The Revenge of the Poor will soon be Here!
STORY BY GIFT
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Says Winston Churchill while Jack Canfield asserted that one individual can begin a movement that turns the tide of history. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement, Mohandas Mahatma Karamchand Gandhi in India, Nelson Mandela in South Africa are examples of people standing up with courage and non-violence to bring about needed changes. Rev Fr George Ehusani can surely be counted among these breeds.
REV FR GEORGE Ehusani is a Nigerian Priest, Gentleman and Scholar of the Catholic Church order. In his opinion published on Guardian newspaper, Emmanuel Ojeifo described him thus: “On your first encounter with Reverend Father George Ehusani, you cannot fail to spot one quality: his soundness of mind. Bring up any subject and you’d discover his versatility, from the sacred sciences to secular arts. He is deep in thought and passionate about its expression. Everything in you tells you that this man has passed through the crucible of refined and civilised education. You might find him today delivering a breathtaking lecture on religion, law and politics to a distinguished audience of politicians, religious leaders and legal luminaries; and then find him tomorrow playing his saxophone or guitar with such dexterity as to make him the envy of professional musicians and artistes”
Reverend Father George Ehusani, the former Secretary General of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, was ordained for the Catholic Diocese of Lokoja in 1981 where he held several pastoral responsibilities in the diocese before his appointment to the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria in 1994. He served first as Deputy Secretary General, and then Secretary General, until the year 2007. He then served as Parish Priest, Church of the Assumption, Abuja, Nigeria and is currently the Chaplin of the Chaplaincy of Lux Terra Leadership Foundation and is also the Executive Director, Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, Abuja.
A theologian, teacher, poet, musician, human rights activist and social commentator, Father Ehusani has preached several retreats and published numerous books and articles covering a wide-range of issues, from Social Anthropology to Social Justice, and from Christian Humanism to Christian Spirituality. Among his publications are three poetry anthologies, 22 music CDs, and scores of recorded homily titles, both audio and video.
Over the years, Father Ehusani has gathered a wide readership within and outside Nigeria. This website which features a large selection of his works is aimed at making his thoughts more easily available to a wider public. Recently, his recent sermon on the wickedness and deception of Nigerian leadership has gone viral on Facebook, whatsapp and other social media handles
“I have constantly said it in this country until Nigeria get to a stage to say no to certain anomalies, things might not start getting better. You cannot be a minister of power, if generator is powering your own house. Since you have not provided power for yourself, how you can you provide power to every other person?”
”You cannot be minister of housing if you are not staying in government apartment. You cannot be minister of health if you do not get treatment in this country. You cannot be minister of education if your children are all school outside the country. There is what we called self-interest. If his children are attending government secondary school, he will definitely make sure that government secondary schools are well taking care of. If the family is receiving medical attention at general hospital, he will make sure that general hospital are well taking care of.”
“But as long as the leadership do not share in the plight of the people, as long as leadership can fly to UK to U.S to provide for their health care and others we are not moving anywhere. Hence Nigeria should have rise up to say, no you can be our minister for education, because your children are schooling here or vise versa.
“So when you have a situation of making sacrifices and demonstrating how much sacrifice you have made for the people because you have suffered for them, you have denied yourself legitimate pleasure for their sake that is what used qualify people for leadership.”
Now we have people who conquer us, they take the resources of our land to reconquer us and they remain there and it become difficult to move them out of power but some day as I always say the revenge of the poor is at the corner, the revenge is coming and no one will be able to escape it. You can have your jeep, you can have your generators, you can even have bullet prove but the revenge of the poor as it happened in France. It happened in Russia and also happened in Sudan and it will happened here, unless we change our cause or direction we will end up where we are heading and where we are heading now is unfortunately violent revolution”
“And am not just talking our leaders in the national level , am not talking of President, Governors, senators and House Representatives, am talking of all of us who are privileged. What is our concern for the people next door, for the poor people next door? what is your concern for your megados for those who do petty work for us? If that is not happening, it means that we are failing as shepherds in our responsibility of being a shepherded.”
“I hope you know that in this Africa, in this Nigeria, they never used to be distinction between the rich and the poor? I hope you know that poor people and rich people used to live together that is the hot of blacksmith. We all used to be together. It is the complete new terrible thing that happened to us, and people are enjoying it and they asked you what part of town you are leaving? They will level you and know your status. And by the time you segregate the society, apartheid which Nigerians where in the fore front of fighting will then become our portion. We will have a situation, where the white man will say to the black man, you live there while I live here. That is exactly what we are doing to our follow black people. At the moment, the poor people know where they cannot go and I challenge the authority in our cities, and the town planners that this is not how to plans towns.”
Instead, let us start working on what we called integrated cities, integrated estates, integrated settlements, if we want peace or else we will never have peace. We need to have integrated cities where they not so rich and rich leave together and share so that the children that are growing up will have a balance mentality by their environment perception even as they go to the same school. When I was in primary school everybody went to that same primary school. We never know that anyone was rich or anyone was poor and that helped us. But for the society we are creating today, I am seeing it as an unsustainable. We can run societies like this in the next 100 years but I bet you, it will help no one. So if we are really dreaming of a future for our children and grandchildren, then we need to join hands and voice against this ugly cankerworm because it is dangerous, destructive and inappropriate. Like I always said, it is not our high walls, nor our electric fences that will save us rather what will save us is that the poor and the handicap should be included at the dinner table. The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find it, the courage to get on to it, and the perseverance to follow it Says Kalpana Chawla and same I say to the leaders of this nation.”
