This Land of my Birthright

The land of silk and hefty money,
Flowın’ with milk and plenty honey;
Of finest wine
From celestial vine;
Blessed with soil
Rich in rock oil,
Is this land of my birthright.

The land of no din,
Where every man a kin

And none put on the spin;
The place of glory
Where virtue did tarry
Is this land of my birthright.

Piety, pacifism, pluralism proclaimed the
Patriarchs of this tropical paradise;
Cohesion, conciliation, conscience
The core of their creeds;
High-minded heroes who held high
The hard line of honesty
In this land of my birthright.

Alas! my land is now home to the deprived:
See how scores scramble for a loaf!
Men of valour
Livin’ in squalour,
Their lives dipped in misery
Like they never made history
In this land of my birthright.

Pity the land of unity to
A battlefield turned,
Cains slayin’ Abels in a
Land whose flag a symbol of peace.

Worse, worse than Sodom,
Tyranny is king,
Folly his adviser;
Corruption is the treasurer;
Gay is the lawmaker,
Lawlessness at its nadir,
In this land of my birthright.

One prayer I have O God;
Grant it me so I shall a happy soul die:

Help me a Nehemiah to be,
So my name shall never perish
In this land of my birthright.Top of FormB

Like a Vortex

Countless souls are eternally forgotten the very moment they are gone. Not Sir Isaac Newton! Generations will always remember this formidable mind of extraordinary genius. His work helped push back the frontiers of Physics and Mathematics. Newton is regarded as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived.

In classical mechanics, Newton’s third law of motion states: ‘For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.’ It means that if an object A exerts a force of say, 5N, on another object B, B also exerts equal magnitude of force (in this case, 5N) on A, in order to offset the force from A. In this example, the force from A is the action, while that from B is the reaction.

This law explains why a swimmer is able to swim. As the swimmer pushes the water backwards with a certain force, the water molecules too propel them with the same amount of force and in the opposite direction (that is, forwards); hence, the harder they push the faster they swim.

Perhaps you’ve ever been an eye-witness to a crash scene. Suddenly a speeding Hyundai Accent hurtled off the roadway and collided head-on with a stationary car of the same make and type. You must have noticed that both cars were damaged, and not only the parked one. This seems very anomalous. The first car shouldn’t have been wrecked at all.

Again, Newton’s law can be used to explain the apparent anomaly. When the racing car collided with the other one, it impacted a certain amount force on it. It too impacted equal magnitude of force on the first car, so as to counterbalance the one it received. That’s why both vehicles were damaged.

A jet engine operates on the application of Newton’s third law of motion. The engine burns a mixture of air and fuel at the front. The gases then gush out through a nozzle at the back of the engine. Thus as the gas jets move backwards they thrust the aircraft forwards.

What lesson can we glean from the law of action and reaction? It reminds us of one universal law: you reap what you sow. Right on from when I could discern right from wrong, I’ve never seen or heard of a farmer who planted rice in his field and tomato germinated instead; neither have I ever read that in history books. No, it doesn’t work that way. A man reaps whatever he sows. If he sows wheat he’ll surely harvest same, not pumpkin or apple or cucumber. This is as sure as anything.

Newton’s law echoes the fact that whatever we do has its reward. It reminds us that for every effect there’s always a cause. What we do today is a viable seed that germinates in the future. We can’t defy the law of Karma as much as we can’t run away from our own shadows.

The contemporary society is increasingly leaning towards liberalism. We’ve now got lots of rights and freedoms for our enjoyment. Society tells us we can do whatever we like, so far this is legal and doesn’t infringe on the rights of others.

But in all we do we should always remember payback time. Liberalism may offer us unlimited choices, but it can never protect us from the consequences of those choices. If you sow the seed of immorality you’ll reap spiritual decay. When you sow iniquity you reap the wind. Sow the seed of corruption and have a harvest of destruction. If you show love you’ll reap kindness. There’s no escape from the reward for every work on earth, whether good or evil.

