WHERE ON EARTH WILL YOU LOCATE THE RIGHT PERSON TO MARRY? The Complete Version

In the early eighties to the early nineties, November/December was the wedding season. Those days my kinsfolk almost always took their weddings to our hometown. Cross-cultural marriages weren’t as commonplace as they are today. Times have changed since then. Now young couples do their nuptials on- and off-season. Months ago, a friend tied the knot on a Thursday. Yes, on a Thursday in September!

    

I am amazed at the frequency and frenetic pace of today’s weddings. Saturdays are clogged with a thousand wedding receptions, legion of asoebi-clad matrons thronging reception halls across the city, and ribbon-draped cars darting through the almost tranquil morning traffic. There is a wedding boom right now and my friends are caught up in the party. To my bewilderment, they seem to have found ‘the bone of my bone and the flesh of my flesh,’ almost without effort. How did they manage it? Where did they look? Did they pick the first available nice guy with a fat wallet and a big car, or the first pretty girl with brains and an affinity for saying yes? Pardon my cynicism, but I am strongly inclined to believe more than a few did.

    

For those who must follow the footsteps of Jesus, it is not as easy as that. We must query ourselves: how many places have we looked? Are we sure we are looking in the right place(s)? Can we trust our experience? Can we trust our friends’ counsel? Of the many books available on the subject, are there any with tailored answers for our unique situation? ‘So where do we look?’ we agonize every birthday as we observe the lines in the corner of our eyes, pull the stubborn strings of grey out of our scalp and stare at the smiling faces of our friend and his bride peering down at us from the dozen wedding commemorative calendars we received the year before.

    

Again, pardon me for sounding cynical, but this is how it goes these days (and this is gospel truth however unpalatable it may taste): boy meets girl, could be anywhere—in the library, at work, at a party, in church, at a club, in the market, at a wedding!—he likes her, falls in ‘love’, ’toasts’ her. She sizes him up. Nice guy, she thinks, fat wallet, a BSc, good job, why not? She decides to give it a try; after all, she is not getting any younger. They begin to date—whatever that means. After a while, she lovingly coerces him towards the altar. Some girls even resort to blackmail. Lines like, ‘My ex-boyfriend just came back from Italy; imagine he is asking me to marry him…’ and, ‘my dad is pressurizing me to marry Obafemi Martins,’ are not uncommon. Nine out of ten, boy panics; raids his bank, empty his account, pester his old folks, create a ‘meet the family’ scenario, put a sheepskin, confront his church’s marriage committee, deceive them from day one, may set up a committee of friends and the countdown to Saturday begins. Well it could be Thursday! Sometimes, the guy just landed a good job and wants to add to his new-found status of respectability by taking a wife—it could be any girl!

    

It doesn’t sound right, does it? How then do we proceed, we that are called by his name? What is God’s take on this? Reach for your bibles to the books of Genesis 24 and John 4. They hide signposts directing us to where we should look. 

When it was time for Isaac to marry, Abraham sent his servant (Eliezer) to get a wife for his son. He implored Eliezer: ‘you will not let my son marry one of these local Canaanite women. Go ahead to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife there for my son Isaac.’ Why not a Canaanite woman? A Canaanite woman? It sounds like a carnal woman to me. Marry one and be yoked with an unbeliever. The people of Canaan are no believers of Yahweh, the one true God. They are into the Baal thing. Canaan is no place to take a wife. Off to our relatives, to the communion of believers, we must go.

    

The servant made an oath to his master, loaded ten camels with gifts, and embarked on the long trek across vast wastelands, away from the heathen Canaanite woman to where Abraham’s brothers lived. He came by the side of a well outside the village, made his camels kneel, found a place, and sank to a stone under a tree exhausted. It was evening; the sun rays were duller now, and the air cooler. The village women spouted out of their houses to fetch water. As they proceeded to the well, they cast suspicious glances at the pitiable figure slumped in the shade of a tree, the dust from his long journey enveloping his clothes, his legs caked with dirt. ‘Who is that beggar?’ I can imagine them mumble to themselves as they cast their buckets into the well. ‘He looks thirsty. Perhaps we should fetch him water to drink,’ one woman may have suggested. ‘Fetch him water and be damned!’ I can imagine the other women chorusing, ‘do you want to catch cholera?’

