By Babatunde Jose
As the epochal year 2023 stares us in the face, there are mixed feelings and anticipations about what it will bring. Will it bring the desired leader we want that is expected to meet our hopes, aspirations, and desires for a new Nigeria? Or will it bring chaos and a political calamity unimaginable in the annals of our political history? Will it lead to the disintegration of the fragile neo-colonial state? Or usher in a new millennium and return our lives to one of prosperity and the country to its rightful place in the comity of nations? Is this a realizable hope, a forlorn hope, or a hopeless hope?
Is it yet uhuru? Is there any hope in any of the presidential aspirants? What are they promising that have never been promised in the past? What new things are they bringing to the table? Twenty-three years of civil rule, we are still importing fuel, refineries are not working, and the regime of subsidy (a veritable avenue of corruption) promise to do us under.
Sixteen years of PDP and seven years of APC has not seen an improvement in the power situation. What are the chances that these same people will bring about a change?
In 23 years, our infrastructural deficits still astound the observer. It has taken 23 years for governments of both major parties to reconstruct the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway, 100 kilometers. And these same parties are contesting to continue ruling us.
Are our educational system and healthcare delivery any better? In the last 23 years, our university students have been home for a cumulative period of 5 years because of ASUU strike. Which of these parties promise to put an end to this?
Is it infrastructural revolution, sustainable economic development, a more robust monetary policy, industrial revolution, agricultural transformation, and many other issues that have been agitating the minds of all of us?
Will they bring an end to poverty? Will they put the 15 million out of school children off the streets? Will they bring about a characterological transformation of the leadership and imbue them with vision and mission capable of bringing about a new Nigeria? Will they usher a more secure country, safe from marauders, insurgents, kidnappers, and so-called cross-border terrorists that have made our lives a living hell?
And most importantly, will they carry out a wholesale restructuring of our political system with a view to equalizing the inherent injustice, inequality, unfairness, and disatikulation inherent in the present structure? Will they usher in a new Nigeria where though tribes and tongues may differ, in brotherhood we will stand?
Because the future is gloomy, bleak and uncertain, despondency has giving rise to messianic expectations among the people. The result of this is the anticipation of miracles come 2023. People are waiting for the Mahdi or Messiah, the Redeemer, or the Savior.
The concept of Mahdism is an apocalyptic maxim that refers to a messianic figure in Islamic eschatology who is believed to appear at the end of times to rid the world of evil and injustice. Except that the Quran does not mention him: But is mentioned in other hadith literature. The doctrine seems to have gained traction during the confusion and unrest of the religious and political upheavals of the first and second centuries of Islam. There have been a vast number of Mahdi claimants throughout history.
The Mahdi is the symbol of an aspiration and the crystallization of an instructive inspiration through which people, regardless of their religious affiliations, have learned to await a day when a heavenly mission, with all its implications, will achieve their final goal and the tiring march of humanity across history will culminate satisfactorily in peace and tranquility. This is akin to the Jewish expectation of the Messiah or the Shi’ite anticipation of the Hidden Imam.
This consciousness of the expected future has not been confined to those who believe in the supernatural phenomena but has also been reflected in the ideologies and cults which totally deny the existence of what is imperceptible. For example, dialectical materialism which interprets history based on contradictions believes that a day will come when all contradictions disappear, and complete peace and tranquility will prevail. Thus, we find that this consciousness experienced throughout history is one of the widest and the commonest psychological experience of humanity.
Religion, when it endorses this common consciousness and stresses that in the long run this world will be filled with justice and equity after having been filled with injustice and oppression, gives it a factual value, and converts it into a definite belief in the future course of humanity.
This belief is not merely a source of consolation, but it is also a source of virtue and strength. It is a source of virtue because the belief in the Mahdi or the Messiah means the total elimination of injustice and oppression prevailing in the world. It is a source of inexhaustible strength because it provides hope which enables man to resist frustration, however, hopeless and dismal the circumstances may be.
The belief in the appointed day suggest that it is possible for the forces of justice to face the world filled with injustice and oppression, to prevail upon the forces of injustice and to reconstruct the world order. After all prevalence of injustice, however dominant and extensive it may become, is an abnormal state and must in the long run be eliminated. The prospect of its elimination after reaching its climax, infuses a great hope in every persecuted individual and every oppressed nation that it is still possible to change the situation.
The Messiah like the Mahdi is a savior and liberator figure in Jewish eschatology, who is believed to be the future redeemer of the Jewish people.
In a generalized sense, messiah has the connotation of a savior or redeemer who would appear at the end of days and usher in the kingdom of God.
Messianism became increasingly eschatological, which in turn was decisively influenced by apocalypticism, while messianic expectations became increasingly focused on the figure of an individual savior.
The idea that a human being–the Messiah–will help usher in the redemption of the Jewish people has roots in the Bible.
It is not narrated in either the Quran or the Sunnah precisely when the Mahdi or the Promised Messiah will emerge, but he will emerge at the end of time; a view supported by some Hadiths. There had been claimants to this messiahship in historical past.
Mirzā Ghulām Ahmad (1835 –1908) was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the ‘Promised Messiah’. Except that he was a pacifist and did not lead a revolt against British rule India.
Other claimants have included Muhammad Jaunpuri, the founder of the Mahdavia sect, Ali Muhammad Shirazi, the founder of Bábism; Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah (1844 – 1885) who led the Mahdist Revolt in the Sudan. In 1881, he claimed to be the Mahdi. He led a successful revolt against British military rule in Sudan and achieved a remarkable victory over the British, in the Siege of Khartoum. He created a vast Islamic state extending from the Red Sea to Central Africa and founded a movement that remained influential in Sudan a century later.
Belief in the Mahdi has tended to receive new emphasis in every time of crisis. Because the Mahdi is seen as a restorer of the political power and religious purity of Islam, the title has tended to be claimed by social revolutionaries in Islamic society.
Eschatological figures of a messianic character are known also in religions that are uninfluenced by Abrahamic traditions. Even as unmessianic a religion as Buddhism has produced a belief, among Mahāyāna groups, in the future Buddha Maitreya, who would descend from his heavenly abode and bring the faithful to paradise. In Zoroastrianism, with its thoroughly eschatological orientation, a posthumous son of Zoroaster is expected to affect the final rehabilitation of the world and the resurrection of the dead.
Although the concept of the Mahdi is more widespread than the Muslim community, they are in greater conformity with the feelings and sentiments of the oppressed and the persecuted of all times.
In conclusion, Mahdism and Messiahship are metaphors describing the Savior who for all purpose is already here, and we simply must look for the day when the circumstances are ripe for him to appear and begin his great mission. The Mahdi is no longer an idea. He is no longer a prophecy. We need not wait for his birth. He already exists, and we only wait for the inauguration of his role.
He is anxiously awaiting the moment when he will be able to extend his helping hand to everyone whom any wrong has been done and be able to eradicate injustice and oppression completely.
Unfortunately, the Obidients. Atikulates and proponents of turn-by-turn leadership, Emilokans, are not our expected Messiahs. Messianism is made of sterner stuff and these tainted people, many of whom are of ignoble and questionable pedigree are unworthy of being equated with the concept of savior.
We should lift our horizon and expectations to more lofty personages. How can those who have been our problems turn out to be the solution? As Banji Ogundele will say: No way!
Barka Juma’at and Happy weekend.
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