Christ, come quicklyChrist, come quickly

BY ANIEFIOK ESSAH

Lord Jesus, Yours Aniefiokly is not pleased celebrating your birthday in   proxy. I wish you were here. Please, come quickly. Mbok, Eyen-Abasi, idighe usongenyin, idighe emiom, sob di.  Do not even wait till Christmas. My hitherto peaceful fatherland is now a boiling cauldron – anything may happen. I desperately need you in my country (Nigeria), especially in my ruled-land-ruined State (Akwa Ibom). Your presence with even a drop of love or piece of peace would make a difference.

I need you in our land, especially, because there’s no man, no politician or political party that is interested in “Duty, Honor, Country”. Our leaders have all sinned and gone short of the glory of their citizens or followers. Their love for money overwhelms love of Country or State or Local Government. Our own dear native land is at the brink of destruction, it’s at the verge of explosion. I, and not I alone, need you because you are the mediator, advocate and redeemer of mankind who towers over Presidents, Governors, even the best of Counsellors, Psychologists and Therapists. You are the spiritual phenomenon whom we should catch fresh because there’s no other like you. 

Lowly Jesus, the Justman of Galilee, you are the lifeline of our deadline. You are the Being who specializes in the cure of impossibilities and we trust that it is you alone who can restore our misgoverned State and sullied glory. Where you have put a period or full-stop, none of us can change it to a question mark. Money, and more money, cannot question your authority. Although your birth through a Bethlehem manger seems strange and stunning, your coming to us through the extravagant grace of your father, was a journey no one had ever taken before, or since. You are the pioneer of passion and compassion. Please, rush to our rescue, dear Jesus.

MTN is right saying “this is a season of surprises”. Recent developments in our Country and State have portrayed that greater love has no leader nor political party. Unrepentant and shameless liars, all of them! I cannot trust any PDP or APC. No member therein is patriotically equipped to serve and save. I have realized who a politician really is, this is why I invite you, son of God, to come and salvage our land for us. Without you, the solutions to our problems are life-years away. Selfishness and greed have eaten terribly deep into our social and economic fabric. Even self-acclaimed born-agains are liars. They profess to be fighting a cause for the oppressed, suppressed and depressed masses, yet what they have at the back of their minds is money and more money. They mud-sling fellow brothers to get nothing but money. Outside the likes of Obong Attah and General Buhari, we lack men of scruples. This is shame indeed! 

In Nigeria, the gab between the rich and poor keeps widening. The rich, the stingingly rich and the stupendously rich, have insatiable appetites to get richer and richer. They unconscionably plunder our commonwealth with impunity. These rich and over-comfortable leaders have no fondness for benevolence on the impoverished and helpless masses except on their families and cronies. They even go extra mile to kidnap or kill, because of “immunity clause”. With unemployment, insecurity, famine, every vice, prevalent in the country, they want to be rich world-without-end, till deaths do them part.  

Matthew Arnold wrote that “the world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best things”. Global Concord, the tabloid with the truth that sets people free has, over the past four years, lived to fix Akwa Ibom State’s (and Nigeria’s) attention on her crusade to help the suffering, and so led civilization forward. The newspaper, a voice of the voiceless; a media outfit with a soul overflowing with love, our life and times are spent for the happiness of fellow humans who are in darkness that knows no grief. Those kind of humans that Fella Anikulapo describes as “suffering and smiling”. We have preached, taught or enlightened enough on leadership and citizenship which should both be fun. We have spoken to the people’s consciences enough. We have fought lionly to ensure that our newspaper is useful to humanity, yet these money-miss-road leaders wouldn’t let peace reign! Now, money has finished, it’s the turn of Holy Spirit to take over.

Dear Christ, as we are about celebrating your mass, and as we await your second coming, please touch the hearts of all those unsatisfied folks who want to lead. Ask them who, among hem, can lay down his life for another or his Country. Of course, outside you, greater love has no man. Please, come.

    Season’s greetings!

Aniefiok Essah can be reach - 08020945205