HOW MEN OF GOD GOT IT WRONG FOR 2016

As we are entering the new year 2017, the Nigerian online organ <Naija.com> has published some prophesies by seven Nigeria top men of God that did not come to pass in 2016 as earlier predicted by them. The leading pastors are (1) Reverend Fr. Ejike Mbaka of the Adoration Ministry (2) Pastor E. A. Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God , (3) Prophet T.B. Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, (4) Apostle Johnson Suleiman of the Omega Fire Ministry, (5) Prophet Joshua Iginla who is General Overseer of Champions Royal Assembly, (6) Prophet Muyideen Kasali who is General Overseer of the Hour of Mercy Prayer Ministry, and (7) Prophet Christopher Owolabi who is Presiding Cleric of Christ Apostolic Church.

Here is what <naija.com> says about the botched prophesies, citing The Punch newspaper which researched them and put them together:

" Just as we have new prophecies from various men of God for the new year 2017, there were lots of 2016 prophecies from major men of God that did not come to pass.

The Punch has however collated some of the prophecies by popular great men of God in Nigeria which did not come to pass in 2016. Enjoy below:

1. Buhari may be killed – Father Mbaka

Earlier in 2016, controversial Catholic priest and spiritual leader of Adoration Ministry, Reverend Fr. Ejike Mbaka, raised the alarm over what he says is a plot to assassinate President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016. He said: a plot to assassinate President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016. He said: “Many people are planning, as it is revealed, to kill Buhari. There are many plans on how to eliminate his life so that corruption, embezzlement will continue....By the end of this year, Buhari will expose the names of the people who looted money meant for our roads. What we are suffering now is the resultant effect of the last malignant administration that was intrinsically corrupt. What we are suffering now arose from past administration. But the Lord says there is hope. Many people are going to suffer. We should all get ready. But after the suffering, we will all smile.”

But throughout year 2016, there were no reports of plots to kill the President. Also, the president did not expose the names of looters. Instead, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo explained that the government did not name the looters because doing so would jeopardize ongoing investigations.

2. New STD will emerge — Pastor E. A. Adeboye

Part of the prophecies that the general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, gave on January 1, 2016 was a new s*xually transmitted disease would surface in 2016. This did not happen. The only new virus that made headline last year was Zika virus - a mosquito-borne flavivirus. 

3. A woman will win US election — T.B Joshua

The general overseer of The Synagogue Church Of All Nations, T.B Joshua, got the attention of everyone in the world when he predicted that Democratic Party candidate, Hillary Clinton, will win the US presidential election but alas, Republican candidate, Donald Trump, won!

4. El-rufai will die if he doesn't revoke preaching law — Apostle Suleiman

Apostle Johnson Suleiman of the Omega Fire Ministry declared that Governor El-Rufai will die if he does not revoke the controversial preaching bill he came up with. During a service, Apostle Suleiman expressed distaste over the bill, noting that such amounted to suppressing the freedom of religion. The state government has not revoked the bill although the noise over it has died down. But el-Rufai is still living despite the non-revocation of the bill.

Also, Apostle Suleiman predicted that except Americans prayed, President Barack Obama would seek third term with a likelihood of the presidential elections not holding. Well, you know the end result as there was no such case of desire for tenure elongation by Obama. Obama even campaigned for his party’s (Democratic Party) candidate, Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump. At no time, before or during the electioneering was any issue about seeking third term in office raised.

5. The Queen of England may die — Prophet Joshua Iginla

In January 2016, the general overseer of Champions Royal Assembly, Prophet Joshua Iginla, an Abuja-based pastor, also had many predictions which cut beyond Nigeria. Some of the predictions came to pass while one of the most controversial of them was that the Queen of England may die.

He said: “The Queen of England should pray for her health. I see strong challenge and should pray to see the end of the year.” The Queen had a spectacular 90th birthday celebration in the year in review with no major health issue.

