By Tony Okoroji
Those of us who have called for introspection, caution and good sense in the recent Biafran agitation have been called all kinds of names. We are saboteurs, lily livered and non-believers. How can a true Igbo man not want Biafra now, something God has ordained?
Believe me, the Biafra war is not only being fought with the sad dance of the Python in the South East or with the manipulative distortions on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or WhatsApp, a major sector of the war sadly is in the churches. Unfortunately, religious places have become centers for the spread of hate whether, they are Christian, Islamic, Jewish or whatever?
Those who claim to have God’s direct number have made it known to thousands of frustrated Igbo young men that God has told them that the solution to their problem is with the emergence of a Sovereign State of Biafra ordained by God. So, the young men are ready to throw themselves at a moving tank. After all, God does not lie.
Pray, when and where was this secret meeting held with God and the Almighty decreed that innocent Igbo young men, women and children with mere broken bottles should take on a well kitted army over matters that they truly do not understand?
At the heart of much of the conflict in the world today is that every group or tribe believes that its people are the chosen people of God who will dominate the world.
Every crazy group in the world unleashing death on everyone around them can justify the killing. It is usually based on an ‘us against them’ mind frame of some spiritual, tribal or political leader who drums up immense bitterness fuelled by bigotry or hatred.
Talk to any members of the vicious Boko Haram group that has spread fear across Nigeria and they have tribal and religious justification for their senseless killing of innocent men and women. Members of the Al Shabab gang who are gunning down innocent people in East Africa are sure that they are doing God’s work. Whether it is Al Qaeda, ISIS in Iraq and Syria or even the IRA that kept Northern Ireland in commotion for a long time, they will beat their chest and assert justification for the innocent lives they have taken. Check out their justification and it is based on some skewed religious beliefs or some perceived injustice done to their ‘people’ in times gone by.
Nothing frightens me these days more than the seemingly unstoppable spread of fundamentalist religion. Contrary to popular notion, this terrifying development is not limited to the Islamic faith. All over the world, there are self-styled prophets in religious garments indoctrinating masses of people who they will unleash on the world and who would become cannon fodder in their war to rid the world of those who do not agree with them.
All of these ‘men of God’ preach love but the love they preach is not love for all children of God but love only for the people who think like them, pray like them or love like them. If you think differently, you are a vermin which must be exterminated to create their pure world. They have convinced themselves that they are holy warriors fighting God’s battle and that they have the right to bring death in the name of God.
But who are these people supposedly fighting in the name of God and exposing the children of God to be slaughtered? Who told them that God needs their help? Who informed them that they are more effective than God, the maker and giver of life, who if he chooses can wipe out whole nations in a twinkle of an eye? How can their war be holy if it leads to the killing of innocent children of God?
Karl Max did say that religion is the opium of the poor. I agree. Take a map of the world and check out the regions where there are fervent religious activities. These are where you will find nations in commotion, in poverty and in decline. Recently, I spent some time in the United States. Sunday mornings, the streets of the major cities are practically abandoned. The churches are empty except for minority groups. Yet, these are the people from whom we inherited our religious beliefs.
Before anyone concludes that I am anti – religion, let me state clearly that I am a Christian and that I go to Church. I however do not believe that every Moslem, Hindu, Budhist, Ifa Worshiper or anyone who does not worship the way I do is condemned to hell fire. It is the same way that I do not believe that the people who come from my part of the country are always right and the others are forever wrong. Similarly, I do not believe that when the time comes, it will matter whether you face the east or the west when you worship your God or whether you come from the North or the South or whether you are straight, gay or lesbian. We are all children of one God.
Source: Facebook