NIGERIANS MUST INSIST ON ELECTORAL REFORM

It is a recorded fact that just after the 2007 electoral blitzkrieg heavily sponsored by the inordinate People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and unabashedly superintended by the totally wrongly christened Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the patently hobbled President Musa Yar’Adua joined his voice with those of local and international election monitors pooh-poohing his election. Many Nigerians saw this as pure forthrightness, though a few others were convinced it was just a clever attempt to shore up support for his out-rightly illegitimate government.
But willing to confound all pessimists and critics, or so we reasoned, Mr. President empanelled an Electoral Reform Commission (ERC) headed by the distinguished retired Justice Mohammed Uwais to, among other things, ‘examine the entire electoral process with a view to ensuring that we raise the quality and standard of our general elections and thereby deepen our democracy’. For our number one citizen, it was either a holistic electoral reform or nothing. Again we thought we read his lips right.
The Uwais Commission got cracking and at the end handed in what it viewed as the necessary prescriptions for curing the man-made ailment derailing the healthy existence of our electoral life as a people. The Commission, inter alia, recommended that electoral disputes should be resolved six month before the swearing in of declared winners; make room for open secret ballot; empower the National Judicial Commission to appoint the Chairman of the INEC; reorder the funding system of the electoral body so as to keep its independence intact; create a Political Party Registration and Regulatory Commission; and make room for independent candidacy.
However, Yar’Adua shifted the goal post and has since then been crooning another ear-grating ditty. He decreed another panel chaired by the gratuitously garrulous Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa. And that panel did the hatchet job, to wit, it massively and unfeelingly buccaneered the most salient items of the Uwais recommendations. Thus, what is peddled today as sustaining commitment to the electoral reform is nothing but a huge charade. That today we are compelling the President and his party to encourage and work for a true electoral reform shows that Nigerians are confronted with a pack of leaders totally indifferent to their wishes and aspirations, though it pretends to be working for them.
The reprehensible volt-face of the ruling oligarchy is not altogether strange even as cringe-worthy as it is. It speaks of the culture of a party forever averse to anything (the inalienable right of a people to decide their leaders through a one-man-one-vote system inclusive) that will keep the humanity of the Nigerian people untainted. The PDP, time and time again, has been noted to be a party of masochists and agents of anything that can encourage phony democratic practices. The party lacks men of deep democratic maturity and convictions. And because it is sorely privy to the ungarnished fact that no victory is certain for it in any election conducted under the atmosphere of that which is free and fair, the party has since found iron-clad rigging as a viable option. Conscious of its notable lack of worth, credibility, and respect, this national tragedy pretending otherwise has today perfected ways of repressing and disrespecting the decent choice of the electorate, hallucinating that by so doing it can accidentally achieve towering legitimacy and reverence. All these are evident in 2003, 2007, 2009 (think Ekiti here), and of course in its sickening impracticable long term goal of ruling – note that it does not talk about providing credible leadership that will impact our people positively – for sixty years!
It is against this condemnable background that Nigerians must divest themselves of their long worn habiliments of docility, complacency, and cowardice and insist that there must be genuine electoral reform before the 2011 elections. Mr. President’s party will yet decimate and decapitate we the citizens of this troubled land if we are satisfied with folding our arms and watching disinterestedly from the side of the political ring. Nigerians must align with the Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reform (CODER) in its just quest for a country with decent electoral system. CODER as a child of necessity is simply asking that the non-negotiable right of Nigerians to elect their leaders through the ballot box be allowed to prevail. It is not asking for the moon. Thus, every Nigerian that wants a better Nigeria should add his/her voice to this worthy venture. We depend on the PDP government to do this in its own way at our own peril.

2009 IN THE LIFE OF A NATION
All conscious Nigerians unarguably know that, from January to this very point, literarily speaking, many waters have silently and noisily passed under the wonky bridges of the Nigerian political, economic, electoral and social systems. From up north to down south, Nigerians who are truly and sincerely bothered about the static state of the Nigerian Presidency and the searing stasis that this has thrust the whole nation into are not oblivious of the excruciatingly painful fact that our beloved and beleaguered country is violently adrift, nay in the slippery precipice of deeper retrogression. It is even an open secret that in post-colonial Nigeria, the iron-cast law of steady decline in quality governance, moral values, and international relevance is now in unimpeded swing. To my mind as a young Nigerian sadly observing the daily sham and shame gnawing greedily at the artery of the country, the grim and grisly poetic words of the perceptive poet, W.B. Yeats aptly sums up the sorry situation of the Nigerian state in the year 2009: Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer; /Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold …/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ are full of passionate intensity …
Yet, at the beginning of the year, the utterly vain and vapid People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) apparatchik led by the overly somnolent Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua spoke, though gamely, in so glowing and eloquent a manner that not a few thought it would feelingly, manfully and genuinely address some of the major lingering problems that would scale down the volume of problems tinkering with the humanity of the mass of our hapless people. Precisely, towards the end of the equally wasted year 2008, the President, in his ubiquitous dour and drab style, said that 2009 would bring about soul-lifting governance, practical and enduring delivery of the much elusive dividends of our patently nascent democracy. By that, it meant that the President was conscious of the unvarnished truth that the people were neither inspired by his sluggish and unproductive style of governance, nor did they approve of the trite rhetoric, clangorous casuistry, and circumscribing sophistry that his administration has enthroned since inception.
Of a truth, 2009, more than any year he has spent on that seat, shown that Yar’Adua’s government does not possess the simplest of idea on how to salvage Nigeria from the woods. The various gratuitous faux pas, the varying unimaginative policy, and the abundant superficial solutions proffered by government at the various arms of the federation, particularly the roiling dearth of doughty and charismatic leadership at the centre, clearly sign-post the bald verity that 2009 does not augur well for Nigeria. In other words, in 2009, everything but the necessary actions that the entity called government should take happened!
For instance, the useful recommendations of the Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) chaired by the retired Justice Mohammed Uwais was mindlessly and criminally mutilated such that the continuous practice of the reprehensible culture of heartless rigging lovingly besotted with by the PDP is further encouraged. The President and the goons in his party snuffed life out of the report and threw the lifeless body at the electorate. No other event other than the gubernatorial re-run election in Ekiti state attests to this claim. Today, Ido-Osi has assumed a negative status in our electoral lexicon. And that was simply because Mr. President’s party stood on the abomasums of free and fair election. And if we thought the party would soft-pedal on its bicycle of electoral shenanigans, we were dead wrong – it went some kilometres ahead in the shaming Ekiti re-run tragedy when it was to choose its flag bearer for the 2010 election in Anambra state. Talk of a party without internal democracy. 2009 is a loss to electoral reform. The government deliberately shot down what should have upheld the dignity of its people’s humanity. Is it any wonder that the garrulous arch-rigger for the PDP, Maurice Iwu, has remained immovable on the seat he no longer deserves?
In 2009, our megawatts of befuddling darkness skyrocketed. Instead of really ensuring that the generator-induced deaths and health-damaging fumes beclouding the Nigerian firmament are drastically reduced, Yar’Adua’s visionless government has announced that the generation and distribution of the self-imposed 6,000 megawatts of electricity is like hankering for the moon. To worsen the tragedy, some of the court jesters serving as ministers did even ask us to be beside ourselves with joy that about 5,200 megawatts have already been generated but would not be distributed. We heard such asinine talk in the year.
Nigerians in 2009 were sufficiently galled and made melancholic by the sickening dispositions of our supposed elected leaders to both educational and the Niger Delta affairs. In the year, education was dismally accorded the right treatment, hence revealing the anti-intellectual make-up of ‘our leaders’. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Ilorin 49 know better. The 7-points Agenda comes more clearly as a mere chicanery.
Similarly, the government seemingly comprehensive amnesty bazaar in the year has somewhat proved that this government does not have a sustained and practicable plan for the boiling cauldron that is the Niger Delta. With the latest songs by the ex-militants who sheepishly embraced amnesty and the renewed attack of oil facility by the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), we need not be any longer hoodwinked that Yar’Adua’s response is not meretricious. Painful is the realisation that 2009 did not avail much for the impoverished people of the region.
Additionally, 2009 also saw to the invention of a ludicrous mantra; re-branding. Is it not a soothing relief that Sister Dora’s prescription for the leadership-foisted malaise is highly efficacious? Has this intervention not made the President’s ministers more mature and responsible in the discharge of their duties? Examine Michael Aondoakaa’s utterances and conducts. One thing is clear: the present panoply of human animals masquerading as servants of Nigerians is not, to hint the least, capable of redirecting the path of this country for good. As such, we can mourn the fact that they have taken the country a year further into the woods of economic retrogression and political idiocy. It is no moot point; re-branding or not!
The incongruity between the Rule of Law slogan of President Yar’Adua and his inability to do the bidding of sections 145/8 before he left for King Faisal Health Centre, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on November 23, also underscore the urgent need for mature and viable leadership. We equally get to know that the Nigerian people do not still amount to anything to this government, its contrary protestation notwithstanding. But for the ever inquisitive media, would we have known the President’s whereabouts? How do a people progress with a government that is averse to accountability but comfortable with cult-like secrecy? In the life of Nigeria, 2009 is one year that deepens leadership immaturity, dearth of charisma, absence of ideational fecundity, and a true sense of mission.
The imperatives of change call on us as a country. We can either do it peacefully or violently. Which path shall we tread? Mogadishu or Kigali? Nigerian people must rise up to demand the right thing. Otherwise, the remaining years in the life of this administration will be more harrowing.

FYB RITUAL: A SUBVERSION AIDED BY VAPIDITY



FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE LUDICROUS,

THERE IS ONLY ONE STEP.

Thomas Paine



When some of the mushrooming Christian fellowships on our campuses started the Final Year Brethren (FYB) programme, it was with the sincere desire to allow their final year members take stock, reflect and get the much needed guidance into the variegated strata of the social, economic, and perhaps the political existence of the larger society gone berserk. Put differently, the idea, in the noble conception of the church brothers and sisters, was to acquaint the final year students (the very FYB) with the not too known realities of survival in the macrocosmic society. But no sooner had the avatars of gastronomic lunacy, garish celebration, and arid mental faculty bought into the idea than its noble ideals as conceived by the church people became bastardized, abused and of tad benefits.

