The things they do in God’s name.
– Steve Ovirih.
The place of worship for believers is an hallowed chamber. It is a place where reverence and awe ordinarily should mark the hallmark of all proceedings. That’s why it is a place of worship. No matter how powerful an individual worshipper or group of worshippers, when they go to church as Christians or Mosque as Muslims, there should be orderliness in their worship conduct. All because that meeting point is a place of worship to God Almighty and not to man no matter the Cathedral size of their ego and the preponderance of their self worth.
In Osogbo on Wednesday, the 28th June during the Eid session to mark and celebrate Eid el Kabir 2023, the place of worship of Allah became everything but a place of worship as mortals with huge ego dragged worship aside to allow their sense of self importance rule and ruin the 2 Rakkah prayer session making the hallowedness of the Central Mosque, Abere Osogbo yield in a moment for chaos and its twin, palpable confusion.
Report has it that Senator Ajibola Basiru , the Spokesperson of the 9th Senate which just wounded up was among the first Muslim faithful who arrived at the Eid for worship on the fateful day and found for himself a seat in the front row. Do Mosques reserve seats for special guests in the front row? If they do , then the former Senator and a leading light among the elite in Osogbo probably felt he deserved a seat in the front row. So many other people booked a vantage worship position in the front row and so did Senator Basiru.
However, it was reported that Basiru was told pointedly that his place in the row could not be his place because he is not the sitting Governor; he added according to report that he left for another place and he was asked ” to shift place ” again with the charge that The State Governor was waiting to step in to the Mosque, hence Basiru should move to a farther distance place and that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Confusion bared its fangs and walked on all four, worship session was put on hold as worshipers gave in to the reign of lawlessness in a supposed atmosphere where calm and piety is required.
Long story cut shot, Governor Adeleke could not come in to worship as it was alleged Senator Bolaji Basiru broke his protocol . There was a veneer of threat as it was told that there was an assassination attempt on the Governor, whose Mosque sitting arrangement protocol was breeched by Ajibola Basiru.
Was an assassination attempt really made on the Governor? Was weapon of assassination found on the one they accused of taking the Governor’s pride of place in the House of Worship? Could taking somebody’s place amount to assassination attempt? Was the Governor in order to have failed to walk into the Mosque in reverence and take a seat humbly and allow the proceedings to have gone unhindered, considering the fact that he will always find a choice of place in the front row ? Question and more questions.
The festive day chaos did not justify neither the Governor , who was alleged to have ordered the mosque’s closure nor the Senator who daringly booked a row as claimed by the Governor’s spokesperson.
The underbelly of the Mosque brawl no doubt was a reflection of the battle of supremacy between the two major political parties and the key players in Osun State. That they have taken their contest before Allah shows how far less we think of the hallowed place of God when we have money and power and to think we are doing this in the presence of God tells of the archetypal human quest to impress themselves thinking they are impressing God. The Council of Muslim elders and Ullamas in Osun State should call both Adeleke , Basiru and their roughneck followers to order. Things humans do in the name of God makes God wonder if humans have not lost their soul in totality to devil in an ugly exhibition of the paradise lost.
A similar replay of man impressing God was made popular by the solo lyrics of the famous gospel singer Tope Alabi in the course of the week. She was seen in a duet with another gospel artste mouthing the now trendy ” Aboru ni mi , aboye ni mi, abiye ni mi ‘” line of lyrics. This writer is not in a position to judge or condemn an intellectual property but the terms so far as they remain the powerful verbal memes of the Indigenous Yoruba worshipers of The Ifa corpus , it remains to be seen how the Christian Gospeller hopes to convince her horde of listeners that the metaphoric use of the Ifal parlance aptly fits into the spiritual praise of God of the Christian faith.
Man has struggled over and again to reason that in his natural sense, he is at liberty to impress God and sometimes play God; it takes circumstances beyond man’s knowledge to convince him that God is not man and in our relationship with him we should endeavor never to cross the ‘ Red Line.’
Fighting over sitting arrangements in place of worship and metaphorically mismatching terms in praise compliments to God and not the gods are avoidable red flags.