Time doesn’t affect the reward for every deed under the sun. Your payback time may not be today or next year or 2017; it may even not come during your lifetime, but it will surely come one day. Rewards for our actions are like a vortex―we can never avoid them!

In Bible times, King Adoni-bezek achieved notoriety for cutting the thumbs and big toes of his captives. He too suffered the same fate in the hands of his captors. ‘“I have treated seventy kings in this same manner and have fed them the scraps under my table!”‘ King Adoni-bezek remarked. ‘“Now God has paid me back.”‘ What a fitting reward!

One day, a man discovered that the water he’d just drunk from contained faecal deposits. His son was the brain behind that terrible deed. When the father could have punished the child he recalled that he too had done exactly the same thing to his own dad. ‘A perfect reward!’ you say.

The moral of these two story is clear: Humans can choose to behave anyhow, but they can’t avoid the consequences of their actions. Everyone will reap what they sow. No one can rebut this simple truth as well as they can’t refute Newton’s law of action and reaction.

If Death Comes Now...

As a kid I had this bizarre notion of children being free from death. I supposed that dying was something meant exclusively for adults and the aged. How mistaken I’d been!

Soon I discovered that my idealised view just didn’t square with reality. Infant mortality quickly showed me that the enemy called Death doesn’t discriminate on the basis of age. Also, cases of miscarriage drummed it into my head that an unborn child is ‘dieable’ as soon as conception takes place.

Get yourself a local newspaper. What says the first obituary you see? Does it not say that one Mrs Dorothy Shaw died at 37? Didn’t the Dansvilles in your neighbourhood lose their teen child last year? Didn’t Alexander the Great, Jim Reeves, Whitney Houston, Aaliyah, Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro all pass on in their prime? All these are proof that Death is no respecter of age.

Death is the most irrational of all. It strikes blindly. Death doesn’t always respect our desire to live a hundred years or more. It ignores a doddery centenarian and takes away a boisterous six-year-old. That’s why people often portray Death as the Grim Reaper.

Many people hate to discuss the subject of death. They even shudder at the prospect of dying. But the grim reality is we’ll all die some day. Death is the ultimate destiny of all life. David in the Bible called it ‘the way of all the earth’ (1 Kings 2:2).

Saddest of all, Death sometimes comes for us when we don’t expect it. One woman slumped to the ground and died in the middle of a procession. One of my church leaders once passed away while reading his Bible in his room. You too could die before tomorrow. I could be gone before you’re done reading this post. I know telling you this really sucks, but isn’t that a fact of life?

So I think your worst fear shouldn’t be whether you could die today but what happens to you if you actually do? Are you fully prepared to meet your deadline? If you breathed your last this very hour, to which side of eternity would you go? Would you make it? Would there be a welcome song for you at the celestial shore?

Unfortunately, billions of people around the world journey through life without thinking about death. Instead, they are engaged in desperate pursuit of worldly things. They want to get more money so they can ride the best cars and buy bigger mansions. They believe they can start thinking about death when they reach 75 years and above. Such people are deluded for two reasons.

First, they don’t know for sure if they will see the light of the next day, not to talk of living for the next five, eight or fifteen years. Death can come for them ANYTIME. James 4:13-14 says, ‘Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.’

Second, the material things which preoccupy these people today will ultimately prove worthless. One may idolise money while on this side of life, but a time will come when such a one is given every note there is, they won’t be able to spend it. In the end, it doesn’t matter whether one dies old or young, naturally or tragically, rich or poor, happy or sad, fulfilled or frustrated; it only matters where one stands before the Creator. ‘For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’ (Matthew 16:26).

Dear friend, do you want to wait until you reach 70 or 90 or 100 before you begin to think about death? Surely you’re in great danger because your life might be required of you tonight. Now is the best time to decide where you’ll spend eternity―delay could be costly.

The Futility of Religion

Religion has obviously failed to draw mankind an inch closer to God. It has instead occasioned bloodshed which hasn’t in anyway benefitted any individual or group. Can any statistician give the exact number of casualties during Russian pogroms, the Reformation and the Crusades? Over the years, religion has proven not to be a strong force for peace but in fact a barrier to peace. No wonder Carlespie McKinney wrote: ‘Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, controls people, deludes people.’

Read any newspaper. Listen to the radio. Turn on your TV set. What news reports appal you most and make you wish you were an alien living on the Moon? Likely they are those which speak of religious violence. Terrorism, which I believe is religion-motivated, has become a global trend afflicting modern society.

Almost everyday, the media inundates us with sickening reports on how extremists hide under the cloak of religion to commit heinous crimes against God and humanity. I was watching the news while preparing to write this post. Interestingly, the foreign scene segment of the programme broadcast a footage showing the wreckage of the US consulate which had been blown up in Benghazi, Libya. The attack was triggered by the release in America of a film which purportedly insulted the Prophet Mohammed. Four Americans were killed in the attack, including the US ambassador.

Fear of terrorists has made it real hard for us to walk in the street without suspicion. And believe me, such a fear is legitimate. The person beside you on board a bus or the train, at the bus stop, in the hotel lobby, at the amusement park, at tourist centres and other public places might be a suicide bomber. Statistics would even fail to quantify the bereavement terrorists have exacted on homes and nations.

Ironically, the more places of worship proliferate across the globe the more depraved humans tend to become. Yes, the more we seek to know the Creator through religion the more we actually alienate ourselves from Him through immoral lifestyles. Moral decadence has become a despicable hallmark of modern society. We’ve overcome our moral scruples and have begun to celebrate everything―music, shows, books, Web sites, magazines, cultures, ideas, lifestyles―which not only promotes immorality but also both heightens and glamorises it. Morally speaking, the 21st-century society is a chaos of crumbled walls. Society’s drift into the depths of moral depravity is proof that having countless faith-based organisations all around us isn’t a yardstick of godliness.

Over 55% of the world’s population are religious. These have established moral codes which guide their daily conduct. Still society today is steeped in vices. Can we say that religion has been able to keep humans on the straight and narrow?

In this country, we’re very religious but not godly. Churches and mosques dot the nooks and crannies of our streets. On Sundays, economic activities come to a standstill as Christians go to church. During the week they also hold several vigils. Similarly on Fridays, Muslims troop out in millions to worship Allah.

Despite our religiosity however, our attitudes towards one another are nothing to be proud of. Corruption and other vices have pervaded all levels of our national life. Sorry to say, our leaders, though very religious, are simply despicable. They generally are selfish, greedy, rapacious, wicked and insensitive to the plight of the masses. They stash public funds at the expense of the people.

The even more religious people are mere hypocrites. We’re unjust in all our dealings. We cheat, oppress, exploit and lie to ourselves. In summary, our evil attitudes belie our professions.

In a show of great ignorance, we slaughter one another all in the name of religion. Muslims and Christians in the country clash frequently and several souls are sent to early graves. The more volatile North has earned a ‘reputation’ as the hub of religious conflict. There Muslims kill Christians in their hundreds and vice versa. By so doing we throw several homes into grief. Thus we practise what negates our beliefs and true humanity. What a barbaric inclination!

Dear compatriots, it’s time we emancipated ourselves from the grip of spiritual darkness. Our religions are predicated on love, peace, tolerance, discipline, self-control, and above all, regard for the sacred gift of life. So let’s bury our religious differences, beat our swords into ploughshares and eschew violence. It’s only then we can record any meaningful national growth and development. Let’s remember that the maxim ‘United, we stand; divided, we fall’ always holds true for us.

All of us are caught up in a tangled web of an inescapable destiny. Our religious differences are too weak to separate us from this destiny. What affects one of us directly affects all of us indirectly. A threat to an Igala man in the North is a threat to all; whatever smothers the existence of the Ijaws in the South smothers our national existence. Therefore, let’s learn to coexist despite our cultural and religious diversities. Now is the time to realise that any religious service that’s devoid of respect for the human life is absolute futility and will get us nowhere as a nation. God bless our country.

