Onyeama’s 2020 edition of Anti-Christ is an absolute good read. I am especially courted by its subject matter, the author’s confidence and control of a well-mastered language, above all, his boldness in calling names and laying claims. How could one objectively accept his opening salvo if you’re Catholic and believe John Paul II merits his sainthood?
Dilibe boldly says the historical event of Fatima, where the Virgin Mary spoke to three Portuguese children, was a hypnotic display of the sun by a deceptive Old Testament “queen of heavens” masquerading as the Virgin Mary. And Mary was central to the Catholic Pontiff’s ministry. Dilibe is of the view that John Paul’s belief in, and public proclamation of Marian intervention in his life and that of the Church, were based on false premise.
He also believes “the Catholic Pontiff identified with the agenda of the ‘new agers’ to marry this religious compact with the political arm of the European Union in an alliance that had the goal of inaugurating the New World Order”.
The New World Order precedes the book of Revelation’s coming of the Anti-Christ with the facial mark of the beast. This idea is the centre pin linking Onyeama’s view of race relations, religions, fraternities, the British royal family, multilateral institutions and key players in politics, movies, life and sciences. Onyeama must be praised for his research on the subject matter and ability to seamlessly lace it all together for breezy prose. But I must say that knowingly or unknowingly his steeled pen resists alternate universes, referencing only the voices that pull his narrative cart while ignoring those to the contrary. Yet, our world is an amalgam of universes. If a writer decides to interpret the whole of creation from his familiar POV it questions his ability for tolerance.
I noticed this with his toe-in-the-water judgement of Freemasonry and Freemasons, knowing his father was one. Dadi Onyeama, according to public records, was an eminent Mason who contributed to the development of the ancient institution both in Nigeria and in England. He took the inventive discipline, known among Masons to a celebrated career in law. To trivialise one’s father’s path because we disagreed with it calls for understanding rather than condemnation of this Lewis. But I am sure Dadi and the rest of the Freemasons, wouldn’t be fazed by his son’s conclusions. But some would rightly argue that Dilibe is well-read enough to understand that Freemasonry taught its members the fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. Drawing from his dad’s library and life, he should know the institution is not a religion and welcomes, to its fold members of any religion which believes in a supreme God. Onyeama’s brilliant deconstruction of “Jahbulon,” an anagramised concept of a universal God, in the book, is commendable. But it also exposes him as one blinded by a belief of ‘either this way or damn you!’ The old concept of “Jahbulon” becomes for him, a false God rather than a full realisation of the craft as an institution which fundamentally recognises, accepts, mirrors and celebrates the universality of the Most High God no matter the name He is called.
The odour and colour of Dilibe’s convictions further taint his text. This is sadly evident in his reduciing of a great institution like the European Union, to a platform falling in place for the New World Order. So shows his outlandish claim that Arnold Schwarzenegger gives fitting flesh to his mental construct of an Anti-Christ. Such ludicrous claims ask the question is Anti-Christ really a work of non-fiction?
I repeat that this is a researched and properly written book. I only would have wished it were as expansive in tolerance as it is in imagination. The writer’s stretch of imagination is beyond anything I have read recently and I would continue to admire this gift of his. The book, in my opinion, would have achieved more and travelled farther if it remained fiction. Why waste such fresh and robust imagination and subjectivity in a work of non-fiction? These, notwithstanding, I enjoyed it so much I finished it in only two days. If you’re interested in a flawlessly written book; one with high octane imagination and a world beyond what you know of it, then read Dilibe Onyeama’s Anti-Christ.
–Odili Ujubuoñu, Novelist and Copywriter. His fourth novel Crows of the Yellow Stream will be published December 1, 2020.