By Abdu Rafiu
We can think for a moment what the world would be like without laws governing the affairs of men whether as nations, in societies or in international relations. There are constitutions regulating the affairs of nations, associations of whatever colouration and clubs. In schools, in colleges and in homes, there are rules and regulations. In companies, the rules and regulations are spelt out in the conditions and terms of employment. In human affairs generally, there are rules of do’s and don’ts! Rules and regulations as well as well as constitutions are tools meant to engender peace and harmony and, in their outworking, set limits to human behaviour. There can be no orderly society without rules and regulations. To drive an automobile successfully, the rule guiding the action must be obeyed. In other words, for every breach of the rule, regulation, laws or the grundnom called constitution, there are consequences. Is it then conceivable that the Creator will bequeath His Creation to His creatures and there would be no rules governing it?
Come to think of it, the vastness of Creation: There are seven Universes referred to as Churches in the Revelation of John and listed as Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Our own universe is Ephesus and it contains billions of galaxies. The earth is a planet in the solar system around the sun and the sun is one of billions of stars in our own galaxy called the Milky Way and the Milky Way is one of billions of Galaxies in Ephesus I earlier referred to as our universe and the earth is only a planet in the solar system around the sun, itself a star among billions in the galaxy. Thus, the earth is no more than a speck of dust, and we are talking about the earth inhabited by, at the moment, 7.8 billion human beings. All the universes are only a part of the World of Gross Matter, the Material Worlds which are a consequence of the actual Creation, hence it is called Subsequent Creation. Imagine the commotion, the confusion and chaos were there not to be laws governing it. The actual Creation is spiritual. Subsequent Creation is made out to mankind as a school in which we are to mature to be worthy of being permitted to live in the Spiritual Realm more generally referred to as Paradise, the land of peace, inconceivable beauty and splendour. Despite the vastness of the Universe, the speed of the motions of what constitutes the galaxies, is beyond the earthly conception of the brains. Yet all are regulated and governed by uniform, immutable, perfect, self-acting incorruptible Laws.
But we human beings behave as if there are no Laws which govern the Creation, that the Almighty Creator just pushed out Creation without any laws to govern the inhabitants.
The universal laws mediated to Moses on Mount Sinai called The Ten Commandments of God are meant to be help in the happenings of our earth-life, not only a reliable guide even beyond physical death but for man’s whole existence. The Commandments, when heeded, are to facilitate earth-life and serve as key to the golden gates of the Kingdom of God. The laws mankind fashion are impermanent; they are subject to amendments as they mature and get refined or they retrogress and make obnoxious laws correspondent with their low level which may mean limited capacity to see far. The laws enacted by man through raising of hands in parliament are inaccessible and complex, products of limited understanding and indeed, outright ignorance of higher correlation of life. Even then, lawyers are required to interpret them. The rules are made for a world of which they are not its maker.
There is the assumption that the Creator of the world has no need to draw up laws on how He expects His work to function. He is accorded less wisdom than the auto manufacturer who prints manuals to guide the users of his automobiles.
One of the Laws men pays scant regard is the Fifth Commandment from the Ten Commandments. That commandment states “Thou Shall Not Kill!” In our world today, it will count as one of the most transgressed especially when its meaning is considered in its entirety. It covers the deadening of talents. A father may insist on what career he considers befit the son or daughter and enhance what the family is noted for whereas the son has bent for something else and is looking in that direction for the unfolding of his talents and abilities for the benefit of his society and humanity at large. For the father the satisfaction of personal desires is the deciding factor. And so, through the ambition and obduracy, the father has sought to deaden something in his son which was given to him to be developed on earth! The development in later life is scarcely possible because, as we learn in higher knowledge, the healthy main strength for it has been broken down in its prime, wantonly dissipated on things alien to the boy’s nature.
The aspect of the killing that is in focus today is murder, the physical elimination of fellow men, the curbing of which is getting intractable in many parts of the world today, but more notably in Nigeria. Killings are frighteningly done without compunction, and seeming ignorance of consequences — for the perpetrators and their backers or even for anyone who may as much as get caught rejoicing that the killings have taken place. Those who are to administer justice but fail are drawn in the weaving of the web to the vortex of retributive justice in the Beyond. And this brings me to what life looks like in the abyss of the Dark Region.
