Taming the Existential Dilemma

I am very conversant with the tenets of renowned thinkers. I was into Marx, Heidegger, Satre, Camus, Russell, Engels, Fuerbach, Comte, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Descartes, Levinas, Chomsky, just to name but a few. I had studied the views of ancient philosophers like, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Protagoras, Hippocrates etc. I know the fundamental views of Aquinas, Augustine, and the medieval philosophers. I have equally had a rendezvous with oriental philosophy. I have read portions of the Bhagava Gita and Sri Isopanishad, with their commentaries by A. C. Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhubada. I have read literature on the Buddha, the Tibetan succession of Dalai Lamas, and the more recent claims of Sai Baba. Avicena and Averoess are some of the Islamic Philosophers whose view I equally digested. I studied the various views on African religious systems, some at first hand, others through established secondary sources like Mbiti, Abanuka, Arazu and a host of others. In fact I personally had sessions with Abanuka himself. I had equally delved into the thoughts of Christian mystics like Chrystostom, John of the Cross, Merton, Ignatius Loyola. I know also of the famed strict discipline of people like Origen, `a Kempis etc. I equally studied the challenge of Protestantism against the ancient hegemony of the Catholic Church, and have joined many others in analyzing the new wave Pentecostal outburst manifested in the proliferation of churches. I had undulated between the twin fringes of atheism and faith. I have argued for either side, trying to dictate truth in a situation of pure intellectual chaos. These are just studies sought not for any spiritual reason per se, but for purely intellectual goals. There was also the need to somewhat give meaning to some of the contemporary religious practices which everyone seem to sheepishly adhere to.

Remarkably however, none of these studies necessarily touched my life in a manner the bible did. The bible lacked the sophistication of styled authorship, yet the density of its message actually commands consummate attention. This is not to say that I did not equally subject the bible to strict criticism. I did some studies in the history of the bible and could identify the constituent traditions of its authorship. Yet this knowledge ironically did not detract from the reverence with which I held it. Though I questioned some of its various stances, I remained cowed by the profound directness of the messages. Biblical messages never sought to douse tension by an act of editorial intrigue. No! The messages were clear. You must…I was confronted by the same Jewish dilemma which wondered where Jesus learned all he said, by what motivation he did what he did, so that he never taught like the other rabbis, ‘but taught like someone with authority’.

Again, my romance with the various critiques of religion as advanced by various thinkers revealed that each actually exposed more problems than they solved. When Marx declared that ‘Religion is the opium of the masses’ or Nietzsche said ‘God is dead’ or Camus referred to God as ‘sitting in benign indifference to the plight of man’, what other workable alternative have they offered mankind that can answer for all the attendant absurdity that grace human existence? The thinkers rather than helping issues raised further questions, leading man ultimately back to even much more intricate absurdities than he started off with. If religion is the ‘opium’ as Marx said, is the very presence of that one panacea not at least a welcome boon, than if there were nothing? Can we by totally arguing away God’s existence create another answer to the ever-recurrent question of origins and purpose? How do we answer for the presence of consciousness as a factor of being? How do we answer for the profound beauty of this cosmos?

So I was caught up in the bible much more than perhaps Satre’s Being and Nothingness appealed to me. Yes Satre’s was a great book, but it never answered the fundamental questions of origins. Rather it sought to deny God’s existence, arguing totally from some logical summations peculiar to his existentialist mindset. The point is that the more I sought to find the answers I sought intellectually, the more I got caught in a maze of conflicting opinions. This was what the views mostly are. Opinions. Nobody was sure which was which. At best people advanced views that mostly cushioned their own socio-ethical dilemma.

I believe in God. I do not mean some disinterested factor posited as a necessary occupant of an ontological position. As in the sense of deus ex machina. I believe in God as the fundamental consciousness, whom I resemble in my own puny level, who created me, knows me, loves me, and in whom I would ultimately be subsumed. I believe in God who is present in human history and have manifested himself in many forms, but ultimately in the one human form of Jesus, called the Christ. I believe that man is because God is, and that the questions about God are in consonance with the transcendence of His essence. I believe that these questions can never be resolved intellectually, since human contingency makes it impossible to adequately know that which has never been experienced.

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither

has it entered the mind of man…

I believe that man can only experience God as man, and to that effect must remain cowed by the overriding essence of the divine personality. I maintain that the world is created, not necessarily within the seven-day theory as narrated in Genesis, but as an endless flow of immediate presencing. Because God is, the world is as the immediate idea of the divine consciousness, as the direct object of His sustenance. I believe that man can experience God, because God already experiences man as a mentally free, but essentially dependent extension of Himself.

PHILIP OBIOHA

Which Way Nigeria?

WHICH WAY NIGERIA?

