KEN UGBECHIE ….gongbeat column

Aside the over 257,000 people that have died of the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide, one major victim of the contagion is Bill Gates. Billionaire Gates has been profiled and projected to be the anti-Christ and promoter of a New World Order foretold in the Bible. Gates’ critics point to his push for a cure for Covid-19. The Microsoft founder is at the forefront of a global coalition to find a cure for the virus. At least a vaccine to stave off the deadly virus.

For this, they say he’s possessed, over-awed by an evil spirit. In fact, they say the man who built a multi-billion dollar software empire with his friend, Paul Allen, from a small office in 1975 has an evil spirit. The spirit of anti-Christ. The conspiracy theorists went into overdrive, on a spin from hell. Yes, the Bible did foretell of the emergence of an anti-Christ, a man that would proclaim himself God, who will have the capacity to unite the world into a one-world government with a one-world financial system and establish a one-world religion. It’s called the New World Order, eschatologically foretold in the book of Revelation.

A particular United States pastor, Adam Fannin, a controversial Florida-based preacher has been very vocal in condemning the push by Bill Gates and others for a vaccine. Pastor Fannin has always thrived in controversies. This one is just another yarn in the litany of his quirky claims. And so Fannin lit a fire that refused to go away. Instead, it found fodder from unusual quarters. Those who should know and those you expect to know better provided fuel to add to the fury of the fire.

And you just wonder, what really went wrong. Where were these people when Gates and Allen in an earth-shaking breakthrough changed BASIC – the then famous programming language of the massive mainframe and turned it for use in personal computers (PCs)? Where were Fannin and his fans when Gates’ Microsoft produced the Windows XP operating system (OS), Bing search engine, the Microsoft Disk Operation System (MS-DOS) which ruled the roost in the 80s and 90s; the Xbox 360 gaming adventure, the Microsoft Solitaire that made even adults to fall in love with card games; the Microsoft Office now bundled with Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Office 360 (the management ‘handbook’ for the modern office? Need I add the Internet Explorer (helping humanity to explore the internet since 1995), the cloud web offering called Microsoft Azure or even the Windows 95 that wowed the world back in the day. It’s a very long list of products weaved by Gates and his gang of demons.

When Gates was staying up late to chisel out these products, he was not the anti-Christ. He had no demon. He was not possessed by a mob of evil spirits. He was just a good man. His traducers used and still use and will continue to use his products. The Microsoft word they use to type their evil spins is a product of the evil spirit-infested brain of Bill Gates. The Excel they use to capture their credits and debits and the PowerPoint that makes them look like geniuses during presentations came from the weird mind of goblin Gates. In all of this, Gates was not the anti-Christ. If Gates had all the powers of the anti-Christ he could have converted the whole of humanity. Every being that has ever used a computer – PC, laptop, notebook – even a smart phone, has come in contact with Gates. This Gates is in our churches, homes, numerous worship centres, offices. He’s ubiquitous just as far as we use his software. In these, because he serves our purpose and makes our life sweeter and smarter, we esteem him noble, not an evil being possessed by demons from hades.

Why would anybody tag Gates evil, an anti-Christ? A gifted child, a school dropout whom fate has thrust fortune into his hands; fortune acquired not via lottery but by dint of hard work, smart thinking and deployment of cognitive intelligence to provide solutions to humanity’s many challenges.

Show me your works. Gates has works to show unlike his critics who have only cheap, lying words to show. Show me your works. Gates would trot out his donations through the Bill and Mellinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), reputed to be the largest private foundation in the world which he co-founded with his wife Mellinda and which has another liberal billionaire, Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway as a trustee. Gates is not the only billionaire in the world. Several times, he has been toppled from his prime position as the richest man in the world.

But nobody has toppled him as the most charitable billionaire. He gives and gives. He gives not in anticipation of a contract. He donates his wealth to promote healthcare, enhance learning through scholarships, and reduce extreme poverty especially in developing countries. He gives to expand access to information technology. He just gives. The liberal soul shall be made fat, the Bible says. Gates is nothing but a liberal soul. And he’s being made fat by his ability to engineer solution to man’s problems. He’s endowed with an excellent spirit that conjures solutions. Anybody that creates solution creates wealth. Gates creates solution hence he’s wealthy. His critics create spins and monstrous fibs hence they are materially spineless.

Check this out: Gates has donated in the United States and in developing countries including Nigeria for the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, infectious diseases and to promote family planning. For these causes and more, he has donated to World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, John Hopkins University and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, among other institutions. It’s sheer wickedness not to appreciate the person of Gates and the values he represents.

Gates is giving not because he has so much, but because it’s just in him to give and keep giving. His good-naturedness will not let him hold back. Let’s not crucify a good man. To ever link Gates with coronavirus vaccine and anti-Christ is itself an act of the anti-Christ. It’s a wicked and vile spin wrought in the devious imagination of vain men.

Since China shipped Covid-19 to the rest of the world, Gates has donated about $250 million to relevant health institutions to find a cure (at least a vaccine) to keep the world free from a novel virus that has no respect for life. We have had vaccines against yellow fever, polio, cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) among other diseases. They didn’t turn us to robots or some weird agents of the devil. Why then would a vaccine against covid-19 make us candidates of hell or clones of the devil?

If Gates is a demon, he’s a useful demon, full of good deeds. I love him. This world needs more Gates than Fannin and his fans who breed fear and spew falsehood to satiate their creepy imagination. Rather than vilify Gates, the world should make a demand of China. Ambitious China has not told us the truth about coronavirus. And she must. Attacking Gates smacks of ideological thuggery; it lacks decency. Rather, use your energy to make a demand of China- the architect of the plague.