When Forgiveness Becomes A Travesty Of Reason: Obasanjo And The Rest Of Us

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Prof. S. A. Zuru

According to orthodox theology of faith in both Christianity and Islam, humans are ordinary mortals that would sometimes be conquered by negative impulses and predilections of revenge and therefore, it is the absurd normal to wrong each other.

It was against this background that both classical religions in unity with the wisdom of paganism innocently sanctioned that, in the face of justice of revenge, to forgive becomes the biblical nobility. However, these religions never envisaged a scenario where human conscience could be corrupted by viruses of greed and inhumanity that he becomes an existential threat to himself and the rest of the society, yes indeed, thus making forgiveness the stupidity of human rationality.

In this current session of subterfuge of political forgiveness, it is a charade of deception outside the realm theological thesis therefore, it will be stupid to forget. The truth is, when political forgiveness challenges the imperative logic of common sense then, it is null and void to the extent of its repugnancy. It is the opinion of this writer that with the primaries of political parties behind us, it is obvious that the predators have regrouped with a formidable toxic venom and malignant determination to make WE their supposed perpetual prey the KILISHI of 2019.

According to Oscar Wilde, “keep forgiving your enemies because nothing annoys them so much.” My point of departure with Oscar Wilde is the fact that, as long as you forgive, you must always remind your enemies that humility is not stupidity and therefore, you will always remember, afterall, the simple truth is that, those who forget learned nothing.

It is in this spirit that those who offend the gods always receive the wraths of gods. Another travesty of this period of Greek forgiveness is the depressing reality that demented men of God, patronising prayer worriors and buy one and get one for free imams and sheikhs could join the political caravan of evil men. The tragedy of these treacherous swine politicians and the parochialists of faith is that they don’t appreciate the fact that sacrifice is not a death sentence and Nigerians are stubbornly optimistic about the future of their country. The truth is that, Nigerians have eaten from the same calabash of sorrow about these politicians and their ideology of leadership. At the end of the day, the 2019 election will be decided on the paradigm of choice between good and evil, between deception and reality, between common sense and rationality and between opportunism and security. However, between the opportunism of yesterday, the exaltations of today and the promises of tomorrow, we shall do the right thing.

According to Winston Churchill, “we shall do the right thing when all the alternatives have been exhausted.” The truth is that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s purported forgiveness of former VP Atiku Abubakar was a Molotov cocktail meant for the kami kazi population of Nigerians, but luckily, Nigerians are wiser and have rejected mass murder.  You can’t stripe somebody naked in the market square and call him a madman in the morning only to turn around in the afternoon to declare that you have cured his madness and expect people to take you seriously.

I make bold to say that to be a Nigerian is not stupid. This reminds me of a book by Dr. Philip K Howard titled, ‘The Death of Common Sense’.

Prof Zuru is the Dean of Faculty of Law, University of Abuja.

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