The text message of Mr. Egbo Egbo published three weeks ago, on April 22, urging me to produce a book on all the Ancient of Days had told me on the stories and issues in the Christian Holy Book was only the latest prompting, because I had been receiving such encouragement from readers in the last ten years. It began on Friday, October 1, 2010 with Mr. Eddie of Mbaise in Imo State (080 – 3349 – 7891).
He sent me a text message after coming across a series I did on polygamy from November 2008 through January 2009, in reaction to a story in the Sunday Vanguard by Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye. The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God was reported to have said God was against polygamy and that was why He created one wife (Eve) for Adam. So much impressed was Eddie with my article that he declared me a “Professor Emeritus in Bible Studies.”
He then implored me to turn my series into a book for the people of this and future generations to have it to read and have good understanding from accounts in the Bible that the Heavenly Father is not against polygamy. This is because He has no law against it and did not punish anybody who had more than one wife. But rather gave rules to polygamous men in Exodus 21:10 – 11 and Deuteronomy 21: 15 – 17 on how to have peace in their homes.
Two years later, when circumstances made me write on the issue again in 2012, other people also came out to request me to publish a book on plural wedding. The first was Reverend (Dr.) Ejiofor Josiah Ozzoude of the Great Faith Apostolic Church (070 – 5293 – 2501) who did so on Friday, March 2, 2012. While Mr. Matthew Peter of Kano (080 – 7934 – 8136) followed on Wednesday, May 9.
In a message sent a month and three days later, on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 Deacon Richard Jeshuabis (070 – 5225 – 7689) described me as someone God sent to make people “have better understanding of the Scriptures, straighten twisted minds on polygamy and enlighten the ignorant on the issue.”
Alhaji Saka Abdulkadir of Yola, Adamawa State (080 – 6035 – 4098), joined in making the appeal on Thursday, February 7, 2013, while Mr. Dolapo of Abuja did so on Monday, November 11, 2018 and Chief Umeh Ozodinobi (081 – 8433 – 1665) on Friday, July 12, 2019.
But for some other readers, instead of my series on multiple marriage, they want me to publish all my articles since this column commenced on Wednesday, December 19, 2007, thirteen years ago, into a book or books. The suggestion first came from Chief J. J. Ibeka (070 – 6577 – 3998) who contacted me on Wednesday, May 4, 2016 and even wanted me to write a column every day of the week from Monday through Sunday.
Mr. Harrison Nwobodo (080 – 3348 – 5008) reached out to me on Thursday, March 30, 2017 with this text message: “I hope God will give you the endowment to put PABULUM in book form to help us continue to harvest from your exceptional wisdom and knowledge that the Lord has blessed you with.”
Others who have expressed the same opinion are Dr. Alfred Gono (070 – 1017 – 0766) whose text message I received on Sunday, June 10, 2018 and Dr. Lucky in Port Harcourt (081 – 5362 – 4147) who sent his nine days later, on June 19.
Even before the online or internet age came, most Nigerians who are not students had stopped reading books, let alone buying them. There is also the fact that polygamy has not been popular among the Christians since the 1970s. Consequently, it will be a waste of time and money for me to write and publish a book on polygamy, especially as my writing on the issue in this column since 2008 was not to promote multiple-marriage. But rather to let pastors and other Christians know that Almighty God is not against polygamy in the Bible.
Something borne out by the fact He has no law against it and did not punish anyone for it in the Holy Book, while Jesus Christ did not preach against it. Given this I wanted to get Christians, particularly clerics preaching that the Lord is against polygamy, know that they are only placing themselves under the curses of the Heavenly Father in Deuteronomy 27:11 – 26m, which end with: “God’s curse on anyone who does not obey all of His law and teachings.”
Instead of writing a book on polygamy, what I plan to do is treat the issue in a chapter in the book I will publish on the explanation the Lord has been making to me since 1997 on issues in the Holy Bible and those I am yet to raise with Him. But this will be after I had published my book on the Catholic Church and Popes, hopefully next year. In other words, the book on my discussion with the Ancient of Days on Scriptural matters can only come out earliest in 2023, the Lord sparing my life.
Legacies of Dr. Victor Olaiya (2)
From the 1930s through the late ‘60s, Nigerian bandleaders were known as spendthrifts and men with more than one wife and reckless womanizers with many children outside wedlock. They had no cars, houses and hotels of their own. But Ikorodu – born Labinjo Bobby Benson, the doyen of highlife music in Nigeria and his former band boy, the Ijesa – Isu, Ekiti – born Dr. Victor Abimbola Olaiya brought changes to the profession in this regard.
Bobby Benson who was the first musician in Nigeria to do so, built his own hotel and residence in the Igbobi area of Ikorodu Road in Lagos in the late 1950s, followed by Victor Olaiya who constructed his Stadium Hotel in the 1970s or so. The other bandleader who owns his own hotel in the country that I know of till today is Femi Kuti who has the ‘Afrikan Shrine’ in Ikeja.
I am not sure if Dr. Olaiya’s band blazed the trail in playing outside Nigeria, but his was the first to be invited by a foreign government to entertain abroad. It began in 1960 when he performed for the United Nations troops in the Congo and again took part in the International Jazz Festival in Prague (Praha in local language) in 1963.
It was the time he was awarded a doctorate degree in music by a university in Prague. This honour made Alhaji Alade Odumewu (a.k.a Allahde), the celebrated columnist and king of satiric writing of the Daily Times to give Dr. Olaiya, the title of “Evil Genius of Highlife Music”. It was a sarcastic or ironically worded appellation acknowledging his extraordinary talent as a trumpeter and star musician in Nigeria.
It was the acquisition of the prefix Doctor that led Nigerian musicians to start giving themselves or been called by their fans as Chief Commander, Barrister, Admiral, Sir, Emperor etc. But in the case of Sunny Ade (Sunny Adeniyi Adegeye), he became known as King Sunny Ade when the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi) installed him in his palace as the King of Juju music. But reports had it at the time that the honour was made possible by Mr. Olu Makinde, the Entertainment Editor of the Daily Sketch in Ibadan.
Next week: My tribute to my friend, Charlotte Dadah, the backup vocalist of the Uh