Real Reasons Rulers Resist Replacement

Copyright © 2011 by Emmanuel Oghenebrorhie.

ISBN: Softcover    978-1-4628-6642-7

ISBN: Ebook         978-1-4628-6643-4

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Unless otherwise indicated, scriptures are from the Good News Bible (GNB) also known as Today’s English Version (TEV), New King James Version (NKJV), New Century Version (NCV) (THE MESSAGE), The New English Translation Bible (The NET Bible), The Living Bible (TLB), Amplified Bible (AMP), Contemporary English Version (CEV), New International Version (NIV), New Living Translation (NLT), English Standard Version (ESV), GOD’S WORD (GWB), Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), New American Standard Updated (NASU), New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), Revised Standard Version (RSV), New American Standard (NAS), Easy-to-Read Version

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter One    Heart-hidden Hurt

Chapter Two    Disguised Demotion

Chapter Three    Unparallel Benefits

Chapter Four    Populace Perception

Chapter Five    God’s Role

Chapter Six    Their Mindset

Chapter Seven    Societal Stratification

Chapter Eight    God’s Other Reason

Chapter Nine    Successor’s Sickening Utterances and Insinuations

Chapter Ten    Generational Contention

Chapter Eleven    Loquacious Lieutenants

Chapter Twelve    Human Forward Ever, Backward Never Consciousness

Chapter Thirteen    Exit Options

Other Published Titles by the Author

Dedication

Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

The Queen of England, Royal head of the United Kingdom and Head of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Appreciation

All glory to God that this is available for others to read. Lord, a thousand tongues is not enough for me to express my gratitude for this unique opportunity to be a blessing to my generation and future generations. Surely, everything in this call and commission is your doing and it is marvellous in my eyes.

God bless Pastor Olufisayo Awe for his computer service support. I bothered Cletus Okuguni on this job considerably and he obliged me. Rev Biodun Adesina contributed his quota. It is highly appreciated. May God swell your heavenly account richly, in Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.

Introduction

We live in an era of the customer is always right and in like manner, the citizens are always right while their ruler is always wrong, just as the pew is always right and therefore, the pulpit is always wrong. Sooner than later, man would always be right and God would always be wrong on earth. Someone asked me, "how do you know if we have not began to act as if God is ever wrong and man is always right on earth already? I replied that I cannot dissect the heart of man which God in His infinite wisdom says is desperately wicked and no man can know it. These days, there are societies where the strong is always wrong and the weak is always right, the thief is always right and the owner of the stolen property is always wrong. The defender is always right and the accuser is always wrong. Now, everything right is wrong and vice versa. Mankind is coming from where he has always known and loved and going to where he has never known but getting more evil by the day. These days, the ruler is the lord and winner and right over and above the servant and slave. The sane is the victim and insane the victor like in the days of Gideon’s sons when his only sickening son named Abimelech slaughtered his saner sons and became ruler of their nation for three years without anyone in their nation considering his action too repugnant to allow it to stand in their generation. Under the guise of fundamental human rights, the evildoers have more rights than their victims. We have allowed the world to degenerate into the sorry state of the unfortunate saint and fortunate sinner, the cursed saint and blessed sinner.

