KILLINGS & KILLINGS IN THE NAME OF THE LORD

Hatred has taken over the world. Whether it is in the Middle East, East Africa Nigeria or Ukraine, the slaughtering of innocent people is no longer shocking. It is an everyday thing. It has become normal. 'Unknown' gun men are running riot across Nigeria, killing and maiming at will. Just this week, several members of staff of the American embassy were reportedly murdered in cold blood in Anambra State. Nothing is sacred anymore and no one is off limits.

In the last two weeks, the perennial carnage between the Palestinians and the Israelis exploded once more. On television, we were visited by the gory images of the mayhem caused by the massive Israeli military machine that appears ever ready to rip to shreds Palestinian men, women and children. Some Israelis and hundreds of innocent Palestinians, old women and mere children were slaughtered like cattle in the never-ending war in which they are neither participants nor do they quite understand the reason. Massive buildings crashed down like a pack of cards.

Meanwhile, the people responsible for this massacre and their friends justify this horrific killing field. They explain it with a lot of grammar especially at the United Nations and on world-wide television. Those who have the big guns also own the big loudspeakers and the sophisticated PR specialists. So, they activate their propaganda machinery to dominate the narrative. Nothing is true or false anymore. It is all a matter of how you coin it and spread it. So, they justify the carnage by announcing that they are defending their people! Of course, they have ready support from their friends with the veto power.

It does not matter that the innocent women and children so brazenly murdered are some other person's 'people' and children of God too. We live in a world in which might is right and so the children of the slaughtered old women and the brothers of the murdered children, who probably will never have access to any significant military machine, will eventually turn themselves into suicide bombers and explode themselves on innocent civilians. And the cycle of blood continues...

Every crazy group in the world unleashing death on everyone around them can justify the killing. It is usually based on an 'us against them' mindset of some spiritual, tribal or political leader hungry for control who drums up the immense bitterness fuelled by some ancient bigotry or hatred that eventually turn the young, frustrated and restless into killing machines.

Talk to any members of the vicious Boko Haram group or ISWAP that have unleashed fear and death across Nigeria or the other ethnic separatists that are emerging everywhere in Nigeria and they all have religious or tribal justification for their senseless killing of innocent men and women. Members of the Al Shabab gang who have gunned down many innocent people in East Africa are sure that they are doing God's work. Whether it is Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram or even the IRA that kept Northern Ireland in commotion for a long time, they all beat their chests and assert justification for the innocent lives they have taken. Check out their justification and it is based on some skewed religious beliefs or some real or perceived injustice done to their 'people' today or in times gone by.

Listen to Vladmir Putin's diatribe and his justification for the slaughtering of innocent men, women and children in Ukraine. He claims to be protecting ethnic Russians from a Nazi regime committing genocide against them.

Nothing frightens me these days more than the seemingly unstoppable spread of fundamentalist religion. Contrary to popular notion, this terrifying development is not limited to the Islamic faith. All over the world, there are self-styled prophets in religious garments indoctrinating masses of people who they will unleash on the world and who would become cannon fodder in their war to rid the world of those who do not agree with them.

All of these 'men of God' preach love but the love they preach is not love for all children of God but love only for the people who think like them, pray like them or love like them. If you think differently, you are vermin which must be exterminated to create their pure world. They have convinced themselves that they are holy warriors fighting God's battle and that they have the right to kill in the name of God.     

But who are these people supposedly fighting in the name of God and killing the children of God? Who told them that God needs their help? Who informed them that they are more effective than God, the maker and giver of life, who if he chooses can wipe out whole nations in a twinkle of an eye? How can a war be holy in which innocent children of God are killed?

Karl Max said that religion is the opium of the poor. I agree. Take a map of the world and check out the regions where there are fervent religious activities. These are where you will find nations in commotion, in poverty and in decline. Not too long ago, I spent some time in the United States. Sunday mornings, the streets of the major cities are practically abandoned. The churches are empty except for minority groups. Yet, these are the people from whom we inherited our religious beliefs. We have become far more religious than them with very little to show for it.

Please drive on the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway. There are interesting developments on both sides of the road. Apart from a few recent commercial ventures, nearly every significant structure on the road is owned by a religious group of either the Christian or Islamic faith. If the structure is not a worship centre built on acres of choice land, it is a university owned by the same religious groups.

A lot of the children whose parents contributed the tithe and offering with which the universities were built will find out that the universities are not priced for them. I have wondered what would eventually happen to those who study at the universities from Mondays to Fridays and worship at the churches on Sundays. Where are they going to find work? From where will they earn the money to maintain body and soul and pay tithes to the religious establishments so that they can continue to boom?  If you cannot see the looming problem, you are probably one of those who believe that Nigeria played the last World Cup in Qatar and actually won the cup!

Before anyone concludes that I am anti – religion, let me state clearly that I am a Christian and that I go to Church. I however do not believe that every Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Ifa Worshiper, or anyone who does not worship the way I do is condemned to hell fire. It is the same way that I do not believe that the people who come from my part of the country are always right and the others are forever wrong. Similarly, I do not believe that when the time comes, it will matter whether you face the east or the west when you worship your God or whether you come from the North or the South or whether you are straight, gay or lesbian.  We are all children of one God.

See you next week.

ONCE AGAIN, WILL VALDMIR PUTIN GO DOWN LIKE SADDAM HUSSEIN?

The nation of Iraq used to be one of the most admired nations in the Middle East. The beautiful nation had developed great infrastructure and there was high standard of education and social welfare for much of its citizens. With huge oil revenue, Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, lived large in palaces and mansions lined with precious stones and metals. Humility disappeared and power got into his head. The gun totting Saddam who was born after the death of his father, began to flex his muscles against anyone and everyone and waged war against the Kurds and Iran.

 

In August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded the nation of Kuwait, Iraq's smaller southeastern neighbor. Saddam wanted to gain control of Kuwait's significant oil wealth to add to Iraq's. Led by the United States, several nations asked Saddam to withdraw his troops from Kuwait. He refused. America amassed troops in the region in what was nicknamed "Operation Desert Storm" and Saddam boasted that he would show the Americans a "mother of all wars". But when push came to shove, it took the Americans just a few weeks to drive Saddam's soldiers out of Kuwait. However, as the American soldiers approached Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, they stopped, leaving Saddam still in power.

 

Anyone would think that the loquacious Saddam Hussein would learn his lessons and humble himself. He did not. He continued to boast. In 2003, the Americans came back after the 9/11 attack of 2001. In Desert Storm 2. Saddam who used to reside in the most luxurious abodes on earth, was on December 13, 2003, found by U.S. soldiers hiding in a six-to-eight-foot hole in the ground, nine miles outside his hometown of Tikrit. He was. picked up, tried on television, and executed by hanging, like a common criminal. For several years, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and their nation paid a huge price for the oil induced madness of Saddam Hussein.

Has anyone forgotten Muammar Gaddafi, the incredibly glamourous and daring leader of Libya, who was captured in a gutter and killed on October 20, 2011? Gaddafi also tasted oil wealth and became oil drunk and believed he was invincible. At the end of the day, he died in a most humiliating way. Libya was one of the most developed nations in Africa, with significant oil revenue. It has remained unstable since.

There must be something about oil money that drives people crazy. Just look at Nigeria and how people who have fleeced the country of its oil money seem to have gone mad and practically destroyed the country. Everywhere you look, the pain and suffering of the Nigerian people brought about by the unending battle to control Nigeria's oil wealth, stares you in the face.

Please, how does one explain the horror that has gone on in Ukraine? For months, the world begged Russian President, Vladmir Putin, not to invade his smaller neighbour, Ukraine and not to kill innocent Ukrainians who have done nothing to him. Several times, U.S. President, Joe Biden at virtual meetings, pleaded with Putin. French President, Emmanuel Macron had to go to Moscow to beg Putin. German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, also went to Moscow to beg Putin. Hungarian Prime Minister, Victor Orban was also in Moscow and repeatedly, Vladmir Putin, who became an international movie star, showed off his expensively paneled office at the Kremlin on TV as world leaders begged him to show mercy on the poor citizens of Ukraine. He did not just show off his expensive offices, he showed off his heart of stone.

Everything Joe Biden said Putin would do, has come to pass. Putin's lies and subterfuge have played out for the whole world to see. The innocent men, women and children who have been bombed and slaughtered recklessly in Ukraine are just pawns in Putin's game as he seeks to expand his territory and fiefdom.

On February 24, 2022, ignoring all the pleadings from leaders around the world, Putin drunk on Russia's oil wealth, invaded Ukraine with his vast military might: an estimated army of close to 200,000 soldiers and well over 1,000 tanks in what he termed "Special Military Operation".

It is widely believed that with his overwhelming force, Vladmir Putin was sure that his "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine would be over in a matter of days. The multiple pronged attack indicated that Putin's objective was to quickly capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, depose Zelensky, Ukraine's democratically elected President and take over the country.

 

Drunk on oil, Putin did not bargain for the fierce resistance of the Ukrainian people who have fought the Russians like wounded lions. He also did not bargain for what looks like the iron clad unity of the West led by Biden who has made sure that Ukraine received sophisticated weapons and financial support to take on the Russians. 

 

Despite their unprecedented shelling and carpet bombing of Kyiv, the Russians failed to take the Ukrainian capital. Their forces reached the outskirts of Kyiv but at the end of March 2022, had to run away in all directions with enormous losses of men and tanks.

 

When the Russians were scattered from Kyiv, they shifted to a slimmer objective in eastern Ukraine, where they achieved some success with ruthless and indiscriminate artillery attack that flattened several Ukrainian towns and villages which they captured.

 

With the acquisition of new and more sophisticated weapons, the Ukrainians, at lightning speed, have captured much of the territory taken by the Russians in Eastern Ukraine and even more. It appears that the Russian military has lost its mettle. All is not well with the troops who appear to be on the run, abandoning their tanks and other equipment. Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner group, Russia's powerful private militia, fighting in Ukraine, is angry. He is openly complaining about the crisis in the Russian military and the thousands of Russian soldiers dying in Ukraine.

Fifteen months down the road, Putin's "Special Military Operation", which he expected to last one week, is nowhere near over and no one can say for certain how the war will end. It is however not arguable that things have not gone the way Putin expected and that he has become frustrated and terribly desperate. It is reported that Putin has resorted to directly giving instructions to his generals in the field as many thousands of Russian soldiers are slaughtered in the war. The desperation became obvious a few months ago when Putin announced the mobilization of 300,000 military reservists to join the war in Ukraine and threatened to deploy nuclear weapons in the war, a move that will destroy the world as we know it. 

The result? Thousands of Russian men of fighting age rushed out of Russia. They don't want to fight in a war they don't understand.

I thought Vladmir Putin was a strategic thinker, with a good understanding of history. Once again, oil money has got a world leader terribly drunk. The once admired Vladmir Putin can no longer go where he chooses as he has been declared a war criminal, subject to arrest anywhere he is picked up.

At the end of the day, just like Saddam Hussein, just like Muammar Gaddafi, just like Osama Bin Ladin, just like ISIS leader, Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi, Putin's dream will not become reality. Vladmir Putin will never be King of the world. He has cooked for the world and the food has got burnt in the oven. Unfortunately, the ordinary people of Russia will pay a huge price for the misadventure of their oil drunk leader.

As the "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine unravels, the question must be asked: Will Vladmir Putin go down like Saddam Hussein?

 

See you next week.