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M
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APC's "broom of destruction"
WHEN my senior brother
and friend,Dr. Femi
Aribisala wrote on "APC and the
spirit of witchcraft " in this
newspaper on September 6,
2015, the land was still too filled
with delusional euphoria to pay
him due attention.
He started by calling attention
to what happened on
November 27, 2014, at the
inauguration of Rauf
Aregbesola as second-term
governor of Osun State, where
Senator Bola Tinubu, National
Leader of the APC, asked
Nigerians to prepare their
charms and other juju powers
for the 2015 elections with now
President Muhammadu
Buhari, Chief Bisi Akande and
APC state governors in
attendance. He asked: 'Why
would Tinubu, a practicing
Muslim(he has even been
nicknamed Abraham by GO
Enoch Adeboye)ask people to
seek occultic powers in order to
prevail in elections? He was
also at loss as to how Prof. Yemi
Osinbajo, a Christian pastor
could associate with a political
party whose leadership dabbles
in the occult?
He went on to show how the
broom symbol of the defunct
ACN which was adopted as the
logo of the APC is a witchcraft
symbol believed by cultists to
provide the power to rise above
the earthly plane and to soar in
the spirit realm.
He also pointed out that when
a broom is held over the head
the way APC leaders hold it
over us,it is no longer about
sweeping dirt but spreading
evil.
The last poignant point he
made which I shall return to is
the deeper symbol of the broom
when he wrote:"The broom is
united at the top and this would
seem to signify unity. However,
it is scattered at the bottom,
which spells disunity. With the
scattered end waved in the air,
the APC broom portends
disunity for Nigeria, both at the
party and at the national level."
It was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
who again brought out the evil
significance of the APC's broom
when he spoke from the
abundance of the heart at the
defection ceremony of Godswill
Akpabio in Ikot Epene last
Wednesday.
William Shakespeare wrote in
The Merchant of Venice about
things not being what they
appear thus:
"The devil can cite Scripture
for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy
witness
Is like a villain with a smiling
cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the
heart.
Oh, what a goodly outside
falsehood hath!"
Quoting what appears to be a
passage from the Bible’s Book
of Isaiah Chapter 14 verse 23,
Tinubu, a Muslim, said “The
people in the city shall be swept
away with brooms.’’ In what
could be a Freudian slip of what
they are doing with the broom
and that he was holding a "a
broom of destruction " in his
hand.
The Bible verse actually reads,
“I will make Babylon a desolate
place of owls, filled with
swamps and marshes. I will
sweep the land with the broom
of destruction. I, the LORD of
Heaven’s Armies, have
spoken!” (New Living
Translation).
He obviously did not read the
scripture as what the Lord of
hosts promised of the "broom of
destruction " was against the
wicked rulers of Babylon.Verses
3-7 of that Scripture was so
explicit:
"3-4 When God has given you
time to recover from the abuse
and trouble and harsh servitude
that you had to endure, you can
amuse yourselves by taking up
this satire, a taunt against the
king of Babylon:
We are today more
separated than we
were before
amalgamation in
1914 because of
the antics of a
leadership that
thrives in pitching
Nigerians against
themselves
4-6
Can you believe it? The tyrant
is gone!
The tyranny is over!
God has broken the rule of the
wicked,
the power of the bullyrulers
That crushed many people.
A relentless rain of cruel
outrage
Established a violent rule of
anger
rife with torture and
persecution.
7
And "now it’s over, the whole
earth quietly at rest.
Burst into song! Make the
rafters ring!" (The Message
Translation).
The flaunting of the power of
the occult over our land in the
midst of the "destruction " that
has been visited us in the last
three years should be a wake -
up call to Nigerians. Our land
is desolate,blood is flowing on
our streets without a war
declared and we have become
one big graveyard. The moral
fabric of our polity has been put
asunder. We are at the edge of
a major precipice, as evil strolls
on four legs in our country.
The division Aribisala
projected about the broom has
come to full manifestation with
the split in APC and our country
fractured badly along ethnic
amid religious lines. We are
today more separated than we
were before amalgamation in
1914 because of the antics of a
leadership that thrives in
pitching Nigerians against
themselves.
My ears have heard so many
things in the last few years from
those who knew how strong evil
powers were tapped into to
subjugate this land. I have
been told of the devilish
package from the marabouts of
Gambia and all that were buried
across the land with their
various spiritual repercussions
for the nation. People who have
no business in public life have
been thrown up in our space
only on account of
administering evil powers for
political purposes.The physical
darkness over our land is a
reflection of the pitch darkness
that controls the soul of this
country.
The records of European
witches trials from 15th Century
showed that one of the witches'
magical power was an
upstanding broom. Magically
the broom remains a witches'
strong implement and the APC
should reconsider flaunting
such over our country in order
to remove the suspicion that it
is tapping into the powers of the
occult to manipulate the polity.
The spiritual fathers of this
country have to rise in the spirit
to exorcise the power of evil on
our entity.
.