    

Bewildered by the task ahead of him, Eliezer may have gazed in amazement as the women filed out of the village as in a beauty pageant and assembled at the well. Which will be his master’s wife? Supposing he choose a vixen?  So he prayed:

This is my request: I will ask one of them for a drink. If she says, ‘yes certainly I will water your camel too!’ let her be the one you appointed as Isaac’s wife. By this, I will know that you have shown kindness to my master. (Gen. 24:14)

    
His prayer was answered. A girl, Rebecca, pure as the early morning dew, sweet and gentle as the lily of the field, yet hardy like a springy gazelle, not only consented to fetch him water but also watered his camels, something even the ablest of men will find quite a task. Camels gulp up a lot of water, especially after a long trek across the desert.

    

Thousands of years later, again we come across another encounter by a well. As before, it was between a man and a woman, between the Christ and a Samaritan woman. Jesus and his disciples were going to Galilee and had to pass through Samaria. It was about noon. Tired from the long walk and probably dehydrated by the scorching eastern sun, he came by the side of a well in a Samaritan village and had to pause to rest while his disciples go in to buy food. Soon, a Samaritan woman came to draw water and He asked for a drink. She was surprised. What communion has the dove with the vulture? She said to Jesus: ‘you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?’ Jesus replied, ‘if only you knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water,’ (John 4:9, 10). ‘What spurious claims!’ the woman may have thought, ‘who is this strange Jew anyway? Is he greater than our father Jacob who built this well? What water is he talking about?

Jesus replied, ‘people soon become thirsty again after drinking this water, but the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life.’ (John 4:13, 14)

    
Here was a woman encountering God and yet missing him. But in spite of her doubt, in spite of challenging his authority, he offered her salvation, the chance of eternal life. Christ did not rebuke her in spite of her sordidness. He was not repelled by her sin. Far from it. He offered her life instead. True, she has been married to five men—wrong men—and living with the wrong man still. If only she had met Christ sooner!

    

But where is the well? Christ stopped at Sychar, by a well on the spot of land Jacob gave his son Joseph. I find myself wondering if this is the same well Eliezer met Rebecca, Jacob’s mother. I wonder: what is it about water that attracts us? What power is inherent in a body of water? Why do some artists receive the inspiration for their greatest masterpieces on the banks of a river? What attracts tourist to beaches? Why must we be immersed in water to be baptized? Why do animists make fetish sacrifices at the riverbanks? Why is it that even in the wild, there is often almost a code of nonaggression at the waterholes, allowing prey and predator to deep their tongues and drink from the same pool? It seems to me that the life-giving nature of water exacts a pull on us, bringing out the best of good people and the worst of the bad.

    

Water sustains life. A well was of great importance in the arid regions of old Palestine as it is today with the Bedouin tribes of the deserts of Arabian and every community living without the benefit of potable water supply or flowing streams. Water is a ‘sustainer’ of life. Could the well therefore be a metaphor for a sustainable source of life? But where can we find this source of sustainable life?  Could it be the church, not the denominations we belong to, but the body of Christ, the communion of believers? At Christ bosom alone is available the assurance of a sustained, abundant life as he promised the Samaritan woman. The well therefore symbolizes the life-giving presence of God. When you go to a place of abundant life—not a club!—you would find your mate, the one God created for you.

    

Women, stay by the well! Seldom do we find a woman adorned in the snow-white frock of Genesis 24:16 or the impeccable virtues of Proverbs 31:10-31. Like the Samaritan woman, most girls today have made the mistake of ‘being with’ five (or more) men and are not married to the man (or men) they now sleep with. And like the Samaritan woman, it is because they did not go to the well sooner. If it is any consolation to know, most men are guilty of worse. For our sisters though, tarnished as they are, I will say, ‘stay by the well.’ There you will meet your mate. You will meet the kind of man you deserve, Christ Jesus! He loves you in spite of your sordid past, and challenges your accusers to ‘cast the first stone,’ if they dare. He is willing to give you water that will keep you eternally. First, love him, not like the Samaritan woman, who staring love in the eye, missed it! Love him enough to water even his camels. Then he shall send you a mate; someone like him. Someone that will love and respect you as he does, provide for you materially, emotionally, and spiritually, just as Christ provides water that will last eternally.

