What the whole world has been witnessing since December of 2021 or thereabout, was succinctly captured in Path of Thunder: Poems Prophesying War by that great Nigerian poet, Christopher Okigbo, who many years ago, allegorically wrote about a similar malady in his country thus:
…the elephant ravages the jungle
the jungle is peopled with snakes
the snake says to the squirrel
I will swallow you
the mongoose says to the snake
I will mangle you
the elephant says to the mongoose
I will strangle you
And realistically speaking, this is exactly what Russia under Mr Vladimir Putin and Ukraine under Mr Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, two great nations are doing with each promising the other, fire and brimstone, thunderstorms, and hailstones - a situation which echoes Armageddon, with all West trying very frantically to reach out with water to Mr Putin to choose the paths of dialogue, diplomacy, and peace, but all their efforts now have been to no avail.
Your Holiness, the whole saga of the imminent war that might soon berth in our human community, which ought to be a community of human brotherhood, but has now been turned into a community that the rich exploit the poor, the mighty prey on the weak in a manner that in this our modern world suggests that might is still right after all, when in fact, this very dictum: “might is right” ought to have by now become anachronistic!
Holy Father, the ongoing inhumanity of man by man to man bespeak of a supposed human community with a sophisticated civilization turned into the state of nature and a global field of blood. And shamefully and embarrassingly too, a world that devours its peoples.
Your Holiness, after an examination of this pervasive bestiality by man to man, would you still wonder why some amongst us cannot eat/survive, unless they have to sell their kidneys – and for the self-same reason, kids between ages zero to eight, are being married off and sold to some very heartless people in our midst so other members of their families can eat/feed, survive and live under a situation of famine of now Biblical proportion as in far off Afghanistan and other lands, whilst in Zanzibar, people can no longer afford natural foods, hence their resort to feeding on grass and cactus flowers, leading to them now having swollen stomachs, in a world which like Canaan of yore, still flows with milk and honey?
O Most Holy Father, at a time that most of humanity have lost their consciences, faculty of human feelings, fellow feelings, Your Holiness remains the only genuine conscience of the world and the only moral force that has the capacity to return all humanity to a state of sanity and transformation once more, in addition to persuading all the mad men and women that now occupy unearned exalted places and offices in the nations, to begin to embrace peace that surpasses all understanding as well as universal altruism.
And where this madness still exists and persists, you yet are the only voice of reason to restore sanity, by reaching out to them with your heavenly olive branch together with the Balm of Gilead, to end such unnecessary malady and tell all of humanity the utmost word of truth that now is not only the time to stop the imminent war between Russia and Ukraine, but the time to put an end to all ongoing wars in human community, in addition to saying to all the world in all finiteness: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Holy Father, if truth (must) be told, I do really think and I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mr Putin still has a modicum of sanity in left in his head and that he can still both hear and listen to you and act according to your demand/request, put forward to him on behalf of the world, if you could schedule a visit to him asap.
Whilst thanking you for your time from a full heart and with every best wish to Your Holiness, I remain your son in the Lord, and a fellow worker in His vineyard.
Yours very truly,
JOHN ODEY ADUMA.
