Nigerian Political Leaders And Politics Without A Soul
The soul, yes, I mean the soul. No one in the world of matter, energy, space and time can plunge deeply into the realm of the soul without wise guides.
Years of lone wolf exploration of philosophy, mythology, religion, poetry, literature, art and music went into the creation of so many volumes on the soul. Yes, to fathom the unfathomable soul we immediately plunge into mysteries.
According to the Greek philosopher Diogenes, it was Xenophanes who first equated breath with soul, using the word psyche with its colourful associations of coolness, bellows and butterfly. Twenty three centuries later, in 1828, Charles Nodier wrote in Paris “The different names for the soul, among nearly all peoples are just so many breath variations and onomatopoeic expression for breathing”.
Psyche, animatman, Savira, Semangat, nephesh, otachuk, loakal, tunzi, prana, duk and geist are sacred words used by primal peoples the world over for the surge of life itself, linguistic cousins of what was called Savol in Old English, Sawal by the Anglo-Saxons, Sala by the Icelandic folk, and eventually as if stone-polished by the ages, what we now call soul.
With the Greek philosophers, soul is identified with the life principle itself, and again, the source and motivation of movement. What moves lives, what lives move. For Aristotle we learn from a passage from De Anima, soul was the “essential whatness” or “essential character”. Analogously, among traditional people soul is commonly regarded as the fundamental sacred essence, that wellspring of the eternal element in human beings.
The conception of the soul as breath may be followed up through Semitic and Aryan etymology, and thus into the main streams of the philosophy of the world. Hebrew shows nephesh “breath” passing into all the meanings of life, soul, mind, animal, while ruach and neshamah make the like translation from “breath” to “spirit” and to these the Arabic “nefs” and ruh correspond. The same is the history of Sanskrit “atman” and “prana”, of Greek psyche and pneuma, of Latin animus, anima, spiritus.
The Slavonic duch has developed the meaning of breath into that of soul or spirit and the dialects of the Gypsies have this word duk with the meaning of breath, spirit, ghost, whether these pariahs brought the word India as part of their inheritance of Aryan speech, or whether they adopted it in their migration across Salvonic lands depends on further research.
Man is composed of three independent kind of material: spirit soul and body. The body is the “world-consciousness”, the soul could be called “self consciousness” and the spirit is the “God consciousness”. There are five organs in the body which afford man the five senses. The physical body enables man to communicate with the physical world. The soul includes that part known as man’s intellect, which helps to make man’s existence possible. The part of love generates affections towards other human being. The soul is the seat of affection.
The soul can be stimulated, and it can be disquieted (Ps. 42:5). It can feel sorrowful (Matt26:38). The soul is everything that the personality entails. The soul is the source of the personality, man’s judgment, intellect, and love all are of the soul. Man is absolutely unique in creation possessing higher powers than any animal. The soul of man can be called the mind in this context. It is the soul-mind that generates the conduct of man characterized by desire; will, motive, and intention. Morality which is the yard-stick that measures our actions is the function of the soul-mind.
Any political leader whose objective is bereft of morality is automatically ‘Satanic in nature and its abode is full of evils. Following the recent concluded general elections in Nigeria, it is obvious that both INEC and APC have what I may describe as “GOOD SOULS” respectively-I know you understand my point! INEC did the bidding of many and we are witnessing the result of what was done with “GOOD SOUL” in Nigeria.
However, some of our political leaders lost their souls to violence occasioned by primitive acquisition of power by all means. This is not politics mixed with morality; it’s nothing other than politics without a soul. The soul makes a person think well and it helps to mold the moral propensity of an individual thereby affecting any organization or political institutions headed by such person or persons.
Anyone without a soul is someone whose actions are bereft of love. One whose conscience is dead, one whose actions are always blame worthy. Such a person is constantly under the influence of negative forces of darkness and his body, soul- (if he has any), and spirit become a play ground for demonic experiment. I think this is where many of our political leaders have found themselves.
We acknowledge the fact that there is a serious economic problem in Nigeria; the economic situation keeps getting worse. What we all experienced during the just concluded elections in Nigeria was a painful one. Nigerians suffered and trusted that their votes were going to count, only for us all to be disappointed. I weep for our democracy but it is not too late! The societal needs and expectations are mounting higher day by day. Serious minded leaders with souls are resolute in making impacts yet the powers that be insist on rigging them out. The time has come for us to build strong social institutions that will strengthen our democracy because we need to grow in line with technology of the twenty-first century.
The print and electronic media in Nigeria together with various local tabloids in different states were awash with news on how INEC performed below expectation by being biased and we have accepted it with mixed feelings expecting justice from the judiciary. When at last judgment (not justice) came, we also accepted it and continued our prayer for a better Nigeria. Nigeria must be better and all hands must be on deck to support this administration in making our Nation great again.
We should begin to pray God to create a new soul in the life of our leaders. There is problem in the land and only truth and love can heal the wound. We need justice and it can only come from one with a soul.
We need leaders with souls.