    

Men, stay by the well! So few men can sing with confidence the refrain, ‘we want to follow the ways of Jesus’. But for those who must walk in his footsteps, however small their feet, I will say, ‘stay by the well.’ By the well in the region where believers dwell, seek a woman who has true faith in Christ. Seek God’s guidance through prayer, believing that, ‘charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the lord will be greatly praised,’ (Prov.31:30). You will find your mate—a Rebecca, a virtuous woman, a lover of God; someone who is cooperative, helpful, generous and hardworking.

    

Very few have been to the well before tying the knot, and I must confess I know of none. But I know a lot of disillusioned husbands and disappointed wives. Most people are ‘pro-choice’, much in the fashion of the abortionist as regards this issue. Hear them say, ‘it’s a matter of choice!’ with a smirk not unlike Eve’s when she presented Adam with the forbidden fruit. If the word of God is true and the Bible the Christians’ manifesto, shouldn’t we live by its precepts? Is it not true that for every man there is a woman, as there was Eve to Adam, the Christ to the church? If that were the truth, where would we find our mate, the bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, other than at the foot of Jesus ‘by side of the well’?

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Are Christians In North Central Nigeria Facing Genocide?

There is a worrying trend in the pattern of the violent attacks on the Christian peoples of the Plateau and recently on Christian villages in Southern Kaduna. The nocturnal marauders pillaging Christian villages in North Central Nigeria have a complete disregard for lives and property. There are increasing accounts of the deliberate targeting of women and children by the heavily armed, well-organized, Fulani militia suspected to be behind these dastardly attacks.

     The report presented below (with permission of the Christian Solidarity Worldwide Nigeria) raises concern about the possible, deliberate, plan to cleanse North Central Nigeria of its growing, indigenous, Christian population.

      The report is presented here to draw public attention to the silent genocide going on, unhindered, in North Central Nigeria with the hope that all people of good conscience will add their voices to the call to the Nigerian government and relevant international organizations to hasten to put a stop to the possible extermination and displacement of millions of people, mostly women and children, from their homes in the plains and hills of North Central Nigeria. 

CSW Report.                                    

For Immediate Release

2 April 2013

NIGERIA: AT LEAST 80 DIE IN ARMED ATTACKS ON VILLAGES IN KADUNA AND PLATEAU STATES IN EASTER WEEK

At least 19 people were killed, an unknown number injured and an estimated 4000 displaced when armed Fulanis attacked Mafang and Zilang villages in Kaura Local Government Area (LGA) in Southern Kaduna State over the Easter weekend. 

     According to local reports, on Saturday 30 March well-armed men dressed in black surrounded the villages before launching an assault that continued into Easter Sunday.
     Many villagers fled to the nearby hills. Some who returned later to assess the extent of the damage were also murdered. The majority of victims were women and children. The assailants also razed a significant number of homes. Many of those displaced by the destruction are reported to be staying in the local Amisi Primary School, as well as in nearby Fadan Attakar and Mifi villages.
     The Reverend Yunusa Nmadu, CEO of Christian Solidarity Worldwide-Nigeria (CSW-N), said, “We request prayers for, and extend our condolences to the families of all those who lost their lives during the tragic events of last week. We also call on the relevant state governments to provide urgent assistance to the injured and displaced. The systematic manner in which these attacks now occur indicates a greater degree of organisation than has previously been the case and requires an urgent reassessment of strategy and a surge in the number of troops assigned to these areas."
     Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) was informed that over a month ago, a local chief allowed Fulanis to settle on land on a hillside near Kirim Village after they were ordered to leave Zangon Kataf LGA, also in Southern Kaduna, following a Fulani attack on Aduwan Village. In recent weeks the local community had begun to ask questions after it became apparent that the Fulanis were storing arms in the area.
     The assault on the villages in Kaduna occurred during the same week that a series of attacks on villages in Wase and Riyom LGAs in neighbouring Plateau State claimed the lives of at least 60 people, mostly women and children, and escalated local tensions.  Prior to this, attacks in Riyom LGA over a two month period had claimed 16 lives.
     CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said, "While attacks on remote villages by well-armed Fulanis have occurred sporadically since 2010, the recent escalation of assaults on villagers on the Plateau-Kaduna border, the consistent targeting of women and children and the mass displacement of inhabitants appear to be part of a deliberate attempt to rid these areas of their original inhabitants. It is worrying that armed groups can still move freely, attacking for lengthy periods despite a security presence in each state. Tackling this issue effectively will require a comprehensive and unified effort by the governments of Kaduna, Plateau and even Bauchi States to track down and apprehend the perpetrators.”

