THE PRISON DOORS & THE PRISONER WHO WON’T BE FREE - JOSEPH OKECHUKWU

THE PRISON DOORS & THE PRISONER WHO WON’T BE FREE - JOSEPH OKECHUKWU There’s this beautiful story of a prisoner who’s been so long in prison he had a hard time leaving the prison when eventually the prison doors were thrown open. He sat and moped at the prison doors but they were no longer in view. But he still saw them - in his mind! The doors were open in his sight, but they were still shut in his mind. A grim reminder that your shackles aren’t made of iron & steam. They’re made with fear & ignorance. After the heavily flawed 2019 elections in which the Buhari-led administration hit a brand new low in tyrannical impositions, disenfranchisement, intimidation, harassments and sundry malpractices, I saw humanity at its basest and Christianity at its worst. I kept asking myself “is this really happening?” And then I wondered out loud like many have “how did we get here?!” Several months ago, I stumbled on a colonial era secret document that actually detailed the colonial elements’ motive for creating Nigeria. In that document they stated clearly that Nigeria as a “constitutional” entity was only going to be structured to go anti clockwise or in reverse. Clearly stated! They called it “the crazy unworkable experiment of Lord Lugard”. The colonial author went further to state that the Lugard-manufactured “Nigerian system” was so retrogressively iconic and unique that one could actually take the template elsewhere and replicate failure even where there was none. He wrote that the system was built on three items: Ignorance, Fear & Military. Sound familiar? Ignorance: Nigerians are known worldwide as some of the most educated people in black Africa, both home and abroad. But how can the most educated also win the trophy for the most ignorant? Because we have been reduced to a people who want to sit and be served knowledge rather than the people who get on the road and seek knowledge. So, whatever the colonial restaurant feels is good knowledge or information becomes good for us - to an extent History as a subject was yanked from our schools and we said nothing! Name one constitutional entity anywhere in the world where citizens are denied access to their nation’s history. This only happens when you don’t actually have a nation. IGNORANCE! Fear: The holy book - the Bible says that “fear has torment!”. Indeed nothing torments like fear. How do you know a Nigerian regime that is sold out to the colonial concept of enslavement? The one that instills the most fear in the people is it! Compare your freedom of speech and ability to abuse former president Jonathan and his quintessential wife before 2015 to your life now under this clearly oppressive regime where writing or speaking against the president could land you in trouble. What do you get? A fear-stricken mass of rudderless people who only vent in their bedrooms but smile in the face of oppression. That’s what you get and the sad news is, that’s what “the Nigerian system” is all about. Big churches litter everywhere, but absolutely no big Christ in those churches. Pastors are too afraid to speak up. Rather, they partner with the merchants of death & tyranny - if you can’t beat them. Churches have become a place of bitter complaint and endless whining rather than a place of revolutionary transformation of society. In the beginning, it was not so - but this is what the Nigerian System is about. FEAR! Military: There’s a video that’s currently trending on social media of a returning US army official who returned from active duty in, I guess Iraq and decided to pay his children a surprise visit at school. He equally visited a black kid who isn’t even his biological child, but with whom he had developed a strong bond. As soon as he walked into the classroom of this black kid, I overheard their teacher saying “kids, here is a real soldier!” The kids were amazed. One of them said “...and I have never even seen a soldier before”. Another said “oh! He is a real soldier! I have never seen a real soldier before!”. Think about this. If you’re a Nigerian kid and you go to school everyday, before you’re two years old, you would’ve see soldiers not just a soldier and you would’ve seen them in arms actually. I lived in Ghana at some point in the early 2000s and one day I asked my friend, after one whole year of living in Ghana, and I said, “do you guys have soldiers here?” He laughed and said “Of course! If Ghana has any wars you’ll see them. But now, you’ll have to go to their base to see them.” Trust me, I did go to their base to see what their soldiers looked like. That was the only place I could see a soldier in Ghana - their base! I used the Ghana example because Ghana is like our West African twin brother - not America or Europe. If the colonials didn’t plan it this way, why should the Nigerian military be seen in public everyday? Soldiers are supposed to command respect and inspire awe wherever they go. Soldiers are supposed to be loved by citizens not hated. Soldiers are defenders not destroyers per se. We should throw parties for our soldiers and love them and their families and accord them something close to worship like Americans do! why is our own story different? Because the people