The saddening story of the FYB ritual in many departments across the varied faculties of our higher institutions today is that it is now an exercise that only enriches the body at the mind-boggling detriment of the brain – the engine room of the body and hub of all human engaging activities and advancement. It is equally worrisome to note that the dimension the FYB initiative has assumed today, no thanks to the motley hedonistic final year students, is one that reminds every reasonable person of the sudden flight of good reasoning from majority of the prospective graduates that, sadly, constitute part of the rot and retrogression in this failing British-born Babylon we are all happy to designate as a nation – Nigeria. The mindless subversion reminds us all of the distasteful glorification of intellectual shallowness, riling enthronement of mediocrity, and of course a risible deification of the paucity of useful ideas on the part of the very people that society thinks will make a difference. In other words, the current way our graduating students take the FYB tradition is a telling reflection of the dearth of ideational fecundity. The argument subsists that a legion of today’s (under) graduates hardly reason any better than primary six pupils can work out the simplest algebraic equation. The pattern of observance of the FYB rogue show gives ballast to this ratiocination.

What graduating students subvert the FYB ideal for is this: they organise different events ranging from dancing round the four corners of the campus, dressing in weird attires in order to inadvertently exhibit some acts of buffoonery, drinking themselves to stupor, staging nocturnal shindigs, to staging rogue-like rally. Except for the joint photo sessions, which are felicitous, no objective observer of the largely puerile projections of the misplaced joys of graduation can pinpoint any worthy and educative item from the events. There is usually diddly in such superfluous celebrations that reminds the-would-be graduates of any sundry thing regarding the vagaries of the fast shrinking labour markets. Curiously, there is always a joyous lack of interest in anything that will acquaint the prospective graduates of the various ways through which they can appropriate, advantageously, the seemingly inconsequential opportunities that will present themselves to them while they traverse the plundered nooks and crannies of the country needlessly gaining job-searching experiences in the course of seeking elusive or non-existing jobs. More perturbing is the belittling fact that thousands of naira are often yielded by a large number of these worldly wise graduates-to-be who, incredibly, find it intractable to invest in books that will enrich their relatively vacuous storehouse of knowledge, to prepare for the FYB bunkum. I dare say, once more, that the FYB event is a sobering metaphor for the continuous repudiation and mockery of progressive and structured thinking! It bodes ill for the tomorrow of this regressing country.

Any keen observer of the state of the Nigerian society knows that it is in dire need of thinkers and catalysts of useful ideas. It is however perplexing to discover that the so called future leaders are miles away from the soil on which ideas that are devoid of some trappings of mediocrity are grown. It may after all not be an exaggeration to say that never has a generation as worldly, unthinking and unperturbed about the increasing tragedy caused by nescience as this present one existed. The FYB commitment to the acquisition of knowledge is unsalutary. Their cluttered minds are neither disciplined nor are their brains engaged in productive thinking. This again bespeaks the kind of retrogressive education they have happily acquired in about four to seven years of their unprepossessing courses. Though privy to the dismal state of the education system of the country is, they feel no tug in their minds to transcend the state imposed impediment on their path.

But who will salvage Nigeria from the yawning abyss of retrogression? Who will halt the running jump of the young Africans into discomforting irrelevance? Is our black humanity a curse from a God thought to of as pro-White? Can a gallimaufry of graduates who swing sweetly between excessive illogicalities one moment and almost total moral attenuation the next births the much awaited baby change? Can young people who conceive of learning as serious punishment and pleasure as their ultimate aim of existence in this jet age alter the cause of a failed state for the good of all? What does a country benefit from an army of graduates who do not understand the art of balancing and moderation? Has any country ever prospered and reaped bountifully from young denizens who are comfortable with unenlightened self-interest and grand superficialities?

Let it be said that no eloquent explication from people whose adrenalin does not admit to introspection, rumination, or sometimes even common sense, can justify the inanity that are the FYB gatherings. The pictures used in this piece are some of the ubiquitous exhibitions of the outstanding foolhardiness resident in the ordinary minds of the intending graduates when in the mood of the reprehensible celebration. Pray, what sense is there in deceptively reconfiguring one’s physiognomy in the sheer name of happiness? Creativity gone awry? Extravagant social lunacy? Just where is the modicum of sense in this? Indeed, the minds of our young men and women are a kitchen midden of disingenuous and unproductive creativity! Their world-weary creativity cannot avail a troubled country in the fashion of ours of any viable solution.

What apothecary shall we prescribe for the malignant ailment rabidly assailing virtually all of the hordes of infantile and unscholarly graduating students all over our decaying higher institutions of learning? First is the need for them to inject some future-enriching programmes into the whole FYB tradition. Nigeria is hard. Oh yes, it is true. Jobs are non-existent. That too is an incontrovertible verity. But then there are many opportunities that graduating students can still make use of. And one of the surest ways to lay hold of them is by listening to sound talks from established and successful individuals from different fields. Excursions that can serve as eye-openers should be embarked upon. There are a million requisite programmes that can thicken the now watery stew of the FYB anomalies.

The argument here is the need for graduating students to weed out the often too much nothingness in the FYB week. Its focus should just not be on the body with little or nothing for the mind. It shouldn’t just be feasting alone. The graduation day may be devoted to that. As someone rightly reasoned, the re-prioritisation of pleasure zone above the intellectual chamber could only be driven by an instinct that is both base and mercantilist. We should not make an unripe mango look like apple. It will mitigate the growing disillusionment gnawing viciously at this writer’s mind if the next sets of graduates across campuses can positively re-subvert the current subversion of the FYB ideal. Hope will be enlivened if they can summon the courage to halt, forever, the brazen and degrading race towards intellectual penury, ideational aridity, and of course the arrested development at the national level. Final Year Brethren, Find Your Brain! But if mediocrity gains more ground amongst them, may the Author of Being help this modern Lugardian contraption!

AAO.

NYSC IN FICTION: SALIENT MESSAGES FOR CORPS MEMBERS



As a viable human enterprise, literature has, from time immemorial, derived its engaging and revealing contents from the inexhaustible vortex of human chequered happenings and happenstances. In other words, if we humour the feisty and cerebral Kenyan novelist of consequential renown, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, we may not hum and haw in accepting his well-thought out view that literature is not a product of vacuum… The variegated events in human communities and societies have thus far formed the very materials with which writers (be they poets, novelists, or playwrights) convene the banquets at which their own imaginative outputs blend beautifully and seamlessly with the remarkable occurrences in human societies.

Thus, for any educable mind desirous of knowing what the ancient Greek society’s culture and traditional religion were, they have the imperishable works of Homer, Virgil, Sophocles, Euripides, amongst a host of others, to pore over. Shall we forget the ever green plays and poems of the prodigiously fertile William Shakespeare? His oeuvre encapsulates the vast pool of human deeds in their notorious and sublime forms during the Renaissance Age. Literary tomes of encyclopaedic magnitude exist on some other periods of the English society. Charles Dickens, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Browning, to mention but a few of the numberless lots, had all painstakingly, imaginatively, engagingly, and artistically documented the very character and defining traits of the overly prudish denizens of the most famous Victorian era.

Similarly, the virulent and ravaging act of colonialism that decapitated and decimated the motley inhabitants of Asia, the Caribbean Island , and Africa did not escape the lucid artistic lenses of the perceptive and percipient writers that emerged therefrom. From Chinua Achebe’s ground-breaking and richly celebrated Things Fall Apart, and the eye-opening Arrow of God, to Peter Abraham’s Mine Boy unraveling the monstrous and ruinous human machine called apartheid; we are sufficiently treated to the most disturbing acts of human barbarity, crudity and severe inhumanity on the wonky altars of totally unjustifiable policies.

Aside from the available books detailing the horrors of the French revolution, and the overwhelming official graft in which its government was embroiled have all become the raw materials for what is the French literature. The same can be said of the Russian society. Its literature is rich with the notable events of its various generations.

In all, what we can conveniently label today as World Literatures were, severally, eventuated by oodles of tragic, moving, comic, boring, challenging, perturbing, and even ennobling actions and inactions of varied human creatures at different points in time and in distinct geographic spheres.

At a very narrow level, Nigerian authors have overtime proved their mettle and showed the very quality stuff they are made of in their judicious and laudable efforts towards the fictionalization of the various events, low and high, that have combined together to shape the post-colonial out-post that Lord Lugard’s mademoiselle, Flora Shaw, possibly christened NIGERIA in the very heat of one of their numerous evenings of emotional tête-à-têtes. Put differently, Nigerian literary authors, faithful to the distinguishing features of their generations, have laboriously and dutifully concocted the ubiquitous marriage between factual and imaginary events, a reality that is evidently attested to by the mounting and fabulous tomes of plays, novels, and poems. What it means is that any mind hankering sincerely for some remarkable events in the recorded history of Nigeria can confidently do so by accessing its talking literature – great happenings are therein immortalised.

It is in the light of this that we engage one of the published works by one of the more vocal, voluble and viable voices in the ginormous and gnarly hall of Nigerian literature. Here we refer to one of the half-heartedly heeded but consequential works of Abubakar Gimba. A prolific scribbler and fecund artist, Gimba, as his oeuvre shows, is a thorough-going observer of the various events playing out of the huge, rudderless and unorganised socio-political and economic theatre of his motherland. Like many of his fellow writers, he has been able to thematise the troublous and disheartening peregrinations of his country from joy to sorrow; from hope to despondency. With his artistic pen, he has meaningfully expose the rotten underbelly of the various human institutions in the land; sarcastically dissect the sheer foolhardiness and psychosis assailing many a political ruler; and critically graphicalise the crudity and crippling hypocrisy of man universally. Witnesses to Tears, This Land of Ours and A Toast in the Cemetery are few examples of such works.

One more observation on this socialist-realist novelist before we critique his illuminating Trail of Sacrifice as a work that borders on some aspects of reality in Nigeria . Given the subject matters of his works, Gimba is one writer who subscribes moderately to the view that a serious work of art worth burning the candle for is the one that splendidly refracts and artistically reflects the goings on in a given society to the point that it aligns with the Marxian postulate espousing the dire need for change, to wit; philosophers have interpreted the world enough, what is left is to change it. Truth be told, this economist-cum-novelist’s works are such that not only inundate us with the shaming and roiling leaders/followers-created stasis and stymied progress, but also dramatise for us the feasible chute out of the socio-economic and political woods that we have for long been sequestered in so much that many have come to take it as the ideal way of human existence. And that the panaceas are products of revolutionary cogitation and radical undertakings is, without any hyperbolic intent, a mild understatement!