So, What Are You, A Goat?

I’ve recently discovered food. I gobble up any grub that comes my way—well, except goat meat. Curiously, I don’t know the word for it, if indeed there’s one. I know mutton is for sheep, beef for cow; pork for pig; venison for deer.... Before you start constructing mental portraits of a 190kg Yokozuna with convoluting layers of fat tumbling down a 600 gallon waistline, let me add that to balance the appetite for bread is a healthy thirst for the Word. There comes a season when, “man shall not live by bread alone,” becomes a present reality for you. If you haven’t reached that season, just wait.

For me, it’s the season. So I bought a gleaming copy of Our Daily Bread, rather belatedly, and purposed to go through the Bible in a year. It has been my long-term dream.

A month into the devotional and enthralled with the erudition of the ‘Carpenter’s Son’, in Matthew, a word caught my attention: goat! And for good reason too: In the evenings—when NEPA allowed—I usually put on my NIV DVD Audio Bible and listen to the Old Testament. Even there, in Leviticus, goats featured prominently in the grand wilderness opera.

In Matthew 25:31-46, I see Jesus separating the sheep from the goats in His Kingdom. “Hey, goats!” I imagine Him shout, “come on, go to the left! Sheep to the right.” Goats to eternal damnation; sheep to, “inherit the kingdom prepared for [them] from the foundation of the world.” In the Torah, God, through Moses, instructs Israel to deliver goats to the priests’ knives to be mutilated and sacrificed a sin offering for the transgressions of the people (Lev 4:23&28; 5:6; 23:19). Goats were literally scapegoats. An unlucky one—chosen by lot in a pool of two!—carried the sins of all Israel on its head and was set adrift in the sandy sea of the ancient wilderness (Lev 16:8). Poor goat! 

Goats were the item of trickery in the plots of grand deception in the pristine theatre of the early Old Testament. They took centre stage in Sarah and Jacob’s plot to usurp the firstborn’s birthright (Gen 27:9; 27:16), Jacob’s tricky payback against his father-in-law (Gen 30:32-32:14); and his sons’ wicked cover-up of the sale into slavery of their dreamy brother, Joseph (Gen 37:31).

After reading these verses, I pondered for days seeking illumination for this goat tale. Why were they used for sin offerings? Why did Jesus use the goat metaphor to portray the condemned sinner at the great judgement? We’ll have to examine the character of the goat and that of the sheep.

I admit I’m approaching this issue with a great bias against goats. They deserve the dishonourable mention in the scriptures. I mean, they are stubborn! Self-willed and hardy, they approach disobedience with a single-mindedness that is both amazing and infuriating. Plus, their meat stinks. If someone calls you a goat, you’re indeed insulted.

I remember when I was a child. My neighbourhood was still suburban and had a free wilderness feel to it. There were long stretches of bushes we kids played Scouts, shot birds with twig catapults and chased lizards. Some folks kept goats. How destructive they were. So hardy, they ate everything: grass, the neighbour’s vegetable garden, even polythene bags. They would do anything to get at food. Chase them away a thousand times—with all kind of missiles—they’ll come back a thousand times to nibble at the sliced okra, tomatoes, yams—whatever—you were trying to sun-dry! Goats! Arrrrh!

Sheep on the other hand are docile, loveable creatures. They will follow the shepherd anywhere he leads them. Plus, they produce milk, wool, and tasty mutton. Sheep! Hmmm!

Ironically, when the ‘world’ calls you a sheep, it means to insult you. It says you lack courage, self-assertion or leadership qualities. But it’s the sheep that God is looking for to populate his kingdom: Those who’ll cede their will to conform to His and walk with Him with an ovine obedience and a God-kind of faith. Satan, the god of this world, wants us all to be goats...have caprine self-will and a stubborn determination to get at bread—no matter whose bread it is!

In Matthew 25:31-46, I see the sheep obeying the Jesus Commandment: “...that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34. See also Matt 22: 37,39). Goats clearly don’t, and are unaware of their transgressions. Disobedience and living by their will is their second nature. In God’s eyes, all unbelievers are goats, and perhaps some (carnal) ‘Christians’ too?

I’ve been a goat all of my pre-conversion years; and most of my friends are goats still, their ‘Christianity’ notwithstanding. In spite of the doctrine of the Security of the Believer, most ‘Christians’ are caprine-ovine hybrids: both goat and sheep, serving both mammon and God. 

   

I see these hybrids everywhere; sometimes in my own actions or inaction. My former colleague would do anything for a penny. She would inflate any receipt that would fatten her purse. When it comes to money, she says, unabashed, “abeg, put Christianity aside jare!” And she’s a respected member of her church band and choir.  She recounts stories of how her former bandleader ‘camped’ a girl for seven years. In between near-death beatings, he put the girl through school, just for her to dump him and marry someone else on graduation. Good riddance! He had stayed on as bandleader these seven years, only abstaining from the Holy Communion as concession for his goat-like life. 

Then there’s one of my friends who is perennially unforgiving (Matt 6:12; 6:14-15) and always has an opinion which is always contrary to the scriptures (Prov 3:7). And there’s this man I know who is into construction. He refused to pay the full due of one of his subcontractors, even though they are members of the same church (Lev 13:19b). I also know of an Elder in a certain church who kept two mistresses (Mark 2:19). How about materialistic ‘Men-of-God’ who openly show deference to wealthy parishioners? (Lev 19:15; James 2:1-11). 

Before I get flak for struggling with the speck in other people’s eyes (Matt 7:3-5), I’d better expose the plank in mine: My eyes dwells more than a little on Coca-Cola-bottle figures.  What? I’m a young man, and I only look. Perhaps I should pluck out my eyes then? (Matt 18:9). Maybe I should. So should the men who were reported to have submitted a petition against a young usher (in a certain church in town) for the bizarre crime of having, “too much hips.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ll rather not be a goat.

“How?” you may ask.

Here is how: “...lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness [like the sheep] the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:21,22 NKJV). It’s not as hard as you think. Jesus himself said, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart [like the sheep], and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt 11:29-30 NKJV).

If you’re the Christian you say you are you’ll live like Christ lived. You know what? As Paul joyfully declared, “I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13 NKJV), and so can you!

This is the season to live, “not on bread alone, but...by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut 8:3; Mark 4:4; Luke 4:4 NKJV). Only then will we build the faith to trust and obey His commands. Then in the Kingdom to come, we’ll escape the fate of the goat. In the meantime, let me attempt to cure my bias against goats with a steamy bowl of isiewu [goat head pepper soup]. So, what are you, a goat? If not, please, join me. Bon appétit!                                                                  

POLARIZATION AND THE 'ONE NIGERIA' MYTH By Zachariah Chinne

The dividing line between polarization and discrimination are sometimes too slim. I have deliberately chosen polarization instead of discrimination but not without acknowledging that the former is a necessary outcome of the latter and the latter dominant where the former is normative.

     Globalization, with its pros and cons, may have successfully reduced the world to a global village. The threat of polarization in a globalized world however, still stares us in the face. From the universally irreconcilable North-South dichotomy to racial and religious differentiation, from regional to continental self-ascription of prominence and worth over others, polarization rears its ugly face all around us. Polarization sometimes takes the form of subtle accolades such as “the West and the Rest.” I have deliberately left out the duality of Platonism so as not to complicate my conversation for those not so inclined to academic jargons, and for those so inclined not to hide behind it as a basis for explaining away  human responsibility for and culpability in Nigeria’s polarization.

