Tade Oyebode's Blog, page 7

A Tale of Two Maces

As soon as I sat down to write about the Maces, my attention was drawn to this article published by a Nigerian newspaper. If you want a background on how the mace has been adapted for different purposes in Nigerian politics, please read here.

What is the Mace? It is the symbol of parliamentary authority. When the Mace is removed, Parliament can’t pass laws. Therefore, when members of parliament want to delay parliamentary procedures, they resort to capturing the Mace.

On the 10th of December, when MPs realised that the Brexit Vote would be delayed, they became angry. One of the frustrated souls, decided to capture the Mace. You can watch the event by clicking on link below:

It was a rather comical and tame affair, a classical British rage, a storm in a tea cup. The MP matched to the Mace, his movement reminded me of  a priest officiating at a Church of England or a Catholic service. He carried the mace and matched back. Somebody shouted “Take it back”. Very quickly, the mace was retrieved and he was expelled from the commons for the rest of the day.  Maybe he wanted to leave early anyway.

When I saw this clip, I remembered the Rivers State Assembly in 2013, when the Mace was deployed in a much more sinister way. As on the 10th of December, the Mace was captured. It then became what the Nigerian newspaper, Pulse, called a weapon of head destruction. To see the episode, please watch this:

A man ended in hospital, critical ill. You can see a man that appeared to be wearing a military uniform was present and busy kicking one of the people.  As far as I know, nobody was apprehended for this lawlessness perpetrated.

Nigeria and the United Kingdom both practice Democracy, a system of government that is underpinned by the rule of law. Yet, the Tale of Two Maces showed that Democracy is just a label and to understand what is truly happening in a Democracy, you need to take a deep dive.

Deploying the Mace as tool of wanton violence is not new in Nigeria. If you read the pulse article, you will see what I mean. Our nation was only independent for a couple years before a parliamentarian received the insight to use the Mace as a weapon of violence.

Please follow this link to find more about my book: “A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made in Nigeria”.

Jubril of Sudan (Again!).

I found this well presented critical review of comments of the famous man of God on Jubril of Sudan, the subject of my last blog (read here).  Whereas my last post focused on establishing that the premises of the man of God’s “word from the Lord” was wrong, the video below clinically examined whether it is indeed possible for a Buhari’s double to come from Sudan.

Adeola Fayehun’s take on the Jubril of Sudan saga

Please watch this video. It is a masterpiece on how to critical evaluate whatever you read or hear. It was a thorough demolition of the comments of one of the most famous pastors in Nigeria on the issue of “Buhari’s Double”. Afterwards, read the comments. I was so sad to see that some people would never be persuaded by reason.

Thanks to this video, the question I raised in my last blog was answered. I was hoping that once the man of God realised that his premises was a satirical article, he would realise he did not hear from God and apologise (or at least walk it back) so that at least his followers can be properly educated. Unfortunately, the answer is no. This is indeed the man of God’s response:

Dominion doesn’t beg, Dominion defends his rights. Do you know for 37 years I have never asked to withdraw a message I preached. God sent me not you.

Things just became a bit more confusing. When the man of God spoke, he cited a source, Olatunji Dare, a columnist with a Nigerian newspapers. Now somehow that article and the voice of God has become one.

It takes integrity to accept that one was wrong. if you have not withdrawn your message in 37 years, that is great if you were always right. However, in this case, whoever looks at the fact will find it difficult not to conclude that the man of God misunderstood the article, especially when the author came out to establish that there was no substance to what he wrote (see my blog of last week for details on this). If you are saying that you have never corrected your errors in 37 years, God help those who have followed you for all those years.

Once you are “anointed” (or shall we say once you have persuaded your followers you are anointed), do you have to speak the truth, do your followers have the right to judge whether your words are right or wrong? When you are publicly wrong and it is crystal clear you are wrong, do you have to apologise? In the case of the subject of this video, based on the clips, it appears that the answer is no.

The Bible teaches us that a prophet can be wrong (Deut 18: 22):

When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORDhas not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him

This verse is crystal clear. A prophet can be wrong. Just because a prophet is wrong does not make him a false prophet: that is also clear from this passage. There is a fine line between a prophet who thought he heard from God but did not and a false prophet who sets out to deceive. As a human being, it is difficult draw a line between both but a prophet who is factual wrong and refused to accept it should be a source of concern to his followers.

Whoever claims to be a bible believing Christian and follows a man of God who claim to have heard from God and turned out to be publicly wrong (especially in such an astonishingly unambiguous way),  such a person should demand an explanation. Otherwise, we are helping to perpetuate these situations.