Abubakar Gimba’s Trail of Sacrifice is an engaging fictionalisation of the prevailing political condition that necessitated the fiat establishment of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC); its operations; and the seemingly insurmountable impediments militating heavily against the true fulfilment of its enunciated cardinal objectives. The simple but deep work sardonically unearths the conflicting contradictions inherent in the scheme. From here, the controversial fact that the scheme was arguably designed to hit the rocks irredeemably and the underlying staggering tripod-stand of ruse, hypocrisy and bare vacuity on which it stands precariously become inexorably manifest to the discerning reader.

More importantly, Trail of Sacrifice does not avoid the riling and tiresome acts of adored mediocrity, cherished nepotism, graceless compromise, blinding corruption at all levels of importance, and the depressing infrastructural decadence that have gradually coalesced to make Nigeria a proud paper giant fast competing, shamelessly, for the most conspicuous seat in the ramshackle edifice incredibly housing a number of failed and failing states which appear peacefully satisfied!

However, warts and all, the novelist demonstrates through his artistic erudition that it is very plausible for the respective corps members to indelibly scrawl their marks of identification on the smooth sand of history through rugged pertinacity to make things that can catalyse changes in the lives of people happen, genuine willingness to render altruistic services to people of whatever ethnic or tribal colouration and religious persuasion, and through unfeigned faithfulness and unalloyed loyalty that brooks no arrant compromise. For the corps members and the-would-be to succeed in their services to a fatherland that has done diddly to merit their services, the people’s voice calls for sincerity in the face of hanky-panky; adherence to the creed of noble and patriotic actions within the ambit of national interest when confronted with discouraging acts of individualism coated with some ersatz patriotism; solid optimism in response to deflating display of pessimism; the enthronement of availing reasoning and deep reflection when confronted with cloying sentimentality, emollient rationalisation and gross appropriation of the fripperies of mere demagoguery; and of course, brotherly and comradeship disposition coupled with boisterous display of camaraderie when thrust to any human community where shallow tribal prejudices and some misbegotten ethnic jingoism prevail freely.

In that deceptively fictive yarn –Trail of Sacrifice –, the author pontificates unequivocally on the need for all citizens; the beleaguered followers and the psychopathic zanies who understand everything but the basic tenets and character of leadership, to divest themselves of the thread-bare habiliments of selfishness, self-adoration, self-consideration, self-aggrandisement, individualism and crass materialism, and in their places don the garments of selflessness, collective interest, of the desire for honour for the glory of the larger society. This way, he says to us, is how we can start the regenerative process that will lead to the rebirth of the good we had once seen at the early days of the country’s independence and that will put us back on the track of economic abundance, political correctness and social well being.

The synopsis of Trail of Sacrifice is this: The imaginary nomenclature of the factitious world of the novel is Kokania. (What a brilliant creativity – sounds perfectly like Nigeria . What is more, both have exactly the same number of letters; seven in all.) Kokania has just emerged from a bloody and ghastly civil war. The feelings of animosity, tribal prejudice, and insecurity amongst the Kokanians are so thick that they can be sliced with a knife. The ruthless military government in the saddle must do something if the country will not negotiate anonymous obscurity. Thus, without seeking the opinion of the people, the military apparatchik, in its very infinitesimal wisdom, decrees a programme it claim will “foster and forge national unity and discipline” into existence. Expectedly, the fresh graduates who will be used towards the attainment of the supposedly national beneficial goals named National Objectives Fulfilment Brigade (NOFB), will not hear of it. Before the “self-acclaimed saviour-rulers of the nation could fully roll out the full scope of the programme, the various ivory-towers in the country are already up with the suffocating flames of remonstration preceded by exhaustive dialectical jousting. Leading in this all-important protest are the undergraduates from Dualcity and Pondo universities. But the superior force castrates the inferior – the powers that be respond militarily and, in their known tradition, crudely to the protestation of the armless students. The new graduates henceforth will have to serve their fatherland for one year in any part of the country the “government” so deems appropriate.

Of the foundation participants of the new scheme are Sadiku Baba, Joseph Makanjira, John Kaiga, Mosabat and Masi. The protagonist, Sadiku, is an auspicious graduate of Economics from Pondo University . Originating from Anoya State , he is, together with Makanjira from Dualcity University , posted to Kumaga State . The two of them serve their one year in Redemption Crusaders High School , Mwene, where they teach such subjects as Economics/English Literature, and Physics respectively. Sadiku distinguishes himself at his duty- post, in spite of his expressed lack of interest in the scheme. His exceptional acts of service to humanity stand him outstandingly out.

Gimba’s Trail of Sacrifice is indeed so loaded with salient messages that it seems to be bursting in the seam. As we course through the ten-chapter work, the fact that the NOFB is structured on the need to achieve national unity is, according to the student analysts in Pondo University , “nothing more than a theatrical robe, with which to deceive the nation. It is manipulative in design. The whole thing is neither here nor there”. If we extrapolate this into the Nigerian NYSC, this flinty submission would be patently true. For to be sure, as of today, the scheme in its about thirty-six years of existence cannot be said to have truly engender national unity. Nothing more than the relationships between corps members and their respective host communities and the palpable trepidation and cries of marginalisation that exist among the various ethnic groups attest to this.

In the fictive version of Nigeria (Kokania), the members of the community where brigade/corps members are resident often regard them as aliens and to that extent often refuse to work with them during the community service. Right amongst the brigade/corps members themselves, a very serious ethnic prejudice subsists, with each first and far above anything else considering him/herself as either a Koka (Hausa), Sosa (Igbo), Heho (Yoruba), or Watu (Efik) before thinking or projecting themselves as citizens of Kokania/Nigeria.

The prevailing tribal dichotomy is more dramatised by the subsisting reality between the paramount rulers in Nayiba, the capital city of Kumaga State. They are the Gash of the Medidans (the paramount ruler of the Medidan ethnic group) and the Sahbu of Amenteh (the dominant ethnic group). During the courtesy visit of the brigade members to them, the Gash of the Medidans, going against the spirit of the visit, bitterly observes to them that the Amenteh people and their traditional ruler are bent on sidelining his people from the scheme of things, saying “they are trying to trample on us even harder than did the white man” (p.63). And in a scathing but veiled sarcasm, he further notes, speaking about the main NOFB’s objective, that “the Central Government knows what is good for unity. Those at the centre know that unity does not mean stepping on someone’s toes persistently. Here in Kumaga State , we are yet to understand that basic truth”.

The overt import of this is that it underlines the fact that no national unity can be fostered, forged or sustained where it is the case that the ethnic or tribal groups within the country nurse a sense of injustice and or marginalisation. This, indeed, is where the objective of NOFB/NYSC comes up as a mere charade and the sense of seriousness of its advocates skin-deep.

Additionally, the way and manner in which NOFB is birthed make it defective. When the “government” would have easily conducted a plebiscite to know the opinion of the people for whom the scheme is meant, it decides to foist, willy-nilly, it on the people. Thus the scheme is sustained by serious brutal force of the make-believe government. The sickening dearth of information about the scheme further goes to show a “government” thriving without deriving legitimacy from the people. Left with no other choice, the young people of Kokania convince themselves that “the exercise is meant to punish and humiliate us, if not to maim us. By giving us such below-the-poverty-line, subsistence income, they not only intend to make us suffer but also turn us into beggars. They not only want us to go a-borrowing, but also go a-sorrowing. It is all planned” (p.8). Hence, they conclude that “the motto of the NOFB should not be ‘Service and Humility’ as it is meant to be, but ‘Service in Humiliation’ “. The panoptical words of Sadiku on page eleven are explanatory.

Again, the above will amount to a drop in the ocean when placed by what obtains in Nigeria . The Nigerian version of NOFB was, like many of the existing policies, solely conceived by the risible institution we glamorise in our collective act of poltroonery as government. In Nigeria , it is a total misnomer for “government” to consult the people before introducing a policy or programme. They are never kept in the picture. The “government” talks ABOUT them and not WITH them. On the wide, perforated canvass that is Nigeria are numberless sign-posts of supposed people-oriented programmes without a scintilla of input from the very people. It is therefore not surprising that the behemoth of a scheme, NYSC, has achieved, quite gamely, some inconsequential feats and adulations. The young Nigerian graduates who participate in it see it purely as Hobson’s choice – nothing more!

The failure of the NOFB in Gimba’s Kokania and the apparent lack of interest of the young Kokanians are also as a result of the antithetical attitudinal dispositions of the waver biscuit-weight pillars behind the formation of the scheme. The rulers righteously and sanctimoniously preachify on the need for brigade members to act and serve the nation selflessly but the “leaders of tomorrow” search in vain for the atom-size act of altruism in the official conducts of the rulers. The whole system as superintended by them reeks of official sleaze, bad management and administrative inefficiency and ineptitude. This is why the Principal of Redemption Crusaders, Mr. Dan Sepopa, with a tinge of sorrow in his voice, tells Sadiku and Makanjira that, “the government has no interests. Even the so-called interest of the people is a big myth. Only the interests of individuals exist” (p.91). Later on in the novel, Makanjira would be heard as noting, matter-of-factly, that;

In this country today nobody does anything that will not be of any

direct gains to him and quickly too. Sacrifice is dying. And people

are selling their entire manhood in pursuit of self. Honour for the

glory of the larger society is dead … Everybody wants to make it to

the top. No matter how; societal interest is very secondary, if at all

considered (p.159).

Talk of a people infected dangerously by the disease of self-interest ravaging the defective minds of the tin-horn messiahs unfortunately at the helm of affairs. It is in the same Kokania that the young are expected to act selflessly within the bound of national interest, or the good of all that we find a public office holder, precisely a university lecturer who left the noble profession for politics, in possession of many well built houses “with the people in slums all over the city”. For such government people, that is development.

Does the British-born Babylon called Nigeria not have its nooks and crannies peopled with the doppelgangers of such lecturer-turned politician Kokanian? Just what is it in the Nigerian politicians that can endear a young person to the lofty ideal of selfless services? Where are the evidences of the development that the clueless President, his boot-licking foot-soldiers, soulless image-makers, the disgruntled Governors, the insensate Senators, the dishonourable Honourable Representatives, and the mentally challenged Local Government Chairmen talk about so glibly in what is a pure act of ruthless assault on the ears of the helpless people? We need to ask, the question, that what are the people-oriented programmes that the forcefully conscripted corps members are to consolidate in their places of primary assignment? Need we shout ourselves hoarse that “development and progress are not a box of golden flowers which people have to be taken to see”? Is it not a no-brainer that wherever development exists, to quote the novel’s narrator, no one need introduce anyone to it? Does it not introduce itself? Would any sane fellow not smell? Being like a smoke or gas, would it not strike anybody? Or make them see it? Is it any surprise, therefore, that in spite of the astronomic increase in the number of corps members, we can hardly point concretely to the evidences of their one year forceful services?

On the whole, Kokania is an evident and a paragon of what a failed state is. It is an alarming example of how not to be a state. The human condition is frightening. The infrastructural decay is dispiriting. Its citizens have chorused many times, like the poet, there is no sweetness here. Corruption of the virulent order has become the second nature of its severely base security agents. Its institutions are crumbling freely. Its education system is a mere formality. Its ethnic groups are both time bombs and kegs of gun powder. There is so much disaffection in the air.

The most populated black nation on earth – Nigeria – will trounce the imaginary Kokania in any contest meant to determine which of them exhibit the traits of a failed state the most. It is needless reminding the reader of this disquisition that many Western foretold apocalyptic prognostications abound on Nigeria . In fifteen years’ time, Nigeria would disappear from the radar of human existence. So says one. The tribal wrangling buffeting the country, another blurts out, confirms the status of the country as a failed state. Nigeria , like Kokania, is speedily retrogressing – all things show it!

But is it all a tale of woes? Is it all about backwardness and stasis? Are there no signs of hope, however incipient? Aren’t there one or two persons in Kokania that that can spring a surprise? Aren’t there brigade members who can epitomise the ideals of the NOFB? This is where Gimba proves himself as not being either the author of a deathless prose, or an iconoclastic prophet of doom. By this singular measure, we can also see that he does not pitch the tent of his literary career with the critical realists who only glory in painting the horrible and horrifying conditions of people without suggesting the way out of the woods.

In Trail of a Sacrifice, we see how the author uses Sadiku to illustrate how the participants of the NOFB, and by extension, of the NYSC, can rise, in their own little way, above the eye-sores explicated above. It is Gimba’s way of proffering solution to the mind-bending problems of the scheme and also the nation.

How does Sadiku give meaning to the meaningless NOFB? As we examine this, we shall simultaneously point out the requisite lessons the Nigerian corps members and the non-members can appropriate therefrom.

When Sadiku Baba gets mobilised for the national service, he expresses no interest at all in it. All the afore-mentioned vicissitudes bedevilling the scheme and the inglorious state of the country are not alien to him. But he reckons that he has no choice in the matter at all. The narrator clarifies this:

He became torn between a sense of mission and a revulsion against

what he saw as exploitation; a preparedness to serve the country

repulsed by a determination not to be used to serve narrow ends.

But there he was. And he knew whatever his thoughts were, those

in power had won (p.51).

To this end, he makes up his mind to achieve something remarkable in his service year. If the nation’s rulers do not know about patriotic service, he will demonstrate it. He will not see the NOFB as “Notorious Order From Bastards”. His is to fulfil the outlined objectives. This informs his decision not to swear to any oath: “he was not prepared to give his service to the nation under oath …” (p.72). He is of the opinion that a person who is willing to render selfless service does not need to be made to swear to an oath of God-knows what. After all, even if he must serve “dutifully and selflessly” a nation that has lost its soul, it must be “predicated on several other things. If they did not hold”, then any promise made under oath “would fail”.

This is the kind of foundation serving or prospective corps members need to first put in place. It is on this that every other thing will be built. Those who do not have this cannot lay claim to any lasting success during their service years. Many who have “served” and some of those who are at it find it insufferable because they lack the Sadiku-like kind of mind. Corps members are not encouraged here to have amnesia. No. while they have it laden within their cluttered minds that they do not have selfless leaders to emulate, they can as well determine to be different with their readiness to serve truly.

The Nigerian corps members can also learn from Sadiku the fact that it is a totally misplaced act to transfer aggression or serve with bitterness of mind. As soon as Sadiku gets the opportunity to walk his talk (note how he differs here from our ubiquitous politicians who promise and swear to serve but usually end up being served with what belongs to the people), he indoctrinates himself with this thought: the work should be done as if it is originally his idea. He will teach and serve his students well:

Well. The students have done him no wrong. And why should he

dash their expectations of him through no faults of theirs? The

students did not plan NOFB as it now was. He felt, therefore, that

they must not be held to ransom. He must serve them, teach them

faithfully and to the best of his ability. He would do his best for them

(p.96).

And within his one year at the school, Sadiku lives up to his decision. He spends and spent for the student. He revives their hitherto moribund Current Affairs club as the patron and leads the school to victory nationally in a Brain Test contest. This singular acts resuscitates all other clubs in limbo.

It is his sphere of duty and he does it well. He immortalises himself while alive in the hearts of the teachers and students of the school. Herein is the self-same act that corps members who find themselves anywhere are called to emulate. It does matter very little whether people appreciate it or not. It is service to humanity and it must be rendered with humility within the right frame of mind. For those who may be asking, like Sadiku does initially – “how does one rationalise a pleasurable participation or anticipated involvement in a scheme for which one stands to be self-accused as a traitor to oneself?” –, the way out is for them to put their decision to serve into action. The oddity of the scheme must be rationalised as part of an overall adventure it represents. Hear him: “I believe I owe myself a duty to play my Messianic role wherever I deem necessary” (p.122).

Service to humanity will surely yield reward. Booker T. Washington makes us to understand that, No man who continues to add to the intellectual, social and moral well being of the place in which he lives is left for long without proper reward. Sadiku gets his in form of the plaudits and accolades that come his way – talk of the joy that wells up within one upon the realisation that people recognise one being instrumental to their success and progress. This is how the narrator puts it: “Sadiku received many congratulatory messages. He loved it all, and further strengthened his poise for higher heights” (p.154). Makanjira also sums it up thus: I wish we had more people like you around here. I mean people with selfless dedication” (p.158). This goes beyond fiction. There certainly are rewards for true selfless service. Nature itself sanctions this.

We all do desire a better, developed and habitable Nigeria . The way to it is through selfless services. This is very appropriate because, according to Makanjira, “our commitment to self is taking a dangerous direction.” Sadiku himself amplifies this:

Enhanced salvation still lies ahead if we come to the realisation that

our current rat race individualism leads us nowhere. We must realise

that we are on the wrong track. And take a quick turn-about (p.159).



Another striking thing we can learn from our fictional hero is his ability to recognise his capability and not solely his need for money. During his registration before the Initiation/Orientation programme into the scheme, he indicates interest in serving in the Department for Economic Development. But later when the clarion call comes for people to volunteer as teachers, Sadiku thinks it through (he always allows deep reflection to take the lead; not just meaningless emotion) and discovers that, given his experience of government offices, in the department he has decided to serve all he will do is

sit, yawn and doze. Then someone would bring a file, and ask him to

acknowledge the receipt of some letter that was long overdue and the

purpose for which it was written had passed and perhaps forgotten by

those wrote the initial letter in the first place. That was the cycle. And at

the end, one succeeded in doing a week’s work in one month. Everything

was unexciting. No room for initiative. And there was every chance for

atrophying (p.73).

He rather elects to teach than wasting away in one government office with nothing to do. It must be pointed out that his choice is not influenced by money or other materialistic concerns. He is basically interested in making impact within the confines of his capability. In spite of the discouraging practice prevalent in his social milieu, he is still consumed by the passion to remain relevant and productive.

The rather tragic tradition today is for corps members to think of money and the material benefits they would get from their places of primary assignment with little or no deep thought on their abilities and capabilities to deliver. Thus we have uncoordinated mad rushes for the new but sepulchre-like generation banks and other adjudged juicy establishments. We blame them little. Still, it is very important to seek and fit into a place where one can acquit oneself appreciably. The process of wasting away starts with fixing oneself up into a place where one would certainly underachieve, be obscured and relegated to the abyss of making money without making positive impacts, however fleeting. Young Nigerians who participate in the tellingly ordinary, vision and innovation-stifling NYSC should draw this lesson from Sadiku’s position. It is not all about money-making. In a situation where one is confronted with what is totally a Hobson’s choice, one can still, like Sadiku, brace the hurdle and make a mark. It is all about the right attitude of mind; not thinking only of the mundane, and of course not relapsing into limbo or excruciating inactivity. The one who can impart knowledge professionally or averagely adequately should not be off to another industry.

This is also where the government and the officials of the scheme should be serious, at least if here alone. Round pegs should not be placed in square holes. If the excuse remains that there are no enough places to rightly post corps members, then participation in the scheme should either be made optional or be totally scrapped! There is actually no befitting sense in wasting young people’s lives and times under the guise of one otiose service to an undeserving and unappreciative fatherland.

This notwithstanding, corps members who eventually find themselves in a place where they do fit aptly into should still ensure that, somehow, they deliver. Sadiku is posted to Redemption Crusaders to teach Economics. But at a point the post for an English Literature teacher becomes vacant and he is called upon to fill it up being that he is an arty-farty fellow. He rejects it at first. But he later encourages himself and takes up the challenge. Corps members in similar condition must confidently express that “can-do” spirit. A caveat: corps members who are drafted to teach subjects they know they cannot appropriately teach should be implacable in their rejection of them. Accepting such is the road that leads to unenlightened self-interest and no doubt, one will self-destruct.

In another vein, Sadiku would soon encounter raw and terrific tribal prejudices. Note that the first thing that he does is to empty himself of such base act. With the strong scent of non-prejudicial stance, he douses all mal-odorous odours of prejudices of whatever shades, and easefully blunts the swords of all ethnic discriminations. The disgruntled rulers of Kokania may fan alive the embers of ethnic hatred, he would always fan them cold. And this he does. The all-knowing narrator testifies of him thus:

He was always smiles wherever he met even the residents of Mwene

who had now known Sadiku and Makanjira as strangers in their midst.

Sadiku felt very much at home. He felt like one of them. He identified

with their hopes and aspirations. He treated the people as he did his own

in the Plains. Suddenly he discovers that his old prejudices were dead,

almost. And he was on friendly terms with virtually everybody (p.122).



We can no longer pretend that Nigeria is more riven by sectarian, ethnic and tribal iniquity and inequity than by any other thing. And as known, the despicable and scrupulous rulers are wont to play up these cards wherever they are willing to achieve any self-interest. There is hardly any tribe in the country that is not suspicious of the moves and actions of the other. Yet, the principal goal of the NYSC is to foster national unity. Not even the highly objectionable, odious and narcissistic Chief Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo made any headway in cementing the crevices of tribalism in all of his better-forgotten eight years of blood, misery and sorrow. Nonetheless, the individual corps member must try to live above board in this regard. The starting point, as in Sadiku’s case, is to drain oneself of any fear-induced prejudices. It is even belittling to observe that corps members who by virtue of their education (Or is it just schooling and no education?) should be crusading against such act are themselves in the vanguard of it.

Honestly, to be genuinely detribalised may not after all be a Herculean task. Though the thorny and knotty issue of our collective co-existence as prospective different nations within one geographical location has not been attended to with the utmost seriousness it deserves, corps members and people of various tribes need to see to it that they put the fact that their host members and people from tribes other than theirs are first human beings before any other thing. The sacred feeling of humanity should be the determinant of their relationships with other people of different ethic persuasions. It is when we do this that we can find it untasking to overlook some of their natural foibles and follies; that we will not exaggerate their short-comings as if our own people are perfect beings; and only then we will respect their culture and tolerate their weirdness. The task of corps members here is to smash the magnifying lenses of tribalism and ethnicism to pieces.

They are also called to do the same in matters touching on religion. We can be anything in issues of religion without slighting or denouncing the tenets of other religions. Sadiku is a practical Muslim in a predominantly Christian region. Instead of being a hermit there, he freely mingles with the people and they in turn feel very free to celebrate Eid-el-Kabir with him. That is the hallmark of a truly educated mind. This is the road to a peaceful, prosperous and productive Nigeria .

Two more points and we are done.

While serving at Redemption Crusaders High School , Sadiku has ample opportunity to get his own share of what today in the Nigerian teaching profession (especially at the tertiary level) is euphemistically referred to as FRINGE BENEFITS – a practice that enables male teachers/lecturers to plunder their female students sexually, regardless of their ages. But he straightforwardly and clearly declines to be caught in that web of utter indecency. Though not a trained teacher, he chooses to align sincerely with the ethics of the profession. It is for this reason that he keeps his relationship with Umma, one of his female students closer to him, on the ethical level of student-teacher and purely on brother-sister axis. (Not the modern brother-sister kind of thing that flowers sexual indiscretion.) The narrator observes that Umma “was his student, after all. And such a relationship (sexual) would do violence to the ethics of the teaching profession …” (emphasis, mine) (p.118). Not even when his bosom friend, Makanjira, correctly notes that “you are in the wrong time-train. Proper thing, morals, ethics, all values are dead. Don’t you know you are living in decaying time? Can’t you smell its rottenness? You want to resurrect your proper things, your morals, your ethics? Impossible!” (p.121), does our man of integrity caves in and lets down his guard. Rather, the affecting optimist in him swings to action. He simply retorts firmly to his understandably disillusioned crony that: “the ability to smell the stench is itself an encouraging sign that all is not lost. Salvation is still around the corner” (page 122 contains the fuller version of this interesting argument between the duo). For Sadiku, the inversion of all known values may be the fad in his part of the world; he will not be sullied or nabbed in flagrante. Thus he weathers the storm of sexual indiscipline and emerges at the end untainted and squeaky clean.

Our male corps members should honestly not see this as mere cowardice, foolishness, or inability to discern and be part of what is in vogue. Engaging in such lewd and down-grading act is the path to self-centred services and loss of prestige. It is highly pertinent for our male corps members not to take the one year that they have to teach students as an avenue to exploit and vanquish them sexually. They are to serve as role models, give reality to those ideals that would sustain the students, and help uphold the ethical sanctity of the profession. For those who are irredeemably libidinous and undeniably priapric, the invaluable injunction of the immortal William Shakespeare is apt: feign virtue even if you have none. Even for those intent on committing “class suicide”, we hasten to point out that canoodling and cavorting with their youngish female students and bedding them is in no way a pragmatic exemplification.

This is also applicable to female corps members, especially those of them placed in offices for their primary assignments. The world has never honoured or stood still for lady who achieved all feats and wealth through a reckless and injudicious use of her feminine properties. Such ladies, however the world pretends to respect them, are usually graceless and end up as foot notes in the gigantic book of human history. After all, as we are informed in the novel; “a hen that lays eggs in secret places cannot deceive the world for long that she doesn’t” (p.119).

To both male and female corps members, the requisite admonition is; do not be like the vain, vapid Lady Wishfort in William Congreve’s deeply satiric play – The Way of the World – who unimaginatively posits that, what is integrity in the face of opportunity! A careful perusal of that recommended text will reveal how she negotiates obscurity and comes a sad cropper. If the goal is to redeem Nigeria for us and the coming generations, then corps members on national assignment cannot afford to engage in acts smacking of exploitations and privations as is the case with many of the ruling animals in human skin, to use the fitting phrase of the legendary Afro-beat maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

Gimba’s Sadiku equally dramatises for us the very significance of the popular words of a ditty many of us sang back in our primary schools: do your best and leave the rest. The NOFB like the NYSC has Community Development Programme (CDP), an equivalent of our own Community Development Service (CDS), as one of its main cardinal programmes that brigade/corps members must compulsorily participate in within the one year of their service. Being a person willing to make much impact, Sadiku is upbeat and anxious to be part of the five-week CDP at San where his group is expected to, together with the local people, construct a hospital. Here is another opportunity to salvage the lives of many hapless people he may never meet one-on-one. Or so is his thought. But no sooner had they gone to work, breaking their backs and working their fingers to the bones, than they discovered that the people for whom the hospital is meant are totally averse to working with them. They stay away from the site. This means that the building will not be completed. They will have to stop half way – abandon the project for shortage of man power.

Said the narrator:

He could see his dreams about the service crumbling right in front of

him. And there was nothing he could do about it. It was now clear to

him that the magnitude of the work was such that he and his fellow

group members alone cold not work to bring the hospital out of its

foundation level within their given time – no matter how hard they

worked. He now realised that he had been in a fantasy world, floating

in the cloudy sky of unreality. The discovery pained him (p.169).

Obviously he is incapacitated by no making of his. He is willing together with his group to work but the hurdle on his path just remains immutable. He is perturbed. But he also thinks it out this way: “Community projects, once thought of, do not come to be, like manna. They are sweated for. And this was no exception. Why then worry, simply in the name of a desire for sacrifice?”

This is exactly what corps members confronted with similar unpleasantness are called to do. You cannot do all. The system kills good intentions. It fans cold the glowing coals of enthusiastic services and deadens the agile and sprightly spirit of sacrifice.

But corps members are not to take recourse to complete disappointment and relapse into inactivity. Instead, the encouragement here is for them to do that within their powers. Particularly for those in such sub-groups as HIV/AIDS, MDGS, FRSC, etc., they should honestly and whole-heartedly think creatively and do the very things the available resources and space will avail them. Sadiku does not do all. Yet, the ones he does qualify him for the gold medal in the shrinking tribe of those with the minds that are always ready to ease the burdensome burdens of humanity. Like Sadiku, where one project is unactualisable, corps members should creatively think up another to substitute the somewhat impossible one. Sadiku’s team decides to exclusively visit “health institution in deference to what they were supposed to have done. They would see and console the sick and suffering” (p.172). It is for service that they have come. And serve they must. This should also be the consuming passion of corps members exposed to this form of discouraging reality. Salvaging a post-colonial outlet gone berserk and whose rulers maintain a stance that suggests that things are the way they ought to be in criminal mindlessness of disobliging facts requires that corps members should wear their caps of productive creativity and be on the alert to wring out useful liquid from the desiccated well of organised set-backs and iron-cast law of declining quality. Of a truth, this is the sacrifice givers of selfless services to humanity cannot but pay.

What all of the fore-goings amount to for us is that if corps members will dare to be different, be the very obverse of their rulers in doings and conducts, they may not be far from birthing the change desirable in this country. In other words, the longed-for positive turn-around of the atrophying state of Nigeria can indeed be catalysed by the teeming mass of the young people, young Turks in themselves capable of becoming young Turks of and for the country. (Excuse the rephrasing of the famous Marxian phrase.)

This possibly is the Gimbanean version of the revolution that adherents of the ethos of Socialist Realism do claim will end the injustice of class system and oppression of the toiling mass of the working class; another glorified Nigerian practice. Sadiku may not have changed Kumaga State , or even the country, but he puts up his best and in the process avails us of the path we must traverse to regain our lost glory and promises we saw at the time of independence as a sovereign state. There is evidence of his service. All we need now are the Nigerian versions of the imaginary yet realisable and realistic SADIKU. Every corps member must imbibe the Sadikuan principles of and attitude to selfless services. That is the sure route to human, humane, habitable, developed and enviable Nigeria . And as Sadiku counsels, “there must be a recourse to COLLECTIVE COMMITMENT FOR THE GOOD OF THE SOCIETY. The system cannot go on like this … “(emphasis mine) (p.160).

But there is a piece of advice for those who are, with some sacerdotal hardihood, forever convinced that prayers (alone) will definitely reorder the path of the vehicle of Nigeria from the one right before the abyss of regression in all phase to the halcyon haven of development in all ramifications. After a lengthy discussion on the downs of Kokania, Makanjira, perhaps aided by saccharine fluid, invites Sadiku to a bout of prayers as antidote to Kokania’s forest of all-inclusive malaise. “This country needs a lot of prayers. Let’s pray together then …”, quips he (p.160). But this ends up being a joke; what in the first place should be done in the mood of total seriousness is trivialised and done in a care-free disposition. Surely, this speaks volume. A country so routed by deliberate inefficiencies and incapabilities of a few carpet-baggers cannot be said to require just prayers as panacea. We only want to believe that the author does not spell this out, obliquely, as another viable way out. Otherwise, we shall be too willing to point out to him that, were prayers capable of righting the wrongs of a human society where moral, spiritual, and social decadence and rots have become its prized totems of development, then “modern Nigeria” (to quote the crotchety Olusegun Obasanjo, whatever that phrase mean) would by now be a human paradise where every Dick, Tom and Harry has a paradisal existence.

Indubitably, prayers, however efficacious, cannot – advisedly said – singly change any human society, be it Nigeria where followers of the world’s two dominant religions are like the pebbles at the seashore!

Conclusively, Abubakar Gimba really deserves some plaudits for a well crafted work of art. The deftly use of the third person narrative technique, symbolism, in media rex, the dream technique, anecdotes, epigrams, an excellently woven plot, brilliantly created characters and characterisation all add up to show a writer who not only sufficiently understands the essentials of good story-telling but also acquiesces quite intelligently to the equally intelligent submission of Robert Calasso in his expository book, Literature and the Gods, that, form is one element literature seems never to relinquish (p.151). What is more, Gimba hewns beautifully from the vast rock of decadence, stasis, backwardness and disillusionment that is Nigeria and presents to us. That is why we (readers) can easily fill in the missing lines of this story we know too very well. It is our story. The yarn is too real. But of course all hopes are not lost and dashed. In the Gimbanean world, there is always light at the end of the grimly dark tunnel. “There is a messiah in every person. The problem is the will as well as the courage to play such a role”, Gimba asseverates through the narrator, his mouth-piece.



Adesola Ademola (AAO)

Gwoza, Borno State

August 2009.

That God is their God, not mine!

I love not that syncretised Minotaur whose vault of glory is adorned by human misery.
When to stasis or retrogression hE destines a species of humanity,
It is with impunity.
hE skews the antenna of their wasting lives back and forth, knowing this:
That mankind will hail and pay obeisance, saying ‘It is God’s appointed time!’

Mine is a land of confounding misery and excruciating pains!

And when the rabid political jackals initiate and implement policies that stagnate and back-pedal the cycle of their people,
We often see the chameleonic people beat a retreat into the stagnating shell of vacuous religiosity.
Impoverished by the serial and severe decimation and decapitation of their time and lives,
The bee-like majority in their Joseph-like hue have learnt to gyrate and undulate on the quicksand of asphyxiating silence.
Exchanging confidence and courage for docility and placidity,
They explain away the scorching and scourging reality of their beastly rulers’ time and life-wasting ideas and policies with some harrowing bunkum: ‘God’s time is the best’.

God’s appointed time is the known ditty of gelded human animals;
The escape route of lily-livered compatriots;
The waterloo of men and women who are aliens to this universal truth –‘there is dignity in labour’.
How shall I explain the confusion and contradiction of a moribund Scheme as the otiose intervention of a God, a soporific phantom sort of?
The sacredness of a whole is desecrated and I am, in the self-same joy of a Mosaic rod soon to hibernate in the fleshy cavern, enjoined to see the destiny of the unfortunate half as the act of a God whose sole will, not mine, is at work.
Am I therefore an immobilised dummy; a mere puppet; a clayey doll at the mercy of a faceless, time-wasting being devoid of human system?

No! The tragedy of July is no act of a God, real or imaginary!

The August feast is the conscious efforts of clueless and perfidious lots.
I can think. I can reason. I can understand.
The part of the shrinking human canvass I unluckily inhabit is a manifest flailing and failing project.
The quaking mountains and yawning valleys of policy somersaults,
The outcome of unsound minds; sightless leaders are.
As I am viciously singed by July’s distressing fire – the crippling and obtrusive STREAMS 1 and 2 – ,
No one should pontificate the august August as ‘God’s appointed time!’
This aches. This pains. It discomfits, to no end!
It is failure of leadership-appointed time; not God’s!

God’s appointed time
The figment of some pulverised beings’ fevered and fibrous imagination is!

UN DIEU' TEMPS DÉSIGNÉ PAR S !
Automatically translated into French thanks to WorldLingo

Ce Dieu est leur Dieu, pas mine !

J'aime pas qui syncretised Minotaur dont la chambre forte de la gloire est ornée par la misère humaine.
Quand au stasis ou à la rétrogression il destine des espèces de l'humanité,
elle est avec l'impunité.
il biaise l'antenne de leurs vies de gaspillage dans les deux sens, sachant ceci :
Que l'humanité grêlera et payera l'obeisance, dire le `il est le temps désigné de Dieu ! La'

mine est une terre de la misère de confusion et des douleurs atroces !

Et quand les jackals politiques rabiques initié et les politiques d'instrument qui stagnent et font marche arrière le cycle de leurs personnes,
nous voient souvent les personnes inconstantes battre une retraite dans la coquille de stagnation de la bigoterie vide.
Appauvri par la décimation et la décapitation périodiques et graves de leur temps et vies,
abeille-comme la majorité dans le leur Joseph-comme la tonalité ont appris à tourner et onduler sur le sable mouvant du silence asphyxiant.
Échangeant la confiance et le courage pour la docilité et la tranquillité,
ils expliquent loin la réalité étouffante et châtiante temps de leurs règles bestiales' et des idées et des politiques de vie-gaspillage avec un certain bunkum de horrible : Le temps de Dieu de `est le meilleur'.

Le temps désigné de Dieu est la chansonnette connue des animaux humains gelded ;
La sortie de secours des compatriotes de lis-livered ;
La waterloo des hommes et des femmes qui sont des étrangers à cette vérité universelle - `là est dignité dans le travail'.
Comment est-ce que je dois expliquer la confusion et la contradiction d'un arrangement moribond comme intervention de superflu de Dieu, une sorte fantôme soporifique de ?
Le caractère sacré d'une totalité est profané et je suis, dans l'individu-même joie d'une tige de mosaïque bientôt au hibernate dans la caverne charnue, encouragée pour voir le destin de la moitié malheureuse pendant que l'acte de Dieu dont la volonté de plante du pied, pas mine, est au travail.
Suis je donc un muet immobilisé ; une seule marionnette ; une poupée argileuse à la pitié d'un sans visage, temps-gaspillant étant exempt de système humain ?

Non ! La tragédie de juillet n'est aucun acte de Dieu, vrai ou imaginaire !

Le régal d'août est les efforts conscients des sorts clueless et perfides.
Je peux penser. Je peux raisonner. Je peux comprendre.
La partie de la prospection humaine craintive que j'habite unluckily est un projet fouettant et échouant manifeste.
Les montagnes de tremblement et les vallées de baîllement des somersaults de politique,
les résultats des esprits défectueux ; les chefs aveugles sont.
Pendant qu'on me brûle légèrement viciously par le feu affligeant de juillet - estropier et les JETS importuns 1 et 2 -,
personne ne devraient pontifier août août en tant que temps désigné de Dieu de `! '
Ceci fait mal. Ceci fait souffrir. Il déconcerte, à aucune extrémité !
C'est défectueux de temps conduite-désigné ; pas Dieu !

Le temps désigné de Dieu
la fiction de quelques êtres pulvérisés' a enfiévré et l'imagination fibreuse est !

¡DIOS' TIEMPO DESIGNADO S!
Automatically translated into Spanish thanks to WorldLingo

¡Ese dios es su dios, no mina!

Amo no que syncretised Minotaur que cámara acorazada de la gloria es adornada por miseria humana.
Cuándo al stasis o al retroceso él destina una especie de la humanidad,
está con impunidad.
él sesga la antena de sus vidas que pierden hacia adelante y hacia atrás, sabiendo esto:
¡Que la humanidad granizará y pagará obeisance, decir el `él es tiempo designado del dios! ¡La'

mina es una tierra de la miseria de la confusión y de los dolores atroces!

Y cuando los jackals políticos rabiosos iniciado y las políticas del instrumento que se estancan y back-pedal el ciclo de su gente,
nosotros ven a menudo a gente chameleonic batir un retratamiento en la cáscara del estancamiento de la religiosidad vacua.
Empobrecido por la acción de diezmar y la degollación seriales y severas de su tiempo y vidas,
abeja-como mayoría en su José-como tonalidad han aprendido girar y undulate en la arena movediza del silencio de asfixia.
Intercambiando confianza y el valor para el docility y el placidity,
explican lejos la realidad abrasadora y que azota tiempo de sus reglas beastly' y las ideas y las políticas el vida-perder con algún bunkum harrowing: El tiempo del dios del `es el mejor'.

El tiempo designado del dios es la tonadita sabida de animales humanos gelded;
La ruta de escape de los compatriots del lirio-livered;
La Waterloo de los hombres y de las mujeres que son extranjeros a esta verdad universal - `allí es dignidad en trabajo'.
¿Cómo explicar la confusión y la contradicción de un esquema moribundo como la intervención de un dios, una clase fantasma soporífera del otiose de?
El sacredness de un conjunto desecrated y estoy, en la uno mismo-misma alegría de una barra del mosaico pronto al hibernate en la caverna carnuda, impuesta para ver el destino de la mitad desafortunada mientras que el acto de un dios que voluntad de la planta del pie, no mina, esté en el trabajo.
Estoy por lo tanto un maniquí inmovilizado; una marioneta mera; ¿una muñeca arcillosa en la misericordia de un faceless, tiempo-perdiendo siendo desprovisto de sistema humano?

¡No! ¡La tragedia de julio no es ningún acto de un dios, verdadero o imaginario!

El banquete de agosto es los esfuerzos conscientes de porciones clueless y perfidious.
Puedo pensar. Puedo razonar. Puedo entender.
La parte del sondeo humano que encoge que unluckily habito es un proyecto flailing y que falla manifesto.
Las montañas de temblor y los valles que bostezan de los somersaults de la política,
el resultado de mentes falsas; los líderes sightless son.
¡Mientras que el fuego que se apena de julio viciously me chamusco - el lisiar y las CORRIENTES molestas 1 y 2 -,
nadie debe pontificate agosto agosto como tiempo designado del dios del `! '
Esto duele. Esto duele. ¡Discomfits, a ningún extremo!
Es averiado del tiempo dirección-designado; ¡no dios!