      From Kano to Kaduna, Bauchi to Jos, the Nigerian nation is plagued by emerging settlement patterns that are religiously and ethnically polarized. Some of these settlements may have been shamelessly termed “Afghanistan,” “Saddam City,” or zionistically “New Jerusalem.” These designations depict a caging in on itself by the agitators for such appellations. It defines not only who belongs but also who does not. In these exclusivists’ settlements, others are discriminated upon based on having a religious and ethnic affiliation and affection different from the designators.

     The founding fathers of the Nigerian nation may have this glowing tribute to their credit of being people who were unequivocally united in the pursuance of one indivisible and indissoluble Nigeria. They are often referred to as selfless and detribalized, and this, ironically, by a generation of Nigerians that think only in terms of self and tribe. If there were undisclosed ulterior motives for Nigerianization in the minds of some of the Nationalists at this point, those were carefully concealed under the ‘One Nigeria’ slogan

     When Nigerianization got sacrificed on the altar of regionalization, and with that religionization, not only were the warning lights of polarization blared, but regional and intolerant religious ideologies were sown with a painful bounty harvest of casualties in the coming years.  The Constitutional categorization of Nigeria as a secular state—secular not secularly—was perhaps to guard against the excesses of religionization defeating the collective aspiration for Nigerianization. Not so much because there is anything inherently evil about religion but because some religionists and their religions are notoriously, intolerant and as such religionization becomes tantamount to radicalization. More so, that religion could susceptibly excite the best and worst of human reactions.

     Shortly after the Nation’s independence the Nigerianization project suffered its first national threat—the   Nigerian civil war. The civil war was the first loudest call that the one indivisible and indissoluble   Nigeria will certainly go beyond the ‘One Nigeria’ slogan cum cliché. Yes, Gowon may have declared at the end of the civil war, “No victor, No vanquished”, and we may have acronymized his name into “Go On With One Nigeria” (Gowon), but Biafranization was the lone voice audibly protesting that inaudibility in the face of obvious discriminatory marginalization for fear of unfavorable labeling only accentuates the spread of polarizing ideas and influence. Unfortunately, the three “R”s (Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction) of the post-civil war declaration of Gowon sounds good to the ear only rhythmically, but does not translate to reality. The ‘splitting’ of the nation into so-called geo-political zones seems an admittance of and legitimization of polarization.  Rather than being a statement about unity in diversity, the zoning of the country is more a statement about divisiveness in this ‘unity’—Nigeria.

     How more glaring can polarization be than in acronyms such as WAZOBIA, an invitational from the so-called ‘three major languages’! The identification of three major languages leaves the rest grappling for minority placement. There is a way in which such a coinage defines the ‘owners’ of Nigeria and those who are either late-comers or even tenants. The eclipsing of the minority by this so-called majority soon lends itself to arrogation of a superior status by the powerful Three and that of inferior/subordinates on the nameless others. But it must also be said that the big three are internally fragmented as the three-legged stool they pretend to be soon severs one they are not comfortable with, as is the case with the marriage of convenience fraudulently called ‘Zoning,’ (where the heirs apparent to the throne are the ‘wa’ and the ‘zo’ not the ‘bia’). But even the two are never without mutual suspicions. In this battle for supremacy among the powerful three, the powerless, nameless, minority becomes the proverbial grass that suffers. This sets the tone for ‘us’ and ‘them’ in an entity we call Nigeria.

     Apart from the colonial antecedent, polarization in modern Nigeria is the creation of an Islamic Northern hegemony that has held sway to power for far too long. The Nigerianization project soon fell prey to the predatory antics and craftiness of Northernization—Northernization here more religiously than regionally defined. But if regionalization defined ‘us’ and ‘them’, northernization defined who is ‘us’ even among ‘us’. This explains why the Middle Belt does not fit into this configuration, even if situatedly ‘Northern’.

     One would have assumed that this was going to pave way for national integration where leadership would not be the exclusive reserve of some geo-political zones of this country but for all. When some zones of this country are shortchanged, one wonders the meaning of integration.

     In some earlier submissions, I have argued that the fueling of polarizing ideals are to be found in the sacrifice of genuine nationalist agenda of some of our selfless founding fathers on the altar of parochial and myopic egocentricism and eclipsed by regional agitation. This threatens national integrity and constitutional stability threatened through the fanning of Regional, sometimes religional tensions.

     But if as I have argued in an earlier submissison, Nigeria at 49: So Far, How Far, (published by Today’s Challenge); The proliferation of regional pressure or unity groups in Nigeria seems to consistently perpetuate the tradition of mutual suspicion in the Nigerian political orientation. This regional identification suggests that remaining one indivisible Nigeria may not necessarily mean the dissolution of regional ethnicity. So long as harmonization is understood not as meaning homogenizing, the Nigerian nation will remain one internally fragmented polarized state.

     The desecration of the constitutional secularity of the Nigerian nation reached a crescendo with the Shariah declaration by Ahmed Sani Bakura of Zamfara State. Shortly after fracturing the secularity of this nation for ill-conceived Islamic sentimentality, other northern States with sinister motives followed suit. This was a breach of the country’s constitution by a northern oligarchy who have always thought of themselves to be by nature custodians of power in the country. But as is to be expected, no one dare cautioned the ‘aggrieved’ northern hegemony from whom power was democratically wrested, since any caution would be religiously interpreted letting heads rolling over shoulders. The allowance of Shariah by the Obasanjo administration seemed an appeasement move to placate the non-appeasable Islamic North.

     It is this sort of allowance in 1979 that saw the provision of Shariah and Shariah courts of Appeal with their Grand Khadis into the Nigerian judicial system. With this benefit of hindsight, we would not be wrong to say that Ahmed Bakura, by his Sharia declaration was just harvesting the seed of sharia sown in the 1979 Constitution where sharia courts of appeal and its legal system were dished out to the unsuspecting Nigerians.

    As it is there is now no secrecy about the country’s polarized status. The country’s numero uno citizen Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan during last year’s army day celebration alluded to an obvious polarization in the military along religious lines as evidenced in the Jos crises.  If the assertion of Mr. President about the Nigerian army being religiously polarized is true, then we can say the constitutional custodians of the nation’s indivisibility and indissolubility are themselves a house divided against itself, which invariably means we are standing on the quicksand of divisiveness. This being the case we can emphatically say that the seeds of mutual suspicion, hatred, and anarchy have already taken deep roots in the heart of the nation. This, to say the least, is a sad commentary for a nation that still professes indivisibility and indissolubility.

     I am not for bloodshed, I do not subscribe to any form of religious fanaticism that means the extermination of anyone who does not worship as we do, or even speak as we do. Whenever there is a crisis, which these days carry the stamp of guerilla warfare, there are proven cases of the involvement of the military. This only goes to mean that the very ones shouldered with the task of ensuring the ideals of One Nigeria are actualized have indeed become its derailers. By implication, a whole nation is left in the hands of miscreants and mercenaries instead of the military.

     If Murtala sowed the seed of a Polartized military, they were watered and pruned by Shehu Musa Yar’Adua in the massacre of senior Army officers of Middle Belt extraction; fertilized by Babangida, but the ingathering ripened with Danbazau. When Danbazau said the military is apolitical and that the military is his constituency one wonders if by that he was referring to his Islamic military constituency or the Nigerian military in general.

     Nevertheless, I long for a Nigeria where a man isn’t judged by his ethnicity or religion and region, but by the strength of his character as a Nigerian. I dream of a Nigeria where the children of the Hausa-Fulani Muslims and those of the Beroms, Bajju, or Bassange will have access to equal educational, health, vocational, and credit facility. My heart longs for a Nigeria where the citing and execution or non citing of any projects in a domain are not determined by a religious or ethnic constituency but that we are all citizens of equal constitutional standings. For this Nigeria, I pray; for this Nigeria I live; for this Nigeria I work; yes—ONE NIGERIA.