Also, Prophet Iginla also said there will be a major stampede at a religious gathering in Zambia which would claim lives. But in 2016, Zambia did not record any ‘major’ stampede at any religious gathering. Instead, it was in India that a major stampede at a religious gathering occurred.

6. Osinbajo may go missing after a meeting — Prophet Muyideen Kasali

The general overseer of the Hour of Mercy Prayer Ministry, Prophet Muyideen Kasali, unveiled some of his prophecies for the year 2016, on January 10. The blind prophet prophesied that Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo would go missing after leaving a meeting.

Well, in the year in review, Osinbajo toured the country and attended several meetings on behalf of the president and nothing happened. Also, the blind cleric said the All Progressives Congress would split into four groups last year due to numerous crisis and 'too much success'. Though there was crisis within the party, the party did not split into four groups throughout the year.

7. Fayose will be removed from office, Peterside will be Rivers governor - Prophet Christopher Owolabi

The presiding cleric of Christ Apostolic Church, Ori-Oke Irapada, Omu-Aran, Kwara state, Prophet Christopher Owolabi, said Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state would be removed from office in 2016 unless he prayed fervently against it. He also said the APC would win the governorship election in Rivers state. But the opposites are what happened. Fayose was not removed from office, and Governor Nyesom Wike of the PDP is still in charge of Rivers state."

GUESS WHO IS READING US

I was in a Douala cyber recently when something struck me as being interesting. When I logged into Facebook, I realized that the previous user had not logged out before leaving. But more importantly, I noticed that the customer had been meticulously reading a group discussion on the current strike and the Anglophone problem in Cameroon.

It was the series of exchanges that were sparked by a certain Fomundam when he reacted to Hon Wirba’s parliamentary outburst by criticizing the Honourable Member of Parliament for being all wods and no action. Of course, while some of us felt that the criticisms were in order because they enabled the Honourable gentlemen not to succumb to the dreaded but very common personality cult; some Facebookers felt that the parliamentarian’s performance and motives were so spot-on that any criticism of him was an affront to the entire Anglophone people.

However, the issue was not just that the previous user of the cyber had been following the ongoing debate. It was rather the fact that all the posts on his Facebook page as I saw them, were in all in French. Fomumdam’s rebuttal was in French and all the reactions that followed it right to the most recent were equally in French. That meant that the person who had been reading them was a Francophone who had switched on the Facebook facility for translating the posts and responses from the English in which they had been initially written, into French, in order not to miss anything that was posted on the subject.

What I saw revealed to me that surely, the Francophone who had been at the computer before me could not be the only Francophone in the country interested in what was going on in the Anglophone part of the country. It reminded me of something a taxi driver said to me not so long ago. He said he had noticed that the ongoing strike action and the heightened awareness-creation it generated of the Anglophone problem had led to an upsurge in the number of Francophone Cameroonians seeking to learn English.

“That is no news because a good number of them already have children in purely Anglophone schools”, I remarked dismissively, citing the case of some Francophone colleagues of mine when I was a journalist  at CRTV in Yaounde, who had children in mission colleges in Bamenda, although they themselves could not speak English. The driver agreed with my explanation and added that he personally knew a Francophone minister who had sent his son to study at Sasse College in Buea. By the time such children graduate, their English is as good as that of their Anglophone peers and in addition to that, the Francophones students still have the added bonus of their French still being intact, so to speak, which means that they end up by being very bilingual.

I know that Gabon under its current president, Ali Ondimba Bongo, has also embraced the English language, from a different view point, by adopting it as its second official Language, in addition to French which it inherited from its colonial master, France. The president of Gabon has argued that English is a major international language which would open up unprecedented opportunities for Gabonese people at home and abroad. The Gabonese president formally opened the doors to the English language in 2012. Unfortunately, one would have thought that Cameroonian’s unemployed graduates would be queuing up in large number to seek English teaching jobs in Gabon. But the reality is that such is not the case.

Similarly, in Nigeria in 1996, President SaniAbacha announced that Frenchwould be the country’s second official language. That is not surprising firstly because Nigeria is almost entirely surrounded by Francophone countries. Furthermore, there are many Francophonecountries in the Economic Community (ECOWAS) to which the country belongs and with which it does business on a daily basis.

 Writing in the Nigerian The Guardiannewspaper of today (December 2016), Dr. Stella Omonigho who is a lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Benin in Nigeria said: “Officially, French has been the second official language in this country for the past 19 years. It has also been made ‘compulsory’ in the curriculum of primary and secondary schools across the country. French is also being taught at the tertiary level in the country.Nigerians should not over-flog the notion that there are no benefits in making French a second official language; events have overtaken that. What is most important for us to know at the moment is the importance of bilingualism or multilingualism; that is having good knowledge of at least two international languages. While other neighbouring countries have at least two international languages as their official languages, others have three to four. Nigeria must join her counterparts in the trend of bilingualism, which without doubt, has many benefits.”

The lecturer went on to say “we must understand that being bilingual has a positive effect on our intellectual growth and enhances our mental development. According to Nanduti (2009), ‘being bilingual opens the door to other cultures and helps an individual understand and appreciate people from other countries.’ I can assure you that our political leaders will interact better and exchange better knowledge with their Francophone counterparts without interpreters if they have knowledge of both French and English languages. Nanduti also affirms that being bilingual increases job opportunities in many careers where knowing another language is a real asset.Nigerians will widen their horizon in the labour world with an additional international language such as French, which is the third most spoken language in the world. A lot of internationally based companies, like Total, Exxon Mobil, Air France and KLM advertise for workers from time to time with qualifications including an ability to speak either French and English or English and German. The dearth of these competences poses a great challenge to Nigerian applicants who are limited by their knowledge of only the English language.”

Back here in our own country, Cameroon, we have not been very keen to seek jobs as French teachers in Nigeria, in the light of the golden opportunity which this new development offers us. Yet the few Anglophones from Cameroon who have found themselves there for other reasons, have found that occasionally, they are either being called to teach French here and there or to translate one document or another.

The current struggle for a recognition of rights by Cameroon’s Anglophone people should not exclude a look at the benefits  that lie in embracing French as wells as professions and activities that stem from it as a linguistic tool to greater achievement and self-fulfillment and not just a political cane used to lash relentless whips on hem. Far beyond the sphere of Cameroon, French is not just an international language but a major one.

AMAZING GRACE: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MARK BARETA

AMAZING GRACE: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MARK BARETA:                                                          MARK BARETA  Facebook informs me that today is your birthday. That means ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MARK BARETA

                                                         MARK BARETA 

Facebook informs me that today is your birthday. That means that having been born on the 15th of December, you are astrologically speaking, a Sagittarius. Happy birthday to you, Mark Bareta!

The Zodiac has twelve signs, like the twelve sons of Jacob (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin); like the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ (Simon Peter, Andrew, James , John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot);  like the twelve tribes of Israel ( the name God gave Jacob) which descended from the sons of Jacob; like the twelve months in the year, and like the twelve hours in a day.

The 12 signs of the Zodiac each fall under one of the four natural elements which are Earth (Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn), Air (Aquarius, Gemini and Libra), Water (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces); and Fire (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius). 

The birth periods of the 12 signs are 1. Aries      (Mar 21 to Apr 19), 2. Taurus (Apr 20 to May 20), 3. Gemini (May 21 to Jun 20), 4. Cancer (Jun 21 to Jul 22), 5. Leo (Jul 23 to Aug 22), 6. Virgo (Aug 23 to Sep 22), 7. Libra (Sep 23 to Oct 22), 8. Scorpio (Oct 23 to Nov 21), 9. Sagittarius (Nov 22 to Dec 2), 10. Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 19), 11. Aquarius (Jan 20 to Feb 18), 12. Pisces (Feb 19 to Mar 20).