don’t think they’ve earned it and sadly, this is just what the Nigerian system is about. MILITARY! Bottom line: To hold these three pillars of control together, you need a very strong adhesive. Of course, they didn’t have to look any further to find lies! Lies lies lies and lies! That’s the gum that holds it all together and if you wanna know a Nigerian regime that’s being run daily by the colonials themselves, look out for the one that lies the most! Governor El Rufai of Kaduna was alleged to have been involved in a fatal car accident. Allegedly, his driver died and he had a serious spinal fracture and was flown abroad. Suddenly, there was a rebuttal: It wasn’t true, his media team said. Then they followed it up in the media, rehashing old pictures and videos of the Governor on Channels TV, The Nation Newspaper, Leadership Newspaper, etc. Yet, till this moment, no physical evidence of his presence anywhere in Nigeria. What happened to our media? Fear! Lies! Fake! Former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen just had his case closed because like we’ve always known, the man is Innocent! When they came for his head, many cried out that this was clearly politically motivated. Go back to those days and see how many Christians and so called legal luminaries who not only were passive but indirectly implied he should face trial for nothing! Today? We’re back to square 10! And lies continue to rule. With President Muhammadu Buhari allegedly out of the country for God knows how long, and Governor El Rufai nowhere to be found, if you asked me where we’re at right now, I’ll tell you we’re right back up to the beginning - the prisoner whose doors are open and he doesn’t know they are! That’s who and where we are now, but who’s gonna slap sense into these Nigerian prisoners and wake them up from their psychosomatic slumber? Maybe...just maybe, we’ll all realize how long we’ve been here and summarily take this offer from lady Freedom. Solution: Immediate constitutional review - Do away with the 1999 constitution which is the container of the adhesive. If lies were the adhesives, the 1999 constitution is the container. In fact, it contains way more than just lies. To unbundle the three pillars of our bondage, we must smash the container of lies and oppression of the Indigenous Peoples (the constitution) and come to a round table where we all have a say and a take on the course of our destiny. Whatever choice we make becomes us. No one knows for how long these prison doors shall be open but they sure are now and we must Awake, Arise & Make a break for it! Like knowledge, you don’t get served Freedom on a platter. You go for it!THE PRISON DOORS & THE PRISONER WHO WON’T BE FREE - JOSEPH OKECHUKWU There’s this beautiful story of a prisoner who’s been so long in prison he had a hard time leaving the prison when eventually the prison doors were thrown open. He sat and moped at the prison doors but they were no longer in view. But he still saw them - in his mind! The doors were open in his sight, but they were still shut in his mind. A grim reminder that your shackles aren’t made of iron & steam. They’re made with fear & ignorance. After the heavily flawed 2019 elections in which the Buhari-led administration hit a brand new low in tyrannical impositions, disenfranchisement, intimidation, harassments and sundry malpractices, I saw humanity at its basest and Christianity at its worst. I kept asking myself “is this really happening?” And then I wondered out loud like many have “how did we get here?!” Several months ago, I stumbled on a colonial era secret document that actually detailed the colonial elements’ motive for creating Nigeria. In that document they stated clearly that Nigeria as a “constitutional” entity was only going to be structured to go anti clockwise or in reverse. Clearly stated! They called it “the crazy unworkable experiment of Lord Lugard”. The colonial author went further to state that the Lugard-manufactured “Nigerian system” was so retrogressively iconic and unique that one could actually take the template elsewhere and replicate failure even where there was none. He wrote that the system was built on three items: Ignorance, Fear & Military. Sound familiar? Ignorance: Nigerians are known worldwide as some of the most educated people in black Africa, both home and abroad. But how can the most educated also win the trophy for the most ignorant? Because we have been reduced to a people who want to sit and be served knowledge rather than the people who get on the road and seek knowledge. So, whatever the colonial restaurant feels is good knowledge or information becomes good for us - to an extent History as a subject was yanked from our schools and we said nothing! Name one constitutional entity anywhere in the world where citizens are denied access to their nation’s history. This only happens when you don’t actually have a nation. IGNORANCE! Fear: The holy book - the Bible says that “fear has torment!”