In this age, if we step back a little to reflect, what becomes obvious is that mankind is led more in the direction of material pursuits, power, and influence. It is not often that we have leaders that make pronouncements that appeal to our humanity, nor can we boast of many artistes that employ the instrumentality of music to arouse and fire our spirits to aim at the heights, thus losing the dross in which we are enveloped to darken and curb the drive to those things of value.
The thought of Martin Luther King Jnr. can hardly go away in the minds of a great many in his battle to restore the dignity of man. Who will refuse to be touched by the lyrical melody of Michael Jackson, or that of Jimmy Cliff? I recall Jimmy Cliff did sing: “Let’s remake the world;
“So many people are suffering!
“So many people are sad.
“Too many people got everything;
“But too many people got nothing.
“We will remake the world!
“With joy and happiness
“Remake the world with joy and happiness. Yah!”
Do we recall the words of George Washington when he said: “If the freedom of
speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter!” Or when he said: “It is better to be alone than in bad company.”
Just two of the unforgettable words Abraham Lincoln: “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” “Whatever you are, be a good one.”
The memorable words of Martin Luther King Jnr. State: “One day every human being would be judged by his ability, not by the colour of his skin.”
Mahatma Gandhi said He had two enemies, himself first and Britain. He would like to overcome himself first and then take on Britain.
I recall philosopher and author, Henry David Thoreau saying: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me the truth.” “It is not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” “Dreams are the touchstones of our character.”
Archie Randolph Ammons (A.R. Ammons) renowned for his writings on the relationship between nature and humanity was wont to state: “Things go away to return, brightened for the passage.” Back home in Africa, we have inspirational figures in Nelson Mandela, Awolowo, the sage; and of course Zik. On his return from exile in 1969, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe said: “I love to fight, but only when the enemy is clearly identified.” We have the icons in our literary world: Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, J. P. Clark, and a few others.
The dearth of idealists and thinkers in the world of today has led to a decline in practically every sphere of human affairs. Rather than looking up, mankind is led to look down, into dark alleys and entrapment of darkness and its emptiness: Vanity upon vanity, all is vanity, as they say. There are pervasive conflicts in the world, in countries, in communities, in societies, and in the homes. Friendship is breaking down. There have always been conflicts and for some more time to come, humanity will have to live with them. With all the unmistakable signs, the conflicts will undoubtedly get worse. We only need to reflex on the never-ending squabbles in the political arena. Many areas of Nigeria have been turned to killing fields. Homes are increasingly becoming slaughter slabs driven largely by conjugal matters. And this reminds me: Last week a young lady was convicted of the murder of her husband. Prosecution was able to convince an Abuja High Court that Maryam Sanda in a fit of uncontrolled rage plunged a kitchen knife into his husband’s chest and neck. Bilyaminu Bello, the husband, son of a former National Chairman of People’s Democratic Party, died before help could reach him. About the same time in November 2017, a lawyer in the office of Oyo State DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) was charged with the murder of her husband as well by stabbing him. There were similar cases in Kano and Lagos. The one of Lagos concerned a lawyer as well.
On the day of the conviction of Sanda, a lady at another end of Abuja, a public servant, Ruth Anthony entreated a Customary Court to grant her a divorce from her estranged husband as she would not want to commit murder out of self-defense. She told the court that her husband had a bad temper. He was in the habit of beating her at the slightest chance. She spoke of a day she fought free from his stranglehold. In her rage, she dashed to the kitchen and picked a knife and as the husband pursuing her stretched his hands to hold her again by the neck, she stabbed him in the hand. “I am losing it with my husband; I pray the court to grant my prayers for divorce before I commit murder out of self-defense.”