Anthony Borga writes in his book, More About Life in The World Unseen: “The assertion that ‘dead men tell no tales’ has long been proved untrue. Countless so-called dead men—with women and children, too—have persistently shown themselves to be very much alive by returning to earth to say so. Most of them state the fact, so important both to themselves and to incarnate humanity in terms that leave no doubt of their strong disapproval that they should be considered as anything but alive.
“Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, is one of the many who have returned to earth… This being so, it is but natural that he should wish to give some account of the life that he and millions of others are living in the spirit world… As in the previous book, (Life in the World Unseen), Monsignor Benson has communicated with Anthony Borga, who has all along acted as his ‘scribe.’”
From Step to Step, a communication from the beyond by Oscar Busch would seem more frighteningly instructive for the cold shivers it sends down the reader’s spine! It is an account given from the beyond and was first published in 1911. It is the story of a young man, Wolfgang. He married a calculating woman called Gertrude and the marriage had let Wolfgang sink ever deeper. Financially ruined and dishonoured, he had even become a murderer under his wife’s influence. So as to become the only heir of her father’s wealth, Gertrude had urged him to send her brother Karl Georg on a journey with a rather unsafe vessel…the ship sank and the crew drowned. Wolfgang could not deal with his guilt and his own unworthiness and hanged himself. After his death, there started for him a difficult path through dismal areas of the beyond, where he experienced much suffering. After several decades of torment, and later recognition of his burden of guilt, he was helped to slowly work his way out of ethereal darkness. On his way out of it he met Karl Georg again and gained his forgiveness. Gertrude in the meantime had also died. Gertrude could not be helped.
Following is the fateful condition of Gertrude even after confessing to her grievous crime, the killing of her father. She said in exasperation of the longing to be led out of the dungeon in which she found herself: “But I have confessed everything. It was I who took my father’s life; it was I who stole his wealth; it was I who had tempted my husband into gambling; it was I who…” And here she fell silent. The helper said to her: “You are still hiding something, which is gnawing at your conscience. That is what I see.” She had earlier said to the helper: “What do you want here again,” she said “when you can’t even lead me away from here?” The helper said to her: “Nobody can do that except you yourself. A complete and repentant acknowledgement of all that you have sinned is the only thing that can free you from this darkness.”
Gertrude’s abode in the dark region is a small cave. Can you imagine, a woman who had been used to live in a mansion and opulence while on earth now living in a cave! According to the account: “At the entrance to the shaft where Gertrude had disappeared, we met Akab. ‘Courage, my friends’, he said. ‘Each of you take my hand and so we will climb down, but be prepared, there are horrible scenes that we shall see.’ Akab was a helper assigned to her after a long period of suffering and torment!
“We sank slowly down, deep into the interior of the mountain. Here it was dark and cold, but Akab had taken a small lamp along and warm clothing to wear on top was down there. We passed through long, darkened corridors where the water dripped from walls and stalactites were hanging from the ceilings. On both sides there were grottos that had been blasted out of the mountain, some open, some closed off with gates and rough bolts. From most of them one heard sounds of lamentation and complaint, from some oaths and curses.
“Now we had arrived. In a small cave at an angle to the tunnel sat Gertrude huddled up. She had not noticed us…” Earlier, all attempts to help her were rebuffed as she cold not help herself and resist descending down to the depths the self-acting Law of Spiritual Gravitation was at work. Her helper’s account states: “But I did still follow her. We went down crevasses and cliffs, before which I shuddered but all the time she remained ahead of me. Finally, she stopped in front of a dark shaft which resembled the entrance to a mine.’
“Now take my hand”, she said, “and we will jump down together. That is where I want to settle. I cannot stand the light here any longer: It hurts my eyes so much.”
“Terrible, how dark it is down there. ‘No, I shall not follow you there’’, I said.
“Are you afraid, you coward? Come on now, you must follow me, you understand?’” That is the account of Akab.
