The Visit of the Prophet of Lord Baal to Ibaji

By Inaju U. Inaju

The recent visit of a high-profile prophet of Lord Baal from the Augean stable of the kingdom of Baal to Ibaji is suspicious, distracting, inconveniencing and somewhat embarrassing.

The prophet of Lord Baal’s unchecked and garrulous equivocations leave much to be desired about the leadership crises bedeviling the Kingdom of Baal and his acolytes.

That visit of the prophet revealed how politically uncooked and uncultured, the acolytes of Lord Baal are or have become. It also revealed the level of disfunctionality in the kingdom of Lord Baal.

 The unsolicited, unfortunate and misguided message from the prophet of Lord Baal revealed more of what we do not need to see or hear as a people who looked up to these sad poster children of bad governance.

That the kingdom of Lord Baal is divided against itself is no longer in doubt.

However, what is in doubt is how much the people understand the need to clear the Augean stable and start afresh.

If the result of the last election in Ibaji is anything to go by, then we do not need soothsayers to tell us that the people still do not understand that they are mere pawns on the chessboard of some misguided political midgets.

Even Lord Baal’s devotees have realised that Lord Baal is on his way out.

it could be sometime this year or in 5 years’ time.

However, as the acolytes of Lord Baal juggle for recognition and position themselves for post-Lord Baal tenure, our people need to understand that the prophets of Lord Baal are driven by the fear of being thrown out with Lord Baal and the fear of the unknown and not because they love or care for Ibaji people.

Apart from Governor Ibro, no political leader has ever shown love to Ibaji people, not among Ibaji politicians or other politicians of Igala extraction. Ibaji is only useful when it is election time.

The last point is a good reason why Ibaji people must look beyond the pale and understand that as the prophets of Lord Baal  take off their gloves and go at each other, revealing their badly kept secrets in piecemeal. What we, the spectators and long suffering masses of Ibaji must do is to take such pieces of secrets with a pinch of salt and ensure that we are not caught in the crossfire between these politically jaundiced gladiators sparing for a place in the checkered history of Igala/Ibaji politics.

We have absolutely nothing to gain or lose from the demise or success of these political barbarians. 

Apart from Governor Ibro, Ibaji has never benefited from these Igala political misfits and there is no guarantee that Ibaji will ever benefit from their leadership.

The last class of Igala politicians, be they of Ibaji extraction or from other part of Igala, especially the incumbent, are self-serving megalomaniac who believe that their stomach is the world and everything begin and end inside their stomach.

Four years is enough time to know who is your friend, who has what it takes to be a leader.

By now, it should be clear to the blind and audible to the deaf that the Kingdom of Baal has no leaders.

With the current occupants of the throne of Baal, one must be forgiven for saying we have been betrayed as a people and of all the local governments that have been betrayed, Ibaji is the worst!

This is a good reason why Ibaji need to be careful who they hobnob with.  These are desperate times and only the careful will come out unscathed.

When I read the message that was taken to Ibaji by the visiting chief priest of Baal, I was perplexed and left speechless to say the least.

The level of self denigration going on between two of the many misguided chief priests of Lord Baal kingdom is beyond our expectations. We knew all was not well, but what we did not know was how bad.

The unmitigated disgrace meted out to the supposed deputy Lord Baal in the kingdom of Baal is very uncharacteristic of any democratic dispensation.

In my humble opinion, it is because of the kangaroo way in which the kingdom was accessed by the current occupants.

Not only did Lord Baal not contest any election before he was declared King, his deputy was a political pariah, a known arsonist who was dead, politically, before he was appointed as a token to appease the Igala kingdom.

Sadly, that turned out to be the first wrong step by king Baal. It was only a matter of time before things fell apart and now, not only can the deputy not live in his opulent palace, both the deputy and the king have drawn a clear battle line and they are at each other for the soul of the kingdom.

It is good to know that both of them would fail in the next election, or would they? What baffles me is the complete lack of political knack among the priests of Baal.

In a maiden visit to Ibaji by the self-declared Chief Priest of Lord Baal, what Ibaji people expected from such a high profiled and a self-made “Deputy Lord Baal” and arguably the most powerful prophet of Lord Baal is what the custodians of Baal kingdom plan to do for the people of Ibaji.

Instead, what we heard from this self-serving prophet of Lord Baal with diarrhea of the mouth was a loquacious holier-than-thou ramble and the mouthing of the unqualified ineptitude that has become the mainstay of the current custodians of the Baal Kingdom.

Even more disturbing is the timing of the visit and the malfeasance that was the bulwark of everything the chief priest of Lord Baal vomited.

While one will admit that the target of the Chief Priest diatribe has failed woefully in many respect, the people of Ibaji does not need another mobile political disaster to remind them of the failure of their own child.

More than anyone else, Ibaji people know their child and they recognise his political trajectory and the numerous squandered chances that have become the mainstay of his unfortunate political career, but to have such a dangerous political mistake bestride our space with the message of Lord Baal is not only unfortunate, but unacceptable, disturbing and disingenuous.

The politics of Lord Baal must be eschewed in all its forms and shapes.

Ibaji must look inward for its salvation, Lord Baal and his prophets may not even get the nomination of their party in the next dispensation, so, while you, (Ibaji people) are busy fighting each other over some useless visit by a nobody, be rest assured that the visit is nothing but pure and unalloyed “politricking”!

Do not allow yourself to drink from this poisoned chalice with a sweet drink.

Ask yourself this simple question, since Lord Baal got into power three and half years ago, has he visited Ibaji for any reason that was designed to benefit Ibaji people? If the answer is yes, then I challenge anyone to show me the benefit of such visit.

Recall that when the so-called Ibaji road contract was awarded and flagged off, we did not know who the stakeholders were, we did no know who the local guarantors of the project are and since that contract failed, has anyone been called to answer for the failure?

In effect the project was designed to fail. For anyone, low or high, to visit us and tell stories from the pit of hell without any concrete evidence is tantamount to calling us fools.

If the funds set aside for the project was shared, they probably shared it together and they are now fighting because some persons may have been cheated at the sharing table.

Worst still is to have a son or daughter at the table where decisions about Ibaji are made and such person cannot even tell us what was decided, rather, they hobnobbed and colluded with those who have no respect for who we are and do not care about our welfare.

Only these corrupt and leadership misfits know what they are fighting over.

One thing I am sure of is this: Their fight has nothing do with Ibaji development. The spurious story about some spurious investigation is in essence a direct insult on the collective intelligence of Ibaji people.

It is an insult because by the time the investigation is completed, if indeed there is an ongoing investigation, the prophets of Lord Baal will start suing each other to court as a means to buy time, by the time the court ruling will be ready, it will be too late for Lord Baal to do anything, assuming he is ready to do anything in the first place.

These cacophonies we hear from the deranged acolytes of Lord Ball are nothing but smokescreens designed to mislead us. When the chips are down, they will still work together at our expense.

Ibaji has suffered untold neglect in the hands of all leaders in the kingdom of Lord Baal, at the local and state level. We know our problem and even though we do not have any Prophet Elijah to cry out against Lord Baal on our behalf, we know that with time, we will be able to put our acts together and come up with self help programs that will change our situation

Ibaji Unity Forum (IUF) must roll its sleeves up and provide leadership for Ibaji people. Ibaji lacks leadership and that is the main problem we have.

Our lack of rudimentary development has nothing do with the government at the centre or the government at the state capital. We, the people of Ibaji are not organised and that is our problem!