The Corona Virus (covid 19) held the entire planet in a chokehold during most part of 2020 and since the pandemic, the world has not been the same. Somebody once said since the virus was airborne, it probably messed up the atmosphere and those who inhaled it even though they weren't sick, were affected by. This might sound like just a huge speculation from a cautious mind but looking at things from that angle with the evidence right in our faces, it's kinda different to disagree with the truth in that message. The truth doesn't even matter anymore, what people really care about this days are social media popularity and how to go viral with huge likes or views on their accounts. A person on TikTok might not even be doing anything important on his/her page but as long as they can breathe life into people's fantasies, their words are given the same relevance as the Bible. Because of this people are always on the quest for the best thing without any regards for how they are acquired. Controversies control the internet space and if you just know to navigate them, the world will be your playground.
Nigeria has a very busy social media presence and thanks to that there is always something trending. In the morning, everybody might be talking about the forth coming election. Afternoon is a totally different story about an unfortunate event that transported earlier and by evening the goat debate about who the better footballer between Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi will be the hottest topic on the block. The crasiest is even what goes viral but how quickly it is forgotten when something new pops up. Something can happen in the most isolated part of the country and within a matter of minutes it is already up in people's face with memes attached to it even when it's not even meant to be funny.
Just this Saturday, there was a celebrity match between the social media sensation Speed Darlington and Carter Efe the streamer. The buildup for the fight dragged on for weeks and when it finally happened it all happened so fast I was completely disappointed. We all knew Speed was losing but we didn't expect to be soo bad and that quick. Every though that fight is still the talk on the streets till this very day, I feel like there is a way more viral issue at hand that is still shaking the social media space of Nigeria till this very period and that would be non other than the controversy between VDM and Nigerian Pastors..
A few days ago, a pastor by the name of Apostle Arome osayi made a statement while he was preaching that Nigeria was never meant for intellectual or technological achievements, rather the country had solely the primary objective fulfilling it's spiritual purpose of spreading the gospel to the world. He further added that the struggles of the country should not be seen as evidence that it is failing but as proof that we are need to answer our calling to revival the spirituality of other nations. A lot of Nigerian youths were pissed by this and VDM expressed his displeasures about it aggressively. What that pastor said felt like a huge insult to faces of Nigerian youths and to make matters worse, people soon found out that the pastor was applying for permanent residence in UK which went completely contrary to the message he was preaching... VDM criticized this message and also called out other pastors who supported him frauds for looking down on the little integrity that exists. The issue is a very sensitive one that does not seem like it will be ending anytime soon as different pastors keep getting bashed online if they even try to defend their brothers in the field. Very Dark Man has refused to let this matters go as he has gone deeper into using past actions from pastors to make skits and even people want to use the Bible approach to criticize this actions, thousands of Nigerians are ever ready to defend it going as far as even insulting them🤣🤣.
My personal take on this issue is that the message from the pastor was not a good one at all even though the response from VDM is quite extreme. Why would he tell a struggling country that their entire efforts don't matter because their destiny is to preach and never build anything that'll hold tangible results. There are a lot of people who sacrifice on a daily just to achieve their dreams and he just downsized it all as irrelevant because he feels it doesn't match their purpose. One thing I have learnt from this controversy is that opinions are not facts so don't force it down on people especially when you don't even believe in the message yourself. I don't really know where the pastor got this message from but I can not believe it is coming from God. Thank you. All images are AI generated
