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@AristotleJames: The petrol drunks and the couple in Ashafa (Y! FrontPage)

by Immanuel James

There is no popular monument to aid the description of that street, Ashafa, lying dusty in the heart of Ajegunle, Lagos. Whatever it was that had taken this writer to that part now defies recollection, perhaps repressed by the drama that was staged that day, one that has remained a permanent acquisition of the memory.

A crowd had gathered, cheering. Their entertainment was a tangle of two bodies wrangling in the dust, a man and a woman. Closer inspection revealed that the man, a massive, pot-bellied contraption, had his back on the ground, shrieking helplessly as the woman mauled him ceaselessly. She punched him everywhere, her knees pinned to his soft, receptive belly. She would hold his neck with one hand, gather sand with the other hand, and deposit it where she felt the sand should belong – in his mouth. It was as if he was enjoying it, seeing how lazily he lay there on the ground, putting up mild resistance, spitting out the unwholesome broth. My point of curiosity was not even the irony of a slim-built woman pounding such a human mass with so much ease. It was the people’s reluctance to separate the duo, and their apparent excitation at the duel, that got me to ask questions.

A married couple, I was told. The woman, a quarrelsome alcoholic, was the breadwinner of the household. Notorious for street-fighting, her jobless, timid husband had become her punching bag. Strange, however, was that whoever fought  her on his behalf would attract his anger. His siblings had got tired of the backstabbing he always gave them whenever they intervened to save him, so they  gave up. Sometimes the woman would lock him out after each pummeling, only for him to come begging. Speculation was that she had bewitched him, or that she had some private offering that kept him coming, an enticement unknown to the outside world. A victim, he had also become a willing signatory to his own battery.

It was the story of the pastor who had persuaded his church members to drink petrol, in South Africa, that prompted recollection of this Ashafa couple. The petrol-quaffing came a little too late though, seeing that the same members had eaten grass upon a similar persuasion only a few months ago, when they would have easily washed down their grass-salad with the petrol-juice – but that’s not the point of this piece. Behind these happenings is a serious lesson on how the human psychology operates when it is seduced by luscious faith.

Recently, a wave of negative incidents engulfed some prominent men of God in Nigeria. Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, Prophet T.B. Joshua, and Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, form the current triangle of religious controversy in the public domain, around whom fierce commentaries have raged. One can excuse Pastor Chris Oyakhilome whose matter is a private one, but in all, the fanaticism of some church members and supporters in defending their principals, barring objectivity, reflects that the Ashafa syndrome is not as distant as we may think. That syndrome, in this case, is obvious when some surviving victims of the collapsed building at the Synagogue Church of All Nations, when members of the petrol-drinking club in South Africa, insist that critics of their icons are satanic forces bent on fighting men of God. Some people wondered why anyone would still attend church services in any congregation whose pastor has questions to answer but then, when an individual’s faith is anchored on such a strong personal element – hope, he will protect the symbol of that hope in the face of apparent moral injury. Sometimes he will insert caveats like “judge not”, “he is still human”, etc., to lower moral expectations placed on his icons.

There is this wild enthusiasm, in each camp, to consecrate the even wilder narratives spewed by their principals. Having invested so much confidence and emotions in these personalities, some members would rather believe apparent fictions of hovering jets and leased aircraft, than any credible alternatives proposed by rational minds. The character of faith, especially in Africa, almost always necessitates the foreclosure of inquiry and rational doubt, since any interrogation of such faith, or even of its authorities, will jeopardise the psychological investments of the defending adherents. In other words, the adherent putting up the defence is defending his own emotional entitlements any more than he is defending his pastor, since the invalidation of one affects the other.

One admits that the developments involving Prophet T.B. Joshua and Pastor Oritsejafor are matters whose unraveling lies in investigations, hence categorical conclusions should not be drawn yet. But the implicit touting of sure innocence and integrity by such members, on behalf of their principals, betrays a desperation for cognitive dissonance. There is yet another lesson.

Accusations are rife, especially in intellectual circles, that Africans are too inebriated with religion, so much that they lack the sobriety to question certain religious claims – or at least, accommodate religious criticism. Perhaps these accusations are vindicated in episodes of petrol drinking, grass eating, and credulous dispositions to the illogic of hovering jets – incidents that may not find affirmation in many developed nations of the world. But then one can, perhaps, excuse this so-called inebriation, seeing that there is a political angle to it.

In most African nations, religion is the only hope of the common man. With poor governance that has instituted poverty and suffering across the continent, people have to find meaning in alternative systems of hope. Religion, famous for the administration of optimism, becomes the poor man’s only solace, one that must be protected even against the incursion of reason. Reason, enemy to thorough-going, petrol-drinking credulity, will be despised so long as it will destroy the integrity of that hard-earned hope so cherished. A lack of proper and affordable healthcare facilities means the privileging of prayer over medication. Bad roads, unemployment, terrorism, and all such social anomalies, all in the face of cut-and-nail governance, engender all manner of religious purchase.

Rational religion is the sole entitlement of functional societies. There is hardly any rationality in poverty, disease, and pain. Good governance, that imperative that guarantees law and order, and wealth-creation, would be the nemesis of blind religion. Africa’s bruited religious dementia is a function of political failure.

Until we can move as a continent to the point where we can take good roads, affordable healthcare, job opportunities, relative security, etc., for granted, the Ashafa scenario will continue to play out, driving Africans towards the biased defence of their religious icons, towards the eating of grass, and the quaffing of petrol. It is the situation in which a victim protects his own manipulator, attacking those who attempt to illuminate his vision with reason – that reaction being the victim’s only way of protecting his secret, vested interests. For when hope has no alternative, it cultivates a desperation to protect itself, even against truth.

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