Kings, presidents, prime ministers and other chief executive officers of nations of whatever name or designations called are people set aside by God for special use in governing the affairs of any nations or people. There is no nation on earth today without any king of whatever description because kings are vitally needed to enforce rules, to protect the weak or vulnerable, to defend the nation against its enemies and to ensure that people fulfill their destinies.
Kings are supposed to be people who can think deeply about the cares and concerns of their nations above what the ordinary man and woman does about the country. They, it is, are persons who are supposed to plan and act for the good of their country and mobilize the people behind their plans and actions to ensure the good and orderly governance of their country.
Kings are supposed to fight both the foreign and domestic enemies of their country for no country lacks such a group of people who are bent on subverting the rules meant for the orderly conduct of affairs. But in much of Africa, we have kings who get easily subverted, bent or broken to align with both foreign and domestic enemies of their nations to ruin their nations! Some kings in Africa are in concert with economic saboteurs of their nations. Some kings in our continent join forces with crooks, thugs and election riggers to ‘win’ elections and proceed to rule like mercenaries who seized a foreign power for themselves.
The other day I was reading my Bible and came upon a certain portion which set me thinking about my country, Nigeria. It is the story of a certain Israelite Levite as told in the book of Judges Chapters 19 to 21 who was sojourning in the area of Mount Ephraim. He had a concubine who was playing a whore on him and had left him for four months to live with her father in Bethlehem- Judah. One day, he decided to go and retrieve her for himself. On his way back to his place of sojourn, his concubine was brutally raped all through the night and killed in Gibeah by a certain members of the Benjamite tribe described as the ‘’sons of Belial’’ or sons of Satan.
After the horrorific act, the husband of the woman now took a knife and carved out his wife’s body and bones into 12 portions and sent each to the 12 tribes of Israel. When each received his portion, the Bible reports that all who saw it said, ‘’There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds’’. A terrible anger was aroused against the Benjamite tribe and the rest of Israel went to war against them. After two forays, the rebellious Benjamite surprisingly prevailed against the 11 tribes but after prayers and the third attempt, the Benjamites were defeated and severely punished for their deed.
In our nation, so many horrible things that ought to arouse the anger of our various kings put in-charge of our nations and our various sub-nations but nothing happens. It makes you wonder whether we have no kings in place anywhere here. It is like the description in the very last verse of Judges Chapter 21 where it is said, ‘’In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes’’. There was no one to caution others to behave well. Everyone behaved as he or she liked. People have their wives but they will go to violate some others’ ones as happened in the story just told. If a nation has kings, the kings should do their duties so that the nation can run well and the people prosper. People will fast and pray less. When kings do not work well mosques and churches multiply. Many false prophets arise, deception increases and there is less hope for a better tomorrow.
The type of galloping inflation we witnessed in this nation in the past few months defy economic principles and logic. This reality just says one simple thing about our governance namely; that what we have is nothing but governance as a criminal enterprise. The politicians and the business people are in league for their own good only; they are in alliance to undo the simple, honest people who have a right to exist in this country as well. How can prices of goods rise suddenly by over 500 per cent and then a political arrangement or truce is worked out and people start seeing little by little reduction in prices? When has it ever happened in this nation that prices went up and ever came down?
In all nations of the world, we have thieves and hoodlums. But the types of thieves we have in our governments are more rapacious than people called brigands. A minister in our government won’t mind to steal nearly a quarter of the budget meant for the delivery of so-called democratic dividends meant for the entire nation. And he is supposed to be a minister appointed by a king, a president! One day, a sufficiently aggrieved man will carve the atrocity committed against him and send it via the internet to the whole nation in order to arouse our dead consciences.
