The Intercourse Of Troubled Thoughts

NEW YORK
Fred fumed: “I am not interested in the phoney harmony of that book of errors! I only look into it to find weaknesses I can put to good use against the ranks of its practitioners. That was your original commission before you turned turn-coat against your friends for a mess of Christian ephemeral promises in their imaginary heaven!” Tammy tried to be balanced in her views. “The press of the homosexual community pretends that it is not a mistake; that it has not made mistakes and that it is not mistaken,” she began. “But the Bible opens up on the mistakes, weaknesses and failures of its leading characters like Abraham, Moses, Noah, David, Solomon, Samson and Judas. How do you ignore such a book?

Don’t you know that truth is powerful no matter how weak propaganda first makes it to appear! Is it not clear to you that a lie is weak, no matter how strong deceit tries to pretend otherwise? No movement can remain relevant without coming to terms with its reality. We must come to terms with the Bible sooner than later. Modern law owes a lot to the Bible as can be seen in the constitutions of many countries.

The right that gays enjoy in many Christian lands is traceable to the free-will that the Bible allows in legislations. The Flat Earth Society fought against the notion that the earth was round but eventually gave up in the face of proven scientific evidence which the Bible spoke about before the birth of Jesus Christ. Scientific textbooks are constantly updated in revisions but the Bible’s claim in the Book of Job chapter 26 and verse 7 that the earth hangs on nothing was originally denied but is now accepted scientific truth.”

Fred relaxed a bit. “During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama advised evangelical America that ‘before we get carried away, let’s read our Bibles.’ I agree that it is needful for us to study the Nigerian pastors you mentioned and their churches but not for the foolish reasons you adduced. I hate the Bible with venom but friends; time has come for us to discover their strength.” And Tammy got started. “The strength of Akinola and company is in that document they carry; it is in that book that has been banned, banished, burned and buried but refused to die! Gentlemen; let’s read theirBible,” she pleaded. “I did not say ourBible mind you, I said their Bible.” Fred agreed reluctantly. “We must read it to find loose spot against Christians only. We must not become ‘born again, Holy Ghost filled, tongue speaking and manifest all other madness of Big Religion.’ I am sure that somewhere in that Bible, there are books from Genesis to Revelation, chapters, verses and passages that see homosexuality in good light. Ladies and gentlemen, go out and buy yourselves Bibles. Get as many translations as it’s available. Sleep with your Bibles, eat with them on one hand and listen to audio Bibles.

The gay community must study the Bible on their desktops and laptops. Blackberrying must be with the primary object of studying the Bible. Join churches, house fellowships, prayer meetings, interdenominational and businessmen organisations that will give you the opportunity to study the Bible. Again, in the words of Barack Obama, ‘before we get carried away’ with denouncing Big Religion hatred of gays without substance,‘let’s read our Bibles.’ And how can we read the Bible if we don’t own it? And how can we own it if we don’t buy it? Ladies and gentlemen of the gay world, go get Bibles! You have nothing to loose from studying the Bible but your chains! The scientific truth which Akinola and other captains of Big Religion do not know is that Africa is beset by a myriad of problems that should attract their attention and money instead of branding the gay community as hell’s candidate. The Dark Continent, Akinola’s home ground is assaulted by a triple cocktail of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis with horrifying consequences. Does Akinola and company that the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome AIDS, which came to global notice via an American medical journal in 1981, has found precarious sub-Saharan Africa to be a world without end in its war of decimation without a foreseeable HIV/AIDs cure? Is he aware that the pandemic is on an inglorious destabilisation of his continent? Who will tell him that this fire in the political, psychological and economic bosom of Africa has turned the land of the blacks into a chimney of desolation and a valley of hopelessness? What has he done except to build up mountains of duplicity, denials, half measures and evasion in this deluge of despair? Does he know that the former Dark Continent is turning into the Ash Continent? Let him know that the heart of the matter is that life and laughter is turning into mourning and wailing.

Tell Akinola to join the war against this killing safari. Let him challenge head on what Al Gore called ‘a security threat of the greatest magnitude,’ what Bill Clinton called the greatest tragedy to afflict mankind since the bubonic plague! Did he rise up in anger when in an address to the AU in Johannesburg; Colonel Muammar Qaddaffi called HIV/AIDS a ‘peaceful virus,’ God’s instrument of keeping white colonialists out of Africa? Over 13 million Africans has died of AIDS and over 25 million are infected. Of the 11 million AIDS orphans in Africa by 2003, how are Europeans? Of the projected 20 million by 2010, how many will be Europeans? Did he challenge Thabo Mbeki’s distrust of anti-retroviral drugs? Did he speak up when his Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang classified anti-retrovirals as ‘poisons?’ Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Inkatha Freedom Party leader late 2004 lost two adult children to HIV/AIDS. Did Akinola join his pledge to fight the pandemic‘henceforth with my last breath’? Is he aware that in sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS is a disastrous run away story! When the venerable Nelson Mandela was leading the campaign of enlightenment in South Africa, did Akinola do the same in Nigeria? Malegatho Mandela, 54 year old lawyer/businessman son of the Madiba died of HIV/AIDS at Johannesburg’s Linkfield Park Clinic on January 6, 2005. Did Akinola commiserate with this African statesman? How many HIV/AIDS infected African women have received Nevirapine, a drug which stops mother-to-child transmission at birth from Akinola and company? Is there any record that his religious brigade has given out Highly Active Anti-retroviral Therapy HAART, which disturbs HIV from multiplying in a victim though he can still infect another person? Has he risen up against the horrendous infection rates in Africa: ¼ of Botswana’s, a ¼ of Lesotho’s adult population, five million of South Africa’s forty three million people, 10% in Sierra Leone and one in three in Zimbabwe.

How many old people are in Africa again since HIV/AIDS declined life expectancy from 60 to 51 years, ten years below the world average? I am yet to see any concrete action by Akinola and company campaign against geography, economics, corruption and inept political leadership that helps this grizzly enemy of his continent in its harvest of havoc. Is he not aware that the various wars on the continent have necessitated various army contingents to go on peacekeeping and interventionist roles without their wives? Can he not access press reports that show that these work and solidarity brigades return to infect wives and concubines? Is he so innocent to know that war and its attendant disequilibria: massive rapes, sexual slavery by soldiers, internally and externally displaced refugees, unhygienic lifestyles, breakdown of health facilities, disruption or lack of information access and NGOs absence have been partners of HIV/AIDS in its death march? Akinola cannot claim ignorant of the loose sexual behaviour that modernity has occasioned.” Tammy tried to bring in critical thinking. “Modernity also promoted homosexuality and sodomy, why are you eerily silent about these practices? When will you begin to say the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth?” Fred wasn’t about to let up. “I am not in the mood to enter into contentious debate with you; I just need you in a listening capacity! Akinola is a supremely educated man and must be aware of the various degree of belief spectrum that are allies of this devastation. When will he wake up to fight the erroneous impression in South Africa that sex with a virgin is a cure for AIDS that has brought unprecedented cases of rapes and incest? Does Liberians not interpret AIDS to mean American Intention to Discourage Sex?

What is Akinola’s imprint in curbing the ignorance, traditional mores, social stigma, cultural imbalances, veneral diseases, governmental silence, drug abuse and western indifference that are contributory factors of this pandemic?

