CHAPER ONE
They thought there'd been a power failure.
That night, a thousand of them - young and old, excited black faces and a sprinkling of white were crowded into the south London arena as Nigerian Reverend Samuel Smith danced, waved and whipped them into joining the Brixton Girls’ Choir singing along to thumping Afro-beat tracks from Fela Kuti's 'The Black President'.
This good, light-hearted, community spirit had reached its climax when the music stopped, the lights went out and an expectant silence fell. Perhaps they knew, perhaps they didn't, but this was pure theatre, planned and choreographed to last just ten seconds because, as the lights came on again, there, standing centre stage, bathed in a single spotlight was the man they'd come to see and hear: Pastor Gabriel Joshua in his black suit, bow tie, crisp white shirt and his short black hair shining with gel.
Backstage, Gabriel had been waiting for this moment - timing it, feeling it, moving with it, tossing the microphone and catching it. At times like that Gabriel became his childhood hero, Mohamed Ali, preparing for battle. With the passion and energy building, he was skipping, punching the air, dancing like a butterfly and ready to sting like a bee with words and catch phrases gifted to him from somewhere as if by magic.
So, when the spotlight came on, he was standing there, looking up, right hand raised in a fist, the voice loud, clear, baritone with its hint of a Lagos accent. "You heard it before. Long time ago............"
He waited just a few seconds for the cheering. the female screams and the shouting to die down and then, in a quieter voice, "You’ve heard it said...... thou shall not kill."
He paused again. "And yet," he said slowly, lowering his head and whispering into the microphone, "What have we just witnessed? In my home country. Schoolchildren. Girls aged six. Innocent young lives, murdered. In cold blood. But why? In who's name? In the name of someone's God? But what God approves of such slaughter? What sort of God is that?"
Then, quietly, still whispering into the microphone. "Or....or is this not religion?" Now he was shaking his finger, instilling doubt, looking for something, someone, out there in the darkness. "If this is not religion, what is it? Is this something else? Something to stir a response? To start a reaction? To shock a nation?"
Then in the louder voice: "If there is but one supreme God, one who sees all, reigns supreme, watches over all of us irrespective of who we are or where we come from, would that God approve of the slaughter of poor, innocent children?"
Gabriel, microphone in one hand, placed the other hand to his forehead, closed his eyes and looked up. as if receiving guidance on what next to say. Then he put his forefinger to his lips to hush the audience that was stirring.
"It was an atrocity," he said quietly pointing his finger. “It always starts with one. And we forgive. But then there are two atrocities. But we are patient. We toil with forgiveness. And then there are three atrocities. Them we become angry. And then there are..........
The audience joined in. “Four”
Gabriel closed his eyes and raised his hand. "It’s too much." He stopped, hushing his audience into silence again but his own voice became stronger, louder. "Because the atrocities become bigger atrocities. And there are abductions. And the atrocities and the abductions move to more villages and become mass atrocities. And the atrocities become massacres. And the massacres move to our hospitals and to our schools. Ordinary, innocent people. Poor people, old people, young people, sick people. Surely, surely that is wrong in the name of everyone's God "
He paused; his eyes still closed. "So, why?" Softer, quieter now. "Do we understand what motivates such evil?”
His eyes opened, scanning the faces before him.
"No," murmured some in the audience shaking their heads.
"Do our leaders understand? Do they understand the causes, the motivations, the reasons that lead to such atrocities?"
"No."
"So, what do they do?" A pause. Wide eyes, waving and pointing his finger.
"My friends, I'll tell you what they do. They sit and they watch, and they shake their heads, and they denounce and they say 'this must stop'. And then, what do they do? They do nothing. As the divide between rich and poor grows wider, they do nothing because they are the rich. They can afford their protection. They are the elite. So, they continue to sit and to wring their hands pretending to care while millions of the poor struggle to find food and water and even the space to live. But we can no longer wait. No longer can we sit and watch."
