Yea; your eyes are not deceiving you! You read it right! I have surveyed the environment since December 2021 on the things I need to do this year so as to have life and have it in abundance (John 10:10). I am fully employed but we have always been advised to go for multiple streams of income, especially those sources that are passive; where you don’t have to be fully involved or which will not disturb your normal employment. So, after examining the feasibility and viability of various business ideas, SARS is it!
This is because I do not want to just buy a hammer and start hammering! Because I am still in the seasonal mood (Christmas/Newyear) and I will start my search from two key players in the season that is almost gone and these are pastoring (not priesting!) and masquarading. Pastors were and are fully involved because it was a spiritual season, though, with an overdose of socio-economic dynamics. The masquarades are also involved because it is spiritual( after all,masquaredes are also spirits) and because it involves entertainment.
It the days gone bye, there were only priests and reverends. That was the time when a note from a Priest could open all doors. It was adequate as a guarantee, introduction, refereeing and whatever that needed a third-party validation. Unfortunately, it is all over. I have observed the loud ostantatiousness and showmanship of some of these pastors and thought that in 2022, I would take an online crash programme or arrange with one hungary pastor to certify me so that I will hit the ground running by converting my garage into a church (Spiritual & Bible Believing Church Worldwide). I have already learnt all their ‘anwansi’ (including diving as if in a combat with an evil spirit, fake phoenetics, arranged magical miracles, power-dressing etc) but whan I noticed what some of them did this season, I had a change of mind, moreso, as I did not want to live a double life(one as a pastor-in public and one as an ordinary person-in private).
It all started with Liquid Metal Odumeje, who displayed a pile of cash, which he intended to share to the needy during the season. I was about to take him up when Fr Mbaka announced that he spent N1.25bn borrowed funds on charity in 2021. Before then, one Prophet Jeremiah had given the actor, Clems Ohameze, a medical support of N8m, CASH (in this cashless economy) and in full glare of the global community. But the Master had directed that in terms of giving, the left hand must not know what the right hand is doing (Matthew, 6.3). I saw another Pastor who was using a matchet to fight with devil on the last night of 2021, while Pastor James Mugo of Wings of Blessings Africa Church, Kenya, got more than he bargained for when he charged his parishioners 4200 Ksh (about N16000) to unlock 2022 blessings or else they would remain cursed! They gave it to him in kind (raw pugilism) and he ended up at the accident (sure; it was an accident) and emergency ward of the nearby hospital. In his greed, he forgot another injunction in the BOOK: freely have you received; freely shall you give (Matthew, 8:10).
Then I saw a spiritual price-list with items like personal, local and foreign demons. As expected, the foreign demon was priced in Dollars! One of them was running a healing chamber where one of the products is ‘spiritual attack’GO/Prophetess Patience Akpabio (City of Praise Worldwide Prophetic Ministries ) then declared that sex without loud moanings produced silent, inactive children who could not speak up for their rights in the face of tyrany. Consequently, she she advised women to make joyful noise when on duty so as to produce freedom fighters.
This was happening as Pastor Udofia married his 18year old chorister as a second wife while another, under anointing from above told his people that anybody who ate foo-foo beans and coconut was headed to hell. I join one Solomon Ogor in worrying why Pastors always hold fasting, vigil and other extended programs for barren women and fruits of the womb but nothing on low sperm-count and premature ejaculation. It is also worrisome that some people worship the MOGs (Men of God), instead of the God of men. I have had enough and I decided to throw my searchlight on the masquerades.
Masquerades are ancestral beings who live yonder and usually emerge from ant holes whenever the need arises. They speak in tongues and only the initiated can discern and interpret the tongues. In the days gone-bye, masquerades belonged to the community and the initiation, during which members were given the ability to decode the language and discern the things of the spirit, was also a communal affair. The masquerades also had names. In my kindred, we had azi-efe-aka (children cannot toy with this one) and ogalanya-opku (one who is wealthy as measured by the size of his hat).The spirit-masquerades therefore knew all the members of the community and vice versa.
Of late, masquerades have become personal properties and individuals even have a ‘group of masquerades’ and the essence has moved from entertainment, discipline and interfacing with the ancients, to cash-and carry model. During 2021 Christmas season, a masquerade in my community, did not recognize me; he or it was hailing me as ‘chief’! I also did not recognize the masquerade! The communality element in masquerading had gone.
Anyway, I turned my searchlight on the masquerades with a hammer 2022 mindset. After all, at my age, I am inching closer to ancestor-ship and so, it is good to get close to the ancestors and ancestral ways of doing things. That was when I noticed the threat of Abia State Government, through Chris Ezem, its SSG, to arrest and prosecute masquerades who disturbed or harassed residents during Xmas. This followed the menace of masquerades along the streets of Umuahia. Arrest and prosecute masquerades? I wish Chinua Achebe were still around! But the masquerades caused it when they diverted from their original mission. Then, I remembered that in October 2021, two masquerades were arrested for armed robbery in Melege community in Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State.
I further saw an unknown masquerade on a hospital bed after being knocked down by an Okada at Ikare-Akoko. The masquerade was speaking in tongues but the hospital could not decode what he was saying. The masquerade had not taken any treatment because ‘it’ was still in the spiritual form. An advert was therefore placed on the local media, seeking for anyone who knew the masquerade. But those who would know the masquerade could only be other masquerades! I also saw a video of two masquerades being chased about by one small dog! Masquerades running away from a mere dog? And then I saw a charged one who was trying to chop a young in the open. The girl was shouting: this masquerade is trying to ‘do me’. I was thoroughly scandalized by all these developments, especially as I remembered azi-efe-aka of old.
Then, I saw a ‘young’ masquerade holding a one-man crusade, with a megaphone, clutching a Bible, casting and binding in a public square. And that settled it for me. So, I will go into church-masquerading; masquerades that will be singing choruses, preaching, casting and binding. If for nothing, the Christian community will support my masquerades and with church patronage, positive cash-flow is assured. I will even have different masquerade troupes for the conventional churches like Catholic and Protestant, the Pentecostals (am ready to pay tithes to the pastors) and the conservatives like Deeper life. Since I am not home-based, I will adopt the outsourced management model so that somebody I trust does the masquerading for me. The trust will not preclude me from taking precautions; the masquerade will operate with POS and other online payment facilities; I don’t want to tell stories with the cash. In such case, the young men chaperoning the masquerades, will be carrying POS et al, rather than canes. But money from masquerades will just provide liquidity and petty-cash; it will not be enough for me to hammer!
(To be completed Next week)
