Nigerian Fathers: Thieves, Robbers And Murderers-Olalere Fagbola 

The average Nigerian father that I know is a funny character, a thief; a robber and a murderer.  He is so much given to calling himself and parading himself, before children of God, as a father, riding roughshod over the injunction of Jesus Christ who warned: ‘Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is  your Father, which is in heaven’ ( Matthew 23:9).

Has the Holy Scriptures not stated unequivocally that children are a heritage of the Lord? (Psalm 127:3) But the Nigerian father lays every claim to the ownership of the child (even if it would take him to prove it through DNA ) instead of understanding the fact that he is only a custodian who willy-nilly, must give stewardship to his creator and God who is Our Father that dwells in Heaven.

There is little wonder why he continues to read upside down, matters concerning: ’profit withal’ as laid down on gifts, (1Corinthians 12:7 ) thus equating children as gifts of the womb to be exploited for selfish gain .

 Mind it, his number One prayer is consciously to convert children as direct retirement benefits, lusting wishfully in exploiting the proverb that says: ‘when a rabbit becomes old it is the breast of its little ones which it sucks voraciously’. Another way of reaping where he had not sown for, would it not amount to vanity building a house which foundation God has not laid?

It is for this same reason why he revels in misconceiving and misinterpreting the meaning and purpose of education (educare: lead out the potentials) where-in he goads the innocent child into choosing a career that serves only his own ego and lust because he wants to be referred to in public as: ‘Baba doctor’,his delight being propelled to breed doctorate degrees after the young man who was naturally caught out as a genius  in the world of music ,art and drama.

 When you hear Jesus Christ saying in John 10:8 that all who came before Him were thieves and robbers, He is referring to the Nigerian father, wearing the direct pictures of old prophets and priests who, in the old Testament, were fond of fleecing the sheep while fleeing, tails between their legs at the approach of danger, persecution and threat to their lives, leaving the fold, which is now left without a shepherd. 

Who is a thief but one who lays claim to and defend what does not belong to him.  Do prophets who run away and abandon their sheep at the approach of danger or death the owner of their lives to which they are apparently clinging to ?

You have heard nothing yet. The Nigerian father shares the same Ministry with the Biblical thief who cometh to steal, kill and destroy the Nigerian child. In Nigeria, he is a replica of his great, great grandfather, author of lying and lies; the same man who steadily accomplished his deadly mission in the Garden of Eden, He stole furtively into the place of pleasure and overturned the table of God’s love, setting the union between God and man, asunder.  

Masking himself in the guise of a wise serpent, he concealed his identity, pretending to be a friend of Adam and Eve while bringing before Eve, the television of deceit, replacing the radio of obedience which God first placed in the hands of Adam.  It was for this reason, Satan appealed more to the vision of Eve, who indeed confessed that the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, about which the antagonist canvassed before her equivocally, was ‘pleasant to look at’.

Do you get the import of the message  ? ‘To obey is better than sacrifice’ This was the same voice of God  which warned King Saul who was guided more by his running appetite for spoils of office than by the instruction communicated to him through Prophet Samuel.

 Let’s break it down linguistically because ‘In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and God was the Word’ .

 The word: ’Obey’ and ‘audio’ belong to the same cognate family , as both of them share same Latin root, ‘oboedire’.

It was from this same linguistic context that Yoruba language and the English language are brothers of the same parents where-in ‘Igboran’ in Yoruba language and ‘Obedience’ in English language appeal more (than any other thing) to hearing by the ear .

Entering inside Eden through the window like a thief ( Joel 2:9) Satan, playing the Nigerian father, plotted man’s downfall in which he made the tree meant to be avoided get the sweet embrace of both husband and wife .

That’s his new world of unbridled technology and its unintended ( evil ) consequences. 

 For Jesus Christ, He wore humanity in order to touch humanity, but He has thus described His second coming on earth, like the coming of a thief. (Matthew 24:44)

He has resultantly become a ‘thief’ for our sake ; wearing our iniquities in order to stop the evil work of the first thief and father of lie .It was not for fun that He died between two thieves; one thief of Satan, pompous as the Nigerian father, lay by His left hand side of the Cross of Calvary while the other thief, understanding the work of salvation, worked in humility and self-denial and entered Paradise with Jesus Christ the same day.