Gabriel was walking slowly now, facing the audience. the spotlight following him around the stage. "And we especially cannot sit and watch in horror as those who do not understand the meaning of peace and tolerance allow others to come to our homes, our villages, our schools and our places of worship to massacre us. Is it any wonder that millions of poor people are on the move? Lost souls but real people. Good people desperate for jobs, for opportunities. Poor people living in hope but moving out, moving on, trying to move up."
Gabriel then stopped, eyes open, scanning faces, pointing first at them and then at himself. "Yeh. See? I'm an African. I'm talking African poverty and African mass migration. Millions of poor people looking for a better life. And I'm asking why. Why has it come to this? I'm asking for an explanation. What have we done wrong? What are we doing to put things right? I'm asking for understanding. I'm asking for answers. And........ I'm demanding a solution."
"You know," he said quietly. "We are taught peace, tolerance, forgiveness and understanding. Yes? But there is a limit to our tolerance, our forgiveness and our understanding. We have already tried tolerance. We have tried patience. We have tried forgiving. We have tried understanding and we have tried trusting our leaders. But it has failed. So, we are saying now, as one united voice: Enough is enough,"
Gabriel had been doing this for years now, criss-crossing continents, holding these events in crowded halls in overcrowded towns and cities. It was south London today but next up was Los Angeles. The Fela Kuti theme was new, the words varied, but the message was always the same. And once he’d got their rapt attention, that’s when he’d rack things up.
That dark night, in the crowded, multi coloured, ethnically diverse south London venue, Pastor Gabriel Joshua was the only man standing in the light that shone from above. This was never going to be a religious event for the praising of a God. This was about poverty, the lack of opportunity, the theft of the assets of ordinary people by big business, the pillaging of Africa's natural resources, the lack of education, environmental destruction and the terrorism and conflict that arose from the pressures of overpopulation, ethnic tension and interference in another country's affairs.
For Pastor Gabriel Joshua events like this in a densely-populated part of a big city had evolved into a common theme. It was what was separating him, marking him out, from politicians and religious leaders and academics. Right then self-styled Pastor Gabriel Joshua was aiming for a mass display of collective decision-making based on simple common sense. But the strategy, written clearly in his mind, required him to draw that final picture of impending disaster, to create an ultimate tension that would lead to a commitment to demand action.
"You understand," he said softly, finally, shaking his head. "I don't need to tell you. I don't need to spell it out. It's plain, common sense. There has to be a limit. Alone, we are powerless but together we have boundless strength. We have tried patience and have even tried to understand the limitations of our leaders. They are only human we say. But that is an excuse. Power to change is there. We see it every day. But it is in the hands of the wealthy and the selfish and our patience has finally expired. With one united voice, what we are saying is enough is enough."
And then Gabriel knelt on the stage, placed his hands together and closed his eyes. Speaking quietly, lips touching the microphone.
"In the name of whatever Great Power there is, please grant us some of that power, that strength and that wisdom to face up to our future, to defend ourselves against the forces of evil and, for the sake of our children, to challenge our leaders to change direction before it is too late."
That night the cheers inside the south London Conference Hall were still dying down to another Fela Kuti recording when, back stage, a mobile phone rang.
Solomon, Gabriel's most loyal friend, adviser and follower since their boyhood days in the Makoko slum of Lagos, answered it. He listened, nodded, switched the phone off and went to look for Gabriel.
He found him in a side room, drinking water from a bottle and surrounded by a small group of journalists. By then Gabriel had discarded the black tie and had opened the top button of his white shirt. The flamboyancy, the stage act, was gone. It had become calm one-to-one politics - the rich-poor divide, education, opportunities, jobs, healthcare. Solomon listened for a while from the doorway but then pushed inside and whispered in his ear: "Phone call, Femi."
And Gabriel, seeing the concern on Solomon's face, excused himself and followed him outside.
"There's a warrant for your arrest, Femi," Solomon said.
