BANDITS IN THE CHURCH By Tobe Eze

 

Recently Deborah was brutally killed in Sokoto and the social media has been filled with many agitations against Muslims and their fight for their Prophet. Many killings have been attributed to Muslims, Fulani herdsmen, bandits and unknown gunmen. As these news fill the sky, we easily forget that we may not be far from this same act. We have forgotten that Osinachi that died some months ago was also killed, not by Muslims, herdsmen, bandits and unknown gunmen but a Christian. It is alright known to us that it is no longer uncommon for us to hear about massacre in different parts of Nigeria daily. These unjust killings have made almost every Christian and other religions in Nigeria and other places to hate Muslims, Fulani herdsmen, bandits and unknown gunmen and also have mand every other person not in this category a saint. Though some educated Muslims are trying to defend Islam and are trying to point out that these killings are not in their real teaching but are from some fundamentalists or extremists, so many Christians have not accepted that defence. Nigerian government has also made so difficult for people to accept the defence for nothing serious has been done about these killings, kidnapping and vandalization of people’s properties. Let me not further in this one. Continue Reading..........

My main concern here is not about extreme Muslims killing people but what we Christians are also doing to ourselves. Before we stand up to condemn Muslims (not that we should not condemn any evil done by them), we should also check ourselves to know if we are free from the same issue. If we check our local villages, the number of African Traditional Religionists are now very minimal but we still hear every now and then about people giving others poison, we have about domestic violence both physical violence, psychological, moral, spiritual, financial and so on. I wonder if it is the remaining few persons that are not Christians that do all these or still Muslims coming to our homes and villages to do all these.

I was a person that found it very difficult to believe in the efficacy of charms. I doubted it till I had an open experience of it (but I will not tell it in this write up). I never believed that they could be effective as I saw it but above all, God’s power is more efficacious than the highest of them. Many stories of people whom these charms have disgraced in prayer sessions by falling off during prayers. May be some of the traditionalists were the ones that normally put them in their clothes. Why the increase in diabolism when we have here in Nigeria almost every uncomplicated building to be a church? Funniest thing is that those who are involved in this are sometimes the most pious in our villages. For the Catholics among them, they go for morning masses everyday, they receive communion daily. They go for Legion of Mary, St Anthony of Padua, Sacred Heart etc. They are in the church council. They attend every activity of the church but still they give people poison. They sit at the front pews in the church. (Mind you, this does not mean that anyone who does all these is one of them. Do not judge, so that you would not be judged). What a contradiction.

Daily the Priest or pastor will be preaching against all these and they will be in front pews making gestures as if that the homily or sermon is making any impact on them and in their lives but they will go becoming worst. They will even trying giving people poison inside the church. Ndị ọjọ everywhere. The reason why some of them do stay in the front pews are to mark those who are now seeing the light of progress so that they will deal with the person. Ndi ụka!

There was this place that I stayed, a man promised to build the village church, he started the building, he could only finish the foundation and few months after that, he died (not that someone cannot die a natural death even when doing the work of the Lord but there were evidences of killing in it). In another place, a young man came home for Christmas and noticed that his Parish was preparing for dedication of the church and his Parish needed new pews in the church. He promised to give the parish 100 pews. One of the council members from his village had issue with him during that Christmas season and the man told him that he would not live to see the dedication of the church which was to hold in April. The young man did not live to see that for he died in March, (this also does not prove that the young man could not have died naturally but this same council man had made this same promise to many others and they came to fulfilment and other evidences at hand. To proof the point, the council man had issues with the Parish Priest. He came to the parish house in the night to do some sort of incantations and probably to bury something for the Parish Priest, the Priest’s dog dealt with him and in the morning, he was seen by all and disgraced.

So many similar stories abound and I cannot even exhaust them. What I am just trying to say is that these people killing publicly are the same with us that kill secretly. We should not come out to condemn them when we have not condemned ourselves. Taking of life is taking of life and none of us have the right to do that. Whether you do it through gun, matchet, clubs, poison, bomb, abortion, domestic violence etc. Killing is killing and it is against the fifth commandment of God. There is no justification for you to kill anyone through whichever means.

Every Christian is now a saint condemning those that killed Deborah and other killings. Let us shun our own different ways of killing ourselves, let us value other people’s lives as we value ours and make every effort to protect their lives. If we shun every killing, we will have strong moral courage to condemn the many violence in the country. Thanks and Happy Weekend.