AFRICAN PLUME

By Akin Ojumu Did you know that Jerry Eze can summon spirits? Just like witches and wizards do, the Benny Hinn of Umuahia – I understand it’s Abuja now – actually conjures up spirits of people. If you think I’m making this up, think again. The guy said so himself in this video clip of a recent message. Dead or alive, Jerry Eze claims he is able to summon the spirit of anyone and they’ll obey his voice. This may surprise you, but it’s something “they” do regularly in the “kingdom.” The fact that the ancient practice has become a lost art is something Jerry Eze finds disconcerting. Preaching on a message titled “Wisdom for Divine Settlements” – whatever that means – a little over 3 weeks ago, Jerry Eze gives his raucous audience spiritual insights on how to rein in their wayward children.  In order to effectively bring their lawless children to obedience, Jerry Eze tells the audience they must summon their spirits: “Don't you know that we used to summon spirits in this kingdom. You h...

By Akin Ojumu Fear of what tomorrow holds makes people vulnerable for exploitation by dodgy characters. Uncertainty about the future makes us easy pickings for fortune-tellers and soothsayers out to make a quick buck.  Religious impostors professing to have esoteric knowledge, and boasting of supernatural insights, like to prey on people’s hunger for miraculous intervention. These fraudsters exploit our desire to be relieved from the crushing weight of the burden that life puts on us. This yearning for a way out of the misery of existence is the reason religious hoaxers fester and prosper. Prayer houses are packed because people are searching for answers to their innumerable problems. Holy Ghost Nights, Power Must Change Hands Hours, and all manners of Special Anointing Services consistently draw hundreds of thousands of people because living in a fallen world is ruthlessly bruising and relentlessly grueling. Much has been made about hearing from God outside of the pages of Scriptu...

By Akin Ojumu Our brain makes an average of about 35,000 decisions every single day. While some decisions are trivial and frivolous, others are monumental and life-and-death. For instance, on the choice of which food to eat alone, we make more than 200 decisions each day. Because of the sheer volume of problems that must be processed and solved, often within milliseconds, it leaves the brain no time to methodically evaluate the fine details and thoughtfully consider all the angles. As a result, the brain resorts to shortcuts. Psychologists refer to these mental shortcuts as heuristics.  An example of a mental shortcut, which we all make, is labeling. We use labels to compartmentalize situations and behaviors. When we label something, we erect an impenetrable but see-through wall around the object to pigeonhole it. It’s our way of saying, “That’s not who I am.” Unconsciously, labels shape our perception of the world around us. Adam Alter, writing in Psychology Today, talked about th...

By Akin Ojumu “On the Bondage of the Will” was written by Martin Luther in 1525 in response to Erasmus of Rotterdam’s “Diatribe on Free Will.” In the book, Martin Luther argued that man could not choose between good and evil through their own willpower, and that salvation or redemption can only be achieved by God’s direct intervention. “For if a man, when he has lost his liberty, is compelled to serve sin, and cannot will good, what conclusion concerning him can be more justly drawn, than that he can do nothing but sin, and will sin?” (Section 50, On the Bondage of the Will). Here are some truths you need to know about your true self.  You’ve never, in your whole life, chosen anything against your will. At any given moment, you’ll always choose to do what you think is best for you. When faced with any decision, and when you consider the options before you, you’ll always choose what your mind deems to be best for you at that particular moment.  Every voluntary moral act, and ev...

By Akin Ojumu What’s the difference between gifts and presents?  Now, I can hear you thinking, “Who cares?” Well, if you must know, I do. That I’m even writing a commentary about it should give you a hint on how my mind works. I like to chew the cord on seemingly frivolous things. Don’t mind me, though. It’s the curiosity in me. And it is driven, chiefly, by a self-realization that I don ’ t know a whole lot. As a result, I’m always overcompensating. So, ever so often, I find myself ruminating on stuff that doesn't even register on the Richter’s scale of the mind of people much smarter than me. Anyways, I digress.  Gift or present, what’s the difference?  Well, thank God for Google. How did we even survive before it? A few clicks, I landed on Mental Floss. There, I found this interesting article on the subject. For those who may not know it, Mental Floss is a website that presents – or is it gifts? – facts, puzzles, and trivia about any subject under the sun with a bit of...

By Akin Ojumu Godswill Akpabio, the current Senate President, marked his 61st birthday with pomp and pageantry this past Saturday at the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo. The opulent event was attended by hundreds of current and former members of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, politicians of all shades and stripes, as well as a swarming crowd of the poor masses of Akwa Ibom. The 30,000-capacity stadium, which is named after the birthday boy, was packed to the nosebleed section with banner waving and aso-ebi attired admirers. A rancorous multitude cheered on blissfully upon Akpabio’s arrival at the venue in his convoy of exotic vehicles, surrounded by horse whip toting security personnel who trotted along as the man himself danced to the traditional music blasting from high-powered loudspeakers. As dignitaries pour encomiums on the celebrant, the gathered praise singers went into ecstatic frenzy. Other than being a vampiric moocher and a parasitic...

By Akin Ojumu  During the Crossover Service held on December 31, 2019, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, gave his teeming audience what he called a “glimpse of what God is saying concerning the new year.”  God told him, the highly revered man of God declared, that the new year, meaning 2020, was: “…Going to be a year of series of joy…It will be victory after victory, shouts of joy after shouts of joy…” If you are reading this commentary and you don’t have retrograde amnesia, i.e., the inability to remember past events, the Year 2020 must be emblazoned in your memory and the events of that fateful year must be fresh in your mind. For many of us alive today, 2020 is a year that lives in infamy. It’s a year that will go down in history as one of the most consequential and eventful years of our lifetime.  Not only was the Year 2020 not a year of a series of joy, on the contrary, 2020 was a year of a series of pain, misery, and...

“Warring Against God” By Akin Ojumu With advancement in science and technology, information is now at our fingertips. Whereas it used to take weeks of searching through volumes of dusty encyclopedias and combing through mountains of old newspaper clippings in the damp and dusty basement of the library, we are now able to access terabytes of data with just one click of the button. A single click on Google opens up the whole world to us right from the privacy of our homes. Nevertheless, even with the sophistry and variety of available means of communication at our disposal, it appears we communicate even less. We each live within a seclusion of our own cyber cocoon; everyone is isolated within their own cone of silence totally cut off from real human interactions. Communication is essentially now no more than WhatsApping, Facebooking, Twittering, Instagraming, YouTubing, and Tik-Toking. Language is reduced to abbreviations and symbols; LOL, ROTFL, LMAO, OMG, SMH, BRB, TTYL. The world, as...

“Science Makes Life a Whole Lot Better”  By Akin Ojumu Subtly – but surely – time takes its toll on all of us and we all age before our eyes. Like the small hand of the clock, we know it’s happening, but cannot see it happening. With age comes change. As one day morphs into the next day, and the baton of life is passed from year to year, it’s amazing how much change each transition brings. The hairlines recede, the waistlines bulge spilling over the waistband, and the eyes squint real hard needing prescription glasses in order to see. As we change, so does the world around us. There is a constant metamorphosis of language, the continuous evolution of knowledge, and the rapid advancement in technology.  The world we live in increasingly gets more complex and complicated. And successive generations of mankind find their world light years ahead of the world in which their parents lived. Persistently, the world, through science and philosophy, seeks solutions to the challenges of ...