By Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu
When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love. Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice.” ~Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.
Every good intention is prone to be hijacked by men of evil intentions to feather either their political, economic or social nest. The current protests in some parts of the country calling for an end to police brutality and which has culminated in the disbandment of the notorious police unit, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) is not an exception.
Strong indications are emerging of infiltrators hijacking the protests to satisfy selfish purposes other than the philosophy and interest driving the protest.
In Benin the ugly intentions snowballed to prison break. In Abia, the government accused opposition elements of plots to veer off intentions by which the protests were conceived to score cheap political ambitions. The some aim of this is to discredit Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu’s government despite the much he has achieved.
The desperate ambitions of opposition elements in Abia to capitalize on any given opportunity to destabilize the state is now recurrent.
This has manifested in several forms. These elements have dissipated numerous energies through litigations to truncate the mandate of the governor that one of them was branded ” meddlesome interloper”.
The trend has degenerated to an all time low that one of them to achieve a political propaganda shot himself on the leg by lying that a living traditional rulers was dead.
Ambition is good but over ambition is disastrous. No wonder Wolsey admonished Cromwell thus: “WOLSEY. . .Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. By that sin fell the angels; how can man then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by it? Love thyself last, cherish those hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s. Then if thou fall’st, o Cromwell, Thou fall’st a blessed martyr. Had I but served my God, with half the zealI served my King, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies”.
Opposition elements in Abia State should not underrate Apostle James’ classical imagery in the Book of James 3:6: “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” The point here is that like fire, the words we speak have the potential for causing great harm. This is similar to the admonition in Proverbs 18:21: “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