Quotes on this subject
Men never commit evil so fully and so joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions
―Blaise Pascal

Of all tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion has been the worst
―Thomas Paine

The most heinous crimes have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives
―Mahatma Gandhi

Lessons from Cynthia’s Murder

The family and friends of Cynthia Osokogu wouldn’t forget the 22nd of July this year in a hurry. Perhaps that day would remain indelibly etched on their hearts. It was on that dreary Sunday two cousins snuffed life out of Cynthia. Cynthia was the daughter of one retired Major General Frank Nwafor Osokogu.

According to news reports, Cynthia had left Nassarawa state for Lagos state the day before she was murdered. She went on that trip in order to stock up her Nassarawa-based boutique. At the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Cynthia was welcomed by friends she’d met on Facebook. Then they lodged her at one hotel around FESTAC.

Poor trusting Cynthia! She hurried into danger like a lamb to the slaughter. It turned out that Cynthia’s hosts were hardened criminals who specialised in robbing innocent and unsuspecting women. They drugged her Ribena drink with Rohypnol, a powerful sedative. This they did in order to easily dispossess Cynthia of valuables such as money, international passport, shoes, and mobile phones. However, the drug seemed not to be very effective on the girl. The bastards therefore went angry and violent. They chained their victim, sealed her mouth with Sellotape, and beat her to death.

Meanwhile, Cynthia’s family had declared her missing. Distraught friends and concerned neighbours circulated news of her disappearance on Facebook, h

oping that someone would know her whereabouts. No one had an inkling that Cynthia had been gruesomely killed. Her corpse was eventually found in the mortuary at Isolo General Hospital.

When informed of the crime, detectives from Area E Command of the Nigerian Police commenced investigation immediately. Footage from the CCTV of the hotel where Cynthia had lodged helped the police identify the culprits. The suspects were eventually arrested. They have confessed to having committed the crime. They currently face trial in a Lagos court.

Cynthia, 24, was the only female child of her parents. She was a postgraduate student of Nassarawa State University. Until the time of her sad demise, Cynthia owned and managed a boutique in Nassarawa state. Reportedly, the Delta-state-born girl had promised her mom that she’d bring home her fiancé before the end of August. Sadly however, Cynthia didn’t live to see August.

Cynthia’s murder is a sad reminder for Internet users the need to use social networking sites (SNSs) with great caution. Granted, SNSs are a great place to socialise and catch fun. The services enable users to share interests, ideas, activities, and events; to upload and share photos; to upload or stream live videos; to create forum topics; to chat and play games; to meet up with new friends; and to find old ones. It’s always fun to be on SNSs such as Facebook, Twitter, G+, MySpace, LinkedIn, Netlog, Ning, Meetup. Trust me, there’s never a dull moment on SNSs.

However, SNSs aren’t always a safe place to be. The Internet is awash with criminal minds who seek whom to take advantage of. For instance, one online article cites one news programme which itself quoted one authority as saying that there were ‘as many as 50, 000 sexual predators online at any given moment’ as at January 2006. Because plenty people use SNSs, unscrupulous minds use these sites as a

n avenue to locate their targets. And sadly like Cynthia, many people have fallen under the sway of criminals on the Internet.

Not so long ago, the story of Funmi (not real name) made newspaper headlines. NDLEA officials had arrested Funmi at a post office. The parcel she’d come to collect contained an illegal drug. When interrogated, Funmi confessed that it was her Facebook friend who sent the parcel to her from the UK. The ‘friend’ wanted Funmi to deliver the parcel to someone she didn’t know.

You can stay out of trouble by avoiding the costly mistake Cynthia and Funmi made. Never arrange a rendezvous with someone you met on the Web. No matter how hard the stranger presses you to meet with them in person and one-to-one, always muster the courage to say no. In addition, never give out personal information such as home address, office address, school address, your location at a specific time, mobile number, e-mail address, BB pin to total strangers. Remember to always turn on your privacy controls, so that unauthorised persons won’t have access to your profile.

The shocking stats below underline the importance of not sharing personal information on SNSs.

‘In 82% of online sex crimes against minors, the offenders used the victim’s social networking site to gain information about the victim’s likes and dislikes’

‘65% of online sex offendors used the victim’s social networking site to gain home and school information about the victim’

‘26% of online sex offendors used the victim’s social networking site to gain information about the victim’s whereabouts at a specific time’

―Journal of Adolescent Health 47, 2010

Learn a valuable lesson from Cynthia’s death. The ‘friend’ you spend plenty of time chatting with may be a sexual predator hoping to molest you some day. Always remember never to sacrifice your personal safety on the altar of pleasure. Be wise. Don’t let your story become a lesson for others. ‘Shine’ your eyes.

Finally, I’m using this medium to condole with the family and friends of Cynthia Osokogu. I pray the God of all comfort will comfort them, offer them hope in their depths of despair, and give them the fortitude to bear the loss. May her gentle soul find eternal repose in Paradise.

Credit
Stats retrieved from http://internetsafety101.org/Predatorstatistics.htm

I Know

Atheists say God doesn’t exist,
But I know this is all false―Nature points to the Deity.

Agnostics hold that we can’t be sure if there’s God,
But I know this isn’t true―God is so visible we can’t doubt His existence.

Evolutionists uphold that life is the product of some mindless process,
But I know this is a fallacy―all life bears the hallmarks of design.

Cosmologists posit that some blind process gave birth to the universe,
But I know this isn’t so―fine-tuning suggests there’s a Creator.

Exponents argue that the universe is pointless,
But I know this is specious―cosmos displays God’s infinite wisdom and might.

Cryonicists have us believe we could escape from the clutches of Death,
But I know this is an idealized notion―death is the ultimate destiny of all life.

Extremists claim their belief systems approve of violence,
But I know this is dubious―pacifism is a thread common to all religions.

Critics say the Bible doesn’t hang together,
But I know this is untenable―the Bible has always withstood rigorous scrutiny.

They think the Bible is obsolete,
But I know it’s not―Scripture is a cornucopia of timeless truths.

I know I don’t know much, but this little I know is much true―
And that’s what matters most.

A Glimpse of Heaven

Many Nigerians who have never travelled abroad can paint accurate pictures of life in foreign and far-flung lands as if they had been to these places several times. Every morning in this country, one usually finds a cluster of readers in front of a newspaper vendor. These people trade news and information from distant shores as though they flew back home from there only recently, whereas only a few of them even know the localities of the embassies of these countries in Nigeria. Such fluidity of information has been made possible by the media which is a ‘window’ to see the rest of the world.

Similarly, the Bible is a ‘window’ that enables Christians have a glimpse of Heaven. Just as the flick of your TV switch lets you see happenings from across the world, so does reading your Bible literally lets you know what Heaven really looks like. But unlike media stories which tend to embroider the facts, God’s Word contains a too-good-to-be-false notion of Heaven, so to speak. We have through the Scripture known that Heaven is in a marked contrast to our demon-influenced world the abode of God and His hordes of angels (Deuteronomy 26:15; Ezra 1:2; Nehemiah 9:6). Now, perfection is one of God’s attributes (Deuteronomy 32:4; Matthew 5:48; 2 Samuel 22:31; Psalm 28:30). For this reason, we may safely conclude that God’s habitation, that is Heaven, is in harmony with the divine character a place of unending bliss and ineffable beauty.

Some gospel songs give fascinating insights into the beatific state of Heaven. Such songs do not normally represent personal opinions of their writers, but divine revelation through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In his ‘I’ll Fly Away’, Albert E. Brumley describes Heaven as ‘a home on God’s celestial shore’ and as ‘a land where joy shall never end’. Another songwriter calls it ‘that fair City so bright, where the Lamb is the Light’.

