By S. O. K. Shillings Esq.
There is more than 70% chance the World War III will break out in less than a decade. It could even be 2 years or tomorrow. There are different pointers to it. We have completed a cycle of civilisation and the baton does not change without a ceremony. The scriptures have described this moment with scientific precision. I read the Book of Predictions which indicated from Nostradamus and other seers that the current Pope could be the last. The predicted date was 1999 but the factors that prevented it are no longer valid and have only postponed it. The United Nations has finally collapsed. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and agreements have withered. Empirical facts and evidences like the US- Iran-Israel bermuda triangle, the delivery of ‘Armageddon’ (plane) to Iran by Russia, the time-bomb North Korea; are abundant. Bizarrely, we need it.
Africa is the weakest continent from all empirical indices. The headline question could even seem irrelevant. We do not produce and cannot afford ammunitions. We do not have the economic power or even the inner energy to confront. The scramble for our resources is part of the factors that will ignite it and just as we have watched the pillaging by the world forces and the local bastards, we are likely to only watch as the massive events unfold on us. Like in the other wars, our soldiers are more likely to fight behind the flags of our oppressors. So, what is there to prepare for?
A World War is the reset of civilisation like the rating of nations after the World Cup. Participation affords upsets. Respectable defeat is part of the rating and could earn global acknowledgement. There are going to be many fronts to the war; ammunitions, energy and food supply, alliances and blocs, religion and race including languages, refugee hosting; land, water and airspace rights and privileges. There are the software values of spirituality, intelligence gathering and situational gambits including tactical risks and withdrawals.
What makes nations is not size and economy alone. Check the fronts and place Nigeria side-by-side Israel. Then, Israel beside the United States. The first preparation is to acknowledge the reality and importance of the coming events. Evaluate the extent of the weaknesses and situate the war as an hypothesis.
Africa’s biggest problem is leadership. The lack of it led Emperor Hiro Hito of Japan to question our intelligence quotient in 1990. We have lost the war before it began. We have ignored the biblical warning that the violent taketh by force and it should be clearer to us now that everything that Europe and America and the world gave us including religion are meant to subdue us. Nigeria has failed to provide leadership because it has been long recolonised. The system of government we have does not produce a leader or leadership. At best, it produces administrators. Events of the last 3 decades have shown us that ‘Walter Rodney’ was replayed cruelly as America and Europe exploited us through the World Bank and IMF and we are not better than the neighbouring francophone countries on whose necks the shackles of colonisation was never removed by France. Nigeria itself needs leadership. It suffices that a dictatorship will be better than this programmed democracy. I am jealous of Bourkina Fasso.
When it breaks, we must be ready to go into it with David’s catapult and fix our gaze on the eyes of the ‘world’ not covered by the armour. Africa could be the refugee camp and the food field if we prepare for it. It would be great moment to stand up to something with the little weapons that the time and circumstances would provide. It would be our right not to fight. And, it would be righteous to be aligned. We need wartime leaders who could bring out the maximum benefit of such situation.
There is no love for these local captives divided into vague political parties stealing our money in daylight robberies and scrambling to do more even in the face of lingering insecurities. America and Israel may do a Maduro capture which I see gathering momentum with ongoing media manipulations of misinformation, disinformation, blackmail and subterfuge. But we need our sovereignty. We need an overhaul change in which a whole government cannot be bought. We need government that can tackle immediate problems. We must be ready for resistance. We must be ready to seize the gauntlet. That is a major preparation.
In all of the scriptures’ accounts of the impending end, Africa is not mentioned. Even the clairvoyants did not see us. We are the ‘X’ factor. By the end of the war, it will not be like the world cup. Many of the ‘teams’ will suffer monumental injuries involving captains and strikers and the reserve will be so depleted that a team could not be formed.
It is important to state that like in any situation human beings are held in captivity, as Africans are now, the only reasonable thought is escape. And the best opportunity of escape is provided in moment of pandemonium among the captors. An unprepared group of captives can choose to settle quarrel among their captors and may not even see the value of the open gate.
The X may turn the queue to face the opposite direction and set a new order that the followers become leaders. But the test of preparedness must be seen in our readiness to confront immediate problems. We must look the fulanis in their eyes to stop the profane ambition of conquering the rest of us with their unislamic jihad; the igbos to forget Biafra at least now, the Yorubas to use this moment to balance the polity and the rest of us to bear the situation with hope. Otherwise, our pandemonium will bear better dividends for the captors who orchestrate it and we could be followers of a strong African country.
Don’t mind me if you find my dream wild, weird and utopian.
S. O. K. Shillings Esq., writes from Ikorodu
