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Author: Sam Omatseye
Posted to the web: 9/12/2005 11:42:09 AM

In the United States, hurricane comes like ritual. Each year ushers in that deadly vomit from the seas entrails. Just as we talk of the rainy season in Nigeria, or the summer in the U.S., meteorologists also refer to the hurricane season, which is a way of surrendering to the inevitability like a doomsday.
Last year, it pounded Miami Beach in Florida, a place I was supposed to visit for a conference and meet an old school mate, Austin Onuoha. But my editor refrained me.Just as we have the hurricane season, fire also asserts itself, lapping homes and trees and sending people into refugees from nature’s malevolence. Hurricane is a sea storm, but tornadoes also strike.
Often, in cities immune from the yaws of hurricane, other disasters loom. The rain itself could come with lightning. Rain comes down with hailstorms. So, while a state like Louisiana could fall to the lashings of the Hurricane, cities in the Rocky Mountains and California cringe from fire and hailstorms. Recently, a car dealership with over three thousand vehicles in Colorado incurred losses in their millions, when hail pummeled its inventory, leaving dents and shattered windshields. Yet Americans have come to accept these tragedies as a part of their country’s natural state of being.But what happened in Louisiana, with the devil materializing with many horns, was hard to take. This was tragedy gone awry. This was not the kind of obnoxious routine they had come to accept. When fire ravaged part of Colorado last year, the whole nation showed pity. The federal agencies pitched in and sent mammoth resources to subdue a nature gone obdurate. But hurricane Katrina, that was from another tale of horror. People everywhere watched their televisions sets as a city, world famous as a rendezvous for vanity and voodoo, crumbled, and human forces were too paralyzed to ward it off, to call it to order.As a journalist, I pondered how I could reach Nigerians there. Although I have visited that city four times, I don’t know anyone who lives there.So, I sent emails to all my friends around the country if they knew any Nigerian story. No response. A few phone calls also yielded nothing.On Sunday, the matter erupted as a matter of pious discussion. Who caused this to happen? Was it just the turbulent quirk of nature or the virulence of the devil, or an act of righteous indignation from the Almighty?But the presiding pastor talked about trying to connect a Nigerian pastor from the Redeemed Christian Church in New Orleans. That gave me a clue as to a possibility of an inroad onto the Ngerian story in the sad, evolving drama.But before I got that phone number, some other adherents talked about the spiritual dimension of the story. Somebody drew my attention to Jeremiah 22, which documented God’s rage and what he would do to the people for their sins. I had been in New Orleans, and one of the things I noticed was the commonplace presence of voodoo. It was commonplace not only as features of serious pious activity, but also as mementos even to those who didn’t believe in God. Or the gods.In one function I attended, a famous electronic company invited fortune tellers with beads, and other such objects to tell people their fortunes. A black lady was unmistakable with a python wrapped around her. Back to last Sunday, some people at the church said God was probably descending on New Orleans for its idolatrous obsessions. I was not going to reach that far. I also turned attention to the fact that New Orleans was noted for it riotous pleasure. Many CEO’s choose New Orleans for conventions for that reason. Like Ayillara street in Nigeria, the city has a place called Bourbon Street, a devil’s paradise of pleasure, pornography, drinks, dances and jazz. That is where a yearly festival called Mardi Gras takes place. Otherwise sober men turn into riotous specimens, women flashing their breasts to the ogling vanity of men.But again, Louisiana is a what is called a red state, with a strong Christian and conservative presence. In my first visit there in 1990, I visited Jimmy Swaggert’s church in Baton Rouge, the state capital, and saw the immense presence of the pious-minded. One never really has answers to why such things as Katrina happen, and all I do is meditate on the absurdity of life, and pray for all who suffer as a result. So, I took the phone number from Pastor Vincent Omegba, who delivered a sermon, which tried not to second guess why Katrina came calling.I was able to contact Pastor Iniobong Nwoko, who began the RCCG in New Orleans and grew the Church to about 42 adults. When I tried to reach him on his cell phone, contact was impossible for a long time. I kept calling until I reached him. He was in Houston, he said.That was when the whole story touched me personally. I could now reach a person who saw the torment of the waves, the rage from nature’s inner bowels, the frailty of our civilization. He also linked me with another man of God, Dr. Obi who presides over the African Christian Fellowship. Time magazine captured the essence of what happened when it called it an American Tragedy. It was an American tragedy in all its dimensions. People dead, infrastructuire failing, response tardy. Everything we knew to be classic American failed. There will be investigations, but the dead are dead, and the city, which may take decade to return to buoyancy, has certainly lost something of its soul.