and Messiah one banks is Bell and the
other one from his minaret a shouting
each one proclaims the greatness of his
faith tell me which rings true i’m
adding this poem refers to Muhammad and
Messiah to Christ and this was a poem by
a guy called al murray and it was
written in the 11th century if one of my
favorite frames because it was written
with the purity of purpose it was
written of a place called Latakia
Latakia is in modern-day Syria and it
was a conflict between faiths Islam and
Christianity but the poet was fantastic
his name is al Marri he was blind and it
was an a taste I wonder how our 11th
century Syria could be so tolerant well
I’m going to tell you three stories
today the first one is about a three
year old and this three-year-old was
that when we found him crying in his
room he was banging on the wall and
crying he’s cried because he bit of a
two-year-old girl and so in the quiet of
the room he banked on the wall because
he learned his lesson not by the
prompting of his mother or the prompting
of his dad not because an imam told him
or pastor said sorry you did wrong today
I’ll tell his second story this is a
place called okolo in anambra state and
is the famous shrine and this madman it
was a picture on you see mad man bun in
the shrine out of christian favor i’m
sure he decided that it was going to
burn this right so what shippers who go
there to worship will be stranded
so let us take a concept as a little
idea of tolerance my third story and
I’ll take you to a place in history a
time in history there was a guy called
constants I in the first there was the
Emperor of the western side of the Roman
Empire and he reached the concordant
with another emperor called Emperor
collinear sorry a gorilla Venus and they
made a deal a pact a concordant if you
like in which for the first time in
Western Christian orthodoxy or for
referred first time in western roman
history the reach an agreement that
Christians were no longer be prosecuted
that was the year ad after the death of
Christ 313 and here we are August 21-6 a
man in favour and some kind of Christian
favor this site is going to burn another
man’s place washer one last story this
is in a masooma my ancestral home under
13 year old girl this is the most
beautiful sight I’ve ever seen yes she
was regal I mean majestic she had a
terror on ahead a little bit of a bead
and on the right hand those a bead one
single white one and on the left or not
the one on a chest you had a big Ebola
she looked straight back was ramrod
straight and a main was regal and behind
her where women are antes they were
singing her praises and she was walking
in front somebody was weaving like that
Abby myself
fine on her the skin was black trust to
sit and everyone was saying a beery and
the whole community stopped it was her
beery ceremony I didn’t know what it was
who I crossed her path and yeah a few
days later I think the same evening my
grandmother went and paid the fine
because on that day you do not cross the
path of a woman or a young lady doing
habari i did not know by the time that
was this is my first introduction to the
first feminist i have ever met in my
life why am I telling you these stories
I’m telling the stories because we have
reached a path in our place the joy were
being a neat job person let me use work
de jour tripe because we’re in the Niger
Delta the joy the simple pleasures just
refer reaffirming our beauty as a people
it’s been eviscerated because of faith
so wherever this young lady is that I
hope the soundtrack of our life is the
praises you heard her mother Anna
auntie’s sing for because that is what
makes us the people we are it’s a
particular practice of faith that today
we now ask to expand genovese create
ourselves that it seems that it is no
longer enough to just go to church it is
now become peculiar that we must even
change our names all becomes Owen look
at a beautiful name like even a bow is
gone now people change their names to
Jewish names unless eyes beautiful names
because their need has changed some of
them believe that their names bring a
shame upon them
how can my history turbulent as it is
beautiful as it is this great big poem
that has lasted since man began how can
I be ashamed of that now in all of this
if as people that have to face the
conflict of this time if us people that
have to look at the next century and
become at one and part of a greater
universe get a community of people if we
do not have who we are if we don’t have
the sheer joy of being we are what do we
have what price must we pay for phase
one hundred years after our colonial
masters left here some of us still where
we pride the debtor truth they left
behind we have semi hyphenated names
Brown Peter side John Bull and we wait
with great pride could you have imagined
that the traditional ruler called
himself paramount King without
understanding that the Paramount king
that he calls himself his paramount
simply because he was a stooge of Queen
Victoria or Queen Elizabeth who was the
ruler sometimes in my own imagination I
wish we did not have the palm tree
sometimes I wish the united delta was so
told me or trust like it they re very
calm because our story would have been
different sometimes I wish we did not
have oil but once the day the sales of
