KINGDOMPerspective July 29, 2007
Inspiration for this piece came from two sources as different and apart as chalk and cheese. The first source is Tony Oganah, a lawyer, publisher and politician. Although, he once ran for office on the platform of one of so-called conservative parties, he is of the Tony Enahoro School of Politics, even if he does not necessarily agree with every detail of the new constitution being spearheaded by the veteran nationalist and politician. Of course, he is a PRONACO activist.
The other source is "my president." By that I mean the man of God who heads the umbrella body of Pentecostal and charismatic churches, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. A man I respect so much but do not always agree with, Oritsejafor came out of the "come-as-you-are" generation of pastors who would not have anyone link their faith with their hairstyle. Like my Senior Pastor, he still dons his punk hairstyle, decades of "going-ye" later.
On a visit by my wife and I to the Oganah family, last Sunday, Tony and I got talking about the state of the nation. Everything from the nature of the last charade called elections to the controversial sales of refineries to Obasanjo’s blue-eyed boys whose special-purpose vehicle for the deal was appropriately named Bluestar Petroleum. After all, if you are a powerful potentate’s blue-eyed boy, you cannot be anything but a blue star!
What resonated with me as we drove out of the estate where Tony and his wonderful wife (Nkechi) and their children live was his comment on the role of the Church in the affairs of our nation. He noted that the church has had no influence on governance and felt that this should not be so. I agreed with him but put it down to disunity in the body. I explained to him that I should know, because of the great challenges we have faced trying to publish a non-denominational magazine known as KINGDOMPeople and how we have had to start a One Church Campaign as a project of the magazine. I also sought to let him see the worldwide nature of the disunity citing the recent statement by Pope Benedict XVI to the effect that non-Catholics may be styled "Christian communities", but they do not belong to the one and only one catholic and apostolic church established by the Lord Jesus under the leadership of Apostle Peter (more on this at a later date). Tony did agree that disunity was an issue but he went on to posit that the problem may lie more in the fact that many of those in leadership of the various bodies "have been compromised."
That of course got me thinking and wondering until, back at home, "my president" weighed in on the issue. In an extensive interview with Aramide Oikelome who heads the Faith Desk of this newspaper, Pastor Oritsejafor expressed surprise that the Church was not being involved in finding solutions to that blight on the national conscience, the Niger Delta crisis. He argued that majority of the citizens of that region of Nigeria are Christians and implied therefore that they should be quite responsive to the intervention of their spiritual leaders.
His words: "In my own opinion, one of the mistakes they have always made is that when they call the supposed stakeholders of the Niger Delta, they never bring in the church and it has always baffled me why they don’t do this…the Niger Delta is basically composed of Christian states…Everybody you see there (if they want to be honest with you) is a Christian one way or the other. They may not be committed, but they are Christians; they were baptized in church…"
Rationalising the need to involve the church further, he said: "Not only are we organising prayers at the moment (which is very important), but also we want to be further involved; we want to be involved in negotiations in the sense that some of these boys (militants) do not trust a lot of government officials. On the other hand there are people they believe are credible"
Then, he came to the issue that had been tugging at my heartstring since my discussion with Tony earlier, the issue of credibility. Said "my president": "We can become the bridge. We can talk to these boys and reach a truce with them to stop the fighting and the kidnapping for a year and let the government fulfill its part. If they don’t, then nobody can blame them. Then we can go to the government and tell them that our credibility is at stake and if they don’t perform, we would come out publicly to condemn them. I don’t need any money or anything from the government. No governor has given me any money because, I don’t want it, I don’t need it. So, if they don’t perform we will come out and tell the whole world and when we start talking, people will listen because they know we are not politicians…"
Making the case that credibility is the rock upon which church leadership is (or should be) built, he admitted that "a lot of institutions in the country have been bastardised. Many do not have credibility, but I think to some extent there are still people in the church who have credibility and can stand up against injustice. We know that if we do not do what we say, then we are in trouble because we have nothing to preach to anybody. My members can walk out of the church because truth, justice and equity are directly related to what we preach. So, if I don’t stick to what I say, it goes completely against everything that I am doing. That means that I have no platform again. A politician can divorce his wife and still remain a politician or even become the president, but I can’t do that; I can’t drive my wife away and then open the Bible to preach…"
I wanted to shout: "tell them pastor, tell them my president", but somehow, I didn’t get the release in my spirit. Yes, Pastor Oritsejafor was right, the church should go beyond praying and get involved at least as intermediaries and peace brokers. And possibly there is nowhere needing that kind of intervention now more than the Niger Delta. And yes, he can flaunt his own credentials as a credible man who has not received any money from any governor, but can he really speak for others? The fact that he needed to declare that openly suggests that either there are people out there who have received money from governors or, there are governors willing to give in order to compromise men of God or, both. So there is a credibility challenge that the church must confront and deal with.
