Unpopular side with Yinka Ijabiyi
Twitter: @Yinkakan Instagram: @oneyinka
This old woman called Africa must show herself sha. This motherland of ours has more problems than we care to acknowledge for some reason. Whatever is wrong with the world isn’t what is wrong with Africa. Who or whatever created Africa did us a huge injustice. Maybe that fabled nonsense talk of Africa being astronomically blessed in every area and bad people then used to hold her in check is true. The world is looking for sustainable solutions to real life world problems (existing and potential) and Africa is looking for what? Power. Transient power over which they have no power. Power that cannot give life. Or make happy. Immaterial power.
Africans have refused to evolve with the rest of the world. We are still back in the 1st century of human evolutionary dynamics. We are stuck in a time warp; we have grown so far and we are growing no more. And now we are ensuring the generation behind us and those behind them also never develop.
The news of the positive and celebratory outcome of the Gambian elections was heart-warming. We all rejoiced that it seemed like Africa had turned a new leaf at last. In 2015, Jonathan did it. And here we are just one year down the line and another true African son was doing it. His former “dictator” label forgiven and forgotten in that moment. For a minute, we thought yes, Africa on the rise again! Former despots embracing change. New generation loving change. One last troublemaker in Harare and Africa would be renewed. But that feeling soon soured. Africa is after all Africa; she is a dark and foreboding continent, the stifler of all light especially electricity. But she also stifles the sun, the moon and the stars. Nothing can illuminate the blackness of African hearts; pure and simple. Even good example can’t. Yahya Jammeh, 22-year ruler of one of West Africa’s most attractive tourism hubs and arguably the most scenic plus one of the smaller nations of Africa, The Gambia, did a 360 degree volte face that led his country to the brink of invasion. He is like the proverbial hunting dog that is about to get lost and has ceased to hear the whistle of the hunter. The gods have frowned at him and the madness that precedes his downfall has been specially imported from Yaba left with a stop-over at Aro. He is a done deal. And shame no go make am gree.
Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye has led the Lord’s flock via the ministry of the Redeemed Christian Church of God for the last 36 years. At the time, he was two years short of 40. The man of God has had an amazing run tending the Lord’s vineyard and making ready the people of God for the kingdom of God in the hereafter. God’s kingdom is rich. His vision has seen Redeemed blossom from a… but wait, we are losing focus. If we start with Pastor E.A. Adeboye and his sterling leadership at RCCG, we will still be here in 20 years. There’s enough news and history on Pa Adeboye online. Google it. Today we want to look at the somewhat frightfully similar power mechanics running through the GO and Jammeh’s unconnected lives. A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Adeboye “stepped aside” as General Overseer (aka GO) of the church and he seamlessly announced one of his key lieutenants and the former keeper of the church’s treasury, Pastor Joshua Obayemi, as general overseer. News broke on social media directly from the camp where the announcement was made at a top level session with the top echelon of the church. However, within minutes of the announcement, Daddy GO’s PA (who is also his son), Leke Adeboye, sent out a statement that sought to clarify the earlier message from his father and boss. It turned out that Adeboye has only “stepped aside and up” in compliance with a recent financial regulatory law which stipulated a 20 year tenure for general overseers of churches and insisted that they must not handover to family members. News was a shock. The plan had always been for Daddy GO to lead until God called. Neither retirement nor resignation was part of the vision. These are spiritual matters. You can’t legislate them. The spirit moves in its own ways. The outcry on the Adeboye resignation was massive. The executive secretary of the FRC, John Obazee, lost his job the next working day by executive meddling. His job was not heaven-given so he had to go for playing god against God. In the hours following the announcement, it soon turned out that Adeboye was still in charge just not directly in charge of Nigeria anymore; he had a new portfolio in Redeemed hierarchy; General Overseer Worldwide. The newly announced GO would now have a GO to report to. God works in mysterious ways.
Why do African leaders never want to leave? What is there about this transient power in life that we must forcefully hold on to? Why do we refuse to leave a place we will not be in forever? One word and we are dust again suddenly and without notice. What makes us different from other human beings?
There has been no research, to my mind, into the make-up of the brain or mind of the black man. Maybe such a trip is superfluous. A human being’s mind is a human being’s mind. One man or woman is no different from another. We were all made in the image and likeness of one person so there’s a bit of everything and everyone else in us. Maybe the research needed is really the one that looks into good people’s hearts and asks the question; why are they predominantly better than most? Our world today is a world of possibilities. It must have been what Jesus meant when he said with God impossible is nothing. Man in science is making so much giant strides that I won’t be surprised at all if one day soon good and evil can be separated inside man and we can now choose to make some men good and some evil; through and through. And of course it is only a matter of time before “they” will discover the cell that causes us to age and die and they will remove it. So they can live forever enjoying their amassed wealth here rather than hope for something in a place they don’t know and can’t control. The heart of man is hard to understand. But we cannot understand the heart of snakes either.
Jammeh and Adeboye should go quietly in a blaze of glory. That is the right thing to do.
