In 2014, former President Jonathan said:
“I am the most abused and insulted president in the world, but when I leave office, you will all remember me for the total freedom you enjoyed under my government.”
On the 19th of February, 2019, HE Jonathan further said:
“The choice before Nigerians in the coming elections is simple: A choice between going forward or going backwards; between the new ways and the old ways; between freedom and repression; between a record of visible achievements and beneficial reforms-and desperate power-seekers with empty promises.”
When we take in these two quotes, I guess we can all agree that former President Jonathan is a man who saw tomorrow!
Galatians 6:7 says:
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
I think one of the biggest challenges facing many Nigerians, especially in the South, is the inability to fully anticipate the consequences of their actions. The sad situation is that we tend not to appreciate the link between cause and effect.
And until we understand that connection, we will continue to repeat patterns of behaviour that bring us back to terrible places that we have previously been to.
In any case, I am still on my world tour on the #FreeLeahSharibu project, and this week I am in Ethiopia. In an ancient town named Gondar, where Ethiopian Orthodox Christians celebrate Timket (the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist) every year.
Ethiopia is a land very connected to Scripture, especially as it is the first nation mentioned by name in Scripture (Genesis 2:13). It is also the nation to which Moses fled to after his troubles in Egypt and from where he married his only known wife (Numbers 12:2).
It was this woman’s father who taught Moses a lot of what he knew and helped him transit from a little known marginal Egyptian courtier to one of the greatest leaders in history (Exodus 18:24).
You need to visit Ethiopia to understand both Christianity and Islam. In Gondar, and other Ethiopian cities, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians dress like Muslims and conducted their services similar to Muslims, or so I thought, until I dug deeper.
The truth is that it is actually the reverse. The Ethiopians have always been like this. Not many people know that they hosted Muslims, as asylum seekers, during the early stage of the development of Islam as a religion.
Faced with intense persecution from the idol worshipping Quraysh ruling tribe in Mecca, prophet Mohammed’s first followers (known as Sahabah), fled to the Christian kingdom of Aksum, in modern day Ethiopia, where they stayed for many years. Whilst there, they absorbed some of the ways of the ancient Ethiopians.
But the beauty of this story is that all over Ethiopia, but particularly in Aksum, Lalibela and Gondar, you have ancient churches, holy sites and Christian relics that existed in Ethiopia at a time when paganism was the order of the day in much of Europe.
The thing is that Ethiopia’s history proves that Africa was never a dark continent, but rather a continent that lit the flame that ended the Dark Age in Europe. The evidence abound in Ethiopia.
Read Also: Now That the 2020 Budget Is Passed
These are Black people, with their own ancient written history, and their own millennia old writing script (Ge’ez), which many in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church swear is the original language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (quite plausible since Ethiopia is the country used to show proximity to the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 2:13).
To show how powerful this nation once was, you only need to read 2 Chronicles 14:9:
“Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots, and came as far as Mareshah.”
The above is a Scriptural account of Ethiopians invading Judah with a million man army 700 years Before Christ. Think about that. At that time England was a dark country full of human sacrificing pagans, and this Black African nation was already projecting its strengths over a thousand of miles away from its borders.
Ethiopia is a recurring decimal in Scripture. From Scripture, we know that those who attacked job and pillaged his life stock were actually Ethiopians. To put this in perspective, Job is the oldest book in Scripture.
The account of Solomon and Sheba, is both recorded in Scripture and apocryphal sources (the Kebra Nagast) as well as in Ethiopian folklore.
I have been in Israel and Egypt, but Ethiopia is the place where I have seen a connection between the people and Scripture that continues today in an unbroken chain from when Scripture was written to the present day. You cannot visit Ethiopia and your faith will remain the same (except you remain in Addis Ababa and refuse to journey to the hinterlands were most of the ancient Christian civilisations are domiciled).
I encourage all Africans to travel to Ethiopia, Egypt (which was ruled by Black Nubians in ancient times) and also to the ancient city of Benin in Nigeria to see that truly, Africa is not and has never been a dark continent, but that it is rather the world’s cradle of civilisation.
And when you visit, please do not restrict yourself to the capital Addis Ababa. It is a a fairly recent city. Ethiopia has good roads, by African standards, and an even better air travel infrastructure with multiple daily flights to Aksum, Lalibela and Gondar. Visit these towns and thank me later.
Do it, and I tell you you will have a new found respect for Black Africa.
THISDAY