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The riddle of deaths in Ikoyi building collapse

By AbduRafiu
25 November 2021   |   3:25 am
The official death toll in the Ikoyi building disaster early this month has been put at 45, a numbing figure no matter how we look at the incident.

The official death toll in the Ikoyi building disaster early this month has been put at 45, a numbing figure no matter how we look at the incident. It is easy to see the trauma with which some of the 15 persons rescued must be grappling. Many of them must still be dazed. On awakening there will be gnashing of teeth, there will be biting of lips: Had I known; there will be tales to narrate. As I said last week, for a long time to come, the collapse of the 21-storey building at Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, will be subject of public as well as private, hush-tone discourse in the closet. For some of the survivors, the experience must have been one in a dreamland. There are several dimensions to it. There is the structural integrity of the building; the quality of materials, failure of soil engineering tests if a foundation meant to carry a five-storey building was later to have erected on it a high-rise of 21 floors. The Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers is looking into that aspect of the disaster. Indeed, the Institution has issued a four-page report it calls a summary of its preliminary findings. The engineers already expressed misgivings about the structural integrity of the building.

However, what can’t but agitate the minds of a great many is how come that more than 60 persons gathered on that day, and 45 of them made up of people of different backgrounds and social classes, died. They were buried under the rubble; 15 were rescued. Several others came out of their own, injured in varying degrees. Among the dead was the friend of Femi Osibona, the developer, who was to travel later that day to the United States where he lived. Wale Bob-Oseni joyfully honoured the invitation of his friend to visit the edifice he was raising at Ikoyi. He diverted his journey to rejoice with his bosom friend. He died along with Mr. Osibona when the building, without warning, came down. How come that it was on that day, at that hour of his visit that the building collapsed and they were buried under the rubble? How come many died and 15 were brought out alive? They are survivors living to tell the story today and for many more years to come, and learn from the harrowing, indeed traumatic experiences. Had their miraculous escape from the jaw of death to do with good luck and the dead, with pitiful ill-luck? What was the thread that connected them regardless of their social standing and got them gathered for the ill-fated day? This reminds one of the air disasters in Canary Islands in the Atlantic off the coast of southern Morocco many years ago in which 550 of the 643 people aboard two aircraft were killed. The aircraft collided and burst into flames at take-off in what is the worst disaster in aviation history till date. Why should such a huge number of people share the same fate at the same time, what nearly every one of us would describe as unimaginably cruel fate?

We must begin by recognising that there is unceasing weaving and surging all around us, with each human being supplying the threads in the tapestry of life. With the understanding and contemplation of invisible activities in which the human being is central, it will not be hard to see that there are no accidents in life. A person who could have been spared from being a victim of the tragedy for example could have been insufficiently alert, negligent or careless to pick warnings to steer clear of the site at that time or on that day. It was possible the wife’s feeling of uneasiness about her man going out at that time was brushed aside by one of the victims as men are wont to do.

To unravel the situation in which many people are killed at the same time in a disaster, we can look at the practice of cooperative farming. Those involved have the same aim; they sow together, the fruits ripen at the same time, then the harvest. This is followed by sharing of profits or losses. This can also be likened to thousands of people buying shares in a company. It is all sowing, and the profits or losses are shared in proportion to the volume of stocks each shareholder has in the organisation. A big shareholder is crushed in the event of a heavy loss and a small equity holder bruises his knees, clears his eyes, gets up and he moves on. When fruits that constitute fate ripen, they return in radiations and are fed into stellar radiations of the stars (We remember horoscope?) to be led unerringly to the sower or the authors. Each day, every hour we human beings sow in the soil of life. This explains to a large extent the unceasing weaving and surging all around us. When the fruits ripen will depend on the nature of the seed planted.

