GOOD SAMARITAN TO VISIT NIGERIA?

Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua

A young man was accused of stealing and was taken to a Magistrate Court. During his arraignment in the Court with the usual ritual of swearing that his evidence “shall be the truth and nothing but the truth”, the Prosecutor put to him: “You broke into your brother’s room to steal his money, guilty or not guilty!” The man responded, “Guilty!” The Prosecutor continued, “Why did you do it?” The man responded: “I wanted my name to be published in every newspaper and for people to see me on the television.” The Prosecutor queried, “As a thief?” The man responded, yes! Today I am happy that I have achieved my objective; and here is the money I stole, returned it back to my brother. Sentence me so that I can make more news that I am in prison for stealing from my brother. After all, only evil and crime make news in our country. The judge looked in amazement and said, “This man is not normal. I hereby order that he should be taken to a psychiatric hospital for rehabilitation”.  

I admire the hospitality, good places and the good people of Nigeria. To me we have the best climate in the world. For instance, Plateau State, especially the city of Jos, used to be a tourist home for those who wanted to experience “snowless winter”. Honestly, Nigeria has all it takes to be happy. It takes a divine miracle to be a king in another person’s empire. A stranger is always a stranger, and as a visitor the host looks forward to the expiration of his or her time to return. There must be a place where a person must call a home. It thus becomes a shameful tragedy for a person to destroy his home. Self-destruction contradicts human reason.  I have discussed with some Nigerians in foreign countries who have not visited home for many years, and many of them have the same story of phobia for their home. They narrate the upstanding degree of order and security in their places of sojourning and so prefer to be “strangers” in the foreign land than go to their homes where even the Church, Mosque and traditional shrines have become targets of attack. Some of them describe Nigeria as war zone and a perpetual battle field between the armed security agents and the armed bandits and sometimes without a clear distinction of who is who.

Where did we really go wrong? “Quo Vadis?” What are the contending issues? Who are we as a Country? When did we arrive at a complete sell-out of loyalty to our dear country and the avowal to destroy what we have built with the sweat of our heroes past?  How did we arrive at the decision to waste life by kidnapping, rape and other forms of violence?  It appears that “Mr. or Ms. Nigeria” has been attacked by brigands and robbers and at the point of death. Who will stop to rescue? Have the priests and the Levites of Nigeria abandoned the victim by taking another road out of ritualistic piety lest they be defiled or mistaken as the perpetrators. Who cares when the victim –“Nigeria” is helplessly crying: “I look up to the mountains, from whence comes my help? My help shall come from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121, 1-8)! Or are we expecting “Mr. or Ms. Foreign Aid investor” to take Nigeria to the clinic to be healed of the wounds that the home-grown brigands systematically inflicted on her? Or are we waiting for “the Holy Land” to come and resolve what appears to be a religious crisis?  Perhaps we need more pilgrims to take our confession to God in Israel and Saudi Arabia that “Nigeria” has fallen into the hands of brigands and robbers. We should be sincere enough to let God know that the robbers are home-made who claim to be working for God!

We may not have the time or the will to take “Nigeria” to the intensive care clinic. Maybe the caretakers have an idea of when “the Good Samaritan” will return to pay the balance of the bills to discharge him? We may need to wait for eternity if this Samaritan is “the Western World, the Holy Land” and other foreign agencies. They too have their own problems and concerns, which Nigeria may have caused. Our waiting may not take a long time if we resolve by ourselves to deliberately emancipate ourselves and pay the bills by becoming our own “Good Samaritan”. The price is just a decision to change our present attitude and resolve to be healed of our mental slavery and religious indoctrination.

We can learn a lot from the parable of the Good Samaritan: Jesus tells the parable in response to a question by a lawyer regarding the identity of the “neighbour.” “A certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with your entire mind and your neighbour as yourself.” He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and life is yours.” But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour”? Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10, 25-37).

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho at the time of Jesus had a lot of security challenges. The Priest and the Levite must have imagined that the robbers were still around akin to some of our police who would remove their uniform when they hear that robbers are operating somewhere only to visit the scene of operation when they are sure that the robbers have long left. The interpretation of this passage is often that the Priest and the Levite were forbidden to touch a corpse when they were going to perform their official duties. On the other hand the Samaritan was more concerned about the human life, the safety of the victim of the robbers than his own safety. It did not matter to the Samaritan whether the victim was from his tribe or whether he was practicing the same religion with him. His concern was that a human being was dying and his life must take priority over any other consideration. 

This was a time the Samaritans and the Jews were enemies. Even the Lawyer dared not call the name “Samaritan” when Jesus asked him which of them proved a neighbour to the victim. He simply replied; “the one who took pity on him”.  Jesus referred to the Samaritans to teach the relevance of a relationship that is based on humanity with the same source. Jesus healed ten lepers and only the Samaritan among them came back to give thanks (Luke 17, 11-19). That Jesus was given a hostile reception in Samaria did not change his attitude towards them (Luke 9, 51-56). Jesus had an extended dialogue with a Samaritan woman at the well as against the law of the Jews (John 4). Jesus did not want the disciples to go on mission to the Samaritans because they required adequate orientation and preparation for the mission (Matthew 10, 5-8). In the Chronicles, the Samaritans were nice to the Jewish prisoners (2 Chronicles 28, 8-15). It is my hope and prayer that we will be glorified in the “Good Samaritan” and save ourselves and our country Nigeria. May God grant success to this our effort to be delivered from our selves! 

Fr. Prof. Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua is the Director of Mission and Dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja and Consultor of the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims (C.R.R.M), Vatican City