In their inglorious journey to the top and even after attaining their goals, they blackmailed their friends, their colleagues, their superiors and anybody who crossed their path. In the case of those who resisted, and such cases were very few, they never lived to tell the story. While one is ever smiling and the other was ever hiding his eyes behind very dark goggles, none of their acquaintances ever doubted the iron-will and chilling wickedness behind the smile or the dark glasses. These two men have no atom of respect for any life; they are the archetypal bad men of the popular Hollywood films. The military rumour mill is full of stories of their ruthlessness and their rising star status was acknowledged by all as second to none in the Nigerian Military hall of notoriety. They started on this part by accident when the northern military officers had to avenge the losses of their colleagues in the first coup d’etat of January 1966. They were among the young officers that performed brilliantly well in their avenging duty. The result of that gruesome episode was the merciless assassination of Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi and many others.

The fearless performance of Babangida in particular shot him into the status of cult heroes. Babangida became ‘The Untouchable’ among his colleagues and superior officers especially those from the under-class regions in the Force. Abacha, one of the greatest opportunists that Nigeria ever sired, saw the rising star of his classmate from the Nigerian Military School, and he quickly tagged along. Their super-efficient role in identifying supposedly state enemies and in rooting out all local subversive treasonable activities from the fatherland was legendary. In such dastardly and bizarre engagements they never failed and they later succeeded in recruiting and training up similar ‘patriotic’ executioners. This is how Babangida got to partake in every military skirmishes concerning change of power in Nigeria since 1966. Even Niccolo Machiaveli who the rumour mill claimed is the patron saint and political father of Babangida had this to say about those who achieved sovereignty by means of crime, "And yet we can not call it valour to massacre one’s fellow-citizens, to betray one’s friends, and to be devoid of good faith, mercy, and religion; such means may enable a man achieve empire, but not glory."⁷

Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha both believed in the invisibility of money power backed by gun power as a veritable instrument for the establishment and protection of the sovereignty of one-man rule. To the first they gave their souls completely. They made money, how they made their money is another story for another day but it must be told. They had always used money to settle anybody who they identified as a likely stumbling block to their desires even before they wrested the absolute political power. You hear of courtiers that say of them, they are very generous. Of course they were, because they learnt the lesson of blackmailing superbly well and so they know that everybody is ‘buyable’ in the Nigerian parlance. They understand that having intelligence knowledge of the needs of their targets is all a blackmailer requires in fixing the right price. If there is any culture that can be identified with these two men it is the ‘culture of settlement’.

Babangida established a brand new cult or religion in Nigeria, which we shall call Babangidaism. It is very close to a mystical all-consuming faith in the omnipotent power of money. Converts were brainwashed to drop all the cherished values, principles and virtues of their societies. They adopted the end justifies the means philosophy and became totally consumed with only one goal in life: to make big money by hook or by crook. Every Nigerian was converted: the traditional and the untraditional rulers; the spiritual and the non-spiritual rulers; the city and the rural women; the educated and the uneducated men; the moralist and the non-moralist; as well as the southerner and the northerner. His converts could be found in every community, in every mosque, in every church and in the length and breadth of Nigeria. Since the reign of Babangida every Nigerian has come under the spell of Babangidaism.

Students of sociology, philosophy and psychology need to give attention to this Babangida phenomenon that has completely changed the character of a whole nation. Hopefully, one day when sanity begins to reign in the country, Nigerians will be encouraged to come out of their fears and talk freely about their individual experiences or horrors in the corridor of Babangida-Abacha’s ‘Militarydom’. It is hoped that one day all the pretending respectable Nigerians who fell under the spell of the High Priest will have the courage to disclose their pains and joys in the hands of their masters. When the time is right and a brand new Nigeria is in place, a Truth Commission must be instituted as one of the means that will be necessary to purge the nation of the evil of this cult of money worshipers.

