God answered the prayers of my loveones while on admission: Barr. Dalung

From: Abdulrahman Kirfi

Since they didn’t think it was worthwhile to acknowledge God, God abandoned them to a defective mind to do inappropriate things. So they were filled with all injustice, wicked behavior, greed, and evil behavior. They are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deception, and malice. They are gossips, they slander people, and they hate God. They are rude and proud, and they brag. They invent ways to be evil, and they are disobedient to their parents. They are without understanding, disloyal, without affection, and without mercy.” Romans‬ ‭1:28-31 CEB‬‬.

When I posted that I was on admission and required prayers, it carried multiple messages to both my friends and fans. First, to establish the fact that as a mortal, I am a subject of the inevitable. Secondly, to communicate my condition to them, so as to minimise emotional trauma in an event it’s time for me to exit. Of course they have knowledge that I was sick before bowing out. Lastly, to reinforce the zeal of those who do not wish me well to intensify their prayers for my speedy departure. Disappointingly to the naysayers, God answered the prayers of my friends and fans, and the former will need to restructure their strategy because I am much around, to God be the Glory.

When a society abandons God, there are accompanying consequences as enumerated above by the Holy Scripture. Their minds will become defective while good will be converted to evil and vice visa. The characteristics of such a society will be injustice, jealousy, murder, fighting, deception and malice. The people will be filled with greed, wicked and evil behaviour. Also, their core values will be rudeness, pride, gossip, slander and bragging. Above all, they will hate God. Instead of inventing things that will enhance development, they will dissipate their energies in inventing evil ways which include methods of disobedience to parents. Evil is not only promoted but also patronised in high places. Indeed, mercy and understanding will be an essential commodity but disaffection and disloyalty will flourish like colossus.

The graphic illustration painted above of a society that is religious but ungodly definitely portrays the contemporary Nigerian society. Definitely, something is fundamentally wrong with us as a people. Everything positive seems to be fast departing from us. To me our situation is not unconnected with the fact that we abandoned God. If not, then what’s happening requires serious soul searching. Traumatising development in the country has made the heart to lose its beats. Fear and panic dominate everywhere, because security challenges present constant complex dynamics that possess incalculable damage to the psyche of the people. Even though we are a community that lives in denial of all these symptoms of abandoning God, the reality remains that the blood of innocent souls recklessly shed by evil forces has risen to heaven.

Ironically, peaceful people are dying violently either as victims of kidnapping, insurgency, banditry and armed or pen robbery. The rate of poverty, hunger and unemployment skyrocket astronomically thereby creating a state of uncertainty about what will happen next. Certainly, citizenship frustration has led to unpopular traditions of increasing records of suicide mostly among the youth population. This worrisome state of affairs calls for urgent attention because the nation is drifting speedily into chaos with the fragmentation of diverse interests. I may sound alarmed but Nigerians have not been so divided along religious, ethnic and regional dichotomies like now.

With the pandemic virus, it is imperative we narrow the gap of divisions to confront the deadly plague threatening humanity. We might not have been proactive in putting measures to contain the situation, but the truth still remains that we need unity of purpose to survive. Covid-19 is a shameless human tragedy that respects nobody and has no borders, therefore, it cannot be business as usual. After defeating the virus, we can apportion blames but now is not the time. If political elites who are responsible for the majority of importation of the virus into Nigeria politicise the public health crisis as is always the case, then we will all be consumed here as there’s no hiding place anymore. Nigerians must bury their differences by behaving themselves, otherwise, Nigeria will be converted into a mass grave of human skeletons.

It is worthy of note that the Spanish plague between 1916-1918 claimed more than fifty million lives. Therefore, our two hundred million population cannot scare Covid-19 except we rally round to defeat it. Already, great nations like USA, UK and Italy are already facing this calamity with devastating consequences of the blame game. It’s amazing that the level of cooperation even with the political elites here is abysmal. The ground rule is contact tracing once an index case has been established. Sadly, those suspected to have contact with one of the high profile case has been busy trying to manipulate the narrative instead of submitting to self isolation and testing. They have been marauding the social space, infecting gullible and unsuspecting people. For now, the pandemic is still revolving around high profile personalities and I challenge all those who had reasons to contact anybody within the suspected cycle to save lives by self isolating and public declarations.

Not only that, but that they comply with all health advisories regarding the pandemic by declaring other people they have had contact with, so as to facilitate easy tracing. It will be an extension of callousness for the political elites to pretend as if all is well with them while distributing the virus to associates, friends, and aides. I commend those who have taken bold steps to declare their status, but others should emulate them too because it will not be long before the virus will embarrass them and by then, the damage would have been done. For once, let’s show our people love by saving their lives.

Now that the virus pandemic is here with us, it is important we observe safety measures with hygiene traditions. Social distancing is fundamental in curbing the spread of Coronavirus. Even though the lockdown policy is well intended, it will create a hunger epidemic without any stimulus package. The policy should be implemented based on wisdom because majority of our population survive on daily living. Government should assess and review the lockdown rule based on peculiarity. Where the scourge of the virus remains unknown, lockdown will be misunderstood as punitive if not properly managed.

Finally to our religious leadership, you owe the population a duty of care, therefore, do not mislead the people. The Prophet Mohammed’s mosque and the Ka’aba in Saudi Arabia has been shut down to all religious activities. Also, the St Peter’s Basilica in Rome has been shut down to all forms of religious gathering. These are places we even visited for pilgrimages, yet the authorities saw wisdom in putting proactive measures to save lives. But there are religious leaders here claiming “holier than thou”, challenging the lockdown policy as anti-God. This is not fair to our government and people at all.

Where were our prophets, miracle makers and powerful Imams when Covid-19 started in Wuhan, China? Why did they not stop it from entering Nigeria? Okay, maybe they were taken unawares, but realising that it’s here with us, why have they not taken their spiritual armours to Yaba, Gwagwalada or any other isolation facilities? I don’t see wisdom in jeopardising our population when the indices of  judgment betray common sense. Insisting on contravening safety rules is mere display of power or personality feud or better still, projecting personal interests over and above public safety. If we expose our population to the risk of this plague and they are consumed, it will serve nobody’s good. Therefore, let’s encourage the people to stay safe.

I pray that God Almighty intervenes in our situation and cut short our predicaments. As we battle these challenges, it is my intercession that the Lord improvises our basic needs while walking us through these tough times, amen. It shall be well with Nigeria. Happy Sunday.