Don’t misuse God’s will as a hideout

It is standard practice for sympathisers to comfort bereaved persons with the message along the lines of: ‘God’s decision is right and cannot be faulted’.

The inference is that, a person dies on the day and in circumstances that had been pre-programmed by the Creator. It would be pointless, and some would say spiritually offensive, to debate the subject.

Let that be, but certain kinds of deaths are so horrific that, those whom they touch are bound to question why are being given emotional tests of such magnitude, by way of thegruesome manner in which the icy hands of death grab their beloved ones.

My heart goes out to the mother of a baby who died in a fire accident at Mbezi in Dar es Salaam last week, in circumstances that represented a double tragedy. Plus, I wish that God rests the soul of the tiny angel in eternal peace.

The woman was one of the people whose houses had been demolished because they stood on an area along a stretch of the Indian Ocean coastline reserved for mangroves.

She had been salvaging items in the demolished house when she was informed that the house in the neighbourhood that was her temporary home, and in which she had left the baby to rest, had caught fire !

God-programmed fate ?What about humanblunders?Had the mangrove site been left untouched, no houses would have been erected there, and the likelihood of the baby being in the house that caught fire is very remote.

Nyamagana MP Ezekiel Wenjeis right, then, that, the government must tackle problems at source, rather than watch as they develop, and act not only belated, but cause many hearts to ache, streams of tears to flow, heartbeats to quicken and pressure to rise, in the wake of valuable, highly-treasured property being destroyed.

He voiced the sentiments in parliament last week, in which he expressed shock, not just over the failure by authorities to make timely interventions against disregard for regulations, laws and procedures, but the heartlessness of those who, like some fellow MPs, salute moves such as the Mbezi demolitions.

It’s indeed disgusting. For, the Mbezi drama was preceded by several others, whereby encroachers who had put up permanent structures and had assumed that everything was okay, were shell-shocked when they were informed that they had put up structures on road reserves !

Some, and probably many of the victims, are innocent people who had either been conned into settling in prohibited areasby buying plots from crooks who had already pocketed compensation cash.

Others ventured there and hadn’t been bothered for several years, fortified, especially, by the fact that, they paid property tax, and got electricity and water supply connections– processes co-ordinated by government agencies !

I’m amazed that no-one in authority has raised alarm over the high risks posed by the congested Buguruni residential township in Dar es Salaam, through which the central railway line from Dar es Salaam traverses.

Imagining a derailment is a chilling thought; yet, God forbid; if it were to happen, the ‘God’s decision is right and cannot be faulted’ refrain would be invoked !