Also, I had to resist the temptation to tag this as These Sickening Subjects, Curious Citizens or Contentious Character Citizens. There are uncountable instances when citizens are unkind and inconsiderate in their thoughts and talk about their rulers and leaders. They think that rulers are the cause of 99.9% of their problems. If I had tagged this as Precarious Populace against Pitiable Rulers some would think that I had been paid by the rulers even when it is because such persons do not know my kind of person. This is not done because any of my late father’s best friends while we both lived, ruled over a nation in his lifetime. His closest link to rulership was that he belonged to his hometown’s ruling family. I have not contradicted myself at all. He abhorred such things because he became a Christian as a young man. Also, he abhorred the way his father had spent his life to serve the community at the expense of his biological children. It made my old man to balance his dealings with his children and helping others. He and his siblings had abhorred their father for never putting the slightest difference between other people’s children and his own children borne to him by his twelve wives. Most of his children, including my Daddy adjudged it to be at their expense. I remember he told me once that he was so aggrieved that he never attended his burial. He alienated himself from them so much that I never knew of his link with royalty until I was already above twenty years and a new king was to be installed and one of the contestants came to seek his support. I asked what was his business in it and he said they have a voice in it but he abhorred it from childhood. He reluctantly lent support to the man who approached him and who was made king. Only once we went to his hometown he stopped to greet the king. The other time I had a feel of the person of his father was when we visited a high chief in company of a relative who was a chief but younger to Daddy. My uncle introduced Daddy as the son of so and so, and the oldest man and woman present in the high chief’s judgment hall-like reception got up went away and returned shortly afterwards to give Daddy another special traditional welcome entertainment. They said my grandfather was their father and played the role of a father to them while they grew up. Much as Daddy did not reject their special appreciation presents and symbolism so that he would not be considered discourteous, it stirred up the very reason he abhorred the lifestyle his old man lived at their expense. When we were alone, I remarked that his father must have been a good man in the community and he retorted, That is your business". The man never gave him the attention his peers got from their own fathers and he did not readily forget it. He never allowed any of his children to have a sense of royalty. He was filled with the wisdom of a leader and peace maker but Daddy never fancied anything royal. He told me that in protest, he left home to work like anyone else to succeed outside his background. And it was as a result that he felt he was too busy working for his own survival to care about the burial of their father. Let us not worry to consider that he embraced Christianity in order to escape from the traditional practices associated with royalty at the time. Then, one fact we can rationally deduce is that as long as royalty did not benefit my old man above his peers, he took offence and made an irrevocable decision never to have anything personal to do with it. Proverbs 23:22 says—

22  Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old. (NIV)

22  Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not forget your mother when she is old. (NCV)

22  Listen to your father. Without him, you would never have been born. Respect your mother, even when she is old. (Easy-to-Read Version).

22  Listen to your father; without him you would not exist. When your mother is old, show her your appreciation. (TEV)

The fact that his father without whom he would not have been born was involved with it full-time did not make any meaning to him as long as it never profited him personally. If the entitled man had serious reasons to abandon it, then, the untitled man would say that he could seek it. And that is very instructive. If it profits, become possessively protective of it, but if not, abhor it like a plague as long as you live. And that is the problem, as long as rulership in any form is highly, or we should say overwhelmingly profitable, it would be more easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for man to stop his fellow man who has the chance to be a ruler to give up such rulership position voluntarily because of any reason. Therefore, the effort here is to x-ray the mindset of rulers, in order to help their critics to understand why rulers behave the way they do. This should provide a basis for wise hearts to begin to consider what can be done to solve the problem of rulers resisting replacement despite their obvious misrule. This would be done in a separate discourse but it could set the minds of individuals to brainstorm on what they could do to resolve the dichotomy between rulers’ opposition to replacement and citizens’ insistence on their replacement.

