HAIL GEJ, THE NEW JESUS CHRIST!…BY MIKE IKHARIALE

I have heard of the patently scandalous comparisons of President Jonathan with some historical names like Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, Lee Kwan You, Barack Obama and others by propaganda outfits feverishly selling the President to the nation as if he is just a dark horse or a new comer to the game. Many would just shrug them off as mere braggadocios political ranting. But the latest blasphemous claim by Dr Doyin Okupe on Channels TV that President Jonathan is like Jesus Christ is indicative of a campaign that has gone overboard. Last time I checked, President Jonathan is an ardent church-goer and, possibly, a practising Christian. Casually making a Jesus Christ out of him, no matter the context in which it arose, is ecumenically flawed and a condemnable doctrinal wrong. There should be the manifest fear of God, humility and realism even in politics.

There is no amount of desperation in the now onerous effort to sell Jonathan to the nation this election season that would warrant such a sinful analogy been drawn between him and Jesus Christ. For Christendom, it is an indefensible abomination — a Freudian slip that tells a lot about how irresponsibly debased it has become. It would not be long, I really fear, before we are called out to worship a new God which is President Jonathan.

For millions of Christian voters who have always identified with the president for the simple reason that he is a brethren, to now hear that he has blasphemously assumed the name of Jesus Christ, it must be a hard scriptural lesson for them wherein they must not put their trust in man but in Jesus, especially that man who can sit by contentedly while he is being cast in the mode of Nebuchadnezzar, the man who previously thought of himself as God. Psychologists tell us that such a “demigod wannabe” mentality is symptomatic of a serious inferiority complex. Jonathan must develop a personal charisma that is credible enough to be appreciated. It is morally and spiritually defeatist to be seeking some jactitation with big names and even with that of God, when you can actually work hard to earn greatness.

HAS ODUDUWA PLACED A JEUN KOKU (WACKY AND DIE) CURSE ON DOYIN OKUPE OR HIS FAMILY NAME?

Bastard Doyin Okupe And Other Jonathanian Headaches In Self-Naming, By Pius Adesanmi

What’s in a name? Nothing, says Western culture, for a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Everything, say the cultures of Africa, for every name is a messenger, running errands of family history and circumstances of birth for its bearer. That is why an African seldom jokes with the interjection: call me this or call me that. Self-naming is serious business, very serious business in Africa. Doyin Okupe, one of the caterwauling blights on Nigerian manhood currently littering Aso Rock, said to call him a bastard if APC survived the first year of its formation. It is time for Nigerians to obey his instruction and grant him the Chieftaincy title he requested: Bastard Doyin Okupe. I hope you understand that I did not call him a bastard. He insisted and who am I not to respect a man’s wish to be called a bastard? If you want to know how to handle a man’s calabash, watch him and study how he handles it himself.

Although he is sadly in his sixties – I say sadly because his behaviour always suggests that he is trapped in a pre-teenage stage of development – the patriarchs in Ogun state need to summon Doyin Okupe and flog him in a public assembly. It is rare to see a Yoruba elder in Doyin Okupe’s station do so much damage to his culture because he either misunderstands it or his desire for stomach infrastructure stands in the way of wisdom. “Call me this if that does not happen” is a commonplace Yoruba cultural formula. Like all cultural formulas, it is not to be used by fools. Any secondary school kid in Yoruba land knows that you wield that mode of discourse only when you are absolutely certain of the results of what you are boasting about. Call me a bastard if January is not succeeded by February; call me a bastard if PHCN provides one year of uninterrupted power supply all over the country in 2015; call me a bastard if the EFCC ever prosecutes Olusegun Obasanjo, Abdulsalam Abubakar, and other beneficiaries of the $180 million Halliburton scandal. These are three contexts a Yoruba person would deem appropriate for that cultural formula because it is certain that none of the propositions would ever happen. However, call me a bastard if a political party lasts a year? Only a very foolish Yoruba person would say this.

You know that this person is foolish because the more you slice off his fingers, the more he insists on wearing diamond rings. Doyin Okupe is now into the business of comparing his boss with Jesus Christ. Suddenly, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, and Lee Kuan Yew are no longer enough for these deranged minds in Aso Rock. Oga Goodluck Jonathan is now better than all these people put together. Trust Doyin Okupe. He did not even stop at the Pope. He went directly for Jesus Christ. He even forgot that there is no vacancy for a second Jesus Christ in Aso Rock. Evans Bipi already named Patience Jonathan Jesus Christ over a year ago. Patience Jonathan accepted the honour and returned from Germany claiming to have raised Lazarus from the dead. Which of the two Jesuses in Aso Rock will step down for the other now?

