Tuesday 13 December 2016

The Reigners’ Church disaster

Will the families whose loved ones were consumed in the Reigners’ Church building collapse celebrate Christmas? What will the season mean to them with this unbearable and heart shattering calamity that has visited them? What will they make of life again? Will their faith in God still be intact as it were before the calamity struck? What will Christianity and all its accoutrements mean to them again? If they used to frequent the church, say going for fellowship thrice or more in a week, will they still have time for such religious ritual peradventure the crushed church is erected again? Did I just hear you say which church?

What could be possibly running through their minds keeps tugging at my subconscious. To them, “how I wish...’’ has become an anthem since Saturday.  What if he did not go to that church? What if she listened to me? What if he stayed home just a little more before setting out for the church? What if he did not come back from Lagos, Calabar on Friday? It is humanly and natural that the foregoing lines form the thinking of those whose relatives were involved in the disaster. But the act was an accident. Accident is an unforeseen happening. Nobody envisaged that such humongous calamity was waiting in the wings. If anybody had such premonition, the building would not have been used for the service. But nobody had any iota of inkling to what occurred last Saturday.  


It took everyone including the men of God who all came for the bishopric inauguration by surprise. None of them could foresee the disaster. If they had seen it coming, the event would have been either rescheduled or held at a different venue. But they did not see it. The roof came down hard and heavy on worshippers. It was fierce and devastating. At the end of it all, hundreds lay dead! Bedlam. 

Certainly, like those of us still breathing, those we mourn today all looked forward to a great Christmas that would have ushered them into a new year, but such dream and fantasies came crashing last Saturday in the most devastating of manners. Precious lives cut short in their prime and in such cruel way. Dreams, aspirations dashed - Degrees gotten through years of rigorous studies in the University gone. Everything and most ultimately life snuffed out in a manner we only get to hear about in those war-torn countries where disasters of this nature have become almost a daily occurrence. Here, this has never happened before. Not even the deadly and savage-ridden Boko Haram insurgents, in all their ruthless and merciless incursions into peaceful territories have been able to unleash their terror on the state. This one, to say the least, is heart breaking. It has hit the state at the heart. Why did it happen now? Many have asked 

As usual, many ifs and imaginations have been thrown into this very unfortunate and unpalatable commentary on the state. Some cheeky folks have attributed the sad incident to many things. The attributions mutates from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous. Some say bishop, sorry, I take that back, Pastor Akan Weeks, used those souls for sacrifice. Another group insist he was pursuing a mundane adventure inspired by pride by wanting to be crowned a bishop of a church he founded. Not done, some pranksters have blamed it all on Governor Udom Emmanuel. They say he should not have approved the occasion. Poor folks!

Pray, how is the Governor the cause of the collapse of a church building? I’ve not stopped pondering over this since the fellow uttered the line with reckless glee. Those who insist Pastor Akan Weeks used the perished souls for sacrifice are adamant and have shut their ears against any argument to the contrary. While the argument over what caused Saturday’s calamity continues, not a few persons have come to the defence of the man of God whose much publicised bishopric enthronement went disastrously awry. This group are of the view that the man of God should not be blamed for what happened in his church. They insist the man is innocent of the wild accusations that have been levelled against him.

To them, it was a natural disaster that could happen to anybody at any time hence no one should point a finger at anybody. Away from all these baseless blames, is it not quite shocking even more than the building collapse, that some folks were bent on cashing in on the calamity to steal? Yes, they did. Some people at the scene were ready and willing to take phones right from the pockets of the victims. And for such persons, you can only wonder the colour of blood that flows through their veins. Well, it’s is not a new thing altogether because history is replete with cases where hoodlums and never-do-wells use crisis moments to their advantage by looting and stealing from unsuspecting public. It all goes to explain how low we have sunk into the pit of depravity. Sad! 

It is appalling that in such a gory and barbaric scene, some people could think of crime and still go ahead to perpetrate same. It bears mark of a society that has lost its sense of humanity and reasoning. Rather than mourn sincerely with the dead, some people have even gone to the ignominious level of imputing political meanings into it all. A calamity that should draw deep emotions and soberness is being turned into a battle between this political party and the other. Can these people spare us this embarrassment and shameless macabre dance? Someone should help tell them to stop please.

To the bishopric ordination that never took place and the uncompleted church building that caved in on innocent worshippers, is there any grain of truth to the rumour that the Contractor warned against the usage of that ill fated edifice? Is it also true that the man at the centre of it all, Pastor Akan Weeks, defied the instruction and gave orders for the uncompleted and dangerously situated building to be used for the service that turned bloody?  If the latter is true, why did he insist on using an uncompleted church building for such a high-octane service? Was it, as many have noted, a ploy to draw sympathy by the guests and have them donate money to facilitate the completion of the project? Many questions, yet, few or no answers.

The building, reports also say was build hastily day and night ostensibly to make it semi ready for the ordination that never saw the light of day. Why such mad rush to complete such a massive edifice that was expected to house 50, 000 worshippers more so, a building that was to last for a good number of years if not eternally? Is it also true that Pastor Akan Weeks went ahead with his decision of using the Church on the grounds that God cares for His children? If it’s true of him, then he was damn wrong. God is a God of order, discipline and excellence. He is not given to half measures. Our God loves us yet He wants to us to obey Him, do His will and abide by His precepts. No cutting of corners or doing things in a substandard way. At any rate, such act, if it’s true, was putting God to the test. In other words, one can Say that Akan Weeks was playing God.
I don’t wish to pass blames on this shocking catastrophe because already, lives have been wasted for nothing. They dressed up daintily to church to worship God, witness the inauguration of a bishop, but little did they know that that could be their end. It is a sad way to die. Very sad. 

As a human being, I also have sympathy for Pastor Weeks. How is he going to handle this whole debacle? After all dust must have settled, will he still have the courage and presence of mind to preach the gospel with the same passion he did before this cataclysm struck? If and when he finally does so, what will be running through the minds of his members? Will their loyalty to their Pastor remain the same? Won’t they have reservations about his place with God more so as people have bandied words to the effect that he used the souls that left this terrestrial plane in his church for sacrifice to power whatever he used to erect the foundation of his church?

In all, it’s a moment of sober reflection. It’s no time to pass blames. What happened is not something that is common but it is necessary that the state government sets up an emergency services agency that will always be combat ready in the event that such disaster occurs again. God forbid! But it’s better to be safe than sorry. Isn’t it?

Let us pray as a state that such avoidable misery does not recur here again. Let us align our thoughts, attitude and character with the time tasted dictum which says that what is worth doing is worth doing well. If this maxim was observed, perhaps, this apocalypse would not have happened.

May the souls of the departed find rest in the bosom of the Lord!


By Kenneth Jude

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