Chapter One

Heart-hidden Hurt

I had the privilege to discuss with the bishop of a particular denomination in the city I live during a time when the sitting president was accused of wanting to elongate his rule unconstitutionally. And because it was awash in the national press, it was a common discourse among citizens. This fateful day, we met at the home of an old woman who used to be a member of the church I had the privilege to pastor. When she introduced us to each other, we were comfortable discussing freely since we did the same kind of job as ministers of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. He brought up the subject of the acclaimed desire of the presiding ruler to elongate his reign. I abhor political debates because of my experience with them in the 1983 general elections in the nation. I had a secondary school mate who was given the political slot of his late father; such that though we just left secondary school, because his father had indicated him as his heir, though not his eldest son, he was appointed the secretary to the ruling party in our local government of origin at the time. Now, because I had my measure of clout in secondary school, most of my mates had a lot of respect for me. But, during the 1983 elections, he would tell me what the result of the elections would be some days before the election days into the various positions to be filled. Curiously, whatever he told me would happen by the time the election results were declared. It was my first experience of how this whole life is stage-managed. And I swore to myself that I would never participate in elections or have anything to do with politicians because it gave me the impression that they were the most horrible souls on earth at any point in time and in any clime. Please do not ask me if my opinion has changed over time. That is a subject for another discourse. So when this bishop began to talk about the popular claim that the sitting ruler did not want to relinquish power, I knew what to say but did not want to be dragged into useless political discussion by any means. Our host wanted me to say something and she asked what my take was? When I asked her what she wanted me to contribute, she knew I was only being hesitant but had something burning in my heart. So she insisted, and I said, the bishop should please forgive my opinion because I cannot join him to castigate the ruler if the accuser’s claim was true. This bishop was shocked, but our host said that he should let me explain myself. I told him that before we go to the Bible to consider this matter, let us be realistic with ourselves as human beings. This man had all the attention in the last nearly eight years, now you want him to give up all that money, influence and glamour just because a constitution says he cannot rule more than eight years. Now that he had the power with him, he would try, in case it would be possible for him to extend this glamour for some more time or even for the rest of his lifetime. Why do we all work hard, why do the rich continue to work hard, why do people work hard after getting promotion to a certain level in their career habitat, it is because they want to retain their new status or even advance it further. It is only a fool that would sit and fold his hands when he sees displacement starring him in the face. Jesus prayed against death on the cross and if God the Father had approved, He would have preferred to avoid it. Now, when Luke 24:26 and Hebrews 12:2 say—

26  Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?

2  looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (NKJV)

26  Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and then to enter his glory?"

2  Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God’s throne. (TEV)

We can say from the above that it was because a better glory was ahead, hence Jesus accepted to lose the immediate glory that He enjoyed while He performed miracles. Isaiah 53 says that if a man loses something without getting a better compensation, it would make such a person to feel that he had laboured in vain. And in order for Jesus not to feel as such, God the Father ensured that He was adequately compensated after His time of suffering. About the glamour and glory He enjoyed during this time, John 11:45-48 and 12:17-19 say—

45  Many of the people who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus did, and they believed in him. 46 But some of them returned to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the Pharisees and the chief priests met with the Council and said, What shall we do? Look at all the miracles this man is performing! 48 If we let him go on in this way, everyone will believe in him, and the Roman authorities will take action and destroy our Temple and our nation!

17  The people who had been with Jesus when he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from death had reported what had happened. 18 That was why the crowd met him—because they heard that he had performed this miracle. 19 The Pharisees then said to one another, You see, we are not succeeding at all! Look, the whole world is following him! (TEV)

Even the religious rulers cherished the glamour and abhorred Jesus who stole it from them. Therefore, when Luke 22:39-42 and the synoptic gospels recount that Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray to avert the shameful death by way of the cross if God the Father approved, He knew what He was doing. Whoever is wearing the human earthen coat abhors losing out of the position of glamour without a fight. God understands this nature of man, so when He elevates a man, He would ensure that as long as that individual lives, He would let him enjoy such a position. Even when He had reason to punish Kings Manasseh of Judah and Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, He later restored them to the throne. II Chronicles 26 says that when He was compelled to punish King Uzziah, He ensured that it was Uzziah’s son who governed Judah in Jerusalem on his behalf for the remaining twelve years of his life. Only in extreme cases would God allow a man to lose his greatness and still remain alive. Even some of the kings whom He punished, He made them to be carried away captive rather than let them suffer in the same land where they had been rulers. This makes God to be more human than many of us humans who want a ruler to abdicate their throne and suffer in the same land where they had presided. As evil as most bible students know King Ahab of Israel to have been, when God would punish him, it was after his death, because of what I consider as the cheap remorse that he showed when he heard God’s planned judgment. God allowed King Jehoiachin of Judah to be taken away. II Kings 25:27-30 says—

