OF KILLING SPREE AND THE NEW YEAR 2023.

Today 31st December marks the last day of 2022 which will roll into the 1st day of January 2023.

It is a day when the night approaches and at the darkest of the night towards the dawn of a new year approaching, that is the death of 2022 and the birth of 2023. Typical of average Nigerians the new year must meet many in their various Churches and prayer rooms.

Why pray at this mere change of cycle, the natural law of nature to which man attaches time?

Because "Time" by the sages of old's opinion, is described as the "Duration of Consciousness".

Prayers on this occasion reminded me of a nice and thought-invoked and provoking inspirational song by many of us Christians. This is similarly applicable to every human being who daily benefits from "The gift of life and return of consciousness ".

The song according to its rendition in Yoruba goes thus," Awon alaye eniyan yo ma yin O, Baba mo dupe pe mo je okan ninu won a won alaye eniyan ni yo ma yin O." ..Only the living ones can go in praise and adoration to you God Almighty, Father I thank You for being one of such, the living ".

The end of a year like this and reaching it with body, mind, and soul intact, with or without money, the usual penchant of average Nigerians in prayer for long life and prosperity, makes this day worth prayers of adoration to God.

We need God to pull us through into next year as it closely comes by because many are faced with lots of successes, good health, promotion, and improvement in circumstances while millions can count woes, calamities, and vicissitudes of life still plaguing them.

But all in all, no matter what challenges of life and living the world over, we still must be thankful to God for still, the " Gift of life and the return of consciousness".

Many who could have been with us today, ordinarily in a civilized society, have had their lives snuffed out by those errands to kill according to thoughts, words, and actions of those that sent them to kill who they killed, and murdered, in cold blood.

Vicious killings by killers to kill they that became victims of murders during sectarian and religious violence, Boko Haram madness, farmers and herders incessant and seemingly unending imbroglio, intra and inter-community communal incensed disputes, the sit-at-home and unknown gunmen imbroglio, the politically influenced murders, armed robbery attacks.

also, cults and community gangsters, police checkpoints and roadsides, road transport workers, Yahoo- Yahoo ritualists, drug addicts, and on and even family tussles and skirmishes end in killings by certain persons and of certain fellow human beings.

Trying to trace who the killers are, the kidnappers, brings about difficulties in ascertaining who exactly the killers truly are, because of certain remote forces, visible and/or invisible especially when authored from above by powerful doers of evil and demon-possessed.

Yet, you ask why ever the thoughts by those who kill directly or indirectly, those ever ready on errands to kill and invariably the victims of killings?

Who has rights over the lives of others and what reasons justify the killing of those that the hired killers killed?

I remember as if it were yesterday, a night together with a family friend, Mr. and Mrs. Femi Makinde in my house-December 2017, in Abuja.

A warm handshake with Mrs. Makinde exactly a year after during the end-of-year Church service at St Mark's Anglican Cathedral Offa that saw us rollicking in pleasantries and wishes for a happy and prosperous new year 2018. I couldn't also and would never forget the sad news that on 5th April 2019, Mrs. Makinde's life was cut short along with 32 others in Offa by those heartless assassins, killers, and murderers for whatever reason(s ) proven and/ or unproven, to be adjudicated or never to be by man but surely by God Almighty when He so decides.

On political groups, Nigerians now wail and moan, gnashing their teeth at the uncertainties of what the year 2023 portends because of being another year of elections. This certainly may bring into yore another cycle of killers sending their errand boys to kill those they want to be killed.

Typical of politics in Nigeria, the politicians, either many or both outgoing and/incoming have made politics to remain an altar and sanctuary where human blood is offered as a burnt offering and human parts and skulls of those that they killed as tithes to their deities so they have money and positions.

Like Bob Marley in, "There is a natural mystic flowing through the air if you listen carefully now you would hear,", raises a glaring fear that " Many more will have to suffer, many more will have to die", the nature of politics, the politicians and politicking.

The question is, as the year 2022 according to our calendar in this part of the world ends tonight and 2023 dawns shortly after midnight, while in your prayers for whatever, would you conscientiously ask the God of your understanding to remind you who you truly are as His child or, as a killer, an errand boy sent to kill, or an accomplice to those that kill the victim(s) of killings?

Similarly, please note that your thoughts, words, actions, and those of others toward you can make, mar, or mark you as a killer or an errand to kill including being a victim of killings.

However, whatever the case, note that God can never be mocked by any kind of bribery. He knows all there is and what is to come as becoming and/ or unbecoming.

God, the Creator of every living being everywhere adjudges us in just and right proportion, measure, and according to the inclinations of our thoughts, words, and deeds toward fellow men and women too.

Note too, that "You cannot run from God through mountains cover you, His eyes are well on you", on me and every one of us,

God sees us all.

In this wise, I humbly conclude with the golden thoughts of a mystic sage:

" Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow.

Are You Moving Forward in Thoughts and Conducts?".

Why not, if not?

I wish you and us all a Happy and prosperous New Year.

Long life and Peace Profound.

Taiye Olaniyi, retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos