A Sermon For All Seasons
MC was the neatest inmate in my cell. There was no doubt about that. He was neater than everyone else, and he was certainly neater than me. He never repeated an under garment in twenty-four hours. He had a pair of boxers and a singlet for every single day of the week, seven sets for seven days. The set he wore on Monday was not repeated on Tuesday, and the set he wore on Saturday was not repeated on Sunday.
On the contrary, it was washed, dried, ironed and carefully folded among the other six pairs of under garments for the rest of the week. The bed space was small, a six-spring bed, but MC kept it as tidy as possible. That, come to think of it, was his bedroom. I was in mine in the upper deck of the double-decker bed beside that of MC and Apostle Paul. The bed is dressed in a clean bedsheet, and MC’s clothes are stacked in a neat pile at a corner, like a clip from a detergent ad on television.
MC believed in minding his business. He had little input to make in the conversation of others, but whenever he interjected, he did so with the voice of one who was certain about what he had to say. More than any other inmate in the cell, he exercised himself daily, lifting two Olympic weights stuck in cement on either side of an iron bar. I was often woken up by his early morning panting, as his muscles rippled and the sweat broke out on his body, even as other inmates waited to pick up the weight and prime their muscles.
He had set meal times, MC did. He took breakfast when it was time for breakfast, set lunch before him when it was due, and by early evening he was through with his last meal for the day. When every other inmate was getting set for dinner, MC was taking time to brush his mouth. He never went to bed without this sacred duty.
MC, in short, was a stickler for time. He had set ways of doing things. Apart from keeping his clothes well arranged on the bed, he would never go towards the White House for a visit without dabbing some powder on his face, looking in the mirror, and smoothening the creases on a new shirt before wearing it.
MC earned his full title the day he served as Master of Ceremony at the very rare annual occasion of the state prison superintendent’s visit to the yard. The commotion built up quickly from early morning. Every worker in the yard seemed to have become more conscious of their uniform, and each one of them did well to emphasize their place in the chain of authority.
An early morning raid of our cell announced the change in mood of the yard government. Inmates were summarily found guilty of trespass of every kind. Defaulters were quickly identified and given grass portions to cut. There was all around the yard a frenetic attempt to keep order and quiet, to say nothing of tidy corridors and neat cells with well-behaved inmates in them, all so happy to welcome the overall boss.
MC picked up the microphone, underscored the rarity of the event, and called for the two football teams that had been practicing for the past two weeks, to begin the novelty match in honour of the boss. Following every swing and every swerve, every kick and every dive, he ran commentaries, with the accurate dexterity of Ernest Okonkwo.
It made you wonder why Michael, MC for short, was in prison at all. He was too good to be in this cell, too much of a correctly domesticated man to be in a dungeon. But since he found himself here, the best of the man seemed to have taken the better of him. He had become so much closer to God that he had come to be acknowledged as the spiritual head of the cell by the clerk, if not everyone else.
His prayers broke as soon as the first clap of hands sounded outside the window. He mumbled his solicitation in a steady stream of words, sprinkling his supplications with appropriate Bible passages, and made short work of the pastor’s devotion. It was a wonder why he was not the pastor of the cell, why Apostle Paul wore that distinguished mantle instead.
Michael probably became confirmed as the spiritual head of the cell when I finished a short sermon on New Year’s day. I had taken permission from Apostle Paul, and pleaded with him to let me say a word or two to my fellow inmates, guided by the holy scriptures. Since this was the first day of the year, I thought it fit to begin our meditation from the book of Genesis, with specific regard to the misbehaviour of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Without mincing words, I equated the act of eating the forbidden fruit with the indecency of a man placing his head deep inside the crotch of a woman. It was the most foolish thing any man can do, I said. I called it a clitoral crime, and repeated the image so often that the Provost of the cell began spitting before the sermon was over. The apparent distaste for the subject was evident, and I had not chosen the right words to explore the theme of my sermon.
MC stood up, cleared his throat, and promptly took exception to the message. He described it in grand terms as a satanic distraction unsuitable for the beginning of the year. I couldn’t but commend his confident tone of assertion. You may be right, I said, but the fact remains that that’s what Adam did under the forbidden sight of God. That’s why God was so angry that he drove the fellow out of that idyllic home.