27 In the year that Evilmerodach became king of Babylonia, he showed kindness to King Jehoiachin of Judah by releasing him from prison. This happened on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin had been taken away as prisoner. 28 Evilmerodach treated him kindly and gave him a position of greater honor than he gave the other kings who were exiles with him in Babylonia. 29 So Jehoiachin was permitted to change from his prison clothes and to dine at the king’s table for the rest of his life. 30 Each day, for as long as he lived, he was given a regular allowance for his needs. (TEV)

So I told the Bishop that the man you all think is not right to seek to elongate his reign is only being human. If you were in his position you would do likewise. If you do not, then, something is wrong with your survival instincts. Here is a man you all know to have occupied this position earlier and returned to it after 20 years. He knew what he went through during those 20 years. He can still remember that many who dared not speak to him rudely while he was there earlier insulted him during those 20 years. Now he got that same thing back and you want him to relinquish it readily because some of you are shouting blue murder. Much as I do not support him doing anything unconstitutional, I very much understand his predicament and therefore can never vilify him like many of you are doing. At a point, I saw that this bishop kept silent and listened to me assiduously. When he responded, I was shocked. He told me how he built a bigger and modern cathedral with a comfortable bishop’s court in his former duty post. Less than a year after, their church in the city I lived, had a crisis and he was sent by way of transfer to come and solve the problem. The implication for him was that he had to leave the place he prayed, fasted and laboured to build for another man to take over and enjoy what we can call the fruit of his labour in the work of ministry.

Someone might say that is how it is with every employment. Whatever you had done, when you are transferred you give it up and square up with the new place. It is near what the Midianites did to the Israelites before God used Gideon to free them. This is particularly true for those persons who are hard working and like to improve wherever they find themselves to work. The Midianites would wait for the Israelites to work hard and when it is time for reaping and benefiting from the fruit of their labour, they would come to defraud the Israelites. This was what Laban did to Jacob, the more profit Jacob made, the more Laban reduced his wages. It is not different from using a man like a bulldozer which is used to remove all the trees and shrubs and when it had made way for the forest to be turned into a city, the same people that used the bulldozer would say that the bulldozer is not befitting to be in the heart of the city and so it is kept in the obscure part of the same city which it was used to create its foundation.

All Bible students know that in this respect, Isaiah 65:17-25 says—

17 The LORD says, I am making a new earth and new heavens. The events of the past will be completely forgotten. 18 Be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. The new Jerusalem I make will be full of joy, and her people will be happy. 19 I myself will be filled with joy because of Jerusalem and her people. There will be no weeping there, no calling for help. 20 Babies will no longer die in infancy, and all people will live out their life span. Those who live to be a hundred will be considered young. To die before that would be a sign that I had punished them. 21 People will build houses and get to live in them—they will not be used by someone else. They will plant vineyards and enjoy the wine—it will not be drunk by others. Like trees, my people will live long lives. They will fully enjoy the things that they have worked for. 23 The work they do will be successful, and their children will not meet with disaster. I will bless them and their descendants for all time to come. 24 Even before they finish praying to me, I will answer their prayers. 25 Wolves and lambs will eat together; lions will eat straw, as cattle do, and snakes will no longer be dangerous. On Zion, my sacred hill, there will be nothing harmful or evil. (TEV)

This means that God adjudges it as punishment if anyone labours for others to reap. And you cannot be happy when you are punished unjustly. Whenever personnel management department officials transfer employees for the benefit of the organization, they do not think of how the employees would feel about the implications of such transfers. The man had transformed the branch from a perpetual loss incurring to a profit making branch, and that is when the management wants such a branch manager to go and repeat the same feat in another ailing branch. You are only saying that such acclaimed miracle working official should not stay in a flourishing branch he had built to enjoy the fruit of his labour. A time must come when he would not have to be fretting on what to do to build the branch but just wait and reap the reward of his earlier years of hard work. The official involved is never consulted about his next transfer because management is only interested in what he could do for the organization more than his personal desire to reap where he sowed. Expectedly, someone would say that he was employed to contribute to the organization, and I would say just as God expect us to contribute to the earth He sent us to live in, yet, God would ensure that He allows man to enjoy in the same location he had laboured for the benefit of the earth. The story of the book of Judges lends credence to this fact. Whenever God had used a man to free the Israelites from their oppressors, God ensured that such an individual remained the ruler of Israel for the rest of his lifetime. It is one of the most ungodly things to do, for a man to have laboured and he is denied the chance to enjoy the fruit of his labour under any guise. It is part of what I call The Evils that Men do under the sun in the name of God. Before the rulership dispensation of the Judges, God had been practicing the principle of rewarding man for his services. Genesis 3:17-19, 5:28-31, 8:20-22 and 9:20-21 and 28-29 say—