There is something else I like about Yoruba culture. There is a point at which that culture determines that somebody’s behaviour has become so outrageous that you stop blaming him or holding him to account. Yoruba culture will migrate to the person’s kinsmen and ask them critical questions. The moment Doyin Okupe started comparing his Oga with Jesus Christ for the simple reason that what he will eat is standing in the way of wisdom, you are unlikely to find anybody in Yoruba land still blaming the man. Instead, questions will be asked of his kinsmen, his molebi in Ogun state. What did Doyin do? Who did he offend and what is the scale of his offence that you, his kinsmen, would fold your arms and watch him dance naked in the public square all the time? Why did you allow him to cross the market? Does he not have molebi in this town? What is his olori ebi – family head – doing about his matter? Are you his kinsmen just going to be looking at him? Won’t you do something? Ee ni jade si oro Doyin ni? I am sure these questions are being asked of Doyin Okupe’s kinsmen already.

Doyin Okupe is not the only one who has suffered misadventures recently in the field of naming. President Jonathan and the career Jonathanians who worship him on social media are also suffering from a crisis of identity. One of the rules of naming is that people tend to associate you with whatever you speak approvingly of. In certain cases, it could become your sobriquet. If I speak approvingly of football all the time, people could start calling me Pele or Messi. Whatever you approve of is usually a pointer to how you wish to be called. I am not sure that President Jonathan and career Jonathanians understand this basic rule. We must therefore break it down for them to help them avoid the pitfall of poor self-naming in the future.

President Jonathan went on prime time TV to proclaim that stealing is not corruption. He reprimanded those who take corruption too seriously for misunderstanding ordinary, mere, simple cases of stealing. Watching him, I told myself that he was very effective in making stealing look like the new cool in Nigeria. At first, career Jonathanians were stunned on social media. It was such a huge gaffe on the part of their Orisha that they initially did not know what to do about it. Then, like a herd, they started cutting and slicing the statement; defending it; justifying it; rationalizing it; explaining it; accounting for it; mitigating it; diluting it. As is usual with career Jonathanians, they forgot their Orisha who made the error and turned against Nigerians who dared to scrutinize it.

They hounded the nation. You must accept Oga’s premise that stealing is not corruption or you’re a hater. Perhaps the most celebrated instance of Jonathanian defence of the maxim, stealing is not corruption, happened when I delivered Pastor Tunde Bakare’s 60th birthday lecture recently in Lagos. Our brother and recent convert to career Jonathanism, Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo state, was on the high table with us. He kept wincing in pain and discomfort throughout my lecture. Stealing is not corruption was one of the planks of my lecture.

I got a standing ovation after it. Governor Mimiko was asked to respond. He spent almost forty minutes philosophizing President Jonathan’s statement. He defended, polished, cleaned up, explained, rationalized, disinfected. He was sweating. He accused me and the rest of the country of having not taken the time to research corruption and stealing. We have not theorized it enough. We have no research archives. Once we understand the theory of stealing and corruption, we would have a deeper understanding of President Jonathan’s statement. The audience booed him. Sahara Reporters later published the video.

In essence, for President Jonathan and career Jonathanians, there is nothing wrong with the statement stealing is not corruption. We got tired of their harassment and granted them their wish of calling them what they wanted to be called. Oga Jonathan went to Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, and some students shouted “Ole! Ole! Ole! Thief! Thief! Thief!” You’d think that career Jonathanians would be happy. After all, they’d spent months on social media screaming themselves hoarse and saying there is nothing wrong with the President’s beatification of stealing on national television in broad daylight. If there is nothing wrong with that statement, why is your mental carburetor suddenly overheating because some students called your Oga what he wishes to be called?

Career Jonathanians went into overdrive on social media. They screamed. They hee-hawed. I laughed really hard, reading and watching their contortions. At first, they said it did not happen. Then they said Sahara Reporters manufactured the story. Then they said that only a handful of students sponsored by APC screamed at the president. Then they said that even if it happened, it was rude and unpatriotic to call the President a thief – a president who had found a moral euphemism to rationalize stealing on national TV!

As we approach 2015, we must advise President Jonathan, his handlers, and career Jonathanians on social media: self-naming is a serious business. This is no time for you to suffer an identity crisis in the theatre of naming. You cannot say, one minute, that stealing is not corruption is the greatest philosophical statement of the century and turn around, the next minute, to burst a vein when the author of the said statement is called a thief. That is called confusion break bones. Make up your minds what you wish to be called.

Read more: http://newsrescue.com/bastard-doyin-okupe-jonathanian-headaches-self-naming-pius-adesanmi/#ixzz3M8X85pUU

WE SAID THERE ARE MAD MEN SURROUNDING GEJ IN ASO ROCK AND OKUPE IS THEIR SENIOR PREFECT!

Outrage as Okupe compares Jonathan with Jesus Christ

Nigerians have severely criticised the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, for comparing President Goodluck Jonathan with Jesus Christ.

Speaking during a live breakfast show on Channels Television on Monday, the presidential aide said Jonathan had borne the nation’s problems and woes on his shoulders in the same way that Jesus Christ had always carried the burden of Christians all over the world.

Gesticulating widely during the programme, Okupe stated that, with regard to the Nigerian situation, Jonathan could best be likened to Jesus Christ.

Noting that Nigerians had failed to understand the troubles the President had gone through for the sake of “everybody” in the country, he said, “There are political issues. People do not understand the burden this particular President is bearing. He is like Jesus Christ. He (Jonathan) is bearing the burden of everybody.”

In view of Jonathan’s “untold burden” for the nation, Okupe said, it would be impossible for his principal to lose re-election in 2015.

The presidential aide boasted that though certain politicians had been allegedly sabotaging the Federal Government’s reforms, especially in the power sector, victory was still certain for his principal.

“Today, the Nigerian Army is in total and perfect control of the North East. I can’t see Jonathan losing this (2015) election. It’s not possible,” he added.

Reacting to his comments, many Nigerians lambasted Okupe for comparing Jonathan to Jesus Christ and asked him to withdraw the statement.

Online activists who took a swipe at Okupe urged Jonathan to publicly reject the title of “Nigeria’s Jesus Christ” which they said Okupe erroneously bestowed on him.

An angry online activist, Tayo Moore, accused Okupe of insulting Jesus Christ by comparing Him with his boss.

Noting that the development was sacrilegious, Moore advised Okupe not to hold the belief that he could “insult” Jesus Christ and go scot free.

“Okupe has just confirmed that he doesn’t know or have Christ. It is only a matter of time before he (Okupe) begins to compare Prophet Mohammed and Jonathan in the same breath.

“That will be his final undoing. I am wondering what the Christian Association of Nigeria has to say on Okupe’s sacrilege, given its current ‘leadership’ or should I say lack thereof?” Moore argued via his Twitter handle.

A Kano-based respondent, Nazir Galadanchi, cautioned the medical doctor-turned politician against uttering what he described as a blasphemous statement.

Galandanchi argued that Okupe’s latest analogy was not surprising as he had recently compared his boss with the late anti-Apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela, with a view to selling the President’s candidature to Nigerians.

“That’s blasphemy. Okupe should please seek for forgiveness,” he added in a message on Twitter.

Political blogger, Japheth Omojuwa, described Okupe’s latest comparison as the height of “desperation” of the Jonathan-led Presidency.

“Doyin Okupe just called Goodluck Jonathan Nigeria’s Jesus Christ. We have finally reached the peak of their desperation. How can you trust a bad marketer to sell a bad product? Okupe trying to sell Jonathan is the journey of a blind man leading another,” he tweeted.

Social commentator, Temitope Atiba, stated that it amounted to an oddity for Okupe to preoccupy himself with drawing semblances between the President and the central figure of Christianity.

“You can see the stark irony of life when Doyin Okupe begins to compare Goodluck Jonathan to our Lord Jesus Christ. Then again Goodluck Jonathan and Jesus Christ have little else in common apart from flesh and blood,” Atiba argued.

Describing Okupe’s comparison as strange, another respondent, Aisha Yesufu, said it was the “height of madness.”

“Is nothing sacred to these people? Is there nothing that one does not dabble in with these people? This is the height of madness,” she added.

She also cautioned Okupe against blaming Jonathan’s failures on activities of saboteurs, stating that “excuses are meant for weaklings.”

“There is not bad weather only bad clothing. Excuses are for weaklings. A government easily sabotaged should give way. We are sick of the excuses. They (excuses) are way out for weak leaders and sign of incapacity.

“All it (the Presidency) does is to complain. This government blames all but itself. As long as this govt blames others the solution can never be with it but with those it blames.

“Since this government cannot fight all those sabotaging it, then why is it a government? Probably, the saboteurs will keep sabotaging him (Jonathan) and we will keep paying for it,” she said.

Copyright PUNCH.