So I attended this burial in a town 1 hour drive away from the local government I'm doing my NYSC in Plateau State. It was the funeral of a Road Safety staff; a young man in his 30s, who unfortunately gave up the ghost after battling a cardiovascular disease caused, according to one of his siblings by a doctor's wrong diagnosis. That the Late, having fallen sick, was taken to a hospital, and after some tests, was said to be diagnosed of tuberculosis by the doctor, and had to start taking treatments for Tb. The wrong diagnosis and wrong treatment later resulted on to heart conditions, which made the man's health worse than it was.

That's by the way.

Something got me really pissed off during the burial.

Mennn, the day was damn hot. Here in this part of Plateau State seems to have left earth and travelled some miles closer to the sun. Sometimes I do feel, the same way an air conditioner makes the cold room from its indoor channel, and emits heat from the channel outside, is the same way most part of Plateau State is so cold and this side is where the heat is being shitted.

So, as a Youth corp member/federal government pikin, my community development service (CDS) group is with the FRSC. My colleague and I being the cadet-in-chief and assistant cadet-in-chief respectively, were invited to attend the burial by the commander of our unit.

During the burial, we sat under canopy, but the sun penetrated through the roof accompanied by heat. I wasn't doing anything but I was sweating and very uncomfortable. If you say you want to stand up and walk, the sun will just be waiting to bite your head, and the breeze will be blowing fire. So it's better you just sit quietly under the canopy and be half shielded from direct sun.

So, under this terrible experience, the Man Off God decided that that burial day was the day he must win souls for God.

The burial started around 12 p.m., and by 1 p.m, we were still in number 6 item of part 1 on the program; sermon is number 9. Hehe. I was boiling.

I knew what was coming. And I started praying inside, even though I didn't believe in my own prayers, since I wasn't praying to any God, but I prayed the preacher will just come and say a few words and close that part.

But he refused.

But do we really need these lots of preaching over a dead body waiting to be put in the grave? And they will say, "this message is not for the dead, they have finished their journey on earth, it is for you all sitted here".

So all the preachings in churches and crusades is not enough for Christians? Or are Christians suffering from memory loss that they have to be reminded of what is in the Bible in every occasion?

I was so red that I wanted to go collect the mic and tell him he is talking gibberish, but I respected the glorified khaki that I wore.

Even the casket was under the sun, and I'm very sure the dead body must have felt the heat inside the enclosed coffin. I even wished it would open the casket and come out and ask them why they have decided to keep him under this scorching sun, even lashing them with koboko. I quickly shook off that Nollywood kind of thinking.

Even in my anger, I listened to his sermon and it was full of rubbish. Rubbish in the sense that, his sermon was not coherent at all. He was busy jumping from A to Y, and trying to look like someone led by the holy madness; shouting, shouting and shouting.

Along the line, he talked about a woman named Dorcas who died in the Bible, and Peter, the disciple of Jesus was called upon. When Peter came, everyone was crying, that the woman is too good to die, they all wanted her to live, and so Peter prayed and the woman came back to life.

You prolly can guess the thoughts that came to my mind.

And to try to shield himself of the inability to raise the young man who laid under that hot sun, whose wife, three kids and family were all drowned up in tears, he said that Christians have been drawn to evil practices and sins, which are the reasons our prayers cannot be answered. That our evil deeds bar our prayers from reaching God, that we must change our ways and behave like true Christians so that God can answer our prayers.

And I was like "wonderful mkpo mkpa-idem" (as Ibibio people would say).

So even you as a man of God, you're so engaged in evil practices that God cannot answer your own prayers and resurrect this man whose young wife and kids still need around?

Shame on you

Shame on you, for wasting our time under the sun which nearly roasted me.

Shame on you and all your church members who have given you their brains to be exchanged with that of fowls.

And you know one funny thing? Even though that man was a member of the church, with the beautiful testimonies given on behalf of him, the pastor did not say he collected money, goat and drinks to come bury the man and send his soul to the lord. But I know he collected them. Of course that is the tradition of these Christian churches and their pastors. The pastors will never bury their late members for free. The family must pay.

Imagine the stupidness?

Who did this to us?

One old man saved us that day. The man got fed up and went straight to the elder brother of the deceased and told him time is going, before the brother stood up and went to the pastor who on seeing someone coming, immediately rounded off.

May the God you serve help you all Christians.

One of the best things that happened to me is being emancipated!!!


©Wisdom Augustine Peter.