It is a season of mourning in Anambra State. A time sorrows, pangs of pain, turmoil of anguish and tumult of emotions. The tears have welled up; the well has been overfilled by the merchants of blood, and is now flowing like a river; a river of tears; tears of blood. God has always been the portion of the oppressed, the disinherited, the misgoverned and the long suffering. They have always been inclined unto to God in whom they achieve catharsis, experience peace and draw the psychic strength needed to carry the heavy yoke of oppression perpetually laid on their shoulders by the masters.
Masters who collect security vote every month but cannot give them security. Masters who care more for profit than human life. Masters who build infrastructures in the thin air, tar hundreds of roads on the airwaves of the internet while their people use deathtraps as roads. Masters who build excellent schools and excellent healthcare centers on the pages of newspapers while the poor have been priced out of the only state university, primary schools are teacherless, and secondary schools are dilapidated. The people need guarantee from God as they cannot enjoy the guarantee that comes from wealth since their customers have been driven away by insecurity. To whom else would they go if not to God?
Accordingly, the people proceeded to God. At Uke, like unto Zion, the people encounter God. They adore the Most High who turns their haplessness into happiness. They drink from the fountain of divine consolation. They come in their thousands; tens of thousands; and even, in a hundred of thousands. This being their one and only crime: congregating in large numbers; numbers that cannot be ignored by the merchants of blood. Did I forget to say? These misgoverned folks have pieces of INEC paper called voters’ cards. The voter’s card – a piece of paper that can put the merchants out of business. These people suddenly became important to the powerful merchants.
To Uke all went: the good, the bad, and the bloody. What a violent admixture of forces on the ether! The result was an ethereal tumult. At the last count, over a thirty lay dead; a preternatural happenstance! Blame games and bouts of denials rip the media space. The controversy rages. Sophistry holds sway. But an incontrovertible fact stands out. Like the straits of Gibraltar and Tunis this fact stands out like a beacon of reality overlooking a sea of stories raging in tempest with the tumult of truths, half-truths and misinformation. The fact incontrovertibly remains that until the voyage of the merchants to this sacred ground, until a certain campaign train berthed at Uke, the adoration had gone on for years without any incident: A fact; reality; sober truth. Whodunit?
Give to Caesar what is Caesars’s; and God what is God’s. Rallies for campaigns; adoration for prayers. India for Indians; Turkey for the Turks. Since when has a prayer ground become a campaign ground? Have we all lost the sense of the sacred? Even the Holy Writ says it, ‘you cannot pour a new wine into an old wine skin bag’. It would burst. And Uke busted. Reports have it that there was a three piece five million naira donations from three principal visitors on the voyage. Spiritual forces are not for sale. Simony is a word derived from a certain magician from Antioch. Filled with magic, he attempted to buy spiritual forces. The result was catastrophic. There is a big difference between religion and spirituality. What obtains at Uke is pure spirituality. There is no deception in spirituality. Though religious leaders can be compromised, the spirit is does not admit of compromise. It is pure. There is no middle ground between darkness and light. The realm of ether is the realm of purity. It does not admit of impunity. Impunity in Igbo Language means ‘mpu’. An ‘mpu’ is a smelly abomination. There is need for cleansing of the land. When two opposite forces meet, the result is not always palatable.
This is not the first time blood flowed in Anambra State. In 2006, so many youths were cut down by overzealous security men under a mind boggling shoot-on-sight order. Is life that cheap? This is the reification of the human person in favour of capital. Life is sacrosanct. It is the maximum value. The human blood is a powerful force. No science can explain it away. Karma is real and operant. It manifests in mysterious ways. Beware of the politics of blood. It is a metaphysical evil.
Ebo Socrates.
