Having been on the Mount for the past 90 days and 90 nights and being filled with the

spirit of vision, I hereby prophesy: As the year 2015 approaches, the tempo of political activities in the country will heighten in the coming months. Many political parties will witness crippling internal wrangling and civil wars leading to wave-making cross-carpeting, decamping and re-camping by politicians jostling for political goodies and positions at all levels. There will be series of imposition and deposition of aspirants by political god-fathers and eventual qualification and disqualification of candidates by INEC.

In the name of the One who sent me, I prophesy further that incumbent executives at all levels will unleash different kinds of red herring on the polity in desperate attempt to secure fresh mandate or install anointed candidates. Many top politicians will be away from home for months leaving their deprived wives at the mercy of their drivers, gate men and house boys. Demand for and supply of brooms, umbrellas, cocks and such items will rise to the peak and their merchants will smile, sing and dance to the bank.

Men of God with patriotic citizens need to pray hard to avert the calamitous incidence of political assassination. I further prophesy that many a Nigerian executive Doubting Thomas will sneer at my prophecy and others will even dismiss it as the ratings of an ant seeking cheap publicity. Some will summarily condemn it as an uncharitable challenge to the spiritual authority of true prophets of God. I also feel free to prophesy that intellectual egg-heads will blow grammar and describe my prophecy as clinically pedestrian as many are always going to come to pass anyway. There you are: a prophet is not without honour save in his own country! Did it not happen that one of Nigerias top prophets prophesied around 1979 that the years presidential election would be won by a candidate whose name was in the Bible? After Alhaji Shehu Shagari eventually won, the prophet was reported to have explained that Shagari was the Northern Nigerian synonym for Shamgar said to be a name in the Holy Book. Shamgar (Shagari), Benjamin (Nnamdi Azikiwe) and Jeremiah (Obafemi Awolowo) were all in the Bible. With these three great Nigerians being the leading candidates in the election, was there any practical way the prophecy was not going to come to pass?

Not a few of the amusing, sometimes soul-lifting or the more rampant frightening prophecies by our prophets have similarly come to pass over the years. The recent Associated Airline crash involving the corpse of late former governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Agagu and the burial entourage in Lagos was reported as having been predicted by some prophets. There were news reports with the revelation that the Dana air crash of Sunday, June 3, 2012 in which over 160 precious souls perished in the residential neighbourhood of Iju-Ishaga in Lagos was actually predicted by one or two prophets.

I personally recall reading newspaper reports of the prophecy of perhaps the most talked about prophet in the country at the moment concerning footballs European Champions League of 2012. The reports quoted him as predicting that English club, Chelsea, would win the glorious title if captain John Terry did not play in the final. Intriguingly, the England international found himself out of the final match against Bayern Munich on account of suspension, following what he himself described as inexplicable "madness" on his part. Chelsea, true to prediction, went on to win, not because they deserved to win (in fact, the club profited from a series of the most cruel injustice that could afflict the beautiful game), but so the prophecy, I pinched myself to believe, could come to pass.

Mind-blowing moments such as these attest to the intimidating credentials of top Nigerian prophets who are also claimed to have predicted a number of the high-profile political assassinations the nation has witnessed. Dele Giwa, Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola, Bola Ige, Marshal Harry, Funsho Williams, Igwe Barnabas, Obi Wali, Bagauda Kalto, Ogbonnaya Uche, Layi Balogun, Dipo Dina, Ayo Daramola, among others, have fallen to the assassins bombs and bullets within the past three decades. A number of the tragic incidents were reported to have been predicted, but none has been conclusively unraveled.

Not even the Kudirat Abiola case, for which the former CSO to the late Head of State Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, was incarcerated for close to 14 years, had. Upon his discharge recently by the court, reports had it that the release was prophesied. Even his father, the founder of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr. Frederick Fasheun, turned a prophet. He was quoted in a newspaper interview to have said that he had always known Al-Mustapha did not kill Kudirat even though, according to him, he never knew and had

never met the Major as at the time the crime was committed. The Oodua leader knew who did not kill the Oodua daughter but did not know, and perhaps was not interested in, who did!

As the year 2015 approaches, with the telltale signs already overwhelming the polity, this is the crux of the matter. Impunity, crime and evil have continued to thrive in the polity because perpetrators are never found, let alone tried and punished. This is the time for our top prophets to act the football analyst who flaunts the analytical prowess to preview a football match and finds it much easier to review it. If it is possible for the prophet to predict what has yet to happen, it should be easier for him to unravel what has already happened.

I have lost both parents of mine and as a prophet, I know who killed them. Death! They were assassinated by illness on the prompting of Death! Most common Nigerian prophets like me are aware those illustrious and martyred citizens earlier listed were killed by Death. But we plead with our prophets that are greater than us to help identify and locate the messengers. Who did Death sent to assassinate them? Guns and bombs? Yes! But who pulled the triggers and did the detonation? And who gave out the weapons of death and the instructions?

Published: Hallmark newspaper, Monday, October 28, 2013, Opinion page (full text) Daily Independent, Wednesday, October 30, 2013, Comments page (full text) The Guardian, Friday, Novenber 01, 2013, Opinion page (full text)