17  And he said to the man, You listened to your wife and ate the fruit which I told you not to eat. Because of what you have done, the ground will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it produce enough food for you. 18 It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will have to eat wild plants. 19 You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You were made from soil, and you will become soil again.

28  When Lamech was 182, he had a son 29 and said, From the very ground on which the LORD put a curse, this child will bring us relief from all our hard work; so he named him Noah. 30 Lamech lived another 595 years. He had other children 31 and died at the age of 777.

20  Noah built an altar to the LORD; he took one of each kind of ritually clean animal and bird, and burned them whole as a sacrifice on the altar. 21 The odor of the sacrifice pleased the LORD, and he said to himself, Never again will I put the earth under a curse because of what man does; I know that from the time he is young his thoughts are evil. Never again will I destroy all living beings, as I have done this time. 22 As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.

20  Noah, who was a farmer, was the first man to plant a vineyard. 21 After he drank some of the wine, he became drunk, took off his clothes, and lay naked in his tent. 28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years 29 and died at the age of 950. (TEV)

This means that after God used Noah to accomplish the divine purpose for which He sent him to live on earth, at the age of 601 years, God allowed him to enjoy for another 349 years before he died. Therefore, it is ungodly—it is against God’s pattern to think that because someone is a goal-getter, you use him to achieve, transform, turn a forest into a city and you transfer him to another forest like location in the organization and bring someone you prefer for some other reasons to the place he had transformed. This is the evil in it. We know that individuals have their God-ordained good years and season. Everything answers to the individual during such a season. The principle God taught through Joseph in Genesis 41 is that whatever a man gathers during the surplus or pleasant season should be saved to sustain him when the inevitable unfavourable season would come, which is usually when the man is older and no longer strong enough to work hard. If you keep transferring the man to a bad place, if his good years end in a bad place where he just arrived and is not able to transform that place as usual, he would end stuck in the rut in a place not as flourishing as the places he had transformed in the years when he was at the peak of his relevance in life. The old man who instructed his transfer understands this fact and used the instrument of transfer to exploit hardworking employees who care more about work rather than hero-worshipping them.

When desperate, we use a formidable individual to oust an unwanted regime and afterwards we say that the individual must quit. And it is not fair, if you used the man to oust someone, such an individual has the God given right to enjoy the benefits of his usefulness to the generality of the people. Even if this postulation is not applicable in all cases, the tortuous or bitter truth which many hypocrites would abhor is that this is what the person used to oust his predecessor thinks and just as he has the right to think that way, we know that his detractors also have their God-given right to think exactly the opposite. That is the original freedom God gave all humans. We have the absolute right to view things the way we like, but whether having our say followed up with having our way is equally cheap, is another matter altogether. The freedom to think and talk or express our thoughts is different from the ability to enforce such opinions.

If God used a man for the benefit of people, He would let that man share in the benefit for the rest of his lifetime. This bishop told me that when he thought that for once, he would begin to operate from a befitting cathedral, office and living home, he was transferred because he was the best person to solve the problem. That is how they had been posting him to any of their churches that had challenges. He went further to say, just like I postulated, that the church members that were at his beck and call while he was in that branch no longer pick his calls. Those who do, would promise to call because they were busy at the time he called but would never call back. When he asked some of them later, they would say that they forgot. He was sharing with me for two reasons, I had described a scenario which painted the picture of his experience and heart-hidden thoughts at the time. Secondly, he understood that we were both working for God and could share common experiences. By the time I finished, he agreed that the ruler in question has reasons, though personal, to seek an elongation of his term. I asked him, if he had his way, would he have obeyed the transfer to the new duty post? He has not answered me till date. And this is more than six years after.