This national demonic malady, which has befallen all Nigerians, is dangerous, injurious and fatal to the social health of Nigeria. There is no need for anyone who served in the governments of these two stalwarts to go into self-denial. Babangida knew a thing or two about human nature. He knew that the soul of Nigerians, like all human souls cannot be ruled unless broken. Through his religion, Babangida broke the soul of everybody who sets eyes on him or who he sets his eyes on. Nobody who served in his government escaped his ever smiling but evil gaze. It will be the height of tomfoolery and great deceit if any of his Ministers, Military Service Chiefs, Garrison Commandants, Director-Generals, Chairmen of Parastatals, Governors, Commissioners, Chairmen and Councillors of Local Governments, top or low civil servants, and government contractors of all shades, colours and sizes, pretend that they were never converted into this ungodly cult.

Once again, when the time is right for genuine reconciliation, all worshippers must be persuaded to come forward; to make open confession; to seek forgiveness; and to pay appropriate restitution for the irreparable injury they have caused the nation and particularly for their idolatry. Anything short of this is a delusion that the Nigeria state as presently constituted and managed will survive in to the far future. Babangida’s spell on Nigeria must be exorcised. Until this is done, Babangida and his disciples, who are scattered all over the country, will always be a threat to the social, economic and political health and development of this deformed or incapacitated nation.

Drawing inference from the way the exchange of command was conducted in 1993, it seems the two conspirators had a solemn pact to rule one after the other. The change of baton could have been bloody had Babangida refused to abdicate in August 1993. The only person Babangida feared in Nigeria was Abacha. Observers should therefore have noticed that Babangida was almost under house arrest until the news of the terminal nature of Abacha’s illness started to filter out. Before that time, Babangida was another voiceless Nigerian. However, whatever hold Abacha had on him, one hopes those who know would oblige this important information to the nation. He is still a man to be closely watched. Babangida still believes he could bounce back to power in Nigeria if he wants to or at worst becomes a kingmaker. Nigerians should not, for a second, doubt his capability.

It is easy to be deceived into believing that there is a difference between the regime of Babangida and that of Abacha. Or even the present military regime that is been courted by the international community and some gullible Nigerians. Any difference in the two defunct ‘governments’ whatsoever is just a question of personality style. The basic principle on which Babangida and Abacha ‘governments’ were run is one and the same. The policy orientation of Babangida was a personal vendetta on the established power base of the north. Both men took great pleasure in playing musical-chair game with the centre of northern power. They truly meant to scourge the head of the hidden power in Nigeria. In the process they got sucked into their own vanity and they lost bearing (if at all they ever had one) under an absolute power, which the sages say corrupt absolutely.

Abdussallami Abubakar, the present incumbent on the military throne of Nigeria, cannot and should not be trusted with the task of saving Nigeria from the valley of death to which his predecessors have consigned her. As a matter of fact no man, and not military personnel either, can give liberty to another man. If a man of reason becomes aware that his liberty was stolen, he must fight to get it back since it is a birthright without which man is of no better value than a kept animal. Nobody can give to another man a true liberty, whatever is given by any earthly power, no matter how benevolent in the name of liberty, is a farce. The onus is on each thinking-Nigerian to use, as a matter of urgency, his or her God-given gift of reasoning to seek the truth and to identify the lies of our situation as a nation of pretenders.

Nigerian so-called leaders have, since independence, pretended about their love for unity when they prefer disunity since it serves the purpose of divide and rule. They pretended about their desire for peace when it is under crisis that the new moneymen and women among them are created. They pretended about their believe in the principle of equality of persons when inequality is the only workable strategy suitable for their peculiar commonwealth. They pretended about their eagerness for democracy when the traditional rulers and the privileged ones in our midst prefer the status quo since they know democracy will put an end to their unconstitutional reigns. It is therefore not surprising that all the efforts of libertarians and true democrats in the last thirteen years have not received the expected popular support from Nigerians who are patiently waiting for a Messiah to deliver them from tyranny, feudalism, nepotism, cronyism and ‘babangidaism’. They wait in vain because Abubakar is not the messiah on whom Nigerians can throw their political shopping list.

On reflection, it is clear that this gulf has a lot to do with the prevailing religion of ‘Babangidaism’. This religion has single-handedly rewritten the core social values of the Nigerian society. A suffocating cash nexus relationship that grew out of this satanic faith has paralysed all legitimate institutions of intervention and social controls for the protection of those excluded or technically prevented from the altar of Babangida’s offerings. The value premise on which the Nigeria state operates now is not one that can sustain any society no matter how primitive the society is. The way things are at this point in time in Nigeria will find most Nigerians wanting if call upon to make a choice between liberty and Mammon or more specifically between freedom without money and slavery with money. There is no doubt in the mind of anybody familiar with Nigeria what the first choice will be.