More important than the credibility problem in the leadership cadre of the church implied in all of these, is the issue of the credibility of politicians, many of whom fly the Christianity flag and are therefore products of the church led by Pastor Oritsejafor and his other revered colleagues in Christian Association of Nigeria.
When the PFN president made the distinction between those in the church and politicians, he sounded like politicians dropped from some unknown planet. Yet we know better, don’t we? When the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), after smartly selling the public and our erstwhile immunity-protected governors the dummy of unwillingness to carry out its threat to prosecute them after their tenure, finally got cracking recently a discernible trend seem to have begun. The profile of the five already arraigned, at the time of writing this, should be food for thought to all Christians and in particular, the leadership. Four of them, are to use Pastor Oritsejafor’s words quoted above are, "…christian(s) one way or the other. They may not be committed, but they are Christians; they were baptized in church."
Although, these men are innocent until proven guilty, it is still instructive that they could be accused of that much evil! Plateau State’s Joshua Dariye never tired of thanking God for his many court victories each time EFCC’s exuberance pitched them against due process. Yet he has never really denied wrong-doing, at least, that he is a fugitive from justice in the United Kingdom. Orji Uzor Kalu presided over "God’s Own State" and his presidential campaigns in the run-down to the last "elections" were like crusades for the amount of praise and worship that featured in many of them. There is fine-boy, and seemingly cerebral Chimaroke Nnamani, the "Ebeano" governor whose catch phrase was "Enugu is working…to God be the glory." And horror of horrors there is Governor Jolly Nyame who still carries the title of reverend and who, if media reports are to be believed, has offered to return "part of his loot."
My dear President, I suggest that the church’s involvement in the Niger Delta and everywhere else must transcend prayers and direct intervention as peace brokers; it must extend to, if not primarily be, ensuring that those who go to government naming the name of the Lord, must have the rest of Christ’s family to contend with each time they step out of line in the course of serving Christ through the nation. That, in my humble opinion is the urgent challenge to church leadership today.
First published in a Nigerian Daily, the Sunday Independent, published in Lagos Nigeria.
Thursday, 26 July 2007
Wednesday, 18 July 2007
OF SURROGATES, FLOODS AND FOUNDATIONS
It would be laughable, if it were not such a serious governance issue. I mean the current debate on who is in charge in Nigeria today. Newspaper editorials, informed commentaries and punchy letters to the editor are all asking the same questions: Who is in charge, Yar’Adua or Obasanjo? Do we have two presidents? Is Obasanjo a kind of senior president? And I ask: Are you kidding me? Or are we all a pack of Rip Van Winkles, just waking up from a long slumber (with apologies to Angryman Michael John)?
