By Sonnie Ekwowusi
In four days it will be Christmas. If you put ears on the ground at the moment you will hear the angels, the Magi, the Shepherds, men and women of our time who are inhabiting the four corners of the earth singing in exultation: “jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle all the way…” in celebration of Christmas. Christmas, unarguably, has its irresistible enchantment. From Donald Trump’s Washington D.C to London, Paris, Ottawa, Tokyo, Brasilia, Madrid, Rome down to Abuja the houses, streets, offices and shops are decorated with special festoons and rosettes at the dawn of Christmas. People selling and buying on the internet, in market places and in street corners. Children laughing and dancing in the alleyways, fields, pathways, streets and esplanades. There is exchange of Christmas gifts and messages among people of goodwill. Families re-uniting amid family warmth and affection.
Christmastime is a time to regain our strength, our hope, our joy and our sense of humor. Everything may be collapsing; your purse might have grown lean; fortune might have turned its back on you; politics and politicians may be synonymous with hypocrisy and deceits; death might have struck and snatched away your beloved one. But nothing is to be gained by losing our peace at Christmas. It is true that we live in a sad world. It is true that most men and women of our time are sadists in a state of melancholy. It is true that the fragile peace in the world is continually being threatened by the stockpiling nuclear weapons. But with our laughter we can challenge the sad world to look at us and be hopeful. We cease to hope when we cease to smile. We cease to smile when we give in to despair. We give in to despair when we find no meaning in life.
But Christmas offers us the true meaning of life. Christmastime is a time for a good beginning, a time for a new hope in life. According Michael Cook, editor of MercatorNet, “Whether or not you accept the Christian theological beliefs which underpin the celebration of Christmas, they have transformed Western society and they are in the process of transforming nations far from Bethlehem. Christmas, that is, the celebration of the moment in which the all-powerful creator of the Universe took on human flesh and entered human history, sends powerful, even unspoken messages”. At Christmas, we are invited to re-live that unfathomable mystery and historical event which took place more than 2000 years ago when Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, took flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to be born in a relatively humble city of David called Bethlehem. The Psalmist recaptures the expectancy of the birth of the Saviour in these poetic lines,rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant iustum (Send the just One like dew, you heavens, and let the clouds rain him down). And Isaiah will quickly add, “say to the anxious: be strong and fear not, our God will come to save us”. If you take a quick glance again at the Christmas Crib, you will see the family atmosphere that was the hallmark of the first Christmas in Bethlehem more than two thousand years ago. Everything in the Holy family of Jesus, Joseph and Mary bespeaks pristine values of humility, family and social dedicated service, self-abnegation, self-forgetfulness and altruism.
Therefore, in re-living the exemplary life of Jesus, Joseph and Mary we should learn to build bridges across the troubled waters of political, ideological, racial, ethnic and personal differences. We should strive to build a new world order in which security of lives and property, justice, peace, love, service, respect for human dignity and respect for religious freedom can flourish. We must eschew hatred, rancour, greed and avarice. We must build an ethic of human solidarity aimed at promoting the common good and the welfare of fellow men and women. Christmas enjoins us to see our neigbours as human beings, not mere instruments to be used for our personal gain and comfort.
DEFEAT OF THE ANTI-NGO BILL
Last Wednesday the anti-NGO bill sponsored at the House of Representatives by Hon. Umar Buba Jibril suffered a disgraceful defeat on the floor of the Public Hearing Room of the House of Representatives. A disgraceful defeat because with the exception of one or two members of the House of Representatives in favour of the Bill all the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Civil Society organizations (CSOs) and others that participated at the Public Hearing last Wednesday were vehemently opposed to the Bill. Not even Hon. Jibril, the sponsor of the unmeritorious Bill, was at the venue of the Public Hearing of the Bill to at least introduce his Bill or explain why he was sponsoring it. It is not unlikely that Hon. Jibril took to his heels upon seeing the mammoth crowd of protesting NGOs and CSOs storming the National Assembly in reminiscent of the storming of the Bastille. Last Wednesday was a day every Nigerian lawmaker will live to remember. It was a day members of Civil Society in Nigeria rose up in great solidarity to kill what they felt was a veritable monster threatening democratic tenets in Nigeria. When the history of the National Assembly, Abuja is re-written the revolution that took place at the National Assembly last Wednesday will be re-written in fine gold. As early as6.30 am last Wednesday the representatives of NGOs, CSOs, Churches, Mosques and so forth had encumbered the National Assembly in readiness to defeat the Bill. The import of this is that the people are the real sovereigns in our democracy. Power belongs to the people. But the Nigerian political leaders behave as if power belongs to them. But the revolution that occurred last Wednesday has once again shown that power belongs to Civil Society. Long live Civil Society!. Long live Freedom!