 Earth signs (Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn) are earthy, have their feet firmly on the ground, are realistic, calculating  and knowledgeable in terms of profitable and frugal management of resources including money. They are  conservative rather than risk-taking, grounded and very much aware of practical realities, reliable and responsible in the sense of being able to take care of their affairs and those of others. They are also logical and therefore a "safe pair of hands", so to speak.

Air signs (Aquarius, Gemini and Libra) are said to be the philosophers and thinkers because of their ability to analyze situations intellectually; they think about the world and humanity constantly and can easily be impervious to and forgetful of insults and attacks directed at them, they tend to be rather detached and undemonstrative when in love, and that makes them sometimes appear to be devoid of emotions. Sometimes, because of their unbridled anxiety to help others, they end up by overdoing it and getting  in trouble in the process.

Water signs (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces) are particularly emotionally sensitive and have a strong intuitive awareness of other people`s feelings and needs; they are very imaginative but at times can be impulsive rather than logical. They have a natural in-built sonar radar which they use quite efficiently to read other people`s moods and minds and adjust or readjust accordingly. They are usually submerged in their surroundings and generally have a tendency to gravitate towards the home, family and friends. They have a special sensitivity in relationships which helps them to determine accurately when to show warmth to others and when to hold it back. But of the three Water signs, the Cancer excels at knowing the value of money and other resources as well as  using them well.

Fire signs (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius) , which is where you, Mark Bareta the Sagittarius falls, are positive, extrovert, self-expressive, and the most masculine of the 12 signs. The Fire signs are by nature not just “fighters” but “warriors” in their approach to life. They are blunt and frank to a fault in the sense that in their usual straightforward bluntness, they trample on other people`s toes and hurt other people`s feelings without realizing it and in fact, without even meaning to. People graced by fire as you are, are usually “fiery”, very enthusiastic and sometimes even “larger than life” in their approach. They like challenging situations and can take risks where everyone else shies away for fear of failure. Instead, failure spurs them to do more! In fact, the greater the risk, the more exciting it is to them! They are fearless of persons and situations.  However, just like a real fire, the Fire sign person can “burst out of control” if left unchecked. They are also creative, innovative, spontaneous and full of energy. They are self-assured, come across forcefully and appear bossy. But they are also a great inspiration to others, especially the fearful, doubtful and weak-minded!

And now, the Sagittarius that you are, specifically: This individual is curious and energetic, likes traveling and the element of change. Sagittarians are open-minded, philosophical, extrovert, idealistic, generous, and have a sense of humour. They like being outdoors and can find indoor confinements like some kind of “imprisonment”. They are optimistic and will do anything to achieve their goals. Just like  the other  two Fire signs (Leo and Aries), the Sagittarius feels the urge to be constantly in touch with the world and experience as much of it as possible. They have an enthusiasm that knows no bounds and they consequently have a great degree of curiosity. They value and treasure their freedom because it is the one  thing that guarantees  what they always want to do such as traveling  and challenging  the status quo and the establishment for being too rigid and out of date. Because of their high degree of honesty and sincerity, they tend to be impatient and tactless when it comes to saying or doing things. 

Sagittarius people  believe in speaking the truth and often they speak it rather “brutally”. As a result, some of the things they say come our too harshly and hurt people. But Sagittarians always say what they mean and mean what they say.  If there is a lesson they need to learn, it is that of being tolerant and being able to express themselves in a way that is more “socially” acceptable. That is why normally, they will say anything they want to say, no matter how undiplomatically it may come out and sound like. No one can  force them to do anything they don`t want to do. Unfortunately, They tend to take things for granted and take unnecessary risks. Often, this “careless” approach to life exposes them to a lot of disapproval and criticism. They don`t like clingy people or ideas, they don`t like to be constrained by anything or anybody, they don`t like off-the-wall theories and they don`t have enough patience to always wait for details.

Whatever is the case, Sagittarians remain true to themselves. And that is good because such people either do not pretend or are unable to pretend, even if they wanted to.

Mark Bareta, happy birthday to you!