Has he enthroned education, awareness and civic environment to help contain this devilish destroyer? Did he raise his voice when OBJ committed $350 million into a new stadium for Abuja, a figure greater than his health budget? Now malaria, a tragedy still unconquered has become a murderous ally of HIV/AIDS in Africa and Akinola is asleep! He’s snoring in the face of this ruinous twin romance! He’s fighting gays while all the malaria drugs have bred mutations, which malaria has mastered! Insecticide-treated bed-nets which are effective against mosquitoes are sadly lacking in sub-Saharan Africa because Akinola’s and company have not deem it fit to donate any to victims! Has his church given a kobo towards the invention of a malaria vaccine? Malaria takes three million lives worldwide, nearly all in Akinola’s Third World. I am told that his church operates hospitals; therefore he must have witnessed convulsions, jaundice, cerebral attacks, renal failure and anaemia that are telltale signs of its damaging visitation. Leo the leopard sounded almost hilarious. “Common on, Akinola is a clergyman, not a physician! How do you expect him to be familiar with all these diagnosis”? Fred remained unmoved. “The same way he made himself an expert on gays! Under Akinola’s watch; mosquito, a destroyer-consort is wiser, older, more knowledgeable and resilient than the HIV virus. She has seduced its former cures into clinical incompetence. A ballerina of tragic consequences, mosquito’s bowed head is a Dracula courtesy. Gifted with beautiful dark spotty wings, an over supply of operatic legs and a remarkable tube shaped proboscis that serves as a pipe line for blood supply, Akinola had better be prepared for Miss Vicious at night time! In her long career of attrition, the Queen of Blood terminated the lives of St Augustine, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Popes Sixtus V and Urban V11.”

Leo stood his ground. “Akinola is a clergyman and not a scientist. You don’t expect him to discover the cure for malaria, do you?” Fred was still firing. “I don’t expect him to do so in the least but he can help in the public enlightenment aspect of the epidemic. Has Akinola led a campaign to eliminate or regulate marshes; forest waters, river valleys, slums, hollows, mining sites, disused tins and cans, rice farms, uncovered gutters, open sewage systems, open wells and other stagnant water that linked to mosquitoes? Mind you, the Sumerians, the ancient Chinese and observant statesmen like Homer, Aristotle, Plato and Shakespeare journalised the periodic fevers that constitute its trademark. Can’t Akinola and company do that? It was left for Hypocrates, the distinguished Greek physician to discover the special feature of this ailment and make a case for its prevalence to stagnant waters. WW 11 brought forth chloroquine as prophylactic and treatment, a wonder drug that saved lots of lives. But Plasmodium Falcipatirum, the most deadly parasitic specie grew a thick resistance to chloroquine. Severe episodes of the epidemic is unmitigated by fake and substandard drugs; ineffective treatment, poverty, climatic variations and poor health. The WHO says that 90 percent of the three million malaria deaths that occur yearly – out of 300 million cases – happen in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria is the leading cause of under-fives mortality in Africa. Only about five percent of African children are protected against malaria at night. Direct and indirect effect of malaria to Africa now exceeds $2 billion annually, in the opinion of the World Bank. In April 2000, a W.H.O. malaria conference revealed that Africa suffered $100 billion loss of production in thirty years. Economist Jeffrey Sachs observed that people don’t prosper whenever mosquito does. He postulated that malaria prone countries will be twice as wealthy minus this grave affliction.

AIDS is impacting on the workforce and enterprise that creates Africa’s wealth because it kills and aborts valuable skills, thereby dynamiting Africa economically. Women who do three quarters of all agricultural tasks in Africa are being infected more than men, resulting in shortages in food production. Huge sick benefits are often paid out because of AIDS. And fewer workers make health schemes to be emptier and slimmer. AIDS decimates overburdened and underdeveloped health institutions in Africa. Collectively, all these have brought about a significant drop in productivity, investment, training, schooling and GDP. Dysfunctional families are created by AIDS orphan hood. Personal, family, national and continental miseries are some of the dire consequences of the ravaging AIDS bush fire. The International Herald Tribune says that ‘between 1990 and 2005, twenty three African nations were involved in conflicts, and the total cost was about $300 billion.’Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf cries that ‘the price that Africa is paying could lower the cost of solving the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, or provide education, water and prevention and treatment for tuberculosis and malaria’. Tell that to Akinola, the tribune of reaction and intolerance who ought to be the tribune of equity, good governance and justice in his beleaguered continent. Akinola is persecuting gays in the most corrupt continent in the world and he’s pretty ignorant that the crisis in Africa did emanate from HIV/AIDS but from bad governance.