There is an unmistakable air of unease in Nigeria’s political climate at the moment. At last, the eighth year of our latest democratic experiment is here. Constitution stipulates and recommends a reelection of fresh hands into political offices. The actual election is just a few days away. Yet, (and why so?), this air of unease deepens by day. One conversant with the culture of political transition in a genuine democracy would find the air here rather out of sorts. Yes there is normally a feeling of muted expectancy, as in perhaps the American style democracy. There, the actors in the political drama are normally known, and as equally well censored. There, the electoral process is well spelt out and catalyzed by the full weight of a sacrosanct constitution. There, the quality of the political drama is measured by the very composition of the dramatis personae. The politicians flay about, passionately advertising themselves, patiently explaining the reasons for their political interests, hopefully looking upon the electorate for the ultimate mandate.

The air here, in Nigeria, is unfortunately different. And not just different, the air here is suffocating. The feeling one gets is not that sense of expectant exultation, of optimistic curiosity which one sees elsewhere. The air here is sinister in its grim suggestion. There is almost a clear sense of premonition. It is like expecting some sort of invasion; there is a feeling that Nigeria is on the brink of invasion by an enemy whose devilment is accentuated by his invisibility, his lack of known identity. At an election, especially after the incumbent had had two straight terms, one expects a real change of guards. The very national psyche somehow expects the dawn of freshness, some sunlight from the monotony of the preceding system. But right now, looking at the unfolding issues on our table, we might only behold a harried cosmetic surgery. It is about two months to the election and almost all the personalities to the presidential office have been indicted by the EFCC. Remarkably though, these are persons not part of, or who dissented from the PDP. Aside from the scandalous fact that more than thirty persons are seeking the presidential seat, this indictment on the very persons seeking political office represents the worst form of national disgrace a country can suffer. Beyond the hullabaloo about EFCC’S choosy program, there are still very basic moral issues ridiculing our choice of political representatives.

It may be beyond the scope of this submission to delve into dissection of Nigeria’s last eight years, but one dares say that when politics become the subject matter of a discourse, other issues are inevitable drawn equally. Looking at Nigeria now, its politics and economy, as it is today, one is filled with a sense of outrage at the utter irresponsibility exhibited till date. The question that pops in becomes the same hackneyed query of the yesteryears; which way Nigeria?

Which way indeed Nigeria? Where are we going? May be about three years ago, when various reforms were introduced into the system, there was some palpable hope that we were at the brink of historical rescue. But looking at issues today, a sense of deception and rape replaces the hitherto brief optimism. What occurs today is at the best a charade; some mad vampires have convened their periodic ceremony of blood, and we are the unfortunate victims of their unholy feast. Imagine the picture! PDP is the acclaimed biggest party in Africa, constituted ironically of statesmen and professionals drawn from different backgrounds, and yet they have organized and are still organizing the most daring election rigging ever witnessed in a representative democracy. There can neither be a better irony, nor a worst tragedy. It forces a direct recollection of Shakespeare’s rhetoric, ‘And yet, they are all honorable men’. The presidential primaries organized last year was a travesty of due process. A chunk of the most promising players in that drama were scared away with either threat of unconditional probe, or outright elimination. And the worst tragedy of it was the purported collusion of even the president. The president: a man almost at the evening of his life, who owes almost all he has to Nigeria, who came into power with almost unanimous goodwill, who has the vast wealth of this nation at his disposal. But what picture of a President? A parody of that exalted position?

Nigeria gradually crawls towards the precipice. The wonder is that most leaders on this grim march are old men. Does a dog eat a bone hung on its neck? Has the world gone so blind as to allow such hallowed generation to indulge their shameless exhibition? No! There are still voices that dare challenge that unnatural mixture. We are joining voices like Soyinka’s to denounce further rape of our collective heritage. We must save our progeny from the plan of these predators who are sworn to our historical annihilation. We must, as Soyinka once put it ‘repudiate all conspiracies of criminal silence’. Yes that silence becomes criminal when it keeps mum in the face of obvious provocation. The school of elders who still prank about in evident enjoyment of this cacophony must be made to pay. There has to be a unilateral plunge into retrieving this nation from the devilment of this minority. There has to be a total trans-valuation, a concerted dissolution of this hellish berg.

So that is the way. We do not sit and shout ‘aye’ at each pitiless haul of political lashing. We must stop whimpering forthwith and come to the realistic notion that our destiny lies on our hands. We must sever our country from the iron fist of the unfeeling harbinger of death. We are the polity, we are the very body of this political being called Nigeria. Yes they can wave us away as just the masses, the inconsequential hoi-poloi, but we have what it takes to make them pay for their negligence. We are the leviathan, the very nucleus of this political assembly and so let us summon courage and nurture a national camaraderie in order to achieve some positive result. It was once fashionable to be inactively optimistic, let us become active and fight to wrest power from these dogs whose only intention for seeking our mandate is to effect our collective hurt. We cannot afford further waste of time, when the Niger Delta has become second only to the middle east as a place of death, when our nights are passed in darkness and our industries are run with generators, when are roads continue to be death traps, when our education system has taken a downward plunge, when myriads of problems beleaguer our national environment. No, we have had enough and now is the time, and now is also the way.