Please replay the drama of the last one year or so in your mind. One man loves Nigeria so much he couldn’t see a future for her without him. So, he decided to throw away his own future; a guaranteed future of international respect and world statesmanship status. You call it the third-term agenda, I call it mindless self-immolation. When that agenda failed, he decided to find Nigeria another lover created in his own image and his own likeness. In order to ensure that this disinterested new lover wins Nigeria’s heart, he put together a boxing contest, recruited a loyal referee and malleable judges and handed them instructions to ensure victory for his preferred suitor. He declared the contest a matter of life and death; joined the man on the scale at the pre-match weigh-in to leave no one in doubt that his massive weight was not just behind the surrogate lover-boy but the weight was in him as in “Christ in you”.
Of course, the fight degenerated into a mess, featuring so many below-the-belt punches, head butts and even ear-chewing. The original lover-boy occasionally went into the roped square to hold the hands and legs of one of the more determined opponents of his protégé. The referee lent his hands too. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would have called it “roforofo” fight. All these happened in the full view of the spectators; some of them officially certified ring-siders who know a good boxing match when they see one. They were so disgusted they left damning reports before huffing away to their various homes, to await invitation to the next fisticuff festival somewhere else in the world.
Anyway, the referee, in exercise of the powers conferred on him, proceeded to raise the hands and legs of the winner and decorated him with the championship belt. Of course when everybody else had gone home, the new lover who styled himself servant-lover promptly handed the belt over to original lover-boy who proudly placed it where everybody who visits his famous farm-house would see it. Of course he is magnanimous enough to allow servant-lover to wear it each time he has to make a public appearance; but with a stern warning to return it in good shape immediately thereafter.
Now some spectators are crying foul. Some are yelling, green-white-green (not blue) murder. Some are shouting themselves hoarse that the new lover should be left alone to consummate his illicit affair with the bride. And again, I ask: are you kidding me? Does anybody really expect differently? Not me! All is said to be fair in love and in war and this was both! Obasanjo fought for and won the presidency with everything that he had, including his future and even his peace of mind. He did it for himself, not for Yar’Adua. So anyone expecting him to go home quietly and leave Yar’Adua to live with the bride and be happy forever after cannot be realistic.
Smart man, he took many steps to ensure that that does not happen. And while he was taking those steps, many were cheering him lustily on. He fixed “Mr Fix-It” long before he re-stepped in by proxy, and it only took the reverberating effect of that to give “Surgeon, the educated Ali” a few months of grace in the grass. The legislators have him to contend with. Whosoever steps out of the legislative agenda being drawn up at Ota would be promptly whipped into line. And the governors also have to answer to him or else. Welcome to OBJ’s Nigeria!
These days Obasanjo must be singing merrily in his bathroom every morning, or afternoon, or evening, or whenever it is that retired but not tired generals and presidents find time to do such un-presidential things: “I did it my way.” Frank Sinatra would be pleased. He might add a chorus, “In my pocket, in my pocket, I have them all in my pocket”. The melody may not be too soothing, the rhythm may be jerky, but the lyrics would be correct. It would reflect the status quo in today’s Nigeria. And I am laughing.
I am laughing, because I know this is only correct for a season. I am laughing because of the sheer folly of men wanting to play God. I am laughing because I am fully persuaded that ONLY God the Almighty is God and he would not share his glory with any man. I am laughing because I know that the dominion God gave man over the works of his hands does not include dominion over his kind. I am laughing because our nation’s political history is replete with examples of the surrogate gone smart.
Let me give one example that still rankles with me till today. At the commencement of political activities in 1978 preparatory to the return of civil rule the following year, Chief Obafemi Awolowo put in place a very efficient political machine that I know ranks favourably with any one of its kind anywhere else in the world. Now, Awolowo was nothing if not a consummate planner and competent administrator. He was a leader per excellence whose heart was with his people. He called that machine, Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, with the party slogan as “UP NIGERIA”. The party had a winning platform built around four cardinal programmes including free education at all levels free medical services and integrated rural development. UPN was the party to beat nationally but particularly in the south-western part of Nigeria. As a result, even if a goat got the ticket of UPN, it was bound to win fair and square in that region. Note that please: win, fair and square. And win virtually all that got the ticket did.