There are many things happening to the ruler that we do not understand because we had never been in their position. All things being equal, every sane human who gets to a powerful position has this heart-hidden joy and happiness, like Joseph expressed to his siblings that they should return to Canaan to tell their father that by God’s help through Pharaoh, he had become the most powerful official in the land of Egypt. Genesis 45:1-13 says—

1 Joseph was no longer able to control his feelings in front of his servants, so he ordered them all to leave the room. No one else was with him when Joseph told his brothers who he was. 2 He cried with such loud sobs that the Egyptians heard it, and the news was taken to the king’s palace. 3 Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? But when his brothers heard this, they were so terrified that they could not answer. 4 Then Joseph said to them, Please come closer. They did, and he said, I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 Now do not be upset or blame yourselves because you sold me here. It was really God who sent me ahead of you to save people’s lives. 6 This is only the second year of famine in the land; there will be five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor reaping. 7 God sent me ahead of you to rescue you in this amazing way and to make sure that you and your descendants survive. 8 So it was not really you who sent me here, but God. He has made me the king’s highest official. I am in charge of his whole country; I am the ruler of all Egypt. 9 Now hurry back to my father and tell him that this is what his son Joseph says: ‘God has made me ruler of all Egypt; come to me without delay. 10 You can live in the region of Goshen, where you can be near me—you, your children, your grandchildren, your sheep, your goats, your cattle, and everything else that you have. 11 If you are in Goshen, I can take care of you. There will still be five years of famine; and I do not want you, your family, and your livestock to starve.’ 12 Joseph continued, Now all of you, and you too, Benjamin, can see that I am really Joseph. 13 Tell my father how powerful I am here in Egypt and tell him about everything that you have seen. Then hurry and bring him here." (TEV)

We know that Genesis 37 and 39 confirm that he was persecuted unjustly, as a result of which he became a slave and prisoner earlier in Egypt. Now in the same Egypt, he became the first and only Prime Minister. He was just overwhelmed. He knew what it’s like to be a subject and a ruler and the most powerful official in the nation. God allowed his thoughts about his appointment to be noted so that we would know how powerful persons value their prominent powerful and influential positions. I believe that it was the reason Joseph did what we used to call YTK meaning You Too Know, Over-syllabus way back in secondary school. Genesis 41 and 47:13-26 confirm that though it was never part of his mandate to exploit the vulnerability of the populace during the famine season, to enslave the subjects to his boss Pharaoh, whom he believed was God’s messenger of fortune to him in his lifetime. Every time I hear people say that a ruler is hero-worshipping whoever he believed helped him to attain greatness, it provokes this loquacious hilarious laugh. They call it god-fatherism in partisan politics. Why do you want the ruler or governor to disregard the god-father to please you who could never have elevated him to such pleasure-surrounded or do we say infested status position? In their heart, the rulers have concluded that thousands and even millions of you can jump into the lagoon as long as that one man is alive to sustain them on the throne and, do it again for them in the next election or time of renewing his rulership mandate.