I would have gone ahead to tell MC just how right he was. Yes, it was Satan that tempted Adam into committing that crime. When Adam gets to realise it, he would crush the head of Satan just the way God wants it, said I.
The cell was quiet and attentive. Even the two Indians, Captain Sailish and Chandrashekar, sat up to listen to me. Everyone, in their private corners, was still waiting to hear what I would say next. Not even the Big Bad Wolf could grunt. I sat there in my long white gown, as immobile as a monk upon a mountain top, my grey beards bristling like the whiskers of a stray cat. I was about to utter the very next sentence when the image of Alamieyeseigha rose before me like a clement mist.
Lest I forget, I had no way of seeing MC’s face on the first night I entered the cell. He had already retired into his mosquito net, and had nothing to say. When I saw him in the full view of daylight, my heart went out to him. He was a handsome young man with an obvious dent on his forehead, and I could not help but wonder what might have happened to him. He might have been involved in an accident and, O, what pain he must have endured to have that gaping wound stitched in so many places.
It did not take me long to know how it happened. To start with, MC was in love with a woman, a beautiful piece of Eve as far as he could tell, and he wanted to keep her for himself and himself only. For that reason, he had to work hard. He had to earn money, impress the love of his life, and possibly get to call her his wife. I was witness to how passionately MC expressed his love for his darling in the dead of night, from his pillow in that cell.
Christmas and New Year days were the most painful. He was behind bars and could not see his heart-throb. It was another festive season, and where could she be? He didn’t have anything to send to her. Would she still love him the way she said she did? He could not bear to think that any man would extend their randy hands to touch his beloved.
I was witness to his anguish as he whispered desperately into the mouthpiece of his “mata,” before anyone knew that he was reaching out to the outside world in a midnight call. The mata, by the way, is the disguise name for the miniphones handed over by the many rats in the cell. A rat could hand you your mata late at night, and let you talk to your loved ones till you exhaust your credit. Very early in the morning, the rats were there to take away every piece of mata in the cell, leaving the prison guards baffled.
But let’s not digress. MC’s love for his wife got the better of him when he commandeered a motorcycle one day, laid ambush in front of a bank with a friend holding the cow-horns of the bike, and waited for their prey to emerge from the bank with evidence of having made a sizeable withdrawal. He may have been doing it and getting away with it, but luck was not on his side that day.
A middle-aged woman emerged from the rolling doors of the bank. MC set his eyes on her, and decided that she was good game. He waited for her to board the next bike, and followed at a discreet distance. Sitting behind the rider, he was hoping to catch the woman at some unguarded moment, grab the bag, and zoom off in a hail of smoke from the powerful cylinders of the bike.
And so indeed it nearly happened. Just as the lady looked the other way in the heat of traffic, MC stretched out to snatch the bag, waving a gun in the face of the woman. Instinctively, she raised an alarm that quite distracted her own rider who turned frantically into a side road.
The woman held on bravely to her bag, and pulled it to herself with great self possession. MC missed target. His bike veered off so suddenly that he lost his hold and hit the tar hard with his head. The impact left him sprawling senseless, and he could not get up until the woman’s unceasing alarm attracted a restive crowd and the roving police. MC was caught virtually with a gun in hand, blood all over his head. He was taken, first to the hospital, to the police station, and then to court.
In the end, he was found guilty of armed robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment. According to eye witnesses, MC collapsed in the dock when the pronouncement was made. The judge waited for him to be revived, and asked why he was so agitated. MC said he would be grateful to see the love of his life again, the woman for whom he had embarked upon the mission. He talked about a glorious future with her and their children, if only he would get another chance at being a law-abiding citizen. And so saying, MC began to cry like a distressed baby.
The judge was touched. She took one compassionate look at the man with bandages all over his face from that ghastly fall, and promptly commuted the ruling from life sentence to seven years imprisonment. MC was visibly relieved. Seven years was a long stretch of time, too long to stay away from your love, but it was better than life imprisonment.
It was a lenient sentence that he had to accommodate. He would just have to slug it out. He would be free someday. He had served four years at the time I met him, and he was looking forward to that day, three years to come, when he would be discharged and have the joy of walking into the arms of his love again.
