Sunday, February 11, 2018

Religion, Politics, and Cycle of Poverty


(By Okenye Kenechi) - Irony of life 
Rich man marries and has four children. Poor man marries and starts mass production of children that he can't afford to train because the only thing that gives poor man joy is the body of his wife. 
The country [Nigeria] has beaten him to the level that sex is his only idea of enjoyment.
 
Politicians steal your money, sleep with your wife and girlfriends and sister, make sure you don't go to school, even when you struggle to, he makes sure you don't finish on time let alone getting a job. 
He sends his children to the best schools abroad so they will take over from him when he is done playing with your future. 
He initiates a poverty alleviation program, videos himself cutting tapes during the mounting of an electric pole. He gives you 4000, bags of rice at rallies and arms to fight his opponents.
He paints the roads and puts Street lights when there is no light in your home. You hail him! 
He spends millions on billboards of his fake projects, hires the best PR experts to keep you drooling with hunger and uninformed and keep on doing damages to your common sense. You defend him. 
Second tenure, no jobs, no food, the 4000 has finished and the bag of rice wasting in the pit of your toilet. He must recover the billions he spent buying your votes. For he is not qualified to lead but you qualified him. 

You start making use of the guns he bought you. You kill the poor like yourself who is suffering the effects of the 4000 and bag of rice that you took. You try to Kidnap his friends, their police orderlies fire back at you. 
His friends tell him that there is insecurity in town and it will affect their mobilization for him for second term. 
He shouts ahhhh, second tenure is like the second round of sex that puts one to sleep after, except, perhaps, he works for vivid entertainment or one of those Hollywood porn industries.
 
He complains of lack of security to the commissioner of police and General Officer Commanding, Air Officer commanding or the Flag Officer Commanding.
He spends millions hosting them. They tell him what to do. By now, you have become a threat. 
He buys even a bigger gun for the police and the military plus operational vehicles.
He pays for radio and TV jingles to warn you. 
You rob, you die. You protest, you die. You stay at home, you die of starvation. 
Then, you get recommended to a church and since you can't pay tithes, pastor turns you into an errand boy. 
He sends you to buy biscuits for his children, wash pants for his wife and clean his cars.
 
You sweep the church for free while awaiting your heavenly reward while the pastor fly private jets and drive flashy sedans. 
You are happy that your pastor is rich and argue for him in midst of your friends. 
He runs to the UK at the slightest symptoms of headache but prays for you when you are sick and tells you to bring your sick mother to church for prayers instead of taking her to hospitals to waste money. 
She dies and he tells you that it was God's will while his mother has been in the UK for months receiving the best treatment that tithes can buy.
He buys a new land for a new church branch, you help to carry blocks and turn concrete, then collect blessings as reward. You are happy to be working for the salvation of your soul; heaven will pay.
The pastor lives his heaven on earth.
 
The new church building is completed on your sweat. 
He invites the president, governor, senator, house of representative member and every other person who made sure that you are poor by design. 
The whole area is policed with guns and armored cars. You are comfortably seated at the back of the back while straining your neck to see who and who came.
The president and governor and senator plus their contractor friends donate hundreds of millions for the new church while you cheer from the back.
The food they shared didn't get to you but you are happy the president and governor and senator came to your church. You even brag to others of how your pastor is well connected. 
You get home, hunger Knocks angrily on the belly door, your neighbor bails you out while you wait for heaven to pay. 
10 years on the jobless job, pastor's children have been sent abroad for studies. Age is no longer on your side, pastor hooks you up with another aunty that sweeps the church for free with no education just like you and weds you both on a Friday evening church service and you are happy. Your children start the circle all over again.

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