At this juncture, it becomes pertinent to discuss the mechanisms of threads of fate—that is, how fate is formed. Thoughts, speeches and actions combine to produce a man’s carpet of fate. Three weavings issue from each human being. With every volition, whether thought volition or spiritual volition which precedes action if the author wants, as it invariably happens, to go beyond mere thoughts, pressure is exerted, and threads spring from the volition as they do from deeds or speeches. In every intuitively perceived thought there is a creative power dwelling in it. In other words, when there is a volition by any person, waves arise from his spirit which exert pressure, with pressure there is movement, movement gives rise to heat, and heat to radiations. That is the volition of which each person radiates, so does his speech and so does his deed. The radiations are the threads he supplies to the loom of Creation for the weaving of the carpet of his fate. It can be seen from this that thoughts and speeches are not as inactive and harmless as they appear to be such that we can permit all manner of thoughts. If nothing emanates from speeches, for example, how come that some speeches are calming and soothing while others evoke anger.

It may have been observed, however, that an average man lives more in thoughts than in actions. While he is alone, while he is in his closet, for example, he cannot be talking to himself but thoughts are running through him. He succeeds in hiding himself, his true identity in his actions but even more in his thoughts. His real identity is not known. It is in the thought that all scheming first take place. And so our attention has been poignantly drawn to this by no less a Figure than the Lord Himself. It is what comes out of a man that defiles him, so says the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are admonished to bridle our tongue which is described as an unruly animal. From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, again sayeth the Lord.

What I am getting at is that what returns as blows of fate are simply reactions of activities in time gone past, time we hardly remember because we measure man from his birth to his death. Since an onlooker may not have caught him with wrongdoing, he comes to the conclusion of the so-called injustice in the world. In his frame of mind, he is swayed by the arguments of advocates of revolution that the existing system in whatever country must be overturned to give way to the new where all will have equal opportunities and social justice. His mind soon races to Fidel Castro in Cuba. Well meaning as the struggle for social justice and equal opportunities is, it is borne out of ignorance for what exists is offer of equal opportunities not equal opportunities. What each person does with the offer in accordance with the exercise of his free will determines the opportunities available to him and his state in life. The free will that impels the thoughts is not seen, yet we know it exists manifesting in choices we daily, hourly make. To understand fate we must be prepared to contemplate the world unseen which though unseen exists? Who has seen the air we breathe? Has anyone beheld heat? Who has seen the atom or electron and held it in his hands? Who can see electric current running through copper wire or the rays being emitted by television? Diabetics patients do not know that anything is wrong with their natural water until columns of ants metres away smell sugar, file in and surround it! We do not know when thoughts arose in the developer of the Gerrard Road building to have the project approved— the design from five floors, then to eight, then to 15 and ultimately to 21 storeys, according to those who are familiar with the incident. All these preceded actions which manifested in the building rising high to fly its flag to be counted as belonging to the assembly of high-rise buildings that are dangerously filling up the Ikoyi landscape.

This will bring us to the world of Nature Beings and radiations. All the missteps leading to disasters must have begun in time gone past if fate as stated earlier is reactions of past activities. In the maturing of the activities woven by the Nature Beings, all a developer or an airliner needed in the chain were lined up: the approving authorities, the cheering orchestra that, without second thought, who would say “our man has arrived” were all at their duty posts in ministries as well as in the community of artisans, engineers and food vendors in the case of buildings for instance or caterers. None was a stranger to the other although they came in different guises and might know. They were all led by threads to pick them up when the time was ripe, to gather in fateful accomplishment as cooperative farmers to sow and to harvest. Anyone whose connection is weak or tangential goes away unharmed or a peel from a broken block cube hits head and he is described as a survivor. Some were probably not even there at all because of the weak radiation connection. Far must it be from me to judge. The aim of the column is draw attention to the enlightenment in higher and unparalleled knowledge available for mankind in these times.

Even if we do not believe the scientists that everything is radiation, that everything visible is mere condensation of radiation, we at least don’t doubt that ice is condensed water or that even water is condensed atoms manifesting in molecules of hydrogen and oxygen gases in union or that these gases can be transmuted to rays. I once alluded to this that anyone who has concerned himself with the study of inhabited and uninhabited buildings will readily attest to it that the inhabited ones are healthier. This is not per chance the consequence of human attention. The reassuring state of the building suggests something else—the inhabited building receives or is permeated by something from man which the uninhabited one lacks. This is radiation! So is it that ornate mansions left behind upon the exit of the owners from earthly life soon look run down and begin to fall apart when they are not inhabited.