Follow the link to buy a copy of “A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made in Nigeria”

Buhari Double Debate: Nigeria and Accountability

Update (14 Dec 2018): I came across this youtube post by Adeola Fayehun (click to watch). It is a broader critique of the whole idea that Buhari could have a double and that such a double can come from Sudan.  I hope those who believe that Buhari has a double would find time to watch this. It is a masterpiece on how to critically evaluate the information that comes your way.

Below is the original post that I made on 8 Dec 2018.

Today, I want to write on the importance of demanding accountability from leaders. Accountability has to be demanded. If you don’t demand accountability from leaders, they may not provide it. If we see autocratic leadership in life, whether in the place of work, in church or society, it is at times due to the people not demanding accountability.

Before we blame our leaders for their autocracy, we need to look inward: are we holding them to account? Maybe they don’t know the impact of their actions. What roles have we played in creating the leaders we have now? Many of them did not start this way, we are complicit in what they became.

Click here to find out more about my book,  A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made in Nigeria.

It has been a very interesting couple of weeks in Nigeria. In his column Matters Miscellaneous”, Olatunji Dare, described by some as the finest satirist Nigeria has produced, wrote that Buhari has a double. You only need to spend five minutes reading this article before you realise this was a tongue in cheek article. It is mind boggling if you claim to read this article and did not realise it was a satire, especially when he put these paragraphs at the end:

Kanu, or whoever began the tale, and those who have been peddling it, should update their material.

I can report authoritatively that representatives of the Jubril family, having discovered the gigantic swindle, suddenly showed up in Abuja the other day and demanded to be compensated with a power-sharing arrangement at the federal level in perpetuity, plus 50 percent of Nigeria’s oil revenues for ten years in the first instance.   Failing this, they warned, they would tell their story to the whole world.

I can also reveal that the Nigerian authorities have entered into frantic negotiations with Jubril’s family to head off what is sure to earn a double entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s Dirtiest and Worst-kept Secret.  The UK authorities are mediating.

Meanwhile, dependable sources tell me that Abuja is close to unraveling the true identity of the fake Jew parading himself on faked foreign soil as Nnamdi Kanu.

How can you read this passage and not realise that it was all tongue in cheek and not intended to be taken seriously?

Yet, one of our well educated and famous pastors mounted his pulpit, and quoted this article as authority that Nigeria is just about to be colonised by another African country! Watch the video here.  More concerning is the air of prophetic authority and invincibility that accompanied the pronouncement of this famous and larger than life Pastor. All these on the back of a satire!

Of course the revered pastor came under fire and he fought back with the following statements (see full article here)

Authority shall be domiciled in the church in the last days and if anybody is angry, it does not matter. Let all political gladiators hear this, if the church says no, you are going nowhere,” he said

The time comes when the church says, you die and you die; run mad and you will run mad. It is not something that we organise; it is by the hand of God. You can be upset, it won’t change anything

The power described here is “awesome” and some will find it scary and this is the very reason why pronouncements by these “powerful” and “authoritative” men of God are feared across the land and nobody wants to be cursed by them. Yet, with this “awesome” power, how come the man of God did not discern he was reading satire? I hope that this authority can be let loose in Boko Haram land and in the North Central part of Nigeria where many Christians have lost their lives to the herdsmen. If we shift the headquarters of Pentecostal Christianity from Lagos and Abuja to North Central and North West and demonstrate this power that we have to the whole world, I am sure that the whole world will sit up and take notice, talk less of the whole nation.

Thankfully, Olatunji Dare has come out to make it clear beyond any doubt that it was a satire (read here for full story):

Instead of laying the matter to rest, my intervention this past weekend gave fresh wings to the tale of the Buhari Double, taking it far and wide, and in certain influential circles imbuing what was intended as entertainment with messages and meanings to which I do not subscribe.

My November 27 intervention, “Buhari’s Double,” it is necessary to insist, was conceived and executed in a satirical spirit. And that is authoritative.

Now that Olatunji Dare has written again to clarify his comments, will the man of God now go back to his pulpit and educate his members across the world that the authority of his last pronouncement was just a satire by a clever and gifted writer? If he does that my respect for him will increase significantly.  If he doesn’t, will his followers demand some accountability and explanation? How come something that was cloaked in the prophetic and heavenly authority turn out to be so wrong?

If we don’t demand authority from our leaders, they may not have incentive to account to us. Even the bible says that if somebody prophesies, others should judge. This is because we see imperfectly on this side of eternity, according to the bible. It is dangerous to believe that a human being can not get it wrong. December 31 will soon be upon us and fresh prophecies will be released across many pulpits and many will take them as direct word from God.

