Dr Freaks Journal - 'Deliver Us From Evil' Works All The Time

 This is a must read!!!

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: "Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come... deliver us from evil..." -Luke 11, Holy Bible.


If I may ask, when last did you say the Lord's prayer?


2015/16:


For eleven months between 2015 and 2016 I had the rare privilege of working with a very wealthy but private businessman with vast interests in real estate and oil & gas, amongst others. 

Little or nothing is known about him in social and political circles, but he is loaded to the teeth. We enjoyed a very robust working relationship. Age difference could not deter us. Even though he is more than 30 years or more older but he was/is a friend in the real sense of it. We took business seriously and we indulged occasionally.

 I do not "eat outside" (that is in people's homes, part of my hard training) and this gave him serious concerns at the initial stage, but it later earned me his eternal respect. So, if I've ever eaten at yours before, you are indeed very (very) special.

We were so close but I never took water, let alone food at his throughout my stint as his Company Secretary.


Why the sermon?


Due to the sensitive nature of the jobs we were doing at the time, we moved around without a chauffeur in only one car, either in his or mine and naturally I became the unofficial chauffeur. You do not expect a 72-year-old to be driving me around everyday......


In November 2015, my client and I had travel to Benin for an important meeting and he decided to hire one of his mechanics to drive us down in his Hummer2. They picked me up from my house as early as 6.00am and the mechanic cum chauffeur and I exchanged pleasantries. It was a smooth trip to and fro.

 Throughout the entire duration of the trip I can't remember engaging the guy under reference in any form of conversation.
We returned to Lagos and they dropped me off at my home.


Few days later, after one of our numerous strategy sessions, my client dropped a bombshell. In a very subtle manner he stated that what he was about to tell me would shock me and that he wasn't meant to tell me but he was willing to bend his rules, for my sake.

He cleared his throat and started his narration. When they got back home after the Benin trip, the chauffeur sought his audience and began to say unpleasant things about me. Let me not bore you with details. Long and short, he tried to pollute his mind and pitch him against me. Let me digress a bit. This guy was/is a mechanic. I was/am a legal practitioner. We were two parallel lines. I can't take his place. He cannot take my place, at least it would have taken him over 17 years to get to where I was at the time (5 years in the University if he completed SS3 and passed UME, 1 at the Nigerian Law School and 10 years at the Bar), yet he saw me as a threat. He probably could not fathom why a 72-year-old man and a "big man" would be according me that level of respect at the time.


I have deliberately reserved this part of the story. My client was peculiar in the sense that he was a man of many parts. He is an Alhaji. He travels to Mecca for Umrah every year. He has read the Holy Bible over and over several times and dishes out scriptures effortlessly, attends church services and encouraged me to take my Christian faith more seriously. He was very versed in "Ifa!" I didn't/don't have any issues with his faith and beliefs. That was/is his private affair simpliciter.

 At that point, Alhaji for the first time informed me that he consulted and sought knowledge about me from "Ifa" on a daily basis and that "Ifa" had never revealed anything negative or untoward about me to him, so why would he believe the rubbish that was emanating from the mouth of a fool.

He further stated that he queried him about his source of information, to which he responded that it was based on "instincts." Alhaji informed me that he simply laughed and fired the mechanic forthwith.


Conclusion:


The moral of this short story is that whenever you find yourself at the top or on your way to the top, "haters" will always emerge and the amazing part of it is that sometimes, most of them don't even know you and they don't even know why they are doing it, but you know what, when you wake up in the morning say the Lord's Prayer "...deliver us from evil..." It works!


Its Kunle!