Feedback
DEAR Yinka Odumakin,
My name is Emeka Ukpabi
and I am an ardent reader
of your column in
Vanguard Newspaper.
Recent events, relating to the
leadership of the National
Assembly, has proved
prescient, an article I wrote
in 2011, titled 'The Peoples
House'. That History has
already repeated itself, but
Buhari and his APC are in
danger of repeating not only
the recent history, but the
ancient history as well. I will be
honored if you would share this
article with your readers, on
your column.
Yours faithfully,
Prince Emeka Ukpabi
The Peoples' House
By Emeka Ukpabi
First Published June 29, 2011
THE last leadership
election of the Seventh
Nigerian House of
Representatives completes a
revolutionary cycle started
weeks earlier, by the
presidential poll. The linchpin
of the latter competition,
Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, said
as much when he declared, in
a recent interview, that he and
his deputy, Hon. Emeka
Ihedioha, were inspired by
President Goodluck Jonathan to
contest, despite the apparent
constraints. To the casual
observer, the deeper
significance of Speaker Aminu
Tambuwal’s advent is lost, and
inadvertently so is the weight
of history upon the 7th
Assembly.
However, history will not be
denied and insists we remember
the two leading lights of the
Seventh Legislative Assemblies
and Senate of ancient Rome,
Lucius Junius Brutus and
Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus,
who started the revolution that
toppled the Roman Monarchy,
which had lasted an
approximate unbroken 245
years, in 509 BC. Titus Livy, the
ancient Roman historian (59 BC
– AD 17), records in the ‘History
of Rome’ that it was the
unbridled misuse of absolute
monarchial powers, by the
Seventh and final king of
Rome, Lucius Tarquinius
Superbus, which presaged the
end of the ‘Roman Kingdom’
and the beginning of the
‘Roman Republic’. According to
Livy, the crimes of the King
included; “summary judgment
and sentence, the use of
intimidation and violence,
arrogance, disrespect for
Roman customs and contempt
for the Roman Legislative
Assemblies and Senate”.
Arnold J. Toynbee, the British
Comparative historian, in ‘An
Historian’s Approach to
Religion’, posits that when a
movement faces a crisis, it can
take one of four routes. First, it
can dwell on the past and glory
in what it once was. Toynbee
calls that ‘Archaism’. Second, it
can forecast into the future and
build castles in the air,
dreaming of what it would like
to be. That he calls ‘Futurism’.
Third, it can retreat into its shell,
and give itself up to mystical and
psychedelic experiences. This
he calls ‘Mysticism’. Fourth, it
can take a hold of the crisis,
transform it into something
positive and make a new
beginning. Toynbee calls this
‘Reformation’. Toynbee says
that only the last solution settles
the crisis; the rest, he claims,
are short-lived.
Consequently, as ancient
Rome stood at the precipice,
Lucius Junius Brutus, elected
‘Tribune’ at the time, whose
powers included the authority
to convene the Legislative
Assemblies and act as its
president, took a hold of the
crisis, overturning the old order,
and introducing the ‘Roman
Republic’, which Livy says
“flourished for the next 500
years until the rise of Julius
Caesar and Caesar Augustus”,
and covered a period during
which Rome’s sphere of
influence and area of control
extended to cover huge parts of
Europe, North Africa, and the
Middle East.
Brutus was a leader who
wrought transformation in the
name of the people of ancient
Rome, and one of his first
actions, as Consul, was to make
the people swear an oath, which
according to Livy “compelled
the populace, eager for its new
found freedom, with the oath
that it should never again allow
itself be swayed by royal
entreaties or bribes, and shall
allow no single man to rule over
Rome”.
Sound familiar? Yes; because
comparable words were used by
Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, in
the recent interview mentioned
earlier, published in The Nation
newspaper edition of Friday,
June 24, viz: “I will not be a tool,
stooge, or agent of
intimidation…”, and “this
House (House of
Representatives) will acquire
the image of the ‘Peoples
House’ because it is
representative of all Nigerians”.
Chikwendu Christian
Ukaegbu, Professor of Sociology
Development, Northwestern
University, Evanston, Illinois, in
a recent essay, ‘What Next for
Nigeria’s development’,
highlights the responsibility
borne by the new governing
class elected in the 2011
elections, as the vanguard of the
urgent national development
aspirations of the populace, in
this second 50 year chapter of
Nigeria’s independence. In
describing these leaders as an
epochal class, he declares that
they should be “proactive,
interventionist, ambitious,
autonomous, and energetic in
the implementation and
supervision of policies. That
they should have a vision of
where they want to lead the
country, and situate
development policies within
their unique history, borrowing
relevant models from outsiders
rather than depending on them.
That they should use national
revenue to solve the people’s
problems and invoke integrity
and honesty in the allocation of
public resources, and trust the
ability of citizens to build the
foundations of national
development if given proper
leadership”.
This is what Lucius Junius
Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius
Collatinus were and did, and
we are confident that Aminu
Tambuwal and Emeka Ihedioha
stand at the right place on the
crossroads of history, to be and
do exactly the same.