the Royal Niger company or whatever
they’re called came down the river niger
we became a protectorate who were owned
from up above
total many wherever we wear owned lock
stock and barrel one century after all
of this we are forgotten in the midst of
our suffering the second of all villages
and the destruction of our nobility we
still wear those scars with pride
meanwhile what we lost what we lost that
development of the people that got
disrupted because of the three bits of
suffering in our history we may never
ever find so who are these people where
the people of the water our story
straddles the great rivers with a
sombrero raised in own without the old
calabar to ET up with one pole and just
a bit of cloth with a song on their back
and hope India front our people went
across the greatest seas and the
greatest oceans they went to Brazil and
the Congo our people spoke across vast
lands before Twitter before snapchat the
received messages just by the music of
their hands our kingdom some of which
way matriarch is but most of all they
were all egalitarian we fought Wars to
protect our legs and our ponds we
thought of invaders British and land
once we were not so noble savages all
know where kings and queens if you want
I can introduce you to area the way I
introduce you to a beauty if we want i
can introduce the ceremonies the match
your life from cradle to grave all this
we spoke like equals to everyone and
maybe that is what Curtis white men or
black men our doors were open to all
strangers so they are hypocrisy more or
less defined huge swaths of our history
we are all tired today so I’m going to
make this quick if you want I can
introduce you to the Diocese of the
Niger Delta you will not be offended I’m
sure if I tell you about that did we if
I tell you about being a guru group I’m
sure you will not be offended too much
if I tell you about the great matriarch
of the Niger Delta Oh a yankee now I
have to apologize for who we are maybe I
should introduce you to something called
say where the fishing festival could
imagine a people they reserved lakes and
ponds that no one went into all year the
conserved what they have so that we the
found it would find the lake will find
rivers once a year they didn’t need
Greenpeace to tell us how to conserve
our home there was a time when if you
look out in the sky you’ll find a great
Delta ego beautiful female I call her
beautiful because if you look at her
just ways up but this is in my own
lifetime gone there was a time where he
posed the amount this big will laugh at
you as you’re going across tutorial any
corn there was a time where do gory
which is what we call we call yo Kareem
or language but it’s like the American
bison you know water buffaloes we’re
wallowing all across the united delta
gone in their place we have a new kind
of slavery and maybe we should have a
conversation about that this new kind of
slavery or the commandments that our
leaders are so called Papas and semi do
people we have no promoted to sainthood
we call him daddy young papa they have
now replaced the slave whip where the
purpose right haven’t we suffered enough
the commandments now holds sway in our
homes and in our offices I am NOT
anti-christian no sir but if you become
a slave to this so-called prosperity
Christianity measured by two yard sticks
only one hope and to protection
protection that our salvation will come
one day hope sorry that our salvation
will come with it it will always come
later great promise that salvation go
calm in form of a contract or a job
would shell or a visa out of this hell
salvation the other bed its protection
from demons and witches and it looks
like Satan is well and truly resident
here in the Niger Delta so electively
they were quote from the Bible is still
in a fear a lie upon your fears they
have this cacophonous all g that fuels
fear and demands total obedience and no
price is too high to pay your name the
culture Wow your traditions the
traditions that are kept you in tack
since time began they would demonize the
African culture they would demonize it
as a pedestal to promote their own faith
but they are not the first the
missionaries came and said we will
salvage savages should I introduce you
to the wood the human form the most
beautiful creatures ever
black beautiful women the skin covered
their relationship with their bodies are
intact but then they said oh we are
savages today we are dead poor and our
post pastors are very very rich thank
you very much we great we build great
basilica’s to our faith and our
hospitals of flea-ridden we build
befitting policies for Papa and you can
walk right past it and use it my god is
not a poor God as far as house while
longer feels our desolates public school
yards today in brass an emaciated girl
child is suckling on an emaciated breast
as the motor stands by the shore and
watches big ships leading full of oil
disappear into the horizon and in its
wake they just leave poverty and an oil
stained and broken Delta and you say my
god is not a ball hard but this Delta
has seen people to leave before big
ships have gone with our forefathers in
the name of slavery and on the right
hand side the slaver would hold his
Bible on the left he held his whip dish
same Delta’s in cargo ships full of
Colonel palm kernel and they have seen