“She grabbed me firmly by the wrist and tried to drag me with her. There was a struggle between us, but I broke free, and she disappeared with scornful laughter into the depths. Of all the sinister things I have experienced, this was probably the most nightmarish. I sat for a long time and stared down into the abyss after her, until an indescribable feeling of helplessness crept up on me. What could I do to help her? Was there no hope for such a soul? But the strangest thing of all was that she herself wanted to go down into the abyss.
“In my helplessness I folded my hands and asked God to have mercy on her. It was my first prayer for this unfortunate woman, but it would not be my last.”
We learn from the unique Work, In the Light of Truth, the Grail Message, by Abd-ru-shin, that “in the region of darkness and its planes, there is no light. There, it is impossible for him who advances inwardly to be able suddenly to see the light, for he must first be led out of the surroundings which hold him.
“The condition of the soul depicted here may surely be called miserable”, (says the Message on a different sordid experience of a different soul). “because it is filled with a great fear and is void of all hope, but it did not wish it otherwise. It now receives only what it forced upon itself. It had refused to believe in a conscious life after physical death. But the soul cannot abolish this continuation of life for itself, because it has no jurisdiction over it. It only builds for itself a barren ethereal plane, paralysing the senses of the ethereal body, so that it can neither see nor here ethereally until…the soul itself finally changes its attitude.
“These are the souls which can be found by the million on earth today. Apart from the fact that they refuse all knowledge about God and eternity, they can still be called decent. The fate of the evil minded is naturally much worse, but we shall not speak about them here, only about the so-called respectable people.”
Elsewhere in the Grail Message we are told: “Unhappily in most cases man is easily able to deceive the Gross Material World! In the Ethereal World, however, this is impossible! Fortunately, there a man must really reap what he has sown! Therefore no one need despair if here on earth injustice temporarily has the upper hand! Not one single evil thought will remain unexpiated, even when it has not developed into a physical deed.”
Thus, those who kill or kidnap their fellowmen do not realise what burning chacol of guilt they are piling on their heads. Some evil men take on the form of animals. Indeed, the Grail Message further states: “It serves no purpose to give pictures of life in those regions. They are often so terrible that a human spirit on earth can hardly believe in their reality without seeing them. Even then he would still think they must be visions of a feverish and highly fanciful imagination! Thus, he must be content intuitively to feel a moral shyness in regard to all such evils! This will liberate him from the bonds of all that is base so that there will no longer be any obstacle barring his ascent towards the Light.” It adds: “Just as it is impossible for a painter to portray the torments of real life in the dark regions, so is it impossible for him to depict the rapture which life holds in the light regions, even if these regions still belong to the transient World of Ethereal Matter before the boundary to the Eternal Kingdom of God has been crossed!”
The choice is for each human being: Salvation or Damnation! —in the pursuit of satisfaction of personal desires!
TINUBU AND STATE POLICE
Despite the consensus that has been reached across our land on the establishment of state police, there are voices seeking to reverse the hope-filled efforts towards the most sensible steps to tackle the seemingly intractable insecurity scourge menacing the country. Those seeking to roll back the hand of the clock are employing the same profitless argument. And it is all what I have been calling the same shibboleth, the same beaten track, the same old hat—that all that is needed is increased funding, training and raising of numerical strength of the policemen under the present dispensation.
I do pray that President Bola Tinubu will not feel intimidated and back down. He is on the right path to rescue the nation from the choke-hold by terrorists, banditry, kidnappers and their sponsors. Tinubu has been making the right pronouncements on the imperative of state police since he came into the saddle. He called on the National Assembly two weeks ago to begin reviewing our laws to allow states that want state police to establish same. He had said in June, in his words: “State police is no longer optional but a national imperative.” This was coming on the heels of the Northern Establishment comprising governors, traditional rulers and some stakeholders throwing their full weight behind the setting up of state police. This week they met in Kaduna and repeated their position. The South-West Establishment has done the same. The Conference of States Assembly Speakers has done likewise and are roaring to go to give all the necessary legislative papers their assent.
