read stories. There is this one about a
lady who was a prostitute. She did her
job so well and for so long. It also
meant that she had to undergo a lot of
abortions. At one point she decided to
undergo a full hysterectomy to avoid
any need for further abortions. The
doctors indulged her after getting her
to sign the consent. One of the lines on
the consent form said she agreed that
she would never have a baby again.
Along the way, as these stories go, she
got redeemed. She accepted Christ and
became born again. Her new passion for
Christ found favor in the heart of the
dashing pastor of her new age church.
In no time, the pastor proposed to her.
She was reluctant to accept, for obvious
reasons.
The pastor insisted that God spoke to
him to marry her. She asked the pastor
to check again for he must have
misunderstood what God said. After
going back and forth with the pastor
insisting that he heard God well, she
told the pastor that her womb had
been taken out.
"No problem," the pastor said. "I'll still
marry you."
They got married. Lo and behold,
before you could say honeymoon over
she became pregnant. And that was
when the story became interesting.
She returned to the doctor that
removed her womb and reported that
she was pregnant. After a natural bout
of dismissal and doubts, the doctor did a
pregnancy test and as the story put it,
"to his greatest surprisation" the pastor
discovered that the woman was
pregnant for real.
To crown it all, on the ninth month, she
gave birth to a baby. Not just any baby -
the lady gave birth to the gold standard
baby - "a bouncing baby boy."
I know. By now your heart has melted
like a spoon of butter left in the sun.
And that's when the peddlers of this
tale finally strike. They now say to you
in upper case:
"IT WAS THE GRACE, FAVOUR AND
MERCY OF GOD that the prostitute
could have a child. Therefore, I decree
upon your life that whatsoever that has
or might have damaged in your life, in
your body, in your skills, your career,
your academics, your business, MAY THE
FAVOUR, MERCY, GRACE AND MIRACLE
OF GOD LOCATE YOU. YOU TYPE AMEN
TO THIS PRAYER, IN JESUS MIGHTY
NAME, AMEN. My brothers and sisters,
God still does this kind of miracles, just
write "Amen" and share this story to
your friends, you will see GOD perform
a Miracle in your life today!!!"
Immediately, thousands of our
compatriots rush to type Amen. If it is
the one that urges you to forward the
tale to 60 friends in six minutes so that
Bill Gates will drop an iPad under your
pillow, thousands of us will do so.
Nobody pauses to ask simple questions.
Like, where will a fertilized egg get
implanted on when the uterus, the
fallopian tubes, the ovaries and the
cervix were taken out during
hysterectomy? Even in a partial
hysterectomy, if fertilized egg is not
self-aborted before the woman knows
she's pregnant, it gets attached to the
other organs of the abdomen or the
walls of one of the fallopian tubes,
immediately putting the life of the
mother in danger. Gynecologists and
obstetricians often remove such rare
fetuses. Unless a didelphic uterus is
involved, hysterectomy is as good as
sterility.
Those are the questions we should be
asking and not singing, Amen. But trust
us, Nigerians! We long for signs and
wonders in place of reason and proof.
President Goodluck Jonathan knows
this. And that's why his handlers have
designed a strategy that will keep him
in Aso Rock until 2019. That strategy is
very simple: show the people their
miserable lives and point to them the
people to blame for it. That's how
elections are typically won. In the case
of Jonathan, he has crafted the people
to blame – others.
Even though the presidency just issued
a book, "The Reforms that have
transformed Nigeria (2010-2013)," they
are not basing the upcoming campaign
on highlighting the various
achievements listed in the book which
they claim has made the lives of
Nigerians more meaningful. Instead,
they want you to just write Amen.
The ethno-religious reality of Nigeria
has made it very simple for the
president. The safe zones of the
president are the South-South and the
South East, the Middle Belt and the
Christian North. The only region at play
in the 2015 election is the South West.
The Jonathan-Sambo ticket's only path
into the South West is through the
church. The president has to grab 40%
of the votes in the South West to win
the election.
The opposition party, the APC is placed
in a difficult position by this reality. The
party also needs the South West vote to
win. To get a significant number of the
South West vote, the party has to juggle
some complex parameters.
First, on the biggest masquerade in APC
- General Buhari. A good analogy of his
political fortune can be deduced from
that of Emeka Ojukwu when he
returned from exile in 1982. On
Ojukwu's return, an analyst said that, "if
Ojukwu joins NPN, NPN is finished and if
he joins NPP, NPP is finished." Looking
at the 2015 elections, the feelers out
there is that the fate of APC is to a large
extent dependent on whether Buhari
runs or not. If he runs, APC is finished
and if he doesn't run, APC is finished.
This thinking is based on the calculation
that no matter how much President
Jonathan screws up, Buhari cannot
overcome the fair or unfair negative
perceptions of him in some parts of the
south. Some potential northern
candidates are using this argument to
keep Buhari from contesting at all.
The APC can pick a South West
candidate for president. To ensure that
the candidate has a chance up north, he
or she must be a Muslim. The other
alternative is to pick a Northern
candidate for president and then pick a
South West candidate for vice
president. In this permutation, the only
viable candidate from the South West
with the kind of crossover appeal is
Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State. But
the Northern candidate cannot be a
Muslim, too. Otherwise that will play
into the hands of Jonathan and his PDP
group already tagging APC a Muslim
party.
If Fashola is the presidential candidate,
he could deliver the South West votes
but will the North line up behind him in
the numbers needed to deflate
Jonathan's inroad into the North via the
Middlebelt and the Christian North? If
Fashola is the vice-presidential
candidate which northern candidate at
the head of the ticket will inspire
enough confidence in the South West to
secure over 70% of the votes there?
Buhari did not in 2011 and he will not
do so in 2015.
That is why Jonathan's only challenge in
these permutations is to squeeze out
40% of the South West vote,
irrespective of the candidate APC will
come up with. And the only way to do
so is to carry the bible and the cross
until election time.
And once the bible and the cross come
out, like in the story of the prostitute, it
is miracle and grace that follows not
logic and reason. Objectivity disappears.
Empirical evidence becomes irrelevant.
Amen stands upon other Amen until the
ladder climbs up to heaven under the
whirlwind of promises.
Written by Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo
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