Chapter Two

Disguised Demotion

This is what I mean with what can be called The More Important Individual that is tagged godfather in the power-play game of political office seeking and occupation. II Samuel 2 and 3:1 and 6-19, 5:1-5 and I Chronicles 11:1-3 and 12 simply mean that much as the majority of the Israelites desired that David rule over them immediately King Saul died, as long as Saul’s cousin and army commander Abner did not agree, David could not become the ruler of more than his tribe of Judah from Hebron their tribal headquarters, during the seven and half years immediately following Saul’s death. And it was only when Abner decided to support David that it became possible. It was like Abner single-handedly delayed God’s will and the people’s wishes for those seven and half years. And David understood this powerful and influential clout of Abner over the political landscape of their nation. He knew that what he could not achieve through battle, Abner made possible in less than a day or in just a few days. And for all Bible scholars who know this story, this is one of the reasons David preferred/regarded and respected Abner who withstood his emergence as ruler of the eleven tribes for those seven and half years to Joab who had supported him throughout those years. David knew that he made Joab relevant in their nation, just like King Saul made Abner relevant. Let us remember that David was born when Saul had ruled for 10 years. Therefore, David grew up knowing that Abner was the army commander of their nation while Saul was king. There is no way he could have rated and respected Joab as much as Abner who had the clout which Joab lacked. Do you think that it would have been, in fact, foolish for David to equate Joab with Abner? Share your thoughts with any of your interested neighbour. There are diverse supporters and sympathizers in life and over every issue of our life at any point in time; there are powerful supporters/sympathizers as well as powerless/sympathizers supporters, and it would be suicidal to regard and respect your powerful supporters equally as your powerless supporters. If your powerful and more profitable supporters find out that under the guise of human equality you do not differentiate between them and your powerless supporters, they would simply shift their support to another person to teach you the profitable lesson of the politics of dealing with VIPs and non-VIPs in the game of personal survival in life. David was not interested in fighting Abner but getting Abner to support his candidature as ruler of their entire nation. If seven and half years of battling could not deliver the control of the eleven tribes to him and one individual did within three days, then, such a man is more important than the many supporters who had fought that seven and half years battle on his side. Samuel made and unmade Saul as king of their nation and the other millions of Israelites could not stop Samuel’s rewarding turned regrettable role in this matter. They did not even know when and how he did, not even when they realized the effect. Prophet Ahijah made and unmade Jeroboam king and the millions of Israelites could not stop Ahijah. They did not even know when he determined Jeroboam’s fate. When Solomon recognized the rewarding role which Prophet Nathan played in his emergence as successor to his father, he appointed two of his sons to high positions in his palace. When David would be made king of Judah at Hebron, it was the acknowledged leaders of Judah who did and the commoners who were obviously more in number had no choice than to accept him. Even in the acclaimed one-man one-vote societies, most voters are swayed to vote for those that respectable leaders in their locality endorse. The media takes centre stage in those settings because it is the person they project and beam positive impression about that the electorates are persuaded to cast their votes for. The press has the ability to make and unmake office holders by projecting either their positive or their negative impacts and lifestyle. In that sense, the media practitioners have this heart-hidden belief that they are more important than the electorates. Some use it to threaten VIPs and public office holders and seekers. But let’s leave that aspect alone. This is the real reason rulers literarily worship whoever provided them the human permutations (and or manipulations?) that made it possible for them to become the ruler, about which some shout blue murder at roof-tops that a ruler has a godfather whom he is appeasing unreasonably. Media merchants use their privileged position over the minds of the citizens to shout blue murder about the activities of the ruler(s) that they were not part of the media manipulations which brought such an individual to power. Please do not think of these postulations as my personal opinion but understand the workings of the mind of rulers and those seeking to replace them desperately.

Let us not dabble extensively into the fact that some work assiduously to attain the level of godfatherism because of the accruing benefits. Let me not say that Abner and his likes used what they had garnered over the forty years of Saul’s reign to make himself relevant during those seven and half years. Some would say it is not right, but given the chance, they would do worse. I asked someone who was claiming that my postulations are shocking to him, Why do family heads cleave to that position as long as they live? That was what I knew he would readily understand because it is practised in his part of the world. I asked him, if he becomes the chief power broker of his family for whatever reason, would he like to be ousted before he dies, he has not answered me because I know that such things are valued highly in his part of the world. Then, I said that he should apply that understanding to the workings of the mind of the occupant of the position of the ruler of his nation or region. In fact, I know persons who are spending on the needs of relatives and prefer to continue to spend to keep the status of the head of the extended family than to relinquish it because they value the respect and honour bestow on them within their family’s circles.

