By Ibraheem Abdullateef.
I am still looking forward to when I would have to explain to my unborn children how Jesus Christ visited Africa, particularly, Kenya. That would really be a huge moment for me.
Most certainly, they would be as sharp and much more brilliant than their father. No doubts. They could have seen it on the internet and demanded for my far- reaching opinion or experienced take as I would expected of them on any topic or discourse they weren’t properly informed or feel there should be much more to it.
I hope to be there for them with rich anecdotes, insightful commentaries laced with proven figures and accessible facts. They do really just deserve a father like that. Me. So they wouldn’t be just another bunch of gullible African souls who believed a man from another side of the earth, maybe France, Belarus or Croatia, with really long, unpacked hair touching the shoulders, is the Jesus (Prophet Moses) they read in the Holy books.
They would be swiftly told that it wasn’t the truth but the in- thing in my time. That for one to become a big pastor, he must be able to perform miracles. That being a Pastor in my time, was painfully, considered being a magician. And as such every clergymen with aspirations to become a big African Pastor must be at the forefront of organisation of wonderful crusades.
It’s suffice to say that the definition of a wonderful crusade and concert includes using harmful detergents to wash away a man’s misfortune, rousing the dead to living, bathing/cleansing women’s private parts to make them fertile, and not limited to walking over the backs of the people, because the Prophet’s legs must not touch the ground in order not to douse his spiritual powers. I will let them know all these were only the topnotch records amidst plethora of spiritual madness before a certain Pastor from Kenya, upped the evangelism game by inviting Jesus Christ to his country.
Whether sanity had returned before their time or not, I would make them read and understand how religious fanaticism and slavery mentality made their African Baba ‘ati Iya’ grovel for pictures with one languid white-skinned fellow who would have thought he was a god like in the past, when they had us enslaved. It’s despairingly truthful to note that only little has changed since that time, because mental slavery still pervades the continent.
How we lost sensibility and rationality should really make a good read for the unborn children. So that gullibility won’t become generational. This is a mandate we owe them.
It would be a blessing if a Nigerian pastor hadn’t dared the odds to call or invite God physically to a concert or crusade before then. Because that would really be too much to explain. That my fatherland, the home of Awo, Sardauna, Azikwe, Solarin, Soyinka, Achebe and Pius Adesanmi’s people did really believed God could show up in blood and flesh should never be a story for a living me. That would be an abomination – like a child should not raise hands against his father, that a crowned king should never prostrate to another person, like a pope would never be praised for sexual prowess- it would/should be most abominable tale for me to recount to the generations to come.
Especially when we already have several ground- breaking superfluous, mendaciously stupid evangelism accounts. Thanks to our good stars, our pastors are more renowned for sexual allegations than spiritual prowess. The virility of their spirituality is evident in the number of minors they abuse and the unsuspecting women they defraud in cash and in kind. The higher the rots the bigger the pulse. That seems to be the unwritten maxim. They are the anointed no worldly powers can touch.
One can only hope they are merciful enough to stick to the modus operandi if at all there cannot be a redemption than doing the incalculable by inviting God, as in Chineke, Eledumare, Allah, yes Him – the Omnipotent, to a religious gathering whether Muslims or Christians in Nigeria. That would really be the end of it.
I do really hope this was a dream that never saw the light of the day! Or how do I tell my unborn children?
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