I will end with a quote by the man of God himself. He wondered aloud: “how can a nation… be held spellbound like this country?”. This is a good question. However, who holds this nation spellbound? Is it Buhari, or men of God who are feared even more than Buhari? Who is afraid of Buhari’s curse? I can’t think of any.

Let me know if you have an answer to this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Achille Mbembe: Political Theorist, Daddy Freeze: Internet Personality

Achille Mbembe is described as a philosopher, political theorist and public intellectual by Wikipedia. Originally from Cameroon, he teaches in one of the South African universities. Furthermore, he is a visiting professor to Duke University in the United States of America.

In December 2014 while researching materials for my book, “A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made in Nigeria” (available here) , I picked up a copy of Ruth Marshall’s book “Political Spirituality: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria”.  While reading that book, I came across some quotes credited to Mbembe.  For a while, I was distracted into watching several of his lectures on Youtube.

Talking about Daddy Freeze is not an endorsement of everything he teaches. Daddy Freeze is an online personality who comments regularly on the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement in Nigeria. He first came to my attention a couple of years ago when a friend of mine forwarded a short clip where he talked extensively about tithing. He has remained a pain in the neck of revered and respected Pentecostal/Charismatic leaders in Nigeria.

I have always felt that Daddy Freeze’s work is very significant, even though the number of his followers pale into insignificance compared to those who follow the big platforms he is up against.  The fact that he is still around, despite all the battles he has faced since he started, points to the significance of his work. Moreover, the fact that revered pastors on the biggest platform in Nigeria decided to challenge his teachings  openly confirmed that those pastors knew the significance of Daddy Freeze’s work.

Achille Mbembe gave a talk on “Future Knowledges and the Dilemma of Decolonisation” at Duke University in 2017. You can watch here.  You don’t even need to watch the whole episode, I think the first 20 minutes will be more than adequate. In the lecture, Achille Mbembe discussed the generational challenges facing the universities in South Africa and the rest of the continent. He highlighted the impact of technology on knowledge production, especially among the younger generation.

According to Mbembe, it is now difficult to contain knowledge inside an institution: there are no boundaries anymore, restrictions are gone. Also, young people, brought up in the digital age are contesting the role of teachers in the production of knowledge, so student teacher relationship is changing. According to Mbembe, the new crop of students see themselves in a community of learners where the tutor himself is also learning. To me, it sounded like the students are returning to Piaget’s grand theory of constructivism, which downplayed the role of teachers and focuses on discovery learning.

These brief words from Mbembe put the works of Daddy Freeze and others like him into perspective. Daddy Freeze put down a marker that anybody can interpret the bible. He took a doctrine that is taken for granted among Pentecostals/Charismatics, tithing, and using the scriptures, he argued that it is not biblical. It was a remarkable moment: a man with a 9 to 5 secular job, who had no theological training, challenged Bishops and General Overseers of many decades of experience on their interpretation of the bible.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to restrict a man who has an opinion and is determined to express it. Thanks to Social Networking Media, your outlet is only a few keystrokes away.

This was not just contesting the meaning of some  obscure verses of the bible in the book of Leviticus and Malachi. Instead, it was also a challenge to the authority of a band of leaders who had taught similar things for many years and have worked together to disciple the ideal Pentecostal/Charismatic subject. This was  a direct challenge to the “institution” of General Overseers and Bishops across the land, who have taught tithing for decades. If a lay member of the church can challenge such a very fundamental principle that “everybody” believed, what else can remain unchallenged?

Like the universities across the world, the “institution” of General Overseers and Bishops may also not be able to contain knowledge within their own ranks. If students in universities see their tutors as fellow learners, church members may one day see themselves as fellow pilgrims with the general overseers and bishops in the journey to becoming more and more like Christ. Actually, that sounds like what the bible teaches.

A number of years ago (2009/2010), during some discussion with our pastor at the time, I told him that I would like to have online bible study with those interested in our church, however, we didn’t pursue it. Things are changing rapidly. Online communities are springing up. Recently, I accidentally stumbled into some Nigerian communities online. Some of them even refer to themselves as “ijo” (the Yoruba word that is often translated “church”, though its real meaning is closer to “assembly”). Those communities are very interesting, but I don’t think any of them can be considered as faith community. Nevertheless, their existence showed me that people are ready for online churches, even in Nigeria. I think Daddy Freeze himself now runs an online church. I won’t be surprised if the established churches also being to plant online churches within ten years.

Some will argue that nothing has changed since Daddy Freeze came on the scene. Who knows? At times only by looking back in time do changes we experienced become clearer.