I was glad to hear that MC became the pastor of our cell long after I had left. In fact, he became General Pastor of the yard, and conducted himself with mature decorum until he was transferred to the correction centre in Umuahia where he completed his term. He is free in the world again, and my prayer is that all his suspicions about his wife would be unfounded, and the pain of separation he suffered would prove temporary. More than that, I hope Michael is better advised about the importance of earning a living by lawful means, and doing well to live within his resources.
But even more importantly, if I were to enter into a debate with MC again about what happened in the Garden of Eden, I would say pointedly that the affliction of corona virus on mankind today is God’s way of expressing his anger over the excesses of Adam and Eve, with particular regard to what the Bible calls the Original Sin. A peep into the inner recesses of the internet, the red light districts of the worldwideweb, shows clearly that Adam has been foolish, especially in the civilized west.
I don’t mind repeating this to MC. Mating between Adam and Eve is divine in the eyes of God. Sex is blissful when it is a decent intercourse between man and woman. Orgasm, in fact, is a mark of God’s involvement in the act of creation. What God expressly frowns upon is the act of “eating the forbidding fruit,” the ignominy of Adam lowering his head into the valley of the shadow, and wilfully abusing the sacred antenna by which his prayers are transmitted to the Supreme Being.
This is the ultimate sin in the eyes of God. This is the great affliction confronting mankind today. The unrepentant impunity of many vulgar nights has taken its toll amongst a generation for whom the Original Sin has become common place. The human tongue, in short, is not to be abused between the thighs of Eve. The penalty for this travesty has already been spelt out in the scandalous figures of people around the world, who have succumbed to the scourge of covid nineteen.
The records say Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, were certain that corona virus would so decimate Africa that people will die like flies
Let’s face it. That did not happen. The figures hit panic highs in America, in Britain, in Italy, in China, in Spain, and in Brazil. These are countries known for their libertine indulgences. The death rate in America and Europe, especially at the height of the scourge, may well be traceable to the high incidence of cunninlingus as a sexual practice.
Africans are not so guilty of this unholy habit, and that is why the death rate is comparatively lower than it is in the Far East, in Europe and in America, where oral sex is more ingrained and rampant. The bottom line is straight forward. The face mask is not just a clinical piece of cloth to prevent you from contacting or spreading covid nineteen. It is also a clear instruction from God that Adam and Eve should make venerable use of the tongue, that singular instrument that connects the supreme power of creation with our voices and our prayers.
It is one thing to put on a face mask in public, in deference to corona virus. But if Adam continues to place his holy temple between the thighs of Eve, in spite of God’s express condemnation of that shameful act, for so long will covid nineteen afflict the world in repeated waves, and no vaccine can cure that.
NENGI JOSEF ILAGHA, fondly called Pope Pen, has worked as a journalist, broadcaster and public relations foot soldier. Born on December 18, 1963, in Nembe, Bayelsa State, he read English & Literary Studies at the University of Port Harcourt.
A one-time Editor of The Tide On Sunday in Port Harcourt, he was Speech Writer and Special Adviser on Research & Documentation to the Governor of Bayelsa State. He served the governments of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for seven consecutive years. He was also General Manager of the Bayelsa State Newspaper Corporation, publishers of New Waves.
Mantids, his first collection of poems, won the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, Poetry Prize in 1995. He is the pioneer chairman of ANA, Bayelsa State chapter. He has published a number of books, including A Birthday Delight, short stories, and I Want To Be A Senator, a collection of essays on the state of the nation. His book of poems January Gestures, the first of twelve books of poetry under construction, was among the nine contenders for the controversial 2009 NLNG-Nigeria Prize for Literature.
Pope Pen is also the author of Sand House & Bones, Thirty Pieces Of Sylva, The Militant Writes Back, Epistles To The President, Epistles To The Small Brave City-State, Big Daddy, Free At Last, People, More People and More & More People. His most recent books are The Last Days of Gabriel Okara, Sermons From The Oxbow Lake, Conversations With The Queen, Son Of The Tiger Killer, Eighteen Months At Creek Haven, and By The Banks Of The River Benue. He is the publisher of Coastline News Network, a periodic newsmagazine with a trained focus on the Niger Delta.
He was inducted as a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, during the forty-second international convention of the Association in the auditorium of the Chinua Achebe Conference Centre at the Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village, Abuja, in November 2023.