By Abdu Rafiu
The trumpet is blaring, but life goes on. Scary headlines roared in many parts of the world in the last one week or so to which a great many would appear not to have given heed. Many dismiss them as the usual daily and periodic occurrences. Not even with the frequency and intensity of events are they touched. Has anything equaled pockets of wars, with the World War 11 topping all in intensity and destruction, the world has witnessed, some have been heard to ask derisively. In Hong Kong, fire broke out at World Trade Centre leaving more than 100 persons trapped on the roof. In Haiti, reports ABC online, fire ball from overturned tanker kills 75.
A strange disease has spread through Southern Sudan killing 89 persons. Terrorists killed Kaduna lawmaker. The lawmaker, Rilwanu Aminu Gasagau, representing Giwa West, was travelling to Giwa when the incident occurred. Some other people were abducted on the road. And we have the case of Sylvester Oromoni, of high-brow DOWEN College in Lekki beaten to coma by four fellow school children for declining to join their cult! Before he slipped into coma, he was forced to drink poison concocted from chemical substances. On November 30 in a Michigan district school, Oxford High School, four students were shot to death and six others were wounded. Can anyone say, with all these, that the world is not in an unusual situation afflicted by chaos and confusion? With all this, anyone who can think a little can’t but reflect and ask: where is our world headed?
I am unable to resist taking excerpts from the report of the horror in Haiti as captured by ABC online. Several major world newspapers and their digital editions ran stories on the incident. I am gripped by the exhaustiveness of the ABC report which describes death racing towards its terrified victims:
“A gasoline tanker overturned and exploded in northern Haiti, unleashing a fireball that swept through homes and businesses on its way to killing at least 75 people on Tuesday, according to local authorities, in the latest tragedy to befall the Caribbean nation.
“The latest occurred shortly after midnight in Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s largest city, on the northern coast. Hours later, buildings and overturned vehicles were still fuming as firefighters covered the burned bodies of the young victims in white sheets and loaded them onto the back of a construction truck.”
Here is a country that has been grappling with impoverishment and shortages after the July 7 assassination of the President Jovenel Moise and a few weeks later with 7.2 magnitude earthquake that left more than 2,200 dead and destroyed tens of thousands of homes in its trail..
“Hundreds of Haitians looked on from rooftops in disbelief at the loss of so much life. Prime Minister Ariel Henry, himself a physician, visited a hospital where victims bandaged head to toe were fighting for their lives amid a shortage of medical supplies and health workers. It’s horrible what happened,” said Patrick Almonor, deputy Mayor of Cap-Haitien, who said late Tuesday that 75 people had died …’We lost so many lives.’”
According to reports, the tanker was trying to avoid an oncoming motorcycle when it flipped. The fuel spilled toward a nearby pile of smouldering trash.
No fewer than 98 people died in Sierra Leone last month after a fuel tanker collided with a lorry and exploded. Medical facilities were predictably strained. This rekindled memory of a similar incident when a fuel tanker crashed and exploded on Otedola Bridge in Lagos in 2018; it claimed nine persons and 54 vehicles were burnt. Six months earlier a tanker carrying 33, 000 litres of petrol tumbled at Festac Link Bridge. The quick intervention of firefighters prevented much damage and loss of lives. So much on fire!
What with insecurity. Here is what Northern-based Daily Trust wrote in its editorial yesterday: “Welcome to Northern Nigeria, circa 2021, where life has seemingly lost its value, under a President voted en mass five times by the same populace.” This comes on the heels of the Northern Establishment’s outcry on the murderous insecurity ravaging the North. The Sultan of Sokoto himself led the way in which he said with anguish that there is no day someone is not killed in the North. The killing has shifted to a large extent from the North East to North West zone of the country, he said while not glossing over similar killings in some other parts of the country. A normally restrained newspaper, the Daily Trust came down hard on the President. The Northern youths are not left out in displaying pains over the insecurity in the Zone with the Hashtag #NorthisBleeding practically on every lip. A group staged protests in Abuja and another set stormed the NUJ office in Kano waving the Hashtag #NorthisBleeding.
The country has been going round in circles getting to nowhere in particular. The obstinacy of the President Buhari in resisting the establishment of state police has not helped matters. It has landed the country in a total mess. Were the state police in place, all manner of criminality over which the military and the police have spread thin would have been nipped in the bud. All pressures, all entreaties to have the President initiate processes to get the constitution amended to that effect fell on deaf ears. Farmers cannot go to their farms, travelling either by road or rail is a risk. In some of the volatile states, schools closed down.
Says Daily Trust: “In a space of just two days last week, 23 travellers heading to Kaduna were burnt alive in a commercial bus at Sabon Birni, Sokoto State. No fewer than 15 worshippers were killed as they prayed in a mosque at Ba’are village, Mashegu Local Government Area of Niger State.
“A Commissioner in the service of Katsina State, Dr. Rabir Nasir, was gruesomely murdered in his own house located at Fatima Shema Quarters in Katsina city, while a house wife identified only as Salamatu, was killed as bandits abducted six others during a raid at Piri community in Kwali Area Council of Abuja.”
On Sunday, 12 December, gunmen believed to be bandits killed 10 persons in Wase Local Government Area of Plateau state, an area which is being represented in the House of Representatives by the Deputy Speaker, Idris Wase.
The COVID-19 pandemic that has held the world in a firm grip does not show any signs of a let-up and quiting soon. The new variant Omicron which has gotten nations colliding diplomatically over red list has added a new twist to the battle against the pandemic. As of 24 October, less than two months ago, more than 243 million cases had been reported confirmed with over 4.9 million deaths globally since the emergence of the pandemic in December, 2019. Various establishments and organizations in different countries have devised ways and means to combat the disease in addition to protocols. In Nigeria, from next year only graduates who can produce evidence of vaccination will participate in the National Youth Service. Already, from the beginning of this month it is obligatory for Federal Civil service workers and those in Federal agencies to get vaccinated before they can be admitted into their offices.
Undoubtedly, the world is out of joint despite technological wonders that the modern man is proudly brandishing. Mankind has reached its wits end. We are in need of help to recognise that the events of these times are hints of the prophesied Trumpet of Judgment of the End-Time. The Trumpeter is not to stand at the summit of Mt. Everest to blow his trumpet. The Trumpet is blowing loud and clear already in all parts of the world to awaken all that are in spiritual slumber, and to animate all that IS dead—NOT all the dead. Didn’t Prophet Isaiah who was more concerned about these times warn us: “My people perish for lack of knowledge”? Hosea also spoke in same vein. We are in the Age of the Holy Spirit, a major feature of which is New Knowledge. It is Age of New and extended Knowledge which spells out the perfect, incorruptible, inflexible and eternal principles that govern Creation and life. The Knowledge points unequivocally the way out of the present derangement and wilderness, but to redemption. It is thus, we are told, for those who are serious about their salvation and are seeking the Truth of life and existence.
The Guardian
