Today, I go into the opportunities now open to the retired Air Force Officer who 15 days ago began speaking one – to – one with the Ancient of Days. The first is that it guarantees him the chance to make the Kingdom of God, if he stands steadfast in his faith in the Lord and does not displease Him or derail. I need to point this out because some of those whom the Most High sends His Spiritual Guides to bring to Him and those recommended by such people do fall by the way side.
This is because it takes years before the Sovereign Lord fulfills His promises to people and He does this as a test of faith. The type He did with Abraham whom He did not give a covenant son, Isaac until 25 years after He made the promise (Genesis Chapters 12:1 – 9, 18:1 – 15 & 21:1 – 8).
I too derailed. The Lord sent for me on Tuesday, February 18, 1969 and made the promise to bless me. But when nothing happened in three years I stopped going to my Spiritual Guide in Akure to take me to Him in 1972. It was the Lord who 20 years later decided to give me another chance when in 1992 (28 years ago) He sent my present Spiritual Guide in Ado – Ekiti to bring me. Like me, he was then living in Lagos. I still do.
As the Ancient of Days told me in 1997 if I do not derail again I would make His Kingdom in my Hereafter. I pray on this every day when I wake up and when going to bed at night. It has been a ritual for me in the last 20 years.
Another thing is that someone the Lord speaks with can also help another person make the Kingdom of Heaven. I knew of this in 2001. As I had revealed in this column on a number of occasions in the last 10 years, the Most High caused the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Chief Moshood Abiola to be annulled because he offended Him.
For the reason that he failed to keep to the deadline He gave him to send his thanksgiving offering to the 41 Muslim clerics He raised in Ado – Ekiti to pray and fast 41 days to make his victory possible. And for sending the pittance amount of fifty thousand naira to all of them, which came to one thousand, two hundred naira per person.
Because I knew Abiola’s political problems in 1993 and his death in detention in 1998 were divine, I approached the Heavenly Father in 2001 to seek forgiveness for him and allow him to make His Kingdom on the Day of Judgment. That day the Lord told me it was not Abiola alone that I need to plead for but also my grandfather who died in 1916. Like the Kings and traditional High Chiefs of his era in the South – West, if not in Nigeria as a whole, he too engaged in sacrificing human beings to appease his deity in time of epidemics, overcome problems, to ensure peace and the well-being of himself and members of his family.
The Ancient of Days promised me that day in 2001 that He would pardon the two of them and that when the time comes He would tell me the redeeming efforts I would make. Nineteen years later, the Most High is yet to do so. But He would surely do because He always keeps to His promises to people.
Next week: The guarantee of protection for one and his family and God giving one herbal medicine (liquid or in powder or solid form) to cure diseases, such as prostate enlargement or cancer and diabetes, as was the case with me with the latter ailment
R.I.P Rawlings, Balarabe Musa & Bisi Lawrence
I met President Jerry John Rawlings (Sunday, June 22, 1947 – Thursday, November 12, 2020) and Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa (Friday, August 21, 1936 – Wednesday, November 11, 2020) once and at close quarters before they both came to political limelight in 1979. Rawlings as military Head of State of Ghana on Monday, June 4 and Balarabe, a civilian, as an elected Governor of Kaduna State on Monday, October 1.
I met Rawlings at a get – together in a club in Accra in 1977 when I was in Ghana to cover the meeting of the Ministers of Education of Commonwealth countries. It was the first time I heard his name, but I knew he was a very popular person because people hailed him, J.J or Jerry as he came in. And a number of them went to greet him where he was sitting with his friends.
I met Balarabe too in 1977 in Jos at the meeting of a committee the Federal Military Government of General Olusegun Obasanjo set up to promote anti – apartheid campaign in Nigeria. I was representing the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), where I was Current Affairs Editor. That day I knew that Balarabe Musa was a radical who was honest, simple and a detribalized Nigerian.
I met Mr. Bisi Lawrence, popularly known as Biz Law by all or Uncle Bisi by the younger ones, when I joined the NBC in July 1971. He was then in the corporation’s Sports Department. But in 1976 he was briefly deployed to the Current Affairs Unit as the Head of our session. He was there for about six months and went back to his sports beat as the Head of Department.
I admire Rawlings and Balarabe Musa because they were principled persons and incorruptible leaders in and out of government. They came to serve the people and not to loot state treasury and become wealthy as was the case with their counterparts in Ghana and Nigeria from the 1970s till today, where most military officers staged coups to become hugely rich and where politicians contest elections for the same reason.
I understand that all Balarabe Musa, an Accountant by profession, had was the modest house where he lived in Kaduna, and a small farm and that he rode a Mercedes Benz car he bought 30 years ago until he went to glory last week Wednesday.
Jerry Rawlings also lived such a simple life and did not acquire property recklessly whether when he was a military Head of State (twice in 1979 & 81) or an elected President (also twice in 1992 & 96). He, late President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania (October 29, 1964 – November 5, 1985), President Nelson Mandela (May 10, 1994 – June 16, 1999) and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (Prime Minister from March 6, 1957 – July 1, 1960 and President from July 1, 1960 – February 24, 1966), are the four Heads of State in Africa that I held in high esteem during their leadership of their countries and till today because they were not corrupt, but men of integrity. I find it an extraordinary coincidence that Jerry Rawlings and Balarabe Musa, men of honour and good moral standards died a day apart: Musa last week Wednesday (November 11) popularly known globally as Eleven – Eleven and Rawlings the following day (Thursday, November 12).
The only thing I did not like about Rawlings was his human rights abuses and the execution for corruption of eight Ghanaian military Generals, three of them former Heads of State. These were General Akwasi A. Afrifa (April 2, 1969 – August 7, 1970), Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong (Thursday, January 13, 1972 – Tuesday, July 4, 1978) and Lt. General Frederick W. K. Akuffo (Wednesday, July 5, 1978 – Sunday, June 3, 1979). Rawlings overthrew him the following day, June 4.
I disliked what Rawlings did because at the time they committed the offence of corruption and bad governance, death penalty was not in Ghana’s laws. So, Rawlings should just have gotten them jailed. Especially as his killing them, did not have an enduring salutary effect because Ghana’s politicians are said to have become as corrupt as their Nigerian counterparts in the last ten years or so.
Uncle Bisi Lawrence who was from Oye in Ekiti State but was brought up in Akure and Campos Street on Lagos Island was a happy – go – lucky person. He was easy – going, humorous and a lover of drinking beer. He even had a shop where he sold beer in Surulere, Lagos.
His father who was a Forest Ranger in Akure for years was a friend of my dad. Although my old man had other houses in Akure, when he relocated back home in 1958, it was the storey building he bought from Bisi Lawrence’s father at Igbo Oliki Street that we moved into.
Uncle Bisi would be remembered as an ace sports broadcaster and an illuminating journalist for the classic columns he wrote in high quality English in the Punch and later Vanguard newspaper for about three decades. In 2010, he phoned me and I went to see him at Gaskiya Grammar School, Ijora Lagos, an institution established by his late bearded elder brother, Mr. Tunde Lawrence who was teaching in Akure before he moved over to Lagos in the 1960s to set up the college.
Uncle Bisi wanted me to write his biography, but I declined because I was then writing a book. It is remarkable that at time he passed on last week Wednesday, November 11 that I was engaged in writing another book. This time on our family, the Elemo Adedipe of Akure. The book which will soon go to print is expected to be launched in the early months of next year.
It is my prayer that the Heavenly Father will forgive President Rawlings, Alhaji Balarabe Musa and Uncle Bisi Lawrence their sins and grant them the grace of making His Kingdom.