Through history, to become the spoke persons of the Gods is not a ‘moinmoin!’ It is a grave business of power, of socio-cultural-religious privileging, to be able to claim one’s leadership and authority is divine. To be able to claim that whatever one thinks up in its consciousness and utters with its mouth is a divine pronouncement, a celestial prophetic declaration that must be obeyed by all mortal, is surely not a joke
By Bode Ojoniyi,
If I remember now, I think it was Pentheous who pointed our attention to one of the problems of what happens at the revelation of a new God among men in the play, The Bacchae of Euripides. I think what happened was that the news of the arrival of Dionysus had just filtered in and was spreading like wild Sahara harmattan fire in the town. For the records, Dionysus, the son of Zeus, just like Jesus, the son of God, was widely held to be a God among the ancient Greeks. So, to receive him, the whole town was moved in such frenzies of an average religious madness as are often associated with a new move of God, the so-called, in a new religious movement as known in the histories of such movements. Unfortunately, the elders who should have known better by the hindsight of history, Cadmus and Theresia, were part of the mass of the uninformed masses of the similitude of the people Femi Osofisan christened ‘dream seekers on the divining tray’ waiting to receive this new God to town. So, Pentheous was troubled by the development, for, he knew the reason the elders, particularly, the priests, are ever ready and open to embrace the revelation of a new God. It is simple: they would continue to serve in their office as the priests of the new God. And, by serving as the priests, they would continue to receive sacrifices and offerings on behalf of the new God.
Serving as a priest to any God is definitely a lucrative business. At least, such claim is equally foregrounded in Soyinka’s The Swamp Dwellers, where Kadiye, the priest of the Serpent of the Swamp feeds on the ignorance of the people as the representative of the Serpent. In any society, both ancient and modern, Priesthood is a privileged position. It qualifies and positions the priests to receive 10 percent of the peoples’ income in, say Judaism and Christianity in the name of tithing, and numerous sacrifices and offerings in other religions. Fela Kuti alluded to the privileges associated with priesthood when he sang thus:
‘Archbishop dey for London,
Pope dey for Rome,
Imam dey for Mecca,
My people dem go dey follow Bishop,
Amen…’
To be a Bishop, to date, is a powerful thing, not to talk of when one is able to add an ‘Arch’ to its Bishop! In fact, if one is ingenious and fortunate to add an ‘Arch’ to its Bishop or one is smarter enough to proclaim it has now become a Prelate or a Pope, the case of power and irrational influence over men is closed… For, that is a position of tremendous power and influence on the destinies of silly men and women. This also goes for being able to attain the position of an Imam or an Alfa in Islam; to become the one who has the privilege to read and interpret the Hadiths and the Quran is indeed a serious matter. Throughout history, to become the spoke persons of the Gods is not a ‘moinmoin!’ It is a grave business of power, of socio-cultural-religious privileging, to be able to claim one’s leadership and authority is divine. To be able to claim that whatever one thinks up in its consciousness and utters with its mouth is a divine pronouncement, a celestial prophetic declaration that must be obeyed by all mortal, is surely not a joke…
Smart men in history know the power and the influence of going ‘godling’ and ‘goding!’ To go godling is to learn the tricks of attributing your actions and utterances to a God. It is to be able to claim and convince the people to accept whatever you do, think-up and utter as being heavenly, as being directed by an invisible God! Now, to go goding is higher than to go godling. To go goding is to be able to impress it on the consciousness of the people that one has indeed become, not just like, but a God in its own right! It is to arrive at a position that one receives worship of other men! There are men in history who successfully moved from godling to goding. Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, and, perhaps, Mohamed…
Today, many Nigeria Pastors and Alfas have also started godling and are, perchance, on their ways to semi-goding. They command such irrational followership like the Bacchantes of the Greek Dionysus. Their followers, like the Bacchantes of Dionysus, are a mass of destructive surging and restive energies. They are ever ready to unleash a reign of terror on the innocent at any pronouncement of their godling goding masters… This unfortunate reality almost played out during the just concluded Presidential and National Assemblies elections in Nigeria…
I think with the revelation of the influence of these godling and goding men within Nigeria polity, conscientious men must rise up to warn, strategize and take responsibility for the Nation, especially through the inculcation of functional education of our children and the youth… For, when men go godling and goding unmediated by rationality and decorum, it is surely a recipe for destruction and disaster as recorded in history of such developments in and for any Nation…