Below is another man’s testimony of Heaven:

Follow the footsteps of the King till you hear their voices ringing,

They’ll be singing out the Glory of the Land;

 The River Jordan will be near, the sound of trumpets you’ll hear,
 

And you’ll behold the most precious place ever known to men.
 

Across the bridge there’s no more sorrow,

Across the bridge there’s no more pain,

The sun will shine across the river and you’ll never be unhappy again.

A very popular hymn captures the blessedness of Heaven this way:

Just over in Gloryland we’ll live eternally,

The saints on every hand are shouting victory;

Their songs of sweetest praise drift back from Heaven’s shore,

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore...

From the biblical and extra-biblical sources above, it can be adduced that Heaven is vastly better than here or even the never-never land which exists only in the imagination. In this unimaginably wonderful place is kept for believers ‘an inheritance incorruptible’ (1 Peter 1:4, KJV). Paul the apostle in his epistle to the Romans is convinced that Christians’ earthly tribulations pale before the glory which shall be made manifest in them in Heaven (8:18).

Early Christians knew that God had ‘prepared for them a city’ (Hebrews 11:16, RSV). That deep conviction drove them to become dead to the lures of this evil world and alive to righteousness. Remember how they endured great afflictions because of their Heaven-consciousness. Some of them were dipped in hot oil; some were impaled; some were beheaded; some were crucified; some were burned at the stake; while some others were ‘sawn in two’ (Hebrews 11:37).
 
One woman was so crazy about her Christian convictions. Her persecutors came to arrest her on her wedding day. Instead of coming with a gift they came with a great chain. They offered to let her go only if she denied Christ. She rejected that offer; instead, she gladly went with them.

Now the question is: Why did these martyrs have to make the supreme sacrifice? I think I know the answer. It was because they wanted to ‘rise again to a better life’ in Heaven (verse 35).

What about us the so-called Christians of today? Are we not shifting our focus away from Heavenly glory to worldly mists? Or are we as devoted as the founding fathers of our Faith? I do not think so.

Christianity as it is being practised today smacks of demonic influence. Satan seems to have overthrown God in the church. Most churches have dumped sound biblical values and doctrines for those of the enemy. The result: Churches have abandoned the message of salvation, the heart of the Christian Faith, and are popularising their get-rich-quick syndrome. As we are busy doing this Satan too is busy expanding his kingdom at the expense of God’s Kingdom.

Media evangelists of these days do not preach to convict the world of sin but to gain popularity and to increase church membership. They inundate us with formulas for financial breakthrough, sound health, marital bliss, and so on. Ironically, the more they preach these things, the reverse seems to be the case. Or do you believe otherwise?

Well, think of it. We preach good health, for example, and yet countless people are dying of disease. Visit hospitals around you to get an idea of what I am talking about.

Despite unprecedented advancement in the field of medical science, doctors still describe some diseases as ‘incurable’ and/or ‘terminal’. Why so? The reason is simple and not far-fetched. We have forsaken God and gone into the world, seeking wealth, riches, power, happiness, fulfilment and security, forgetting that all these are not in the world but with the Creator from whom we are drifting away.

Now is the right time for Christians all over the world to have a radical rethinking. Let us realise that the reward which awaits us in our eternal home infinitely surpasses the best the world can offer us today, which are ephemera, vanity upon vanity, a chase after absolute futility. Let us shift our gaze from worldly pleasures to Heavenly radiance. Yes, let us imitate George Beverly Shea who prefers Jesus to ‘anything this world affords today’. The 21st-century Christians will be wise to follow Paul’s admonition at Colossians 3:2:

‘Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.’

God bless us as we remain ‘coded’ for His Kingdom.

‘If Heaven’s not my home then LORD what will I do?’
―Albert E. Brumley