Excerpt XXXIII from Moral Goodness in Our Life-Time, By Pastor Ajayi James B. C.
The cost to innocent people of the nation as well as to the politicians themselves and to their collaborators is incalculable. Many people often got injured or even die over politics-related matters. Wars, whether civil or international, with disastrous consequences, often break out even now over sharing of power or territorial resources such as land, water, minerals, even airspace! Politics is a two-edged sword, which if not carefully handled has a way of cutting both the target and the hunter.
Bad politicians are often ostracized from society, many are mobbed in the public, the worst among them are sometimes killed by the people they have misruled, while the lucky ones are mobbed publicly and put to shame.
Some bad rulers who escape jungle justice are often cut down by the long arms of the law, while the rest are sent to their graves by retributive justice through accidents, illness, or mysterious death.
The pages of history are strewn with many examples of the above cases. In the record of the Holy Bible, leprosy was divinely inflicted on Miriam for daring to usurp the position and authority of her younger brother, Moses. Dathan, Korah, and Abiram in the same Biblical record were buried alive for trying to wrestle power from the chosen man of God.
Also, in the same Holy Book, it is recorded that Ahab and Jezebel, Jeroboam, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, Pharaoh, and many others had their lives terminated because of the evil ways they ruled their nations.
Outside of the Bible records, Socrates was executed in the year 399 B.C. by the Athenian rulers over his strange political views and related activities. Deadly political turbulence characterized the reigns of some kings and emperors for centuries.
The advancement of new political ideas and thinking that led to modern democratic governance has so far failed to ameliorate the internecine nature of politics. If anything, the modus operandi for the elimination of political opponents around the world has only become more daring, more gruesome, and more subtle than before. In the last century, Abraham Lincoln was gunned down by an assassin while watching a play in an amphitheater in downtown Washington DC, for daring to have a soft spot for the oppressed black people of America.
In contemporary history, similar cases of assassination have taken place also on American soil, including those of President John F. Kennedy and his younger brother Robert as well as the icon of the civil rights movement in the U.S, Reverend Martin Luther King Junior. Of course, cases of political assassination are not limited to America alone. Israeli Ishak Rabin was killed in Israel, while his Italian counterpart Aldo Moro was also assassinated. In Africa, just to name a few, Patrice Lumuba, Muritala Mohammed, Tarawa Balewa, Aguiyi Ironsi, and Adekunle Faju…. (TO BE CONTINUED IN EXCERPT XXXIV)
Legendary Quotes:
“Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.” — George Burns
“Some folks get elected because they are well known, others are defeated for the same reason.” — Farmers’ Almanac