The outcome of this simple value and psychological test is an indictment on whatever Nigeria has in place that is called education. It is an education that has failed so far to make its pupils realise and appreciate that the greatest gift every man received from the creator is liberty and that this precious gift has no parallel exchange value that would not reduce the natural quality of man. An education that has failed to bring to the attention of its wards the great universal history of ideas that should have awaken in them the intuitive propensity to seek knowledge for the sake of personal development and not just to get that lucrative job. It is therefore not surprising that a large number of the citizen who claim some letters behind their names as educated men and women still remain blind to the first principle of what exactly constitute a good life.

The Nigeria’s problem could therefore be better understood when it is realised that it is a case of the blind leading the blind. How can we expect a soldier or politician who has no knowledge or understanding of what liberty is to procure democracy for the citizens? How can a polity that refuses to negotiate the terms and conditions of association with all concerned because it abhors the concept of equality and has no respect for human rights of the citizens establish and protect justice? What name apart from occupied territory do you call a geographical space captured as it was illegally by a group of marauding gunslingers? A country with a suspended constitution or without any contracts of association or memorandum of understanding but ruled by a martial decree cannot lay claim to the status of a nation state. It is therefore not surprising that Nigeria as presently constituted has been governed as a personal estate first, of Babangida’s and of late of Abacha’s until death took him away from his inherited stolen stool.

It is shameful that after all the struggles made by the Nigerian nationalist movements in the 1940s and 1950s for independence, the country has since regressed to the principle of Indirect Rule that was earlier instituted by Lord Lugard in the early part of this century. Or what do you call the pattern of rule adopted by the successive military administration since 1966, where the Emirs, the Obas and the Obis of the land were clandestinely manipulated to purchase hegemony and legality for the military? What is the name of the game, where the traditional rulers play the ostrich that bury its head in the sand as in the days of the District Officers and Colonial Governors? What name do we call the partnership between the military rulers and the traditional rulers that know fully well that their (the traditional rulers) privileged position is safe and that their subjects can rot in hell for all they care as long as the traditional rulers play the wink-wink and nod-nod game - see no evil, hear no evil and talk no evil - as they did with the colonialist? We have seen a resurgence of this kind of relationship between the military rulers and the traditional rulers and this was more pronounced in the time of Babangida.

Looking at the situation of Nigeria reminds one of the conclusions drawn by Sir A. B. Ellis with respect to the African race from his Study of Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa in 1890. He wrote, "They can imitate, but they cannot invent or even apply. They certainly fail to grasp and to generalise a notion."⁸ At first glance it is easy to put down the author, as a white supremacist writer but an objective reflection on the total situations of Africa’s problem today seem to corroborate Sir Ellis observation. What exactly does the experience of Nigeria say, if after almost a century, Nigeria’s so-called leaders or rulers have to go back in time to exhume the most degrading form of government ever devised by the minds of English rulers and exported by British colonial exploiters as the only befitting political system for the free people of Nigeria?

Or how do we explain the vigorous fight put up by the supporters of Abacha must continue to rule this last five years? The utterances and behaviours of these vacuous men and women of the political class seem to lay in a divine claim to having every right to speak and act for the people even without the smallest courtesy of seeking the people’s consent. And to realise that among these crusaders are learned men and women who have travelled the world, have had a brush with John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine and other libertarian writers in their college days and yet could make such claims as they did before Abacha’s death took the steam off their oars is mind-boggling. What are you expected to think? Are this class of Nigerian elite able to grasp concept of anything virtuous and valuable; are they able to apply it; and are they capable of developing any new ideas?