President Tinubu’s speech in June was at the high-level Legislative Dialogue on Nigeria’s National Security Architecture. Represented at the time by the Defence Minister, Mohammed Abubakar Badaru, who has just left the government, Tinubu said: “The debate over state police is no longer theoretical. It is grounded in the daily fears and lived anxieties of Nigerians: farmers afraid to tend their fields, traders unsure of safe passage, and communities abandoned to self-help.” He said the current centralised security system has outlived its usefulness. He fears that failure to realign the constitution with Nigeria’s lived realities might pose a grave threat to national unity. He described the 1999 Constitution as fundamental to democracy but outdated in dealing with modern security threats as posed by rising complexity of terrorism, cybercrime, farmer-herder conflicts, piracy and separatist agitations.
In his words: “These are clear indications that the current legal frame work is inadequate to secure Nigeria’s vast and diverse territory. The pace of change in technology in the complexity of security threats, and in the dynamics of our federal structure has far outstripped the capacity of some constitutional provisions. Our constitution must evolve or risk becoming a danger to the very unity it is meant to protect. “
President Tinubu then pressed for a constitutional amendment that would move policing from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List, to enable states with capacity and political will to establish their own police forces. He said such a move would ensure more accountable, community-based policing while preserving federal coordination and oversight. “We must learn from global best practices, adapting decentralised models that enhance local accountability without sacrificing national oversight.”
As I did report on the occasion, Tinubu listed pro-active steps his Administration has taken to provide security to vulnerable segment of the citizenry, particularly school children. He mentioned the establishment of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre. There was also the approval of community policing framework aimed at narrowing the gap between citizens and law enforcement. His conviction is, “These efforts must be complemented with structural changes. Without constitutional backing for decentralised policing these initiatives will remain limited in impact.”
Throwing the challenge to the National Assembly, particularly the House Committee on Constitutional review chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, urging them to act with urgency and courage in pushing through security-focused amendments, he said: “None of these reforms will materialise without legislative courage and political will. Let History record that in this chamber, on this day, Nigeria leaders chose courage over caution, vision over fear and reform over inertia.”
Profound! Convincing! Enheartening!
There is the argument that governors will misuse state police. Former President Babangida had dismissed such fears as unfounded, and not in the present-day Nigeria and the rights awakening of the citizenry. He said Nigeria must not be left behind in the march of civilization.
The other argument is about how states that are unable to pay their staff salaries regularly can risk arming their police with guns and other lethal weapons. This is a chicken and egg argument. Which comes first? Where there is no security how will the citizens be able to go out to work and rake in money for their personal responsibilities and pay taxes into the government covers and indeed boost the economy of the state in general? Therefore, it is state police first, peace and security to go out to work next and fund government activities, and pay not only the police but all the workers as at when due.
The amendment to be made to the constitution will not make it compulsory for every state to have state police. Once it moves to concurrent list, states which are not ready or overwhelmed by the fear of their governors misusing the system may wait until they are ready, when they will have governors who will not abuse the police. As former Governor Jonah Jang once said, we must not forget that we are a federation and mixing unitary with federalism will never work. In the First Republic, Eastern Region did not have regional police. It was content with the Nigeria Police while the Western Region had a three-tier policing structure.
It is also very important to state that the fact that five governors out of 36 will abuse their power over the police under their control should not be reason to deny those that will use the police responsibly, the right to set up their own police for law and order, using the phrase by Joseph Daodu, one-time President of the Nigerian Bar Association. That will not be fair and just to tie the hands of those who want to face the insecurity challenge in their state frontally and unimpeded! People including governors are naturally not at the same level of inner maturity. This accounts for the diversity of all peoples all over the world. Those less mature are to learn from those that are half a step ahead of them. The point that is also lost on us in the debate is that the establishment of state police will not be tantamount to abolition of the Nigeria Police. Guidelines will, of course, be drawn up for collaborative working between the two tiers and operational boundaries.
President Bola Tinubu’s drive for the establishment of the state police deserves all our backing. It is sound; it is convincingly the way to go for the health, development and progress of our nation.
The Guardian
