What Type of Leader?

I got the inspiration for this from the Independence sermon Pastor Sam Adeyemi preached 02/10/2016.

I am going to paraphrase God’s blueprint for selecting a leader from Deuteronomy 17:14-19 in the hope that we will select/elect worthy leaders in Nigeria very soon:

Deuteronomy 17: 14 When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say “I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me”

God knows that we all desire leadership; it’s this inherent desire that keeps us from living in total chaos.

Deuteronomy 17: 15 you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother.

Many of us do not take the choice of leadership seriously; we’ll pray about whom to marry, which job to take but not about the people who lead us; God wants to be involved in our choices. He wants to help us choose. When He says you should choose from among your brethren, don’t think it’s license for blind tribalism or clannishness. Your brother or sister is the one who has compassion on you; your brother is the one who identifies with you. Your brother is the one who desires the greater good. Your brother is the one who understands your difficulties and seeks to help you. Your brother isn’t the man from the same village as you whose only ambition is to raid the country’s treasury, such a person is an enemy whose ambition must be thwarted!

When a leader's life is so far removed from the lives of the followers that there is no conscious effort at improving lives; when the leader is out of touch with the people then s/he is a 'foreigner' not a brother.

Deuteronomy 17: 16 But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you ‘You shall not return that way again’.

Horses in ancient times symbolized power, security and wealth; but a good leader should not use his position to multiply these for himself. A good leader is supposed to multiply power, security and wealth to his followers. He shall also not cause his people to ‘return to Egypt to multiply horses’. When the Bible talks about a return to Egypt, more often than not it’s in reference to retrogression. A return to Egypt presupposes a return to slavery, suffering and sin. A good leader moves his/her people forward not backward, a good leader doesn’t force followers into any form of slavery.

It is a form of slavery to pay taxes and not have access to good roads, sound health care, electricity etc. It is slavery to work for 30 years and not receive pensions in due course; it is slavery to work and go without pay for months on end whilst the leader is busy multiplying 'horses' for himself.

Deuteronomy 17: 17 neither shall he multiply wives for himself lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.
A leader should not be frivolous! Frivolity reduces the capacity for purposeful leadership; it turns away the heart from the important issues of governance. With frivolity comes greed for wealth. A leader shouldn’t be preoccupied with his/her whims and caprices. A heart that is ‘turned away’ is one that is distracted and unable to focus on the task at hand.

Leaders who are more interested in acquiring expensive toys,wives and enjoying the trappings of high office are frivolous and unfit for purpose.

Deuteronomy 17:18 -19 Also it shall be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful and to observe all the words of this law and these statutes.

Do our leaders even know what our constitution says? Are they erudite people who read, write and think? Do our leaders even obey the laws of the land? This verses tell us that we should elect leaders with capacity for:

• ·         Intellect/erudition
• ·         Introspection
• ·         Discipline
• ·         Respect for the rule of law

When the next election cycle comes along, please think about these verses because they are timeless and universally applicable. Let’s do away with frivolity, lawlessness and greed in high places.

Compassion or Appearances?

The tragic story of Ronke Bewaji Shonde, the lady who was allegedly murdered by her husband in a fit of rage, has been trending and people are understandably very moved by the circumstances of her demise.

Many people have given their 2 cents and a recurring theme has been the role of her pastors and other advisers who told her to persevere in the face of persistent physical abuse. I don’t claim to know the conversations she had with her pastor, I don’t even know if the pastor was privy to the problems in the marriage. None of us knows for sure if the decision to hold on wasn’t solely the victim’s. That said, I would disagree strenuously with anyone who gives advice that places a woman in harm’s way just because you feel the need to protect ‘the home’.

As a Christian, I do wonder if telling a woman to stay and persevere in an abusive situation all in the name of maintaining the sanctity of the ‘marriage’ actually reflects the Person of Christ. When I read the Gospels, one thing that resonates with me about Jesus’s encounters with people (especially women) is His overarching compassion for their circumstances. Take the case of the woman who was caught in adultery and about to be stoned to death; the gruesome truth about her situation was that death by stoning was the prescribed punishment in Mosaic Law. The Pharisees were not breaking the Law by wanting to punish her and Jesus didn’t contest that fact as a fellow Jew. But He knew the real reasons behind their ‘righteous indignation’ – they weren’t interested in upholding morality, their anger wasn’t righteous – first, they wanted to entrap Jesus because they felt threatened by Him, and then they were also just hypocrites who had found someone that they felt superior to, someone who was unfortunate enough to get caught. He saw right through them and challenged their feelings of superiority by telling the one without sin to cast the first stone and of course, there was no one left to execute the punishment.

Jesus could have been pedantic and said “the Law is the Law” (the woman was not falsely accused from all indications) but He didn’t because He knew that compassion is more life changing than the rigid application of the law. He was more interested in preserving a life by showing mercy.

In His encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, He didn’t list out all the provisions of the law regarding her status as a woman who had been married 4 times, in fact as a Rabbi, He should not have even spoken to her. When the woman of questionable reputation poured perfume on him and washed His feet with her tears, He didn’t kick her away to maintain appearances as the spectators expected. When the woman with the issue of blood touched His garment, He wasn’t concerned about the fact she was in an ‘unclean’ state according to the provisions of the Law, He didn’t accuse her of defiling Him, rather He saw her need and addressed it. In fact, if anybody had the right to wave the law over these women and insist on a strict adherence to it, it should have been Christ because He was sinless. Was his failure to condemn them a result of His disregard for the Law? No, everyone marveled at his authority and knowledge whenever he preached, but he understood the intent of the Law and knew that God was/is not interested in a rigid external fulfillment of the law to the exclusion of mercy and justice. He said “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” (Matthew 23:23)

So when a marriage becomes a dangerous arena for one of the parties involved, is it an act of mercy and compassion to coldly tell the abused person to stay and pray for change in the danger zone because God hates divorce? When a woman’s life is endangered in the name of a marriage, how does God get the glory? I wonder if the real reason for such advice is because we want to foster love and reconciliation or because we want to avoid the awkwardness and unpleasantness of a less than perfect marriage in the church. I wonder if the advisers are more concerned about keeping up appearances than the well-being of the concerned parties.

When a married woman is turned into a punching bag on a regular basis, can we say with all honesty, that the marriage is fulfilling divine purpose? Children who grow up seeing their mother regularly subjected to beatings and humiliation are not happy and well adjusted. A woman who lives in constant fear is definitely living below her God given potential.

Some people will say things like ‘seek the will of God in prayer’ but I don’t see how practical this is; in any case distance doesn’t negate prayer. We all have survival instincts and I believe it’s a gift from God because the life He gives is precious, so He has engineered us to instinctively preserve our well-being. The people who say ‘seek God’s will’ before attempting to preserve your life will not seek God’s will before looking right and left when crossing a road; if a deadly snake suddenly appeared on their path, they would not pause to pray about whether to kill the snake or flee. I don’t know how a woman in a dangerous marital situation is any different.

I know the Christian life is one of sacrifice and hard choices but God’s commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5v3). God knows that we are imperfect and we make bad choices but the fact that a woman, for whatever reason, made the decision to marry a violent man does not mean that she must pay for it with her life. 

Living on Edge

Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge

I'm trying not to lose my head, ha-ha

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under

[Grandmaster Flash - The Message]

The lyrics above came to mind after I had two close encounters with anarchy. I am compelled to share these experiences in the hope that someone in a position of power will wake up and ‘smell the anger’.

The two experiences are tied to the perennial petrol scarcity that seems to have become the new normal, both events played out at petrol stations.

About 3 weeks ago, when I had avoided the petrol queues long enough for my fuel gauge to get to empty, I decided to take my chances at one of the stations along Ikorodu Road. The queue was single file and orderly (or so it seemed); I brought out my Kindle to catch up on some reading (hate waiting without having any activity to fill the time). After 40 minutes on the queue, I was finally inside the station, success! Then it all went downhill. A lot of bare chested guys flooded the station with plastic containers of all sizes and the atmosphere immediately changed, there was a lot of jostling and shouting and I silently prayed everything would settle down. Then some soldiers got into the mix and we all know how ‘good’ they are with crowd control. The horsewhips were out in a flash and next thing there’s a guy on my bonnet yelling something and that was my own moment of Zen because I stopped to contemplate the ridiculousness of some strange guy on my car's bonnet all because I needed to get some petrol.

And then the guns came out too, and then the threats from the battle scarred guys determined to buy fuel for resale on the streets of Lagos. The rallying cry was ‘e fo go so wo’ (translation: break some bottles). And then some more fierce looking young men flooded the station with different implements, one came in with two bottles of Fanta in his back pants pockets and I knew he didn’t intend to stop for some refreshment in the impending melee.

By this time I was frantically praying and looking for an escape route, suddenly the prospect of filling my tank just didn’t seem attractive any longer; I just wanted to be far away from the whole madness. But there was no way out so I was stuck; the good thing was that the soldiers had a healthy sense of self-preservation so they just made some halfhearted threats to shoot but who really wants to shoot up a gas station? And when they saw their threats were not having the desired effects on the thugs, they got their fuel and left; the balance of power was restored. That was my first glimpse of negative people power at work. Nothing, not even the threat of lethal force, was going to stop the thugs from their dubious enterprise; their belligerence fueled by ‘righteous’ indignation at the military personnel who were trying to take food off their table.

