Dealing With Sin-agog.

By now, nearly the whole world has heard about the Synagogue church building that collapsed last week in Lagos, Nigeria. As if it wasn't bad enough that the congregation of the Synagogue stopped the rescue teams and first responders from reaching the victims of the crumbled building on time, Nigerians were then given the most ridiculous excuse for the occurrence of the incident. It was as terrible and pathetic as catching an elder's hand in the offering bowl and having him blame it on the devil.

You'd think that was the ultimate insult until you realize that the collapsed building was an illegal structure. Reports and news indicate that the building was cleared for approval of two floors but the church raised it to five floors and therein lies the "demon" that caused that awful tragedy. It was an avoidable and man-made tragedy that took almost a hundred lives. If indeed I was to be proved wrong in this Article where I talked about our utter disregard to value human lives in Nigeria, then that building never should have been built to that level without the right planning for it.

As I read reports of how reporters were brutally stopped from covering the story immediately it happened and how policemen stood around and did nothing to address the madness that possessed the congregation from letting the emergency services team and volunteers in to assist the wounded, I became even more upset and bothered about the shenanigans we get up to in this country under the guise of religion. Simply because the policemen at the scene were most likely clad by TBJ (the founder of SCOAN) and on his payroll, these facts robbed them of their common sense and sensitivity to what their core allegiance should be as public servants enrolled to maintain law and order. What a disgraceful era I've found myself in, I mused in fury as more and more reports came in about politicians and government officials from far and wide sucking up to this alleged MOG (Man of God) rather than asking pertinent questions and pressing charges on behalf of the victims of this avoidable tragedy.

To add insult to injury, yesterday a furious journalist Nicholas Ibekwe revealed that TBJ had offered some journalists N50,000 "bribe" to tone the story down. Of all the reporters present at that meeting, only Nicholas refused the money. He's brought forward an audio proof of what transpired between TBJ and the reporters and I think the government ought to look into it fast. I managed to listen for almost three minutes before I furiously shut it down. I couldn't stomach the lackadaisical and casual way TBJ and the journalists reacted to the tragedy and disrespected the dead between 2.20 and 2.30 minutes into the video. They even had the cold-hearts to laugh as he flippantly told them what he wanted them to report, saying things like "let's leave the dead and talk about the living first" as they asked him what he expected them to write! The audacity and effrontery of this man and those disgraceful journalists in this audio makes my blood curl, because it sounded like he knows he will get away with anything.

I wish we could all remove the religious and tribal cloak that is covering our reasoning, see things for what they are and make a move for justice to be carried out for the dead and wounded. The issue here is plain and simple to see that an illegal structure was constructed, help was rebuffed when it mattered and money exchanged hands in a bid to cover up a story. We are, as a country, on a mission to self-destruct if we cannot separate facts from sentiments, tribal and religious bias.

Here's a link https://audioboo.fm/boos/2496625-audio-proof#t=0m5s