Prophets are historians of the future. They shout their warnings in the shrillness of silence. The new year is less than three weeks away. If you have not been reading prophecies from the specialists, it is probably because the monopoly has been smashed. We have all become prophets. The poor and the rich know what is in the belly of the coming times. Even the government is a government of prophets. In October they said there would be famine next year. In November they said No. There won’t be famine in 2017. This is December, we wait on them for what the crystal ball shall tell.
This time last year, I looked at the horizon and prophesied that in the year 2016, the stories and rumours of scandals, arrests, invasions, elections, money and, …more money that shocked you in 2015 shall multiply. I said true, the rich had been crying, the poor had also been shedding tears. And I warned that 2016 would birth more.
I said with the elections that you saw, there was clearly a scramble for the soul (and money) of the nation and the gladiators were not going to take any prisoners. I said, for the warlords, It was victory or nothing over the enemy. The enemy is not necessarily the man in the other party. The neighbour is the enemy and must fall. That is the spirit behind all the noise and we haven’t seen the end. I said last year that all these had just started.
Because the aura of 2016 and that of 2017 are the same, I am repeating some of the lines: We look with high hopes at the coming year but our leaders are not. Our governors are insisting the new year must not end without some send offs. Last year, no one appeared scared. This year, every one is scared. Half pay is the new pay everywhere and anywhere. The new year will take us to 1984, the fictional and the historical. Let anyone who laughs at doomsayers read George Orwell’s 1984. If you are Wole Soyinka’s Internet millipede and the book is too bulky for ease of comprehension, just google the news of the year 1984. They ring same and are truly identical. Read and see and believe that you are on a barber’s chair. I said all these last year. I am repeating them this year. What the seer sees, he must not tell all. But he must talk.
This is not about the price of bean and cake. It is not about farmers selling everything and going hungry in the new year. I am not saying that here the new year will be about prayers and prayers for deliverance. That is for rookie marabouts and apprentice pastors to see and say. I won’t shout because soon, in the new year, political parties will become social parties drunk in whisky, weed and sex. In the coming year, the partisans you see today will be drenched in the waters of defections and desertions. I say that denials and disclaimers will continue from terrified strong men who are human. The symptoms of the new year will be clear manifestations of the bad in men of goodly costumes. I see and say that the HIV of our politics will grow full blown into AIDS and all eyes shall see.
The past year was of patriots who burnt virgin forests. The foolish follower will soon see through the farcical shows and will attempt to ask questions. When today’s patriots fight and expose the villainy of patriots of yesterday what we learn is to stop being fools. When wolves fight foxes to death, let the ones without guile stay off. This year, the war of scandals and unbelievable billions in private vaults was not of weaklings. The coming year won’t either. In these wars, the poor and the weak are unintended, accidental beneficiaries – when wolves and foxes fight to death, the forest gets safer for the frail.
I see costly lies selling free in golden plates. I see truth coming back unsold. I see workers begging to work without pay. I see labour leaders selling and buying. I see false saviours repackaging messages of hope. But nations that bow before false gods share a common fate. They harvest ruins and waste. Their people are hoisted as standards of wreck and suffering. Samuel Chandler warned and I remember his exact words: when a people follow the truth, they are “saved from bondage, successful in war, abounded in wealth and blessed with every circumstance necessary to render them a happy and flourishing people.” The new year will present ugly truth and golden lies. What we choose is what we live.
When the eyes see a million, the mouth is permitted to say a hundred. That is what our elders say. I see a country in search of health. I see a sick nation begging to breath. I see the lion in his sickbed. I see other animals doing eye service, ‘working’ for the quick recovery of the king of the jungle. I see all manner of medicines for the infirm sovereign. I see wolf and I see fox, rivals in a deadly game of power and strategies and stratagem and death. I see as each designs the end of the other standing on the infirmity of the lion. I see deadly animals of greed scheming personal profits on platters of patriotism and loyalty to the sovereign.
I remember I said so last year. Nigeria is sick. I see it. The scandals say so. It has always been sick. Nigeria has doctors attending to it. There have always been doctors around. Presidents; governors; senators; ministers. Today’s healers were death dealers of yesterday. So many faces of Doctor Death looking for victims to con and kill. The landmines our doctors of death buried in fields of hope are still exploding, crushing bones, cutting limbs and destroying destinies. Men of yesterday and men of today will continue skinning each other for their ‘love’ of the nation. We should watch and whistle.
Elections are tonics for the anaemic nation. Last year, I said what we saw in Kogi and Bayelsa were just models of the love the beasts of the jungle had for the land. You can now add Edo and Ondo. Soon, it will be Anambra. Then add Ekiti. Then Osun. The last two will come after 2017. Yes. Do you make a child on the day of delivery? For Osun and Ekiti, the conception of the baby of 2018 will be done in the new year. The husband is already loosening the trousers. The wife’s opinion is zero here. She may shout, she can kick and yell. The act will be done in the new year. The child must look like the father. The prognosis is not pleasant. What we will see is a race for destinies that lay not in human hands. In the new year, we will see clay gods dancing in the rain.
Exactly as I warned last year, I say again, the story has just started.
and then