Wondering how the Nigerian father becomes a murderer like his great, great grandfather?  A thief is a thief but he becomes a robber (and a murderer- in the wait) as soon as he employs violence, and once his identity and heinous mission are detected, detested, revealed and exposed ,he would stand at nothing towards killing his victim. This is because, in his bid to cover up what is already exposed, he becomes desperate and violent and would not hesitate to eliminate the man behind his exposure.

Conversely, the Nigerian father whose crave for ‘chop and quench’  appetite, becomes the minister of the Gospel, where-in ,rather than being contented to be a custodian of the gifts of God in the church, soon turns his calling into a saccharine Gospel of prosperity and converts God’s own house into a cathedral of mediocrity, selling prayers and turning the whole place into dens of thieves and robbers.

Do you look too far today for the reason why many of our youths are committing suicide and are candidates of depression? It is as a result of the style of motivation by which they are being nurtured? 

Rather than giving them the right style of motivation that has as its acronym DEIFYING THE WORD ( Dynamic Equivalent Interpretation) the Nigerian father motivates them in the language of death through ‘DIE : DIRECT INTERPRETATION OF EQUIVOCATION’ in which they fire up their desires but rob them of the strength to getting them  achieved.

 .They leave them at the end of the day with unmet expectations and the result is better imagined than felt . 

The same way Jesus Christ treated his ancient father in the synagogue, the Nigerian father has received some handfuls of tongue lashing. 

He got walloped for it by the No-nonsense Christ Jesus who invaded his Cathedral with ‘bulala’ beating hell out of him and his prayer merchants, black and blue .

 No wonder why, having been identified by Jesus Christ at the Master’s last supper, Judas Iscariot, hearing the bold words of his master which said point blank : ‘Do it quick’ and urging him to kill Him quick, went for thirty pieces of silver and sold Jesus Christ to the most excruciating pain in which He was crucified between two thieves.

If there be a place where the true father is meant ideally to be revealed, it should be in the church of God.  The church should be the model in which the change from the parochialism of the Nigerian patriarchs should yield ground to the altruism of the kingdom father .

Regrettably, It has not.

In his Bible Study at the assembly, Rev. Dr. Harry Boer, speaking on ‘Justice and the Kingdom of God–present Reality and Future Hope’, defined justice as ‘equitable human relationships especially in the economic, political and social spheres’.

 He also said that ‘the centre and chief means of extending the Kingdom of God is the church’. 

According to his own address  ‘Equality Before  God’  delivered at the occasion ,Modupe Oduyoye similarly remarked that ‘It is too easy to take up placards and inscribe slogans on them and demonstrate in Nigeria that ‘all men are equal’, but we cannot solve the problem of Nigeria without starting somewhere.  Let us start with the church.  Let us in the Church study to treat all men with the equality which God will like to apply to them. Let us make the Church a foretaste of the Kingdom of God.

In the collection of speeches and reports presented at the 16th General Assembly of The Christian Council of Nigeria in August, 1973, themed ‘Vision For A People’ Rev. Canon Edmund Ilogu in his own contribution titled  ‘Being A Christian Today’ urged theologians, preachers of  the Gospel and thought leaders to use their knowledge in interpreting the signs of our culturally changing society. 

‘The wind of change is blowing very fast and vehemently and interpreters of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are needed to help Nigerians have the proper view of the changing society and order aright the priorities by which we cope with the change’ he emphasized.

Alas , the average Nigerian Christian and father is a funny character; he is afraid of continuing to be a disciple of Moses’ School of Tit for tat ; an eye for an eye in which sinners are stoned to death in the Old Testament, while he is equally tired of his enrollment in the discipleship of Christ Jesus’ School of turning the other cheek, to live Christ life in the New Testament. No wonder why he continues to propound Doctrine of substitution and selective obedience, playing the Spiritual Nihilist whose theory is neither here nor there.

It is however easy to cast the first stone at the Nigerian father, but three questions which we must individually ask ourselves,  lest we play the proverbial teacher of morality (who speaks like an angel but live every day like mere mortal) are :

• Would the impacts which I am making today as a father, cut across generations to come, even rippling positively into centuries?

• Am I truly a father in the real spiritual sense, if I am a father, only in the mouths of my own biological children?

•  Would non-biological children, through my acts, ever be glad to call me ‘Father’? –Mr. Olalere Fagbola, a veteran journalist, writes from Osogbo, Osun State