Death "Gift" From Supreme Court For Notorious Rev. King on His Birthday by Felix N. Jarikre.

Rev.King.

“Daddy, you are the light of the world. A nation without you is in total darkness. Life without you is miserable, bored and of no value. Your birth has brought salvation to mankind. You are our shield and buckler, a home of refuge in time of trouble...

“You are our King and must continue to remain our king forever. No amount of conspiracy, gossips, scandals levelled against you can change our heart from following you because we know that you are 100% innocent of the false allegation levelled against you.” – The Daughters of the Kingdom of God.

“Daddy G.O., you have been a blessing to our families, without you, our lives had been meaningless, empty, without purpose and direction. Daddy G.O., you are indeed the God of impossibility, the great healer, the great man in battle, you are our light and salvation, you are the everlasting father, the way, the truth and the life, you are the great provider, you are the anointed one, you are the prince of peace, you are the vanquisher of demons..

“His Holiness, surely whoever that trusted upon you shall never be put to shame. Live forever for us.” – Anonymous 

The above excerpts were taken from advertisements placed in some national newspapers by followers of Chukwuemeka Ezeugo ( aka Rev. King), General Overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly, Ikeja, Lagos, to mark his birthday. The lofty sentiments used to eulogize this jailed cleric, would have been deemed outrageous and blasphemous in a saner situation; but it is doubtful if the object of this laughable eulogy had ever allowed himself to operate in a sane environment other than where his followers’ thoughts were oppressed, bewitched and delusional.

From the stories that came out after Rev. King was arrested by the Nigerian police in connection with the murder of Ann Uzoh, and attempted murder of five other members, it was clear the pastor had always passed himself off as the “Most High God” who was above accountability and transparency before mere mortals. His words were laws. He could do no wrong.  Mere mortals, members of his fiefdom masquerading as a church, trembled and knelt in self-abnegation, who were fortunate  to have an audience with him.

Considering that his birthday of February 26^th, 2016 was also the day the Supreme Court would hand down the judgement  over his appeal, it is not outlandish to speculate that the birthday advertisements, in a grand scheme, were meant to influence the thinking of the eminent judges, and prod them to give a favourable judgement to Rev. King, the “God of possibility and Vanquisher of demons.”

Indeed, one of the sect’s leaders, Rev. Elijah King, in 2013, had threatened that Nigeria should be prepared to face dire consequences if Rev. Ezeugo was expired by hanging. If our eminent judges read all this, they didn’t bother to let us know. Trained and bound to decide on a matter by the facts of a case alone, they told us that indeed Rev. King deserved to die by hanging, upholding the verdict of Justice Olubunmi Oyewole on January 11, 2007 who convicted and sentenced him on each of the five counts of attempted murder to 20 years; and death sentence for murder at the Lagos High Court, Ikeja.

Rev. King Ezeugo had challenged the verdict of the Lagos Division of the Appeal Court which affirmed the conviction and death sentence passed on him by the Lagos High Court. A five-man bench of the Supreme Court, in its unanimous judgement led by Justice Walter Onnoghen dismissed Ezeugo’s appeal. 

The judgement dealt a sharp ultimate blow on Ezeugo’s last effort to deliver himself from the death sentence hanging around his neck for over nine years. Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, reading the lead judgement, in his opening remarks, said: “The fact of this case could have been lifted from a horror film. At all material times, both parties agreed that the appellant was General Overseer of Christian Praying Assembly, Ikeja, Lagos. It was also agreed that he had a father-son and father-daughter relationship with the victims of the incident.

“The prosecution’s case was that the appellant accused six of his people of immoral behaviour. He called them together, beat each of them with many hard objects and after the beating, he assembled them downstairs, made them to kneel down and he caused petrol to be poured on them and a struck match thrown on them.

“They all sustained various degrees of burns. While five of them escaped, the sixth of them who later died sustained 65 percent degree burns. You can imagine her last day in the hospital.

“Appellant denied this incident, saying though he punished them for immoral behaviour, the punishment was different from the incident that gave birth to this charge.

“He said they sustained injuries when a generator exploded. That was his case. But throughout the proceedings, the mysterious generator was never produced.”

It boggles the mind to think of the kind of supercilious morality which seized Ezeugo that got him so enraged to the extent of pouring petrol on a woman’s body and setting her on fire because she was alleged to have fornicated.  How deluded is he to think he could evade questioning and accountability for his dastardly, unconscionable behaviour? 

