else and love everything that has the breathe of her handsome husband on it.

Then heaven opened up her womb after decades of waiting and she got pregnant with her first. Her first child was named "Oluwarantimi" meaning "God Remembered Me". She was so old and the child was so handsome that the missionaries (Rev. Sisters) at the Sacred Heart Hospital, Itesi, behind Ake Palace in Abeokuta, Ogun State in Nigeria offered to help her take care of my dad until she could learn to take care of a child on her own, little did they know that she was an expert at it already, she's been nursing her husband's children even when there was no hope of her ever having one of her own. A few years later, she had another child "Olatundun" my aunt and by then, the woman that was once a "Barren Old Bat" was the mother of two children of her own, and the many other her lovely husband had managed to born for her to care for. She told us her grandchildren the many tales of her tormentors and accusers, their show of madness and how she realised that being called "Agan" i.e. barren was just a word describing her present condition and not her final destination.

The bible described the likes of Sarah, Leah, etc. has barren... The birth of Ishmael was almost a proof of Sarah’s total bareness but God proved everything right with Isaac. Same situation for my Sabitiu but I'm a proof that the word "BARREN" is used to describe a woman that is yet to give birth to a child and not a woman that can't have children.

I wrote a creative piece recently and in it, I talked about Patience Goodluck Jonathan's being without a child of her own. I thought up a very unusual reason for it, not with the intent of mocking her, just a product of my creative energy, all in a bid to pass a message about the decay in Nigeria’s academic environment and everybody just felt it was insulting, abusive, offensive and every other word that ends with "ive" without noticing the message of my art. I sat to think of it afterwards and imagined, "what if it was a comedian that shared the narratives I did, won't we all laugh about it and call it a crazy joke?", my answer to that was yes and it was scary. Wow! Ain't We All Hypocrites?

My initial creative expression was filled with narratives of Patience’s bareness and how D&C aka abortion could be the cause and nobody is looking at the text holistically to see the lessons, rather we are all more concerned and consumed by the fact that I mentioned real names and used real life examples. Please tell me, if I can't use Gooduck and his wife to illustrate our inherent problems as a people and nation, who could be more suitable?

My art addressed the issues of lecturers sleeping with students to award them unearned marks but because my specimen was Goodluck and Patience Jonathan, everybody seems to be blind to the facts of my narratives. Someone should please tell me, how Patience Jonathan pass Biology in College under her lecturer GEJ? If Patience can't read or deliver a complete sentence without shooting down the walls of Jericho with grammatical blunders, how did she graduate with a degree in Biology and Psychology? We are all busy asking for Buhari's certificate, how did Patience Jonathan who has one pass her General Studies courses like English Language, not to imagine the complex field of biology and its many jargons that requires you spelling each word correctly. I did study Biology in my Secondary School days and I am almost sure she would have failed Biology at that level if she attended Awori Anglican Comprehensive High School my alma matter, so I'm wondering how she passed the same subjects at tertiary level in Rivers State College of Education and University of Port Harcourt (UniPort), your guess is as good as mine. No wonder GEJ got a 1st Class PhD from the same UniPort, did I hear somebody say "settlement & runs", and it is possible because he and she seem to be good at settling and runsing things.

What will you do if you walk into a psycho session and your shrink is Patience Jonathan, will you sit down and talk to her as your psychologist or run out screaming? What language will she use to communicate and administer the therapy, pidgin or Ikwere or Igbo? These are the questions we need to ask because my post was only addressing the decays in our academic community, the community that serves as the building block of our society.

Bareness is not a problem because it has a solution. It is either you get pregnant and give birth to your own children like my grandma did eventually, adopt or allow your husband have one or two outside your marriage and you take them as yours like Sarah in the scriptures or Patience Jonathan did, or you live with that reality. It's hard I know but there is always a way out of bareness. There is no easy way out of the decay our academic communities are producing, that's why we have a Dr. and an Arc. as Presidents and the top still feels empty because there is no real value driven individuals up there representing the interest of the people, that is why we have so-called graduates that are unemployable, graduates who can’t deliver a minute worth of value in the subject matter they claimed to have earned a first or second degree in.

Barren is an insultive word, D&C is f**ked up according to my cousin but it's tight lyrics when MI Abaga uses D&C in almost every song he's written and released, all we do is sing along. In fact rape is cool when Olamide sings about it; it is “story for the gods”. It's excellent when lecturers award marks for sex and make life a living hell for those that can't use biology practical to pass mathematics. Abortion is a cure for sexual mistakes but "barren" is bad word even when most of it is caused by abortion, I wonder why the word exists.

Our society can only change in the future if parents will slow down and start training their children instead of saving up for special centres. A child whose WAEC and JAMB results was purchase by her parent will gladly use biology practical (sex) to pass any course she can use it to pass, or use it to get money to buy the marks when biology practical can solve it, it's called runs.

I feel no remorse talking about a woman being childless, it is the problem of humanity and nothing can stop bareness from existing, after all, I am Abidemi Babaolowo Oderinlo the grandson of a barren woman.

I Write What I Like