our fathers just look out there and the
missus of hell and that L was a slavery
they survived during our time in my own
generation we have thrown down trees and
turned this paradise into an oil-soaked
wasteland
during that time we have eaten today and
left nothing for our children our
beloved Niger Delta bleeds the pastor
cannot solve the wound the oil companies
can’t and won’t our elders in such a
such hawk their soul have been sold to
the highest bidder because they are so
comfortable in this silicon sheets in
Abuja that you Rene in DC and in New
York and in London we do not matter that
much there are lots of zeros in your
bank accounts they are best friends with
Papa the pasta go to the city centre
today you will see their faces touch top
buy photoshop billboards proclaiming and
promising and promising and clearing the
partnership of the divine hand of God
yet our children who inhabit the creeks
and the villages that look at the united
delta weeping honker we pray earlier
attend five joint programs a week we
will into the night and a frenzied
appeal to God now God has not been
appropriated we now god of our pasta god
of our pasta and the church is now
become an opiate you tramadol to ease
our pain the church has now become this
betting shop where maybe just maybe our
number will come up just maybe yet we
began this race this modern race for
decades ago at par with Singapore and
South Korea they enjoy a standard of
living we can only dream about here yet
we go to search and beseech a silent God
to be moaning the demons for our ill
fortune but if you look carefully
sitting in the front pew they’re always
far time
the back of his neck Rachel found that
guy look at him because that’s how close
you will get to him he’s the accountant
of the intervention agency hundreds of
millions of naira is sitting in his
account fattening and outside this SUV
that is purring away the latest model
range rover that is a gift for Papa so
here we are on my road alone in this
city there are 103 anointed men and a
few women they have a prediction for
hearts that we put this way but this
conversation is about faith and what
fate has done to us how it has destroyed
our growth and our empires from a bow
bow and as somebody said earlier to be
mean it used to be that it takes a whole
village just to raise a child it used to
be that our moral composers like that
three year old who right or wrong felt
he had done something wrong he used to
be that our culture was quite
straightforward crime punishment right
wrong our belief system was simple and
beautiful at the same time yet what have
we done we have replaced that with the
complexity of the Nigerian faith that
cannot be replicated anywhere in 2004
the BBC thinking they know what they’re
doing came and did a very long survey
into Nigeria especially the southern
part Wow Christianity they say we have
the most Christian country in the world
ninety percent of us go to church and a
few pages later you read the most
damning statistic and they say we are
so one day we decided that we are going
to rebase our economy so from from
mathematical abracadabra we became the
second largest economy in Africa we are
heading in the right direction antwi oh
yeah then you find that we also have the
highest concentration of poverty in the
world 120 million of us cramp at or
below the poverty line it means that our
so-called development it means that I
was so cold and the second economy in
Africa has translated that we have
growth where we do not have development
the most beautiful lines I have ever
ever come across in my life were quite
straightforward it says the time the
first time I thought I was lost my Don
Jon shook and my chains fell off never
have I heard words that her testimony to
faith imagine if you like a slave and
the Galleon a slave girl in leadership
out there and he edges this onto the
wall maybe these words were part of just
a Negro spiritual but I like those words
I like them because that is to my mind
one of the greatest testimonies to faith
but what am I asking you people what am
I asking you three things if you can the
first I would like you if you can took
plant a tree we may not be able to
replace all the ones we have chopped
down for today’s game but we should
plant a tree anyhow and second if you
belong are you up lucky enough to have a
girl child raise this girl child knowing
that her womb is not tied to any kitchen
sink raise this girl child to understand
that our dreams and aspirations and not
to be
movement into a carpet for any man to
trade on raise this girl child to
believe that the world is hers and if
possible give her a name that will stamp
on her heart dignity give a rename that
will echo her rich lost US history and
let her free till her never to live a
lie not for church not for society not
form an and finally a monk sermon is his
name once came up with an idea so simple
let me beg of you again that exactly his
own words by the way if you can increase
your circle of compassion if your circle
of compassion comprises five or six
people members of your family try try as
much as you can to increase it by one or
two that person may come from a
different tribe or offer different
colors of a different sex because if we
do that we will begin to understand the nobility of our legacy thank