Second episode was on 18/04/2016; I was driving down Murtala Mohammed Way, one of the better roads in Lagos so I wasn’t looking to avoid any pot holes and the next thing I know, I had driven over what was supposed to be a covered manhole and immediately lost two tyres. The cover of the manhole had been removed for some strange reason that only applies in Nigeria and I drove over the hole at approximately 80km/hour. Thankfully, I got that sorted after about an hour and a half. Lest I forget, I had company in my Monday morning misery, another unsuspecting driver drove over the same manhole and guess what? He lost two tyres too; one of the perks of living in Nigeria is that no matter how annoying, absurd or ridiculous your situation is, you’ll always find company in it.

When I finally sorted the tyre palaver, I decided to tempt fate by getting on a petrol queue, I was already 2 hours late and I wasn’t in a frame of mind for work any longer, I was upset that I was living in a country where you could lose two tyres simply by expecting that manholes on a major road would be covered.

Whilst on the queue, I noticed a particular bare chested young man (I guess ‘area boys’ don’t bother with the niceties of covering up because they expect to get in a fight at some point in time, just my own theory) rolling a motorcycle in and out of the petrol station and siphoning fuel from the motor bike into a plastic keg.  This made me remember an Igbo proverb I had read in a Chinua Achebe novel many years ago - “since men have learnt to shoot without missing, the bird has learnt to fly without perching” - this proverb encapsulates the much vaunted Nigerian trait of resourcefulness. If the petrol stations wouldn’t dispense fuel into containers other than vehicle tanks, then we’ll simply use motor bikes even if we have to make the trip 5 times to fill up a keg.

I also observed another one of the thugs who had finally acquired a full keg of petrol after all his ‘hard work’ dancing in ecstasy and smoking a roll of marijuana. Another moment of Zen to contemplate the danger of a lit roll of weed with a keg of highly flammable liquid in hand; I guess the weed and the prospect of profit from the sale of his petrol made him too happy to care.

After a while I got to the petrol pump and the wahala began, some armed mobile police had come into the station and spotted the ‘resourceful’ young man who had decided to use a motor bike to purchase fuel as many times as needed to fill several plastic containers. I couldn’t hear what they were discussing but one of the policemen suddenly splashed water in the ‘petrol magnate’s’ face and all hell broke loose. The guy went ballistic and made to attack 4 armed men whilst everyone watched with growing alarm because we all know what happens when a civilian takes on armed policemen. Some of the thug’s supporters started throwing objects at the policemen and the next thing rifle butts were swinging all over the place but thankfully no shots were fired inside the station. The thug refused to be pacified and was determined to fight to protect his standing as a ‘hard man’; the fight was taken out of the station and our trigger happy cops started shooting in the air.

Just like my previous experience, I was trapped inside the station without an escape route. As my eyes were darting all over trying to figure out how to extricate myself from the potentially explosive situation (pun intended), I looked out and saw petrol boy and his goons with scarves over their faces, containers of fuel in one hand and lighters in the other. They were approaching the policemen and taunting them. At that point, I begged one of the cops to clear the road and let us all leave, by this time petrol was the last thing on anyone’s mind, people were already speeding away and thankfully I could drive out and leave. I later heard that one of the policemen had been stabbed and had to beat a hasty retreat.

So I had a pretty rough Monday but what struck me more was the realization of the fact that we are living in thinly veiled anarchy; in both events, the army and police were incapable of maintaining order even with force of arms. Some people might dismiss this and say the police were just being cautious in view of all the lives at risk. The real issue to consider is that there are lots of young people in our society that have nothing to lose and are ready to die violently along with many other innocents if their chosen means of survival is threatened. In view of the fact that these events happened in a space of 3 weeks, I can safely guess that these potential firestorms are being replicated at petrol stations all over Lagos.

As Nigerians, we generally pride ourselves on possessing great resilience; I’ve often heard people jokingly say if you push a Nigerian to the wall, he’ll make a hole and go through the wall! The joke about this legendary resilience is hollow in view of various manifestations of lawlessness and hopelessness. However, the people we have elected to make life better are still oblivious of the subtle change in the Nigerian psyche and are still handing out platitudes like “change takes time” and “things will get worse before they get better”. What they don’t understand is that there is a whole generation of youth who have not experienced the ‘better’ and only the ‘worse’.

The inability of the police to arrest certain people e.g. Tompolo; the Shia versus Army confrontation that led to hundreds of deaths; the ongoing war against Boko Haram; the murderous Fulani herdsmen and the various agitations all over the country are glaring signs of a country living on the edge of complete chaos.

If Nigeria were a soap opera, and events in Nigeria are decidedly more outlandish than any soap plot, the soundtrack of our lives would be “don’t push me cos I am close to the edge...”