¡El tiempo designado del dios
el figment de algunos seres pulverizados' fevered y la imaginación fibrosa es!

DIO' TEMPO NOMINATO S!
Automatically translated into Italian thanks to WorldLingo

Quel dio è il loro dio, non miniera!

Amo non che syncretised Minotaur di cui la volta di glory adorned da miseria umana.
Quando allo stasis o al retrogression destina una specie di umanità,
è con il impunity.
dà avanti e indietro all'antenna una direzione obliqua delle loro vite sprecanti, conoscente questa:
Che l'umanità grandinerà e pagherà il obeisance, ad esempio il `esso è tempo nominato del dio! '

La miniera è una terra di miseria di confusione e di dolori excruciating!

E quando i jackals politici rabbiosi initiate e le politiche dello strumento che stagnano e back-pedal il ciclo della loro gente,
noi vedono spesso la gente chameleonic battere una ritirata nelle coperture di ristagno di religiosity vacuous.
Impoverito tramite il decimation e la decapitazione di serie e severi del loro tempo e vite,
ape-come la maggior parte in loro Joseph-come la tonalità hanno imparato roteare e undulate sul quicksand di silenzio d'asfissia.
Scambiando la riservatezza ed il coraggio per il docility ed il placidity,
spiegano via la realtà scorching e scourging tempo dei loro righelli beastly' ed idee e le politiche vita-sprecare con un certo bunkum harrowing: Il tempo del dio del `è il la cosa migliore'.

Il tempo nominato del dio è il ditty conosciuto degli animali umani gelded;
L'uscita d'emergenza dei compatriots del giglio-livered;
Il waterloo degli uomini e delle donne che sono stranieri a questa verità universale - `là è la dignità nel lavoro'.
Come spiegare la confusione e la contraddizione di uno schema moribondo come l'intervento di un dio, una specie fantasma soporific di otiose di?
Il sacredness di un tutto desecrated e sarò, nella auto-stessa gioia di un asta del mosaico presto a hibernate nella spelonca carnosa, incoraggiata per vedere il destino della metà sfavorevole mentre l'atto di un dio di cui la volontà della suola, non miniera, è sul lavoro.
Sono quindi un manichino immobilizzato; un puppet puro; una bambola argillosa alla misericordia di un faceless, tempo-sprecante essendo privo del sistema umano?

No! La tragedia di luglio è atto di un dio, reale o immaginario!

La festività di agosto è gli sforzi coscienti dei lotti clueless e perfidious.
Posso pensare. Posso ragionare. Posso capire.
La parte del sondaggio elettorale che umano shrinking unluckily abito è un progetto flailing e venente a mancare manifesto.
Le montagne di tremito e le valli sbadiglianti dei somersaults di politica,
il risultato delle menti difettose; i capi sightless sono.
Mentre viciously sono brucciacchiato dal fuoco affliggente di luglio - paralizzare ed i FLUSSI obtrusive 1 e 2 -,
nessuno dovrebbero pontificate agosto agosto come tempo nominato del dio del `! '
Questo fa male. Ciò fa soffrire. Discomfits, a nessun'estremità!
È guasto di tempo direzione-nominato; non dio!

Tempo nominato del dio
il figment di alcuni esseri polverizzati' fevered e l'immaginazione fibrosa è!

GOTT' S FESTGESETZTE ZEIT!
Automatically translated into German thanks to WorldLingo

Dieser Gott ist ihr Gott, nicht Grube!

Ich liebe nicht, der Minotaur syncretised, dessen Wölbung des Ruhmes durch menschliches Elend geschmückt wird.
Wann zum stasis oder zum retrogression er eine Sorte Menschlichkeit vorsieht,
ist sie mit Straffreiheit.
er skews die Antenne ihrer vergeudenden Leben hin und her und weiß dieses:
Daß Menschheit obeisance, sagen `es hagelt und zahlt, ist festgesetzte Zeit des Gottes! '

Grube ist ein Land des Verwirrenelendes und der unerträglichen Schmerz!

Und wenn die rasenden politischen jackals Eingeführtes und die Werkzeugpolitischen richtlinien, die der Zyklus ihrer Leute stagnieren und rückwärts treten,
wir häufig die chameleonic Leute sehen, einen Rückzug in das Stagnierenoberteil von vacuous Religiosity zu schlagen.
Verarmt durch die Serien- und strenge Dezimierung und die Enthauptung ihrer Zeit und Leben,
Biene-wie Majorität in ihrem Joseph-wie Farbe haben erlernt zu kreisen und undulate auf dem Quicksand der asphyxiating Ruhe.
Vertrauen und Mut gegen docility und Ruhe austauschend,
erklären sie weg die scorching und scourging Wirklichkeit ihrer scheußlichen Lehren' Zeit und Leben-Vergeuden Ideen und politische Richtlinien mit irgendeinem harrowing bunkum: Zeit des `Gottes ist' das beste.

Festgesetzte Zeit des Gottes ist der bekannte Ditty der gelded menschlichen Tiere;
Der Entweichenweg der Lilie-livered Landsmänner;
Das Waterloo der Männer und der Frauen, die Ausländer zu dieser Universalwahrheit - `dort sind, ist Würde in der Arbeit'.
Wie soll ich das Durcheinander und den Widerspruch eines sterbenden Entwurfs als die otiose Intervention eines Gottes, eine soporific Phantomart von erklären?
Das sacredness eines Ganzen wird entheiligt und ich bin, in der Selbst-gleichen Freude an einer Mosaikstange bald zum hibernate in der fleischigen Höhle, vorgeschrieben, um das Schicksal der unglücklichen Hälfte zu sehen während die Tat eines Gottes dessen Sohlewille, nicht Grube, an der Arbeit ist.
Bin ich folglich eine stillgestellte Attrappe; eine bloße Marionette; eine lehmige Puppe an der Gnade von einem gesichtslosem, Zeit-vergeudend seiend leer vom menschlichen System?

Nein! Die Tragödie von Juli ist keine Tat eines Gottes, real oder eingebildet!

Das August Fest ist die bewußten Bemühungen der clueless und heimtückischen Lose.
Ich kann denken. Ich kann folgern. Ich kann verstehen.
Das Teil der schrumpfenden menschlichen Erörterung, die ich unluckily bewohne, ist ein offenkundiges dreschendes und ausfallendes Projekt.
Die bebenden Berge und die gähnenden Senken von Politik somersaults,
das Resultat des nicht einwandfreien Verstandes; sightless Führer sind.
Während ich viciously durch Julis beunruhigendes Feuer versengt werde - das Verkrüppeln und die obtrusive STRÖME 1 und 2 -,
sollten niemand den August August als festgesetzte Zeit des `Gottes belehren! '
Dieses schmerzt. Dieses schmerzt. Es verwirrt, zu keinem Ende!
Es ist Ausfall der Führung-festgesetzten Zeit; nicht Gottes!

Festgesetzte Zeit des Gottes
fieberte das figment einiger pulverisierter Wesen' und faserartige Phantasie ist!

DEUS' TEMPO APONTADO S!
Automatically translated into Portuguese thanks to WorldLingo

Esse deus é seu deus, não mina!

Eu amo não que syncretised Minotaur cujo o vault do glory adorned pela miséria humana.
Quando ao stasis ou ao retrogression destines uma espécie do humanity,
é com impunity.
enviesa a antena de suas vidas desperdiçando para a frente e para trás, sabendo esta:
Que a humanidade granizará e pagará o obeisance, dig o `ele é tempo apontado do deus! '

A mina é uma terra da miséria da confusão e de dores excruciating!

E quando os jackals políticos rabid novato e as políticas do instrumento que stagnate e back-pedal o ciclo de seus povos,
nós virem frequentemente os povos chameleonic bater um recuo no escudo stagnating do religiosity vacuous.
Impoverished pelo decimation e pelo decapitation de série e severos de seus tempo e vidas,
abelha-como a maioria no seu Joseph-como o hue aprenderam gyrate e undulate no quicksand do silêncio asphyxiating.
Trocando a confiança e a coragem pelo docility e pelo placidity,
explicam afastado a realidade scorching e scourging tempo das suas réguas beastly' e idéias e políticas vida-desperdiçar com algum bunkum harrowing: O tempo do deus do `é o mais melhor'.

O tempo apontado do deus é a cantiga sabida de animais humanos gelded;
A rota de escape de compatriots do lírio-livered;
O waterloo dos homens e das mulheres que são estrangeiros a esta verdade universal - `lá é dignidade no trabalho'.
Como devo eu explicar a confusão e o contradiction de um esquema moribund como a intervenção de um deus, uma sorte phantom soporific do otiose de?
O sacredness de um todo desecrated e eu estou, em self-mesma alegria de uma haste do Mosaic logo ao hibernate na caverna fleshy, enjoined para ver o destiny da metade infeliz enquanto o ato de um deus cuja a vontade da sola, não mina, esteja no trabalho.
Sou eu conseqüentemente um manequim immobilised; um mero fantoche; uma boneca clayey na mercê de um faceless, tempo-desperdiçando sendo devoid do sistema humano?

Não! A tragédia de julho não é nenhum ato de um deus, real ou imaginário!

A festa de agosto é os esforços conscious de lotes clueless e perfidious.
Eu posso pensar. Eu posso raciocinar. Eu posso compreender.
A parte do canvass que humano shrinking eu habito unluckily é um projeto flailing e de falha manifesto.
As montanhas quaking e os vales bocejando de somersaults da política,
o resultado de mentes doentias; os líderes sightless são.
Enquanto eu singed viciously pelo fogo afligindo de julho - aleijar e os CÓRREGOS obtrusive 1 e 2 -,
ninguém devem pontificate o agosto agosto como o tempo apontado do deus do `! '
Isto aches. Isto causa dor. Discomfits, a nenhuma extremidade!
Falha do tempo liderança-apontado; não deus!

Tempo apontado do deus
o figment de alguns seres pulverised' fevered e a imaginação fibrous é!

GUD BESTÄMDA TIME!
Automatically translated into Swedish thanks to WorldLingo

Den gud är deras gud som inte är min!

Jag älskar inte som syncretised Minotaur, vars valv av härlighet smyckas av människamisär.
When till stasisen eller regression han bestämmer art av mänsklighet,
är den med impunity.
han kör antennen av deras tära liv skevt fram och tillbaka som vet denna:
Att den mankind ska hagel- och lönobeisancen, ordstäv`det är gud bestämda tid! '

Bryta är ett land av att blanda ihop misär och excruciating plågor!

Och när de invigda rabiat politiska jackalsna och genomför politik, som stagnerar och bromsar cykla av deras folk,
oss ser ofta att det chameleonic folket att slå en reträtt in i stagnera beskjuter av tom religiosity.
Utarmat av följetongen och den stränga decimationen och halshuggningen av deras tid och liv,
bi-gilla majoriteten i deras Joseph-gillar ton har lttt till vridet och böljer på quicksanden av asphyxiating tystnad.
Utbyta förtroende och kurage för docility och placidity,
förklarar de bort bränna, och scourging verklighet av deras djuriska linjaler' tajmar och liv-slöseri idéer och politik med någon hemsk humbug: `- Gud tid är det bäst'.

Gud är bestämda tid den bekant dittyen av kastrerade människadjur;
Flyktrutten av lilja-liveredlandsmän;
Waterlooen av manar och kvinnor, som är utomjordingar till denna universella sanning - `där, är värdighet i arbete'.
Hur jag att förklara förvirringen, och sorterar motsättningen av en moribund intrig som otioseingripandet av en gud, en sövande fantom av?
Sacrednessen av en helhet skändas, och I-förmiddagen, i densamma glädjen av en mosaisk stång snart till hibernate i den fleshy cavernen som åläggas för att se öden av den olyckliga halvan, som agera av en gud vars sular, ska som inte är min, är på arbete.
Förmiddag I därför en immobilised attrapp; en bara docka; en lerig docka på förskoningen av ett faceless, tajma-slöseri som är devoid av människasystem?

Nr.! Tragedin av Juli är ingen agerar av en gud, verkligt eller imaginärt!

Den Augusti festmåltiden är de medvetna försöken av korkade och perfidious lott.
Mig canfunderare. Jag kan resonera. Jag kan förstå.
Delen av den shrinking människacanvassen som jag bebor unluckily, är en uppenbar flailing, och missa projektera.
De skälva bergen och gäspadalarna av politik slå en kullerbytta,
resultatet av osunt varar besvärad; sightless ledare är.
Som I-förmiddagen illvilligt singed, genom Julis att bedröva, avfyrar - lamslå och obtrusive STRÖMMER 1 och 2 -,
ingen bör pontificate augusti Augusti som `- gud bestämda tid! '
Görar ond detta. Detta smärtar. Det discomfits, till inget avslutar!
Det är fel av ledarskap-bestämd tid; inte gud!

Gud bestämda tid
fevered påhitt av några pulvriserade beings', och fintrådig fantasi är!

НАЗНАЧЕННОЕ ВРЕМЯ S БОГА'!
Automatically translated into Russian thanks to WorldLingo

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Apache Tomcat/5.5

GOD' S BENOEMD TIME!
Automatically translated into Dutch thanks to WorldLingo

Die God is hun God, niet mijn!

Ik houd van niet die Minotaur syncretised de waarvan kluis van glorie door menselijke ellende wordt versierd.
Wanneer aan stasis of retrogressie hij een soort van het mensdom bestemt,
is het met straffeloosheid.
hij schuint de antenne afwisselend van hun het verspillen leven af, kennend dit:
Die mensheid zal obeisance begroeten en betalen, zeggend `het de benoemde tijd van de God is! De'

mijn is een land van verwarrende ellende en martelende pijnen!

En wanneer dolle politieke jackals in werking stellen en beleid uitvoeren dat en achter-pedaal de cyclus van hun mensen stagneert,
zien wij vaak de chameleonic mensen een terugtocht in stagnerende shell van lege religiosity slaan.
Verarmd door het periodieke en strenge decimeren en het onthoofding van hun tijd en leven,
heeft de bij-als meerderheid in hun Joseph-als tint geleerd rond te draaien en undulate op quicksand van verstikkende stilte.
Ruilend vertrouwen en moed voor docility en placidity,
verklaren zij weg het schroeien en scourging werkelijkheid van hun beestachtig heersers' tijd en leven-verspillend ideeën en beleid met één of andere harrowing bunkum: `De tijd van de god is het beste'.

Is de benoemde tijd van de god bekende ditty van gelded menselijke dieren;
De vluchtroute van lelie-livered landgenoten;
Waterloo van mannen en vrouwen die daar vreemdelingen aan deze universele waarheid - `zijn is waardigheid in arbeid'.
Hoe ik de verwarring en de tegenspraak van een stervende Regeling als otiose interventie van een God, een soporific spooksoort van zal verklaren?
Sacredness van een geheel is desecrated en ik, in de self-same vreugde van een staaf van het Mozaïek spoedig aan hibernate in het vlezige hol, word opgelegd om het lot van de ongelukkige helft te zien aangezien de handeling van een God de van wie zool zal, niet mijn, op het werk is.
Ben I daarom een geïmmobiliseerdp model; een zuivere marionet; een kleiachtige pop bij de tijd-verspilt genade van anoniem, zijnd verstoken van menselijk systeem?

Nr! De tragedie van Juli is geen handeling van een God, echt of denkbeeldig!

Het feest van Augustus is de bewuste inspanningen van clueless en perfidious partijen.
Ik kan denken. Ik kan redeneren. Ik kan begrijpen.
Het deel van het krimpende menselijke grondige onderzoek dat ik unluckily in is een duidelijke flailing en ontbrekend project heb gewoond.
De schokkende bergen en de geeuwvalleien van beleid somersaults,
het resultaat van ondeugdelijke meningen; sightless leiders zijn.
Aangezien indien ik viciously door de verontrustende brand van Juli - verlammende en indiscrete STROMEN 1 en 2 - word geschroeid
, niemand pontificate augustus Augustus als benoemde tijd van de God `! '
Dit doet pijn. Deze pijnen. Het discomfits, aan geen eind!
Het is mislukking van leiding-benoemde tijd; niet God!

Fevered de benoemde tijd
van de god Figment van sommige verpulverde wezens' en de vezelige verbeelding is!

إلهة' [س] يعيّن وقت!
Automatically translated into Arabic thanks to WorldLingo

أنّ إلهة إلهتهم, لا منجم لغم!

أنا أحبّ لا أنّ [سنكرتيسد] [مينوتور] الذي عقد المجد يكون زيّنت بشقاء إنسانيّة.
متى إلى [ستسس] أو انحسار [ه] يقدّم نوع الإنسانية,
هو مع حصانة.
[ه] يميل الهوائي من هم يبدّد حيوات [بك ند فورث], يعرف هذا:
أنّ سيمطر جنس بشريّ وسيدفع [أبيسنس], [سينغ] `هو إلهة يعيّن وقت! '

منجم لغم أرض من يتيّه شقاء وآلام شديد الألم!

وعندما يرى الإبن آوى عنيفة سياسيّة مدربة وأداة تطبيق سياسات أنّ يركد و [بك-بدل] الدورة من الناسهم,
نحن غالبا الالناس حربائيّة ضربت إنسحاب داخل ال يركد قشرة قذيفة من [رليجوستي] فارغة.
قد علم ناضبة بالمتسلسلة وقاسية [دسمأيشن] و [دكبيتأيشن] من هم وقت وحيوات,
ال [بي-ليك] أغلبية في هم [جوسف-ليك] تدرّج لون أن يدوّم و [أوندولت] على الوعث من يختنق حالة سكون.
يتبادل ثقة وشجاعة لحالة طوع وحالة هدوء,
يفسّر هم بعيدا ال [سكرشنغ] و [سكورجنغ] حقيقة من مساطرهم [بستلي]' وقت و [ليف-وستينغ] أفكار وسياسات مع بعض [هرّووينغ] [بونكوم]: `إلهة وقت الجيّدة'.

إلهة يعيّن وقت ال يعرف [ديتّي] من [جلدد] حيوانات إنسانيّة;
الفرار طريق من [ليل-ليفرد] مواطنات;
[وترلوو] من رجال ونساء الذي يكون غريبات إلى هذا حقيقة عالميّة - `هناك كرامة في عمل'.
كيف سوفت أنا فسّرت الإرباك وتناقض من خطة محتضرة ك ال [أتيوس] تدخل من إلهة, نوع [سبوريفيك] وهميّة من?
[دسكرتد] ال [سكردنسّ] من كلّ وأنا, في ال [سلف-سم] سعادة من فسيفساء قضيب قريبا إلى [هيبرنت] في الكهف واسع لحميّة, يؤمر أن يرى المصير من النصف تعيسة بما أنّ العمل من إلهة الذي نعل إرادة, لا منجم لغم, يكون في عمل.
أنا لذلك يجمّد [دومّي]; دمية مجرّدة; دمية طينيّة في الرحمة من [فسلسّ], [تيم-وستينغ] يكون خلو من نظامة إنسانيّة?

رفض! المأساة يوليو-تمّوز ما من عمل من إلهة, حقيقيّة أو تخيّليّة!

أغسطس - آب عيد الجهود واعية من [كلولسّ] وحصص [برفيديووس].
أنا يستطيع فكّرت. أنا يستطيع رشّدت. أنا يستطيع فهمت.
الجزء من ال [كنفسّ] [شرينكينغ] إنسانيّة أنا [أونلوكيلي] أسكن ظاهرة [فليلينغ] و [فيلينغ] مشروع.
ال يهتزّ أجبال ويتثاءب أودية من سياسة [سمرسولتس],
النتيجة من عقول غيرصحيح; زعيمات [سغتلسّ].
بما أنّ أنا أكون بشكل فاسد أحرقت بيوليو-تمّوز يكرب نار - ال يعطّل وتيارات [أبتروسف] 1 و2 -,
لا أحد سوفت [بونتيفيكت] أغسطس - آب أغسطس - آب ك `إلهة يعيّن وقت! '
يزجع هذا. هذا يعزّ. هو [ديسكمفيتس], إلى ما من نهاية!
هو إخفاق من [لدرشيب-بّوينتد] وقت; لا إلهة!

إلهة يعيّن وقت
[ففرد] الشئ ملفّق من بعض ينسحق كائن' وتخيل ليفيّة!