It is disheartening to accept the fact that fellow country men and women have failed to partake of the universal ideas and knowledge that have shaken and set the world aglow on the path of progress this past three thousand years. The term third world seems to encapsulate everything about Nigeria and indeed Africa, it is definitely far from the centre of the world - a third grade world. What makes the difference between the first and the third world has nothing to do with the fundamental nature of the peoples but it is about how each has managed to overcome the vicissitude of nature in their respective environments through the ideas of pockets of geniuses that have graced this planet. According to Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher in Leviathan, "Nature hath made men equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he."⁹

How Nigerian political elite could claim total ignorance of the pool of knowledge that have transformed peoples and nations in the last two hundred years beats one hollow. Rational men cannot but ask, what rights have these political charlatans and prostitutes got to lay claims to leadership status in a constitutional republic when they have no understanding of basic principle of human rights. It is amazing that the political rogues in Nigeria have neither heard of both the American Revolution and of the French Revolution nor of the great Greek philosophers who gave the world valuable ideas on the concept of soul, life, nature, man, government, society, science, democracy, etc. It is beyond belief that these crooked men and women parading as leaders have never heard of the 15 - 17^th Century European philosophers and the efforts they made to modernise Britain and Europe away from the unjust feudal monarchical absolutist rule of Popes, Kings and Emperors. Nor have they heard of the history of the American democracy, which has become the envy of the world today. How can these people who behave as if the world started yesterday and who refused to borrow and learn from the history of great peoples and nations that have gone by as well as those of the contemporary age to order their own lay claim to the life of Nigerians to do as they please with in the name of empty political slogan of national unity?

Isn’t it bewildering that at the end of the twentieth century, the so-called leaders who clamour for peace and unity as the only goal of government have refused to negotiate the basis of association with the respective nationalities, which constitute this their empire? They have refused to understand the inherent illegality surrounding a government that is not based on any agreed contract of associations and relations whatsoever. All collaborators - both internal and external - of these illegal governments have equally refused to appreciate that under such hegemony, no institution is free from corruption. Indeed, no institution of government can be built or nurtured to serve the purpose of safe- guarding the equality, the freedom and the security of everybody except those of a privileged few. These ‘governments’ throughout their period believed in both the strategic and non-strategic use of fear, high-handedness and share naked force as reasonable political weapons to keep every citizen in line. These ‘governments’ have shown no respect for the intelligence of their subjects, they do not even believe the citizens as a whole have any. They therefore could neither seek nor ask for the people’s consents either on simple policy matters or on fundamental constitutional matters.

It is not uncommon to find that making suggestions or tendering propositions or offering opinions as well as championing the principle of consensus as a means for arriving at national directions and objectives are seen as subversive tendencies. Even at this late stage in the history of mankind, the Nigerian governments are yet to understand that no relationship among equals - friendship, marriage, family, community, society - can take off or survive for long if the contract of association is not well spelt out from the on-set both implicitly and explicitly. They are yet to accept the reality that formal or informal agreements must be well spelt out. That the memorandum of understanding on how far a relationship can go; on what the purpose of the association is meant to achieve; on whether the relationship is a partnership - senior or junior - or totally a master-servant; on what is mutually exchangeable; on what is common or private property; and on what is to be accepted as joke or an insult, must be clearly articulated. That for any relationship to work and bear fruit, the tiniest nitty-gritty of every conceivable matters - cultural, social, economic, political - must be addressed squarely or else the relationship will be in a state of perpetual conflict. Even when participants meant no harm by their actions or pronouncements but because they have failed to agree on the meaning of terms and concepts that they run the risk of seeing simple matters being construed as decisive to the continuation or abrogation of the relationship.

So how can the Nigerian human right crusaders and libertarians bring their messages to the doorstep of every person in the polity? How can they persuade ordinary Nigerians that the path Nigeria has treaded and is still treading will not lead to the promised land flowing with milk and honey? How can they convince the common people that all the nooks and corners of this vast land is ridden with Babangida’s wolves in human clothing eager to tear them apart if they persisted to remain careless about the most fundamental matters of what constitute a good life? How can they alert the people that the sharks in their midst have colluded to deny them forever their fundamental human rights as citizens and as human beings created in the image of God? How can they ring the alarm to warn that waiting on the defence for that divine intervention which every Nigerian pacifist is praying for and refusing to lift a finger even to give moral support to those fearless few who are standing up to the despots with their lives is cowardly and unforgivable? We shall again look at these questions in the role of civil society in To Your Tents O! Nigerians.

