IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON & GHANA MUST GO!

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON & GHANA MUST GO!

Have you ever asked yourself why our children do very badly in maths?  Please just talk to the average young man or woman going to school in these parts. Ask him which subject gives him or her the biggest challenge and before the question is out of your mouth, the answer is thrown at you – 'Mathematics!' Most of them are scared stiff of the stuff. Some believe that Maths is magic and only the likes of Professor Peller, the master magician, can understand how 'a plus b' can be equal to c.

You might want to blame the kids. Don't blame them. Their parents before them and maybe their grandparents grew up in an environment where everything is conjecture and the only thing that is true is what the juju man or witch doctor says. Regardless of how educated, travelled or exposed we are, we are still deep inside, villagers trapped in the fables of juju men and witch doctors - the babalawos who intercede to the Gods on our behalf. We might be very religious or even call ourselves 'men of God' but the prism through which we see God is still that of the juju man, witch doctor or 'jazz'.      

Why are we so backward? In the world of mathematics, quantum physics and empiricism, we still consult cranky old men with chalk marks on their faces to toss around cowries in the air and tell us what the future holds for us. We fear to face the fact that much of our future is not dangling in the air like cowries but is dependent on what we do or fail to do. We do not want to deal with facts because that means taking responsibility so we embrace conjecture and blame the devil or even God for our endless disasters.

Our mathematics problem is at the core of our many difficulties. Mathematics means facts. It means transparency, accountability, order, planning and the taking of responsibilities. In mathematics, two plus two will always be four. It can never be five or three and half. If we were to take mathematics seriously, how do we explain much of our contradictions? For instance, how does a level 8 officer in the employ of the government explain to his son how he owns an estate which his salary and all his allowances put together cannot contemplate even if he worked for one thousand years? On the other hand, with all the waste going on, how does the government justify paying a man in its employ with a wife and four children the handsome salary of eighteen thousand naira a month and expect him to pay for food, housing, transportation, NEPA, clothes, school fees, medicine and all the many expectations of the extended family? What magic will the man do to make ends meet?

If the son of the level 8 officer were to ask his father: 'Daddy, how did you make this much money and own so many houses?' Do you think that the father would answer: 'as a cashier in the government service, I stole the money placed under my care to provide service to the community'?  Ninety nine times out of a hundred, the answer would be something like: 'It is God's blessings'. Which God? The answer avoids the simple additions and multiplication that mathematics demands. By what do you multiply his sixty thousand naira a month salary to obtain the five hundred million naira that he calls his own?

Let's face it: we hide behind the name of God to do so much that is evil. Our politician who in four short years becomes richer than the state he promised to develop, at the end of the day goes to church for thanksgiving. What is he thanking God for?  In his mind, by doing thanksgiving, he is bribing God to look the other way as he wallows in his thievery.

We have created a god in our image who is illiterate and does not understand mathematics. This creation of ours is based on our babalawo mentality, the belief that God is a wizard, everything is abracadabra and facts and mathematics do not matter. It is the babalawo mentality that pushes some of us to take the life of a fellow human being, lock up his corpse in a cupboard and expect that if we chant some magic words, the corpse will be printing money every day for us in every currency. It is the babalawo mentality that makes us believe that once a 'man of God' has prayed for us, we do not need to plan or work hard any more, we simply go home and there will be money everywhere. The 'man of God' is our later day babalawo, the middle man between us and the gods. The major difference is that our new babalawos are not cranky old men with chalk marks on their faces. They do not toss around cowries in the air either. They are dashing young men who speak Queens English, drive Rolls Royce cars, own private jets, quote the Bible mostly off context and live like movie stars. When they pray for you, your 'amen' had better come with a 'Ghana must go' bag or the gods will not be impressed.

In my travels around the continent, I have been asked endless questions about our wonder pastors. Apart from oil, Nigeria is now exporting a lot of music around the world. Nigeria is also exporting a lot of movies everywhere. Unknown to many, in the last decade, Nigeria has become a major exporter of our special brand of Christianity.

I was in Ghana recently and everywhere I looked, there was a Winners Chapel branch, a branch of Christ Embassy, KICC, Redeemed, Christ Chapel, etc. Our pastors with their Rolls Royce cars, private jets and movie star life style are truly representing.

In the name of the father, the son and Ghana must go, the armed robber goes before the pastor and asks God to protect him from police bullets as he sets out to shoot and kill innocent people who have done nothing to him.

In the name of the father, the son and Ghana must go, the politician goes to church, in his flowing agbada, kneels down in the front row and gives a small part of his loot to the pastor and goes home satisfied that all is well, after all God is now a beneficiary of his fast fingers.

You know that my country is engaged in a serious war against corruption. All over Nigeria today, there are thousands of billboards and millions of posters defacing our streets. They belong to politicians looking for votes. In every state, politicians are staging mega rallies filled with tens of thousands of people bussed in. The infrastructure will make any event planner grey with envy.  Every good billboard costs millions to erect. Good posters cost millions to print. Every mega rally costs many-many millions to organize. I wonder how a people fighting corruption can justify the dizzying billions pumped into the campaigns. By Jove, where is all this money coming from? Which calculator can calculate all the money? How many Ghana – must- Go bags can contain all this money? And we are fighting corruption?

See you next week.