What’s the kind of seed capable of producing preachers like Rev. King in the evil tradition of Jim Jones who cajoled and forced around 900 people to drink poison in a mass suicide in Guyana? 

It must be said that there are lots of psychopaths and pathological liars today who use the pastoral pulpits to cover their insecurity. They are manipulative and crafty. The idea they could not be challenged and held to account for their ugly behaviours is a false notion they are happy to propagate.  But they cannot hide for very long.

That Ezeugo is going to die by hanging is a sign that the time of reckoning is not far for many.

Arc of Wisdom: The Enabler and Equalizer. by Felix N. Jarikre.

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations...If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him...Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass, he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof  falleth and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. – James 1:2-11. 

The easiest way to become an adversary of the Spirit is to think that God is unreliable and faithless because of unfulfilled desires in your season of calamity. To be adversarial to sovereign authority is detrimental to your prosperity. The season of calamity will come to everyone, rich or poor. There’s no escape from this. Don’t feel complacent if you have not yet experienced one. It’s not because you are smarter and more intelligent than others. But if you want to make genuine, tangible progress with God, it is a season that you should not dread, but welcome with enthusiasm. That perplexing phase of your life when disappointments appear to stalk every move you make is certainly not a pleasant one. Yes, it could steal the courage of any rational, intelligent person. But for those who choose to embrace the wisdom of God, it is a season that  must be confronted, engaged and surmounted.

The Maker of the universe certainly doesn’t want us to settle in our comfort-zone, and stagnate.  We are continually challenged to be adventurous, make progress and experience greater dimension of grace and power. But for too long, many of us have dwelled on imprecise,  and shallow teachings that will ameliorate our fears, instead of what will challenge us to confront and conquer our fears. Some of us are even actively looking for teachings that would make us excusable, and discharge us from being accountable and responsible.

Today in America, the bastion of capitalism, you can’t even open the page of a business magazine, newspaper or browse online without being assailed with some screeching treatise on the looming dangers of income inequality; how the commonwealth which has multiplied overtime due to technological breakthroughs has been pocketed by a few, the so-called one-percenter; and how these economic cabals have bought up political power, leaving the poor voiceless, disenchanted and disenfranchised practically, as they have limited choices as to how their votes could count. Unable to save, many have gone into larger debts to maintain a respectable status. Social infrastructure is crumbling, and apart from paying lip-service, politicians are not eager to show any tangible concern.

The American dream, for many, has become an American nightmare. It’s a sign of the changing times that to be labelled a “socialist” does not carry the stigma or evoke the fear it once had. I grew up reading of  how the Joe McCarthy hearings in the 1950s criminalized and blacklisted suspected socialists in government offices and Hollywood, ruining the promising careers of many. Today, Bernie Sanders, a professed democratic socialist is giving a competitive scare to Hilary Clinton, a supposed front-runner in the Democratic presidential primaries. That he is galvanizing serious attention on the national stage shows the poor are not only agitated, they are also asking questions. Whether they are asking the right questions is another matter.

In Africa, especially Nigeria, there is no social safety net for the poor; as they are left hanging on the edge of naked hysteria with raucous laughter used to mask their sorrow. Running around the same cycles of limitations without making progress is what some call resilience. Better word on the street puts it as: “suffering and smiling.”  No good schools. Over-populated classes with de-motivated teachers. Dilapidated roads, excuses for death-traps. Decaying hospitals. 

While not absolving governments of their serious responsibility towards the poor, I dare say whatever ugly situation the poor are facing in any country, it is a rebuke from the Creator which they refuse to hear !  The book of Proverbs 13:7-8 in the Bible says: “There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.The ransom of a man’s  life are his riches: but the poor heareth not rebuke.” 

It’s true that poverty breeds dependency and destroys creativity. That’s why the poor cannot afford to hold unto poverty and glorify it. If it appears that the poor is at the mercy of the rich, it is because the poor are looking up to the rich to save them. In the eyes of the Creator, the poor is not disadvantaged in any way. That’s the truth which cannot be denied. If the Maker of the Universe is on the side of the poor, it is not logical why they should remain poor. Cutting through every theological clap-trap, when the blood of Jesus Christ was shed historically, an irreversible revolution took place in the Spirit realm where the rich and poor were equalized economically; and lack of money could no longer be a tenable excuse of why anyone would not be enterprising, productive and solution-oriented. 

