Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo was recently awash in the media, not for the revelation that he has conquered the electricity problem besetting the country, but that a certain person he refused to give his or her name was luring him, to persuade the federal government to think-up a ‘spiritual’ means for the fight against Boko Haram’s nuisance.
The statement was made when he was delivering his sermon entitled: “Jehovah, the Omnipotent is our Refuge and Strength” at the Aso Villa Chapel on April 13, which happened to be Palm Sunday and, corresponded with his daughter’s wedding thanksgiving.
After reading his rather jaded statement, what came to my mind was that our people have been so brainwashed to believing that any spirituality outside Christianity or Islam should be labeled ‘fetish’, which was the right word that Prof. Nebo used.
It is irritating that a man of Nebo’s standing has not disabused his mind of the Europe’s infested plague called religion in this part of the world, hence he is swimming in the euphoria of “born again’ or something dim-witted.
His ilk’s use of the word ‘fetish’ to describe especially the belief-systems of traditionalists, drove me to my Oxford Dictionaries once again and, I was shocked to understand that even the Christians are fetish to a large extent, going by the definitions of the word that unfolded. Here are some of the definitions of fetish:
A form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.: a man with a fetish for surgical masks a foot fetish some may have fetishes, like dressing up in women’s clothes Victorian men developed fetishes focusing on feet, shoes, and boots
An excessive and irrational devotion or commitment to a particular thing: men will never understand a woman’s fetish for shoes and handbags the western fetish for all things North African
An inanimate object worshipped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.
Did you see item 2? I’ve always told people that persons (like Prof. Chinedu Nebo) with religious mindsets have to be feared more than the perceived corruption in Nigeria. Corruption can only impoverish us, but religious minds are dangerous and cancerous that they are damaging the fabrics of posterity.
In one of my treatises titled, “Spirituality and Religion”, I wept about the way our people have been so unwisely made to hate everything about their aborigines. I said in that piece that I’m not very sure where they are going to.
I, however, insist that Ndigbo-forebears practiced spirituality bcs they were always questioning everything around them and were realising their individual self, without being addicted to dogma that does not allow something new to be known. (Like Nebo would not like to know about any new spirituality aside that which he has been spoonfed).
Religion, just like the ones from the Middle-east, never allows people to see their true selves. Religion is an addiction, but spirituality which Ndigbo-forebears practiced gave them freedom to be who they wanted to be.
Ndigbo spirituality was an every hour and every minute practice. It was in the way they talk, look, admire and do everything. But religion, as in the Middle-east’s types, is often embedded with the idea of ‘who has joined us and who has not joined us’.
Igbo-spirituality speaks volume against such behaviour, because it loathes commercialising the spirituality. Our forebears were never loyal to any institution, which is fad in the Middle-east’s religions that were imported to dwell in our midst. Our Igbo forebears were much concerned about justice and equity and compassion. These differentiate them from religionists.
Our forebears were not talking about God much, but were behaving and conducting theirselves to be godly. It is the Middle-east’s religions that have found pleasure in talking about God much, without allowing autonomy to the individual to awaken to the godly status.
Religion would want an individual to surrender his will to it. But in the Igbo spirituality, which is as well in their culture, would want an individual to surrender his will to Chi’ukwu (Almighty Force). Religion speaks for God, but spirituality works for God.
Igbo-spirituality is never a religion, because it does not submit to any institution founded by man, but submits to love, justice, private independence and liberty.
Doubting is the first step to acquiring wisdom, when one is of age, unlike when one was being spoonfed with anything that passes by as a kid. Yet, there are thousands of adults, who are still with the heart of kids: They carry along with them both fables and realities they were fed. They do not ask questions they could hardly find an answer or strike issues they could hardly achieve. They make us believe that there are morons in sensible persons. They hardly believe that in everyone lies that Lord of Self. Sadly that this Lord of Self has been eroded in many with the Lord of Religion.
Some people like Nebo think that tearing someone’s belief-system down builds them up. Many of them use verbal tactics such as ‘fetish’. The reason there are many craftsmen of destruction, does not meet the eyes. They are everywhere. Some just manifest around the neighbourhood. Like that!
Some of them prefer to call the Christian and Muslim Gods with the names of our native Gods. For example, the Igbo-Christian would refer to Jehovah/Yahweh as Chukwu. But if you tell him or her that let’s visit the Temple of Chukwu in Arochukwu, you see the person scampering to Jerusalem for pilgrimage or quoting the Bible.
How can one then be calling Chukwu and yet is afraid to visit the Temple of Chukwu Abiama in Arochukwu? Another irony is that even when they pray in Igbo, they end it with ‘Amen’. They see ‘Haaam’ or ‘Ise’, being the Igbo traditional ways of concluding their orison, as demonic, but they are using the word, Chukwu. Our Chukwu Abiama is watching their foolery.
The ways of people like Nebo: Alas! In the Sunday Sun, Feb. 23, 2014, Lady Modupe Ogunbayo shouted, “It’s not my portion in Jesus name!” when her doctor told her that her daughter is deaf & dumb. She resorted to seeking for miracle from one church to another to no avail. Mixing ‘holy water’ & annointing oil & administering it into her daughter’s ears didn’t work.
One day at a hospital, a woman with an autistic child, walked up to Ogunbayo on hearing her crying, “God, why me!” The woman told her that they should make an exchange. Her reason was that Ogunbayo’s daughter, at least, is mentally sound, but here she is with a mentally-deranged child. On hearing this, Lady Modupe Ogunbayo stopped crying. “God forgive me,” she said.
One of my neighbours in the other apartment, who is always disturbing the whole people in their different apartments with her wild “Praise thy Lord” and subsequent orisons early morning and late night, one morning, was loudly answering a call to her phone.
Instead of asking the caller if she had a ‘Visitor’ at home, she asked, “Mama Favour, do you have a stranger?” Is this not the level of exposure of the majority populace watering Christianity down our throat?
People like Nebo would not remember what Pro 27:14: He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him. (However, I’ve a prayer to Amadioha):
Amadioha
You are the God of justice
representing the “free will of the people”.
You are Kamalu, the Kalu Akanu that
takes the sky as your dwelling place
you govern mankind from,
having your Day on the Afo market day.
You share the same fate with warring divinities like
Sokogba (Nupe); Ogiuwu (Edo); Eto, Itiri, Egba (Urhobo);
Sango, Jakuta, Oramfe (Yoruba)…
You have subdued peoples both low and mighty
whose hands are filthy with evil and unrepentant hearts
and have been a just Judge on lands in dispute.
Egbe elu-igwe!
Amuma igwe!!
Aturu Chukwu Abiama!!!
You have names that transcend the West end
from Your Mbari House.
You have made nations realise that
what one sends out into the world
comes back to the person.
Come! I say, come!!
Come and show men of all ages
what they deserve.
There is no evil strength mightier than Yours.
You are a great revolutionist against the oppressors.
The defender of the oppressed!
Come and checkmate the many evil consequences
that have befallen the earth.
Come! I say come, Amahioha!!
Egbe elu-igwe!
Amuma igwe!!
Aturu Chukwu Abiama!!!
You are great for always teaching peoples
not to forget the moral principles of the cosmos.
Written By Odimegwu Onwumere
Tel: +2348032552855
Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com
www.odimegwuonwumere.wordpress.com
