with Remi Akano
E-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com
I feel constrained to return to the sad and sickening story of the Obasanjo-Iwu civilian-to-civilian transition elections this week. And that is because, the duo of President Matthew Obasanjo, and electoral commission chairman Professor Maurice Iwu have not stopped offending the sensibilities of all decent, God-fearing people with their God rhetoric.
The President as you may know is Baptist by nurture and a born-again Christian by confession after his experience in Abacha’s gulag. Chairman Iwu, on the other hand, is said to be a mass-booking, possibly mass-attending Catholic. And they must be aware of a certain warning in the bible against calling the name of God in vain. Yet they would not stop.
The INEC chairman has been particularly consistent on this issue; as consistent as he was in promising the nation that he would conduct “free, fair and credible elections even if it is the last thing I do.” I‘ll cite two instances.
At what is certainly one of his most infamous outing since he announced the winner of the presidential election, Iwu had so many complimentary things to say about the virtues of the elections or more correctly, non-elections that he conducted, when he presented a certificate of return to the president-elect, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. But he had one adjective for critics of the charade of April 14, 21 and 28: UNGODLY! It is not clear whether it is his critics or their criticism that is ungodly or both. But its certainly one when whatever little caution he professor had left went with the wind.
Of course his performance at that event has drawn several comments. For me however the most appropriate came from a well-known columnist and I quote: “…Is it the way Iwu's men conducted the elections in which election materials got to polling stations at about 4pm on Election Day that is godly? Is it the way election results were announced where there was no voting that is godly? Is it the fact that all the electronic gadgets which Iwu promised and said the commission had invested in never worked on Election Day that is a godly act? Is it godly that in the face of violence inflicted on the voters by people who were snatching ballot boxes and stuffing them with already thumb-printed ballot papers or those who simply wrote election results and took them to INEC office to be announced by the commission, yet Iwu and his men refused to cancel the elections in those places?”
I cannot agree more with those words of ThisDay’s Yusuph Olaniyonu. As lawyers would say, you cannot come to equity with soiled hands! How dare Iwu bring God into his tragic drama written, produced and directed by King of Hades; co-starring, Balogun Do-or-die and Professor Last Thing and possibly titled April Fool
But if you thought that was Iwu’s nadir, you’ve got another think coming. On one occasion, he received a group of women from his Imo home state. Led by a certain Theresa Udenwa who is probably also a regular mass-attending, and confessing catholic, the group told chairman Iwu they were at INEC headquarters to felicitate with the commission ”for achieving for Nigeria what nobody else had done…that after a careful appraisal of the election …we have come to the conclusion that you did your best, given the circumstances under which you operated.”
That was all that Iwu needed to wax spiritual once again. According to a newspaper report, he said in his response: “God loves this country in a very special way. Without God, this election would not have taken place. There is something the commission now calls the miracle of April 20. It was a miracle because for some reasons, we were compelled to print 65 million ballot papers in 48 hours. These ballot papers were printed in South Africa and we had logistic nightmare bringing them into the country. They arrived the country at 10pm on Friday. For the first time in my adult life, I now appreciate why every country should have a purposeful leadership and robust armed forces. Within 10 hours, the leadership of this country backed INEC to use our Air Force to distribute these materials to every part of the country.
”The decision we had to make was whether we should face the logistic problem and work hard to overcome it so that our country could grow or succumb to the elegance of allowing the election to start on time and risk the continuous existence of Nigeria. We took that hard decision that election must take place so that we do not play into the hands of the detractors of this country. For now, we are satisfied that we did our best for our country. That in the circumstances we found ourselves, we were collectively able to rise up to the occasion was only made possible by God‘s intervention. It was difficult to believe that we could have moved 350 tonnes of materials to 120,000 polling units across difficult terrains within such a short time.”
Thank God that we are in this wonderful dispensation of grace! Like I believe I’ve said on this page before, Iwu allowed himself to be drawn away by his own pathological desire to do his master’s bidding in the exclusion of candidate Atiku Abubakar; attempted to play God by foreclosing the man’s participation in the presidential race and when a just, due-process committed God upturned their plan, he turns round to pat himself on the back for expensively half-solving the problem! And horror of horrors, he brings the name of God into it! Now how close to sacrilege can you get!
But as I said in the beginning, Iwu is not alone in ascribing to God the so called success of their perfidious enterprise. His principal, Mr President himself had occasion to receive Christian leaders recently in Aso Rock. Of course he had the right rhetoric. You know the thank-God-for-his mercies-and-for-your-spiritual-support kind. I am not sure he was able to sing his favourite song, “I have a God who never fails”, but he was quoted as saying: “although sceptics had doubted the conduct of the 2007 elections, it has come and gone and that to a majority of Nigerians and God the results are acceptable.”
Well, I would not go as far as saying the president lied. But I know that he could not be telling the truth unless we have a too-far-gone case of delusion on our hands! Perhaps the president has pressed NOI-Gallup Poll into action over this matter, and have somehow found so a la April Fool, it still won’t erase the truth! It is clear even to the blind that majority of Nigerian do not find the elections acceptable. As for God finding the result of fraud and brazen manipulation acceptable, all I can say is “which god?” Certainly not the God that many of know and worship. He is too holy, too just to part of the massive rigging of April 2007.
Surely as a Sunday school teacher, the president would certainly know that one of the most basic things taught children in churches is “thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7). One bible scholar explains that this commandment is not only against false swearing, but also against “all profane, trivial, and irreverent uses of God's name.” Can anything be more profane and irreverent than these? Lord have mercy.
ARE YOU STANDING UP FOR RIGHTEOUNESS?
We have less than ten legislative days left for the current National Assembly. The Anti-Same Sex Marriages Bill has, as I write this, not receive attention. If it is not passed before this Assembly winds up, the bill, like every other bill yet to be passed, ceases to be on the legislative agenda unless re-presented. Then it has to begin the journey all over! Will a National Assembly peopled by recipients of largely stolen mandates be inclined to work for righteousness? I have my doubts! So, if you are yet to call your representative and senator, please stand up for righteousness; do so TODAY. Also if you know any one in the hierarchy of the Christian Association of Nigeria and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria or any other such umbrella bodies, you may wish to alert them to this pressing duty. God bless you as you do.
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