At the time that Joseph ruled as Prime Minister, Egypt was the most powerful nation on earth. Though he was humble and conducted himself wisely, what is not in doubt from his remarks to his siblings was that he was most grateful to God, and his boss whom God prompted to make life smile at him by the creation of the office of Prime Minister and appointing him to it. If he was most happy to be that powerful, it meant that any attempt to make him lose that position would be resisted or he would consider whoever was behind such effort to unseat him, his worst enemy. I was opportune to listen to the radio interview of a man who had been the head of a government owned tertiary institution. He had just relinquished the position when his life was gravely endangered. I remember that when he would quit that position, he left his hospital bed to hand over and returned to the hospital bed. His tenure had been most turbulent and the climax of that turbulence was the car crash that nearly cost him his life. The journalist asked him why he cleaved to that position for as long as he did even when his reign was so turbulent from the very first year. He paused before responding to that question. He said from his experience in that position, opportunities you never imagined could ever be available to you in your lifetime, would be provided without asking. In fact, in most cases, those offering them would plead with you to accept the offer that would benefit you. Any sensible individual can add the lucid interpretation. Therefore, much as he went there to serve, there are personal benefits that made the position to be too alluring to give up just because someone or some persons are threatening your life. If it was only for the sake of service, if the opposition is consistent, you would give it up because it is the people who would miss your services. But beyond the benefit to the people, there are personal benefits that are irresistible to the human heart and nature. In those days in the office, we would joke that it is alien to the human nature to reject such offers. It is like when II Samuel 5:1-16 and I Chronicles 11:1-9 and 14:1-7 say that finally, David became king of the entire twelve tribes of Israel according to God’s will and purpose indicated by Samuel’s anointing of David at Bethlehem. And that the first assignment he embarked upon was the claiming of Jerusalem from the original Jebusite inhabitants. And that after moving to Jerusalem as national capital, as if to celebrate or commemorate the fulfillment of God’s purpose that he becomes king of their nation after Saul, he got more wives and had more children. Maybe Solomon married many wives to celebrate his elevation by God to the status of the wisest and richest man on earth. It is alien or unnatural for man not to find some ways, even if silly and indulging to cleave to pleasure-plated positions and environment. The force pulling majority to greener pastures in any generation is the same force pulling persons to pleasure-plated and personal profiting positions of rulership through the generations.

This reminds that, actually, Genesis 49:14-15 says—

14  "Issachar is a strong donkey, lying down between two burdens; 15 he saw that rest was good, and that the land was pleasant; he bowed his shoulder to bear a burden, and became a band of slaves. (NKJV)

14  "Issachar is a rawboned donkey lying down between two saddlebags. 15 When he sees how good is his resting place and how pleasant is his land, he will bend his shoulder to the burden and submit to forced labor. (NIV)

14  "Issachar is a sturdy donkey, resting between two saddlepacks. 15 When he sees how good the countryside is and how pleasant the land, he will bend his shoulder to the load and submit himself to hard labor. (NLT)

14  "Issachar is a strong donkey, crouching between the sheepfolds. 15 He saw that a resting place was good, and that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant at forced labor. (ESV)

14  Issachar is one tough donkey crouching between the corrals; 15 When he saw how good the place was, how pleasant the country, he gave up his freedom and went to work as a slave. (THE MESSAGE)

14  "Issachar is like a strong donkey who lies down while carrying his load. 15 When he sees his resting place is good and how pleasant his land is, he will put his back to the load and become a slave. (NCV)

14  Issachar is a strong-boned donkey lying down between two saddlebags. 15 When he sees a good resting place, and the pleasant land, he will bend his shoulder to the burden and become a slave laborer. (The NET Bible)

14  "Issachar is a strong donkey, lying down between the saddlebags. 15 When he sees that his resting place is good and that the land is pleasant, he will bend his back to the burden and will become a slave laborer. (GOD’S WORD)

14  "Issachar is a strong beast of burden resting among the saddlebags. 15 When he saw how good the countryside was, how pleasant the land, he willingly bent his shoulder to