The debilitating effects of corruption includes but is not limited to scaring away would-be investors, poor infrastructure development and maintenance, moral decline, inverted values, low work ethic, poor representative government, pervasive crime and general insecurity. There is a resultant economic instability and the attendant business failures, which accentuate unemployment. Highly skill personnel needed for the development of Nigeria and Africa in engineering, health services, education and ICT especially have left overseas in a massive brain drain. There is galloping inflation resulting in loss of currency value and purchasing power and low exchange rate relative to other currencies. National institutions have been reduced to pitiable conditions virtually siphoning public funds. The African Union AU; says that graft costs the continent one hundred and fifty billion dollars {$150 billion} annually in increased costs of goods. Tell that to Akinola and company! What did Archbishop Akinola do when abominable kleptomaniacs like Mobutu and evils like apartheid South Africa during the Cold War were encouraged by the West to blithe their economies and black citizens respectively for being simply ‘our son of a bitch.’ Between 1970 and 2002, Africa received from the G8 about $530 billion in loans, sub-Saharan Africa’s share of it was $290 billion. The continent repaid $540 billion, of which sub-Saharan Africa coughed out $280 billion. Though it still owes about $300 billion accruals from interest, penalties, administrative and banking charges, the continent sent more money to the G8 than it received. Many of these questionable loans were contracted by unclean despots during the Cold War periods.

Kickbacks, dubious commissions and consultancies to benefiting western companies were a marked feature of these transactions. Many were tied on specified goods and services from designated companies and countries that were unsuited to the needs of the supposed beneficiaries. A lot were military loans that never added to the development of the recipient nations. The result today is that Africa remains a monolithic and monument of corruption without exception.

With the rare exception of South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Ghana, sufferings, deprivations, torture, genocide and human rights abuses occur daily and greatly in Africa right under Akinola’s watch. What has he done about it? Kwame Nkrumah, father of Ghanaian independence, one of Africa’s enduring legends and an early advocate of African integration thundered in 1962 that ‘we would rather misgovern ourselves than be governed properly by others.’ True to his wishes, monumental malfeasance had been the ugly lot of Africa and Africans.

The depth and span of its existence in Nigeria is understandably of great concern to all but Akinola. By 1999, all studies and indicators by local and international experts showed the level of corruption to be alarming. The presidency in the immediate past administration in Nigeria was indicted of corrupt practices by competent Senate Committees. Four governors in the same administration are facing charges while two were successfully prosecuted and jailed.

A former Inspector General of Police was convicted for gross corrupt acts. On Wednesday 25^th July 2007, the United States Department of Justice said $6 million (N767.4 million) bribe was allegedly divided between the staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC, its subsidiary company NAPIMS and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party PDP, from the contract of $387 million Eastern Gas Gathering System Project won by US oil services firm Wilbros International.

The same firm also paid out $10.5 million to settle a securities class-action law suit accusing it of bribing Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Nigerian government officials. “One South-South governor was accused of laundering 1 million pounds sterling in the UK. Awaiting trial in a British court, he returned to Nigeria under contentious circumstances. But he was not the first to flee from British law. His Middle Belt colleague was accused of laundering N1.26 billion, $110,000 and 20,000 pounds sterling in the UK. He jumped bail and returned to Nigeria, to face more charges. A North Central colleague allegedly pilfered N33 billion according to the EFCC, of which N17 billion was signed away in one day in what must enter the Guinness Book of Records as the highest daily pay cheque!

Please tell Archbishop Akinola and religious company in Nigeria that they have serious work to do other than worry about gays. Except for General Yakubu Gowon, Chief Ernest Shonekan and General Muhammadu Buhari, no Nigerian head of state got a clean bill of health on corruption charges. The jury is still out on Yar Adua though he is widely seen as clean by reason of his performance as a governor. The late General Sanni Abacha excelled in corruption. A respected international agency said the Gypsy’s loot amounted to a stolen wealth of about $5 billion, making him to be among the ten most corrupt leaders extinct. Corruption is all but the surname of General Babangida. He has never successful dispelled public view that he fretted away the nation’s $18 billion Gulf oil windfall.