Instead of being dependent, overcoming mental paralysis, the poor should stop feeling inadequate and disadvantaged, step out to enforce his/her vision without looking to be praised by men. The poor should bury his/her fear, expose and trade their talent to become profitable.

Realistically, if the poor as the inheritors of the kingdom of God, already established here  on earth, would not shake of their lethargy and complacency, take up the responsibility of demonstrating the power of his/her kingdom, things would keep getting tougher and harsher, even as the rich conspire collectively to secure their privileges and sense of entitlement.

Again, for the point of emphasis, the poor are not helpless, disadvantaged or powerless in any way: they have the superior and priceless currency of the wisdom of God which they can and should leverage in any nation, America, India, Nigeria, U.K. etc to achieve whatever they need. 

Hear what James says in another place (2:5): “ Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?”

Paul the apostle writes in 2 Corinthians 6:10: “...As poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”  (To be continued.)

Felix N. Jarikre

Dele Momodu's Memorable Quotes on APC Government.

Dele Momodu.

“ Nigerians sent Jonathan packing because they believed he was incompetent and the APC and Buhari assured they had the solutions to the problems and the magic wand to the economic and spiritual hopelessness of the time. No one should blame them if they are grumbling that this was not the change they voted.

“Buhari should build on Jonathan’s concrete legacy, and stop the name-calling and blame game.

“Buhari’s government is paranoid, agitated and neurotic; we cannot praise you when naira is nose-diving, spinning like roller-coaster gone beserk.

“ If truth must be told, our economic team is floundering at the moment. They appear rudderless and totally confused.

“ They are blaming real and imaginary enemies for the gale of attacks on the economic policies of the current government. I find this very reprehensible.”

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo To Raise A " New Tribe of Anti-Corruption Warriors" by Felix N.Jarikre.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, on February 20, exposed why President Muhammadu Buhari had not been able to get the right persons to handle nation-building tasks for him.

Speaking on the theme: “Change agents in nation-building,” at the annual dinner of the Apostles in the Market Place in Lagos, he said the level of corruption in Nigeria has so far made it difficult to find the right persons to handle nation-building tasks for Buhari-led Government.

Osinbajo lamented: “I have had several long discussions with President Buhari, the key issue always is finding the right persons for any task; a tough task indeed in a corrupt system. This is a system where the norm is corrupt behaviour across all arms of formal systems of governance. In such a system, the private sector is a strong collaborator. The fight against corruption is then a fight against the system.”

According to the Vice-President, a close look at the list of corrupt persons show they cut across ethnic and religious lines, as they have partners in the judiciary, the legislature, and the press, springing always to protect themselves. 

Osinbajo said: “In protecting one another’s interest, they are ready to go down with any of their own. When you look at any list of alleged perpetrators of a heinous case of corruption, all religions, all tribes and ethnicities are well represented. In other words, high-level corruption knows no religion or ethnicity.

“Such perpetrators and conspirators are in governments, the legislature, the judiciary and the press. They are united, they protect one another, they fight for one another and they are prepared to go down together. They are one tribe and indivisible, regardless of diversity. It is this tribe that confuses the arguments for change in society.”

He pointed out further that it would be tough to deliver public goods with such a corrupt system. Questioning how many new roads the federal government in the last ten years constructed, he doubted the whereabouts of the billions of dollars made when oil price was over $100 per barrel.

The Vice-President said nothing demonstrated the moral ambivalence that saturated the system than the recent revelations on the alleged looting of funds meant to purchase arms for the armed forces to defend the territorial integrity of the country.

“That system needs to be dismantled  if the nation is to progress. Nigeria’s greatest battle is the one to bring integrity and accountability to public service and the private sector. This requires a new way of thinking, a new crop of leadership and a new tribe. The challenge today for us all- friends and colleagues - is to populate that new tribe,” he said.

The Vice-President further called on the new tribe of Nigerians to be prepared to fight and destroy the “corrupt system” in the country’s public and private sectors. 

“We need a new tribe of men and women of all faith, tribes and ethnicities. This will be a tribe of men and women who are prepared to make the sacrifices and self-constraints that are crucial to building a strong society; who are prepared to stick together, fight corruption side-by-side, and insist on justice even when our friends are at the receiving end,” he concluded.