It is all right for Nigerians once again to fall on the queue as advisers to their non-listening oppressors. They ought to have known better by now if they have learnt any lesson this last 38 years that it is simply a waste of valuable time. They need to be told that any advise to be offered at this time should be directed at the people of Nigeria in order to wake them up from their irresponsible slumber. Obafemi Awolowo in Path to Nigerian Freedom published in 1947 had a very unsavoury impression about Nigerians, which even after 50 years has remained unimproved. He writes, "In public affairs, the Nigerians are unduly apathetic. Whenever they woke up spasmodically to tackle any problem of the day, they betray an alarming thoughtlessness…in the very breath with which they make their demand, they proclaim their own unfitness for their aspirations." He went on, "It is not a case of inability to think, it is unwillingness to do so, coupled very often with deep seated prejudices." This agrees very much with Hobbessian theories since every man has the properties for mental operations necessary for thinking and articulation. He finally advised, "In the solution of their future problems Nigerians must do a good deal of active, constructive and sustained thinking."¹⁰ Has anything changed for better or for worse since those words were written? The advise is still very apt and worthy of reflection by all well meaning people of Nigeria who are still wondering how Babangida could walk free and even of recent walking tall and making statements on national issues after all the unforgivable sins and abuses he and Abacha perpetrated against the people and the nations this last thirteen years.

It was therefore a misguided move for some Nigerian democrats to have run to the British government seeking support to dislodge Abacha, who was a mere second-degree puppet that got too big for his borrowed shoes. Was he dislodged? Were any of his accounts in Europe seized or frozen to put pressure on him and his cohorts? No, of course, even with all the atrocities and abuses he perpetrated, he was still a preferred choice to any of the truly educated class of Nigerians. The truly educated black man is never a trusted ally of the western powers. These breeds of Africans have since the beginning of Nationalist struggle in Africa been placed under careful scrutiny and continuous surveillance. Under this unwholesome hypocritical global climate, Nigerians must learn to seek solace in their own power. The power of ideas must be put to test in Nigeria. Is it true that ideas have a momentum of their own once they are planted? If it is true, let those who have seen the light of liberty, justice and equality come together for the planting season and let nature do its work of growth as we continue to water and nurture these ideas to fruition. This is the season of sowing and planting. Every trained and inspired mind must be put on deck for this sacred duty.

Nigerians have no other option at this eleventh hour to the millennium. Nigeria can not continue to wallow and fallow in ignorance when her sons and daughters have the wherewithal to plant in their own special green field, the precious seeds of ideas which they have humbly collected all around the world. The Nigeria’s own garden of Eden must be created and planted now at our own backyard. Nobody will or can do this for Nigeria. The principle of self-interest, which is the foundation of the world economic order of the twentieth century, forbids such altruistic notion or action of genuine assistance. The reigning global powers are keener than the Nigerian feudal lords to maintain the prevailing economic and political status quo. So any Nigerian who expects a genuine helping hand from the western world is still suffering from a bout of ignorance common to the simple all-trusting, the gullible all-believing and the naive non-doubting and non-vetting African race we have mentioned above.

Let us start in earnest to debate vigorously edifying ideas and to put a stop to the loud and empty beer-parlour type of dialogue found in every community in the land. Let us always remember that there is nothing new in this world and so let us start from the premise that some people somewhere have passed through our kind of present dark calamitous experience. The questions we should be asking are: is there anything we can learn from the experiences of other nations and peoples? Can we borrow these experiences wholesale or can they be adapted or re-fashioned to suit the Nigeria’s peculiar circumstances? So let the thinking Nigerians begin the search for knowledge. There is no alternative way than to seek and to find solution to the social, political and economic problems facing Nigeria at this moment in history.

It is high time Nigerians stopped tempting God with their incessant prayers for a divine intervention when the solutions are close by. What else do Nigerians want from God? The Almighty God gave Nigeria the most beautiful country in Africa as well as the most blessed with both natural and human resources. The climate is glorious from tropical to mild temperate conditions and the lands are exceptionally fertile before they were foolishly destroyed with fertilisers supplied by foes who still pretend to be friends. So, what else do Nigerians want from God? All the streets of Nigeria are now over-laden with houses of worship, which in this time of economic difficulties have become houses of exploitation. They have become places set aside for the fleecing of the gullible, the hopeless, the heavily laden and burdened Nigerians. Rather than use these houses to serve as places of refuge for the economically poor and the emotionally troubled they have become The Houses of Horror on earth. How long shall Nigerians keep on with their foolishness, even among the so-called educated? This is the time we must develop pragmatic ideas and strategic actions to rescue ourselves once and forever from both the internal and external colonial slave masters. Let us say enough to this careless rigmarole of beating about the wilderness of ignorance by both the blind leaders and the lazy followers. This is action time and Nigerians must save Nigeria for Nigerians. Now is the time. Every hand must be on deck for this sacred duty both to us and for the sake of our posterity.