Maryam and Bello had a roaring romantic relationship while they were in the university. All looked the world was at their feet. Second-year into their marriage after leaving college, and with a baby as their blessing, things began to fall apart as she suspected the husband was seeing some other lady. As if to confirm it, she saw the picture of a lady in an inappropriate posture on her husband’s phone. She at first made for bottles but a friend of the husband came in at the nick of time and separated them. The friend left believing it was all over. After the departure, Maryam still boiling with anger made for the kitchen and stabbed the husband in the chest. The scale fell from her eyes after the deed was done and she tried to cover her tracks.
Women armed with education in secular regions with a feeling of independence are hardly able to contemplate rivalry over their men. Men keen on gathering women and who want to avoid disaster may need to take some lesson notes on how to succeed without fuss from Hon. Alhassan Ado Garba Doguwa, Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, who proudly advertised his power in parliament and prowess to gather four beautiful women at his beck and call. They have given him 27 children and he is still counting!
What can make women go outside their nature of meekness, forbearance love and care, especially in modern times such that they easily go violent?
Conflict of any kind is a clash of radiations emitted by feuding parties. When the radiations are markedly disagreeable, conflict ensues. At all times, the radiations from anyone manifest the degree of the spiritual maturity of his inner being. The higher the maturity the more welcoming his aura and the more honourable and effulgent he is in his dignified carriage. He radiates peace. As we now know in revelations of higher knowledge, the foundation stone for all knowledge, a nobleman shows violet in his aura while an evil man exhibits dull yellow. Because of the encasement of his spirit, the uplifting radiations from Above to which those of the unfettered spirit are connected are curtailed and the animating influence of the spirit is dimmed. Not only is the aura dull, but such a man is also irritable, cruel and susceptible to diseases, particularly cancer as spirit motes that constitute elementary particles with which our bodies are formed would lack the animating influence of the spirit, the real man in all of us.
With the distancing of mankind from the lawfulness that governs the entire Creation, the farther away he is from nobleness and goodness. In the times in which we are, the End-Time, the Light Pressure, that is the Power of the Holy Spirit, all that is dead are being awakened to face judgment, that is all the weaknesses of man are being animated and driven to face purification sweeping through the entire world today. Because of the enhanced and richer make-up of women which makes them stand higher than men, they attract a flow of radiations from Above which they are expected to use to disperse darkness and ennoble their environment. The same power they have to uplift the society, the country, and the entire world is the same power that pushes them down catastrophically when it is perverted. And so, it has been observed when a woman is cruel and evil, she cannot be matched by man. It can be likened to a woman falling from a 20-story building and a man from the ground floor. The former would scatter while the man would bruise his knees and get up. Such is, as a crude analogy, the picture of the gap in the power of both men and women. Because of the self-evident fall, it is not surprising that women now carry guns and knives and result in violence without batting an eyelid, without qualms.
Men themselves find the fall welcoming and take advantage of the seduction by women with their charms. Their charms endowed by Nature are by the very definition of the word are to hold men and turn their gaze to ideals, what is high and noble. Peace and harmony are eluding our world because of the fall of women through the perversion of their power. Before the true woman, man must bow! Once men themselves develop the strength for a beautiful volition towards women, treat their seduction with contempt, assail them with beautiful thoughts and volition, and look at them in their womanliness, they will begin to change and the world would be as it should be, swinging in the splendor, peace, and harmony as willed by the Almighty God, the Creator of the earth and all the world.
Maryam Sanda has been condemned to death by hanging! I am surprised women human rights activists have not been touched by the sentence and risen in protest. How does it sound that we can contemplate or behold a woman being hanged? Yes, Maryam’s murderous act should be severely punished. In this day and age, hanging her is inconceivable. To hang her will show how dense we are as a people, lacking in humanity, and a stamp of primitivity would have been pinned on our foreheads—on all of us. I pray and hope that her lawyers will appeal the sentence so that it can be commuted to perhaps 30 years imprisonment, at the worst to life imprisonment so that through correctional suffering and resultant reflection she can atone for her crime and be a better person. What does society gain by her death? We must be saved from the shame of hanging a woman. I do hope Lawan and Gbajabiamila are listening!