His 50-room Hill Top luxury mansion offends not a few. The novel murder of top journalist Dele Giwa and the plane crash which took the lives of the cream of the middle level officers in the armed forces are eloquently laid at his feet. In 2005, Nuhu Ribadu the former the head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC; Nigeria’s ailing anti-corruption agency said that his nation’s past rulers stole or misused two hundred and twenty billion pounds {220 billion} from independence.

One can then understand why the Economist newspaper concluded that Nigerians have a ‘sunny and tolerant mentality towards corruption.’ Transparency International Index ranked Nigeria the most corrupt country in the whole world in 1996, 1997 and 2000, the most corrupt in 1999, 2001 to 2003, third most corrupt in 2004-2005, fourth most corrupt in 1998 and the fifth most corrupt in 2006.

During the period under consideration, Nigeria’s Corruption Perception Index CPI, score snaked from an unforgivable 0.69 to a shameful 2.2 (only attained in 2006) from a possible score of 10. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo almost faced impeachment on corruption charges by the National Assembly in 2002. The House of Representatives approved a motion for that purpose. Hon. Mohammed Kumalia who got 86 representatives on the motion fumed that ‘by reason of monumental inadequacies, persistent disrespect for the rule of law and the obvious corruption being perpetrated in the presidency which exposes Mr. President’s inability to steer the ship of state as its president, Mr. President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is hereby advised to resign honourably as President and C-I-C of the Federal Republic of Nigeria two weeks from the date of this motion or face impeachment.’ Obasanjo is widely vilified for selling off choice national assets to his cronies under questionable sums and circumstances, some of which have been reversed by his successor President Yar Adua. Nigeria is omitted from the beneficiary states of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) funding, sponsored by an independent US government corporation ---- the MC Corporation.

It was established to assist developing countries that have demonstrated a high level commitment towards promoting good governance, generating economic growth and fighting corruption, investing in education and health, promoting civil liberties and the rule of law. Tell Akinola to get busy ridding his country of gross corruption than worrying himself about the activities of gaydom which is not responsible for Africa’s blithe!”

Tammy recovered from Fred’s long tirade and probed, “let me ask you just this once: have you ever thought of becoming a Christian? I mean, did you ever give it a thought?” Fred was pensive. “Hmm! I must level up with you but for your ears only! Yes, I have thought about, talked about it and almost became one but didn’t. And why did you recoil from becoming a believer, if I may ask? Think of me this way, a prominent figure in the gay community, with power, influence, authority and brand name recognition. I lead a movement that’s on the cutting edge of new thinking. Why throw all that away for a nondescript fictional Jesus? If I get born again, what will be my gain?”

Tammy gave an honest answer. “I have no reliable answer; you know that I am not a convert, as it were. But I am intrigued by the challenge Christianity posed to two men of great renown. St Brandon had earnestly sought to make a convert out of King Broda of Scotland. And the king asked him: ‘if I accept your gospel and become Christ’s man, what can I expect to find?’

St Brandon replied without a second’s hesitation: ‘If you accept my gospel and become Christ’s man, you will stumble upon wonder upon wonder and every wonder true.’ That, to my mind, is what you will uncover as a Christian!” Fred’s moved to regain control of the conversation. “If I decide to, indeed, like we have decided, to give the gay community a worshipful god, what will be your reaction?” Tammy was non-committal.

“What’s my business if you enthrone a god for your community? You who issued the threat should worry about its fulfilment; otherwise you will be numbered among the rank of false prophets, and listed among successful failures. Please remember that Thomas Carlyle scoffed at French thinker Auguste Comte’s threat to replace Christianity with another religion: ‘Very good. All you will have to do is to be crucified, rise again the third day, and get the world to believe you are still alive. Then your religion will have a chance.’ That, to my mind, should be your business model!

Historian, freelance journalist and writer, Pastor Joseph Emeka Anumbor is the author of THE INTERCOURSE OF TROUBLED THOUGHTS, a critically acclaimed discourse on homosexuality published by AuthorHouse Inc, Indiana, USA