In the event, people who contributed next-to-nothing to their own victories and who were certainly truly beholden unto the party and its leader found themselves in the legislatures across what was then known as the LOOBO states; that being acronym for Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Bendel and Ondo. They were loyal party men until their personal interests clashed with that of the party and the nation!
I recall how the UPN Parliamentary Council consisting of all legislators on the party’s platform met with the leadership and agreed on what was considered as a reasonable level of salaries and allowances for legislators at all levels. They were directed to present those figures at the various assemblies and resist anything higher. It just so happened that the National Party of Nigeria came up with higher figures which were generally considered as scandalous at the National Assembly and before you could say “UP ME”, UPN parliamentarians had broken ranks with their party and its leadership. The party kicked. The UPN Director of Organisation had responsibility to move in and get the men to tow the line. He almost paid for it with his life! Thankfully, Ebino Topsy, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, is alive to tell the story.
This is not nearly like today’s situation, but it tells the story all the same. One very perceptive columnist put it this way: when will Yar’Adua and Obasanjo fight? And the answer is simple: when Yar’Adua’s interests truly clash with those of Obasanjo.
But as I said earlier, the peace that I have in all of these is I know both sides are acting the pawn on God’s own giant chess board. At the risk of sounding like a broken record – scratched compact disc, if you like – a flood is coming. The tide of evil in our nation will be stemmed; a flood of righteousness will take its place. The question is, are you prepared for the flood?
The Lord Jesus, always right on the mark, had this description of the wise man, the one who is ready for the flood: “He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock” (Luke 6: 48).
And you ask, what is the rock? How do I build on the rock? The rock is truth; it is righteousness; it is playing by the rules, not manipulating it. The bible describes the man who will stand “when the come comes to become”, as the late Ozumba Mbadiwe would have put it: “He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil”
(Isaiah 33:15). The actors in this national tragic-comedy must check if they fit.
No I do not judge Obasanjo or Yar’Adua. Who am I to judge another’s servant! But the prophet Isaiah said in a not-so-dissimilar context: “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left” (Isaiah 30:21). Perhaps Kingdom Perspective is echoing that voice.
Please replay the drama of the last one year or so in your mind. One man loves Nigeria so much he couldn’t see a future for her without him. So, he decided to throw away his own future; a guaranteed future of international respect and world statesmanship status. You call it the third-term agenda, I call it mindless self-immolation. When that agenda failed, he decided to find Nigeria another lover created in his own image and his own likeness. In order to ensure that this disinterested new lover wins Nigeria’s heart, he put together a boxing contest, recruited a loyal referee and malleable judges and handed them instructions to ensure victory for his preferred suitor. He declared the contest a matter of life and death; joined the man on the scale at the pre-match weigh-in to leave no one in doubt that his massive weight was not just behind the surrogate lover-boy but the weight was in him as in “Christ in you”.
Of course, the fight degenerated into a mess, featuring so many below-the-belt punches, head butts and even ear-chewing. The original lover-boy occasionally went into the roped square to hold the hands and legs of one of the more determined opponents of his protégé. The referee lent his hands too. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would have called it “roforofo” fight. All these happened in the full view of the spectators; some of them officially certified ring-siders who know a good boxing match when they see one. They were so disgusted they left damning reports before huffing away to their various homes, to await invitation to the next fisticuff festival somewhere else in the world.
Anyway, the referee, in exercise of the powers conferred on him, proceeded to raise the hands and legs of the winner and decorated him with the championship belt. Of course when everybody else had gone home, the new lover who styled himself servant-lover promptly handed the belt over to original lover-boy who proudly placed it where everybody who visits his famous farm-house would see it. Of course he is magnanimous enough to allow servant-lover to wear it each time he has to make a public appearance; but with a stern warning to return it in good shape immediately thereafter.
Now some spectators are crying foul. Some are yelling, green-white-green (not blue) murder. Some are shouting themselves hoarse that the new lover should be left alone to consummate his illicit