Nature beings are the brains behind what we call Nature and the regularities man calls Laws of Nature or Natural Laws. To understand their links with human fate requires understanding of the simple process of transformations. Everything starts from Light. Light radiates and the radiation gives rise to pressure which impels motion. Motion generates heat and heat radiations. And it is in the midst of heat and from radiations that forms and the union of forms come into being. Human deeds arise from volition and volition exerts pressure that can be very powerful indeed. The pressure from the invisible but perceptible volition, no doubt in full accord with the law, heats up the environment where forms of the nature of the volition, good or evil, are fashioned out by Nature Beings who stand in absolute loyal service to the Creator, weaving for man the carpet of his fate in accordance with the nature and measure of his volition.

With the demonstration of how virile and active thoughts and speeches are and the power of volition, it becomes imperative that we show in all simplicity how the carpet of fate is formed. The thought takes on form; or rather threads emanating from thought or speech are woven into forms automatically by elemental beings. The forms are attracted away to similar thought forms, and a huge collection of them form power centres which are continually nourished by thoughts of the same kind from people from different parts of the world. The forms, which correspond to the content of the thought and the volition in the speech, are connected to the authors no matter where they may be on the globe or in a country, in a society, city or town. The forms are kept alive through accumulated energy inherent in them and driven about in the universe and tended with the same dedication, accuracy and perfection that plants of the field are nurtured to maturity—whether they are useful plants or weeds. It is the attachments of the form burdens that chart a person’s path which he must tread willy-nilly—whether he likes it or not. The connections remain with him until they are severed which may take decades or centuries. When the fruits of these thought-forms, products of thoughts, speeches or deeds, ripen they return to the authors in radiations which as I mentioned earlier are fed into stellar radiations of stars to be led unerringly to the sowers or authors, individually or collectively as in the Ikoyi saga through also collaboration and the operation of the Law of Homogeneity otherwise referred to as the Law of Similarities—the laws working in concert. A government’s policies, its unconcern and callous unfeeling only help to engender the circumstances for the materialisation of the deserved fate. The radiations lead them to circumstances which will permit a person to experience in full measure, what he has sown—poverty, pain, diseases, oppression, or joy, happiness and prosperity as the case may be. A mother who abandons her baby in the gutter will also be abandoned. It may be in the next in the next 500 or 200 years. A relation who condones or justifies it gets connected and may share a similar situation; hers perhaps ameliorated by her being discovered almost immediately by a passers-by who takes action.

A nation of dishonest people cannot expect a visionary and honest leader as it is from their ranks candidates emerge to jostle for the reins of leadership. And if the Creator does not stretch His loving hands to release them from their leaders, He the Holy Almighty is accused of injustice. Why is He just and fair to Switzerland, China and Dubai but “unjust and unfair” to Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Cameroun? “They query” from out of ignorance. Musician Sunny Ade once sang: Let the wicked remember tomorrow. Which tomorrow was he referring to? It could be 3000 years, 1500 years, 200 years or even 45 years from now. That is the justice of the Most High which proverbially grinds slowly, but surely and exceedingly fine.

In some cases, if a person has changed before the Karmaic returns arrive, the blows of fate are weakened as the soil for anchorage for unrelenting the full blows of fate has changed for the better. Depending on the degree and strength of change which also takes on corresponding form, the Karmaic returns may be neutralised or dispersed.

However, in accordance with the law, the harvest must come even though weakened in consequence of the change now in the author, and is of no effect in what is called symbolic redemption. So is it that a man who would have been crushed by a car merely knocks his leg against its rim in a fit of absent-mindedness. A man who would have been killed in a high-rise building collapse left the scene just seven minutes before it occurred. The shock of the news is his symbolic redemption which forces him to give praise and gratitude for the mercy of the Lord. It is for him to reflect and learn from the disaster.

Man is the architect of his own fortunes. As he prepares his bed so does he lie on it. A people deserve the government they get. What a man soweth that shall he reap in multiple folds. These are familiar statements which hint at the profound truths of life. Where then is the forgiveness of sins? There is forgiveness of sins, but not as is generally thought. This will be treated at the appropriate time in the future.

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