OF SHEPHERDS, THIEVES AND ROBBERS

KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano
e-mail: kpeditorpublisher@yahoo.co.uk


The place of the Divine in the affairs of man is often hardly appreciated. When he manifests, we see it as an episode from “Tales of the Unexpected” or, at our most appreciative, we give thanks to some wonderful woman called ‘mother luck’. But, make no mistake about it, dear reader, God, my father, your father, if you’ve learnt to accept him as such, is deeply interested and involved in our affairs.

Consider the drama playing itself out in Kogi state. By the time you read this, one man who campaigned to become a lawmaker; whose campaign budget and exertion must be miniscule compared to those of governorship candidates, would have been acting governor of that state for five days with up to 85 more to go, if fresh elections drag to the maximum three months! It must have been beyond his wildest dreams. He didn’t have a hand in most of the events that led to it. He wasn’t in Iwu’s INEC which allowed itself to disqualify candidate Abubakar Audu, the main reason the incumbent had to vacate office and return to the soapbox, to try again. Now, note the twist of fate that this man, Clarence Olafemi until that Wednesday, speaker of the State House of Assembly, had earlier also had his election nullified and is on appeal, can only serve out the ‘term’ if the appeal either ends in his favour or is not finalised within the 90-day period. What a twist of fate!

It is one of the ironies of life that the amiable and obviously decent Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, erstwhile governor, is the very first chief executive to actually vacate office as a result of the post-election adjudication process. I truly wish him well.

Beyond Idris, Olafemi and Kogi state politics, however, is a fundamental issue that we have broached on this page before but which many leaders think is optional; a matter of style! And that is the issue of due process. I’ve had occasion to posit that due process is indeed of God using as evidence the need for Jesus to die on a sinner’s cross before God can authorise the retrieving of the earth from the stranglehold of satan. But with what just happened in Kogi, you might wonder which is more important to God, is it performance or due process. In other words is the process by which a man gets into office more important than his performance in office or vice versa? After all didn’t they say that Idris was doing well? At the national level, to cite another example, should the fact that the election that brought our dear President Yar’Adua into office is acknowledged as flawed, even by him, as flawed matter more than his performance in office which many have adjudged as in the right direction?

I found myself pondering this question a couple of weeks before the Kogi development when spokespersons of both the government of Ekiti state and the opposition visited some media houses in Lagos. The government spokesman was very persuasive about the achievements, within such a short time, of the government of Engr Segun Oni. According to him, water now runs in taps where the citizenry used to depend on water tankers from Government House. The government had put in place a micro credit scheme, to empower those who used to struggle and get wounded in the process of catching the wads of Naira notes dropped from the moving car of former the governor, to start and run their own businesses. He emphasised that Oni was set to build more roads during his tenure than all the governors before him put together.

The opposition spokesman didn’t see any rhyme or reason in the government’s activities. As far as he was concerned there has been no evidence of proper planning and there cannot be because the government knows that it cannot last. But in the main, he hammered on the legitimacy of the government emphasising that it was not possible for Governor Oni to carry the people along because they did not elect him. According to the man from AC candidate Fayemi’s campaign outfit, whatever the governor does is being received and would continue to be received with a yawn. Ekiti people, he said, know who their leader is.

Ponder this with me, if you will. Should the citizens of Ekiti not warm up to this governor who, if his man is to be believed, means well for them; if indeed they are not? Should ‘Kogites’ not feel short changed, by the removal of Idris, if he was doing as well as some say, he was? Should Nigerians not pray and expect God to answer their prayers for President Yar’Adua’s victory at the tribunal; since he seems in many respects like a breath of fresh air after the stuffiness of the recent past?

My head says ‘yes’, but my heart says ‘no’. And I know enough now to trust my heart which is where, I am sure you know, the Holy Spirit reaches out to the believer. And when you respond, you are led to some eternal truths in the Word. That was what happened in this case.

In the book of John, the Lord Jesus Christ said the following: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers” (John 10:1-5).

Of course, as was often the case, his hearers did not understand the parable and he obliged them with an explanation: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them…The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine” (John 10:7-14).

You can be forgiven for wondering what all this has to do with elections and their aftermath. I wondered momentarily too! But the revealer of all truths never leaves you wondering for long, if you but listen. And so he granted me this revelation. The only acceptable route to leadership positions in a democracy is by elections. Those elections are guided by rules and regulations clearly stated and to which all who participate are deemed to have subscribed. That, then, is the door through which the shepherd must enter into the sheepfold, otherwise known as pen. To manipulate or cause to be manipulated or benefit from the manipulation of that process is to enter into the pen through somewhere else other than the door.

The Lord Jesus says such people would be no more than thieves and robbers; and that the sheep would not recognise their voice and therefore not follow them. He also implied that leaders who enter through the door would be like him - empowered to give God’s gift of the abundant life to the people. Does this explain what is and what is to come? I firmly believe so.

First published in a Nigerian Daily, the Sunday Independent, published in Lagos Nigeria.