In the news, Kano Emir Sanusi II denounced Zamfara governor’s submission of God’s wrath being behind an outbreak in Nigeria of a rare strand of meningitis, the meningococcal group C-type, that disproportionally plagued his state. Almost 500 have died from this pestilence so far across Nigeria.
The Emir who is Nigeria’s number two Muslim leader suggested that “we have to have the courage to go through the path that all societies went through, which is to stand and challenge intellectually, world views.” The statement was unclear, more so from a religious leader’s point of view. “To follow the path all societies threaded and challenge world views?” Does “world views” in his context include “religious world views?” Is the Emir suggesting the intellectual challenge of Islamic religious doctrine? I expect the revered and outspoken Emir will clarify as he makes more pronouncements.
However it was clear Emir Sanusi with the examples he gave, berated the governor for suggesting that sin brought on plagues. “Americans fornicate too,” the Emir said, “so why don’t they have the meningitis outbreak?”
I dare say the Emir’s comparison was simplistic. It could be argued that God slams different Wrath for different climes and times. America suffers its own Wrath in the form of floods, earthquakes and very prominently, societal breakdown, violent and insane crime, suicide and the “simple” loss of culture sense and sanity, at levels perhaps proportional to their sins. Some nations have earthquakes, some have plagues, some have Tsunamis and some have bad leaders – the human disasters. Different Wrath for different clime.
While the value of vaccines in today’s world appears unchallengeable, the failure to vaccinate and resulting affliction is indeed God’s Wrath and a punishment for our sins. If governor Yari is to blame, the governor in himself is a punishment for our crimes and sins and he helped deliver the Wrath in the form of meningitis. The two conditions can coexist and are interrelated. We earn the terrible leaders we get as a result of how terrible we are as a people, the Holy books say. In a democracy, this is ever more clear as we voted for Yari, Buhari, Saraki and anyone else. Even our Emirs, good or bad are rewards for our righteousness or filth. This is religious doctrine.
The Muslim Quran addresses both these issues in Chapter 13 verse 11:
“Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. And when Allah intends for a people ill, there is no repelling it. And there is not for them besides Him any patron.”
This apparently means, by our character, we earn our suffering –including bad leaders and associated meningitis – and cannot avoid His Wrath. Vaccines while being a tool and vessel of God’s deliverance, can only be acquired and efficient with our repentance and God’s mercy. No culture or civilization has escaped God’s Wrath. The Holy books tell us to travel the earth and explore it to look back at civilisations great as ours that were wiped out due to their sins (Quran 6:11; 12:109; 16:36). The Emir does know as a thorough Islamic scholar that the Quran says in 4:79
“Whatever of good reaches you, is from Allah, but whatever of evil befalls you, is from yourself.”
I read a story once that a doctor went to a city ruled by a great Caliph. After staying there long and not having patients to treat, the doctor asked the Caliph how come it was so, to which the Caliph replied, “the way I teach my people to live, they do not fall sick.” Purchasing million dollar western industry made MRI machines, ultramodern drugs and dozens of vaccine routines may not be the ultimate elixir. While I am not in anyway discouraging the uses of these things, I do have my reservations and know the decisions I have made and things I have avoided since I was a wise young teen, and thank God I survived.
The “Nature” Lie
Is there any such thing as “Nature?”
The Bible says in Ezekiel 28:23:
“I will send a plague upon you and make blood flow in your streets. The slain will fall within you, with the sword against you on every side. Then you will know that I am the LORD.”
The modern atheistic world calls them “natural disasters.” It deliberately replaces the noun “God” with another noun, “Mother Nature.” Giving it a female character to replace the popular masculine reference to God so as to prevent the God-fearing recognizing that “mother nature” actually refers to/replaces the word “God.” Often the “mother” is dropped and “Nature,” used solo: “Natural disaster.” “Nature” did it. It happened “naturally.”
This is atheism and an affront to religion. A disastrous storm is a God ordained disaster. Things happen by God and not by nature. There is no such person or character as “nature.” A plague is Wrath of God. Wrath of God is our inheritance due to our sin. And the Wrath of God may come through any agent of God (Nature in atheist culture), this could be by means of a volcanic eruption, a flood, microbes or a creation in the form of a bad governor.
Jeremiah 24:10 confirms:
“I (God) will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.”
The sword(man), plague(microbe) and famine(weather).
While appreciating the multitudinous efforts of the former Central Bank governor now turned Emir and leader of Muslims, it is important to note that solutions to all the myriad of problems of Nigeria’s north may not lie in Obodo-oyinbo (white-man’s land).
Dr. Peregrino Brimah; @EveryNigerian
