SELL YOUR VOTE AND LOSE YOUR DESTINY

 IN the character-study of leadership,  it is a truism that a Leader's destiny is either a nation's blessing or a nation's burden . 

It is however regrettable  that here in Nigeria the root cause of our excessive love of money,as being manifested in vote-buying ,even in which democratic principles are  disregarded , result from the saccharine gospel of prosperity which has taken over the pulpit in religious  houses. 

Says Chaucer: If the priest in whom we believe be a fool ,no wonder the common man would rust. 

Wouldn't it surprise you that today's ivory tower of learning emanated from the same church ? ( old monastery, and even the mosque ) 

During my recent contribution to a programme by the American space, online, concerning vote-buying,  my submission was and is still this 

: We have been wrongly oriented by INEC ,THE MEDIA AND OUR RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS CONCERNING THE WORD : VOTE .

Interestingly , the word VOTE and the word VOW  share same Latin root called VOTUM .It is not coincidental. 

But " we  human beings are today living from hand to mouth; We learn today what we ought to have done  yesterday and are  still at a loss to know what is to be done tomorrow. INEC ,being our electoral body in charge of the sanctity of our VOTES is ignorant of  the sacredness of  the word VOW . Its public officials have no regard for oath of office. 

The  media( which ought  to be guardian of public morality and democracy) keep displaying unethicality against Apollo, the god of Poetry, Medicine and politics .

They are ignorant of the fact that philologically , the three words : Apollo, Poll and " Opele " ( by which diviners: Babalawo guard impartially ,the sanctity of choice of leadership) are of same cognate family. 

Religious houses which ought to guard the Spirituality of VOWS are themselves abusing the word ( VOW ) by equivocating with it ,extracting Vow ( through  the backdoor) in the name of the word PLEDGE which they also plunder and plagiarise through back-stabbing it with reckless abandon. 

Yet the Lord has warned in the scriptures that it is better not to Vow than to vow and not fulfil the vow . It implies that both VOW and VOTE are sacred matters which are better left to the conscience to decide ,never to be influenced by any outsider ( no matter how highly placed ) or by pecuniary reasons. 

Pledges in our religious houses today are as easy as winking the eyes , with the clerics ever ready  to dispossess the ignorant and the gullible of their money through their:" Holy how do you do salutation which points you straight to the altar of " Promise now and pay later ." 

Where do we go from here  ?

( highly loaded and still loading )

OLALERE FAGBOLA REPORTING AT WORD UNIVERSITY ONLINE.