. Indeed nothing torments like fear. How do you know a Nigerian regime that is sold out to the colonial concept of enslavement? The one that instills the most fear in the people is it! Compare your freedom of speech and ability to abuse former president Jonathan and his quintessential wife before 2015 to your life now under this clearly oppressive regime where writing or speaking against the president could land you in trouble. What do you get? A fear-stricken mass of rudderless people who only vent in their bedrooms but smile in the face of oppression. That’s what you get and the sad news is, that’s what “the Nigerian system” is all about. Big churches litter everywhere, but absolutely no big Christ in those churches. Pastors are too afraid to speak up. Rather, they partner with the merchants of death & tyranny - if you can’t beat them. Churches have become a place of bitter complaint and endless whining rather than a place of revolutionary transformation of society. In the beginning, it was not so - but this is what the Nigerian System is about. FEAR! Military: There’s a video that’s currently trending on social media of a returning US army official who returned from active duty in, I guess Iraq and decided to pay his children a surprise visit at school. He equally visited a black kid who isn’t even his biological child, but with whom he had developed a strong bond. As soon as he walked into the classroom of this black kid, I overheard their teacher saying “kids, here is a real soldier!” The kids were amazed. One of them said “...and I have never even seen a soldier before”. Another said “oh! He is a real soldier! I have never seen a real soldier before!”. Think about this. If you’re a Nigerian kid and you go to school everyday, before you’re two years old, you would’ve see soldiers not just a soldier and you would’ve seen them in arms actually. I lived in Ghana at some point in the early 2000s and one day I asked my friend, after one whole year of living in Ghana, and I said, “do you guys have soldiers here?” He laughed and said “Of course! If Ghana has any wars you’ll see them. But now, you’ll have to go to their base to see them.” Trust me, I did go to their base to see what their soldiers looked like. That was the only place I could see a soldier in Ghana - their base! I used the Ghana example because Ghana is like our West African twin brother - not America or Europe. If the colonials didn’t plan it this way, why should the Nigerian military be seen in public everyday? Soldiers are supposed to command respect and inspire awe wherever they go. Soldiers are supposed to be loved by citizens not hated. Soldiers are defenders not destroyers per se. We should throw parties for our soldiers and love them and their families and accord them something close to worship like Americans do! why is our own story different? Because the people don’t think they’ve earned it and sadly, this is just what the Nigerian system is about. MILITARY! Bottom line: To hold these three pillars of control together, you need a very strong adhesive. Of course, they didn’t have to look any further to find lies! Lies lies lies and lies! That’s the gum that holds it all together and if you wanna know a Nigerian regime that’s being run daily by the colonials themselves, look out for the one that lies the most! Governor El Rufai of Kaduna was alleged to have been involved in a fatal car accident. Allegedly, his driver died and he had a serious spinal fracture and was flown abroad. Suddenly, there was a rebuttal: It wasn’t true, his media team said. Then they followed it up in the media, rehashing old pictures and videos of the Governor on Channels TV, The Nation Newspaper, Leadership Newspaper, etc. Yet, till this moment, no physical evidence of his presence anywhere in Nigeria. What happened to our media? Fear! Lies! Fake! Former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen just had his case closed because like we’ve always known, the man is Innocent! When they came for his head, many cried out that this was clearly politically motivated. Go back to those days and see how many Christians and so called legal luminaries who not only were passive but indirectly implied he should face trial for nothing! Today? We’re back to square 10! And lies continue to rule. With President Muhammadu Buhari allegedly out of the country for God knows how long, and Governor El Rufai nowhere to be found, if you asked me where we’re at right now, I’ll tell you we’re right back up to the beginning - the prisoner whose doors are open and he doesn’t know they are! That’s who and where we are now, but who’s gonna slap sense into these Nigerian prisoners and wake them up from their psychosomatic slumber? Maybe...just maybe, we’ll all realize how long we’ve been here and summarily take this offer from lady Freedom. Solution: Immediate constitutional review - Do away with the 1999 constitution which is the container of the adhesive. If lies were the adhesives, the 1999 constitution is the container. In fact, it contains way more than just lies. To unbundle the three pillars of our bondage, we must smash the container of lies and oppression of the Indigenous Peoples (the constitution) and come to a round table where we all have a say and a take on the course of our destiny. Whatever choice we make becomes us. No one knows for how long these prison doors shall be open but they sure are now and we must Awake, Arise & Make a break for it! Like knowledge, you don’t get served Freedom on a platter. You go for it!