Finally, let us borrow a statement from Reuben Abati’s column in The Guardian on Sunday where he wrote on the Crazy Trains of Death. In that article he concluded as follows: "Government must do something positive and quickly too…and proper measures should be taken to prevent trains from running into people, cattle and vehicles. If that means closing down the entire railway, until those measures are in place, then let it be."¹² This writer has nothing against writing about train, telephone, airports and aviation etc. to which Abati of recent had given some valuable time. They are issues that are just too far behind from the priority facing Nigeria at the moment. Let us face it; Nigeria has no government except if the universal concept of government has changed in Nigeria. It is therefore a waste of valuable time when writers of Abati’s calibre still have the opinion that there is any institution in Nigeria to whom they could forward a shopping list of requests.

This reminds me of one of those cheeky adages among the Yorubas that says, ‘The ungodly bearded Imam or Reverend Gentleman was burnt to death in hell and someone was still asking whether his beard, the trade mark of his holiness and purity, arrived safely in heaven.’ A country that has no constitutional government or to be magnanimous, that has a non-accounting military administration (an occupied-force - it is worse than a situation of no government) for almost 32 years and yet commentators are still fond of talking about lacklustre public services and institutional negligence. Haba! Let’s get serious and be fair. However, what we intend to do is to borrow the words of Abati and re-present them as our own shopping list, as follows: ‘Crazy Governments of Death’: "Nigerians must do something positive, and quickly too…and proper measures should be taken to prevent government agents from running into people, cattle and vehicles, if that means closing down the entire government, until those measures are in place, then let it be."

This advice, if adhered to, will just be in line with the thinking of Thomas Paine when he wrote on the Origin and Design of Government in General. Even though he took his bearing from the English Constitution yet he could not see anything but trouble in government. He says, "society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinction. The first is a patron the last a punisher." He went on to add that "society in every state is a blessing but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one;" He continued, "for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without a government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."¹³ Now imagine a situation in Nigeria where the people had no hand in the purported government acting on their behalf and ungraciously inflicting severe punishment on them. Isn’t that a double calamity? There is a need for Nigerians to reflect on the whole purpose of government. It is not good enough just to accept the colonial arrangement of government as the ideal and the only way of conducting society’s affair. There must surely be another way. This is a task worthy of recommendation to all thinking Nigerians. Let us seek together that new or alternative way.

Therefore, for any Nigerian to believe that all these things can be swept under the carpet without repentance, sanctions and forgiveness is a puerile delusion. For all those who stole from our treasury and who continue to wallow in abundance while their fellow compatriots are in want it is definitely taking an unnecessary stupid risk against the anger of the people when it finally boils over. For all those who built and live in fortified and well-guarded bunkers all over the country with money corruptly made from over-invoicing scams of government contracts, foreign exchange speculations and manipulations, dubious bribery and frauds, and many other such 419s and are still pretending that Nigerians are unaware of the source of this loot, don’t wait for the anger of the people to boil over before you make amends. To all our cruel secret agents who became lapdogs of the powers that be for the sake of bread and butter, it is high time you recanted and told it all to the people everything you knew about your masters if you want forgiveness from the people.

We must heal the land by truthfulness, repentance and forgiveness. No sinner can go unpunished. It is better to come forward to confess and to seek forgiveness than to be forced to do so. For those of you sitting on uncountable fund that can never be used in ten lifetimes, turn it all to your community after truthfully confessing where it came from. Seek their understanding and forgiveness after a truthful confession. Don’t attempt to lord it over them because you are in custody of stolen booty. You must show a sense of remorse and humility if you want the community to accept your albatross burden. If you are still in doubt about the uselessness and futility of the burden around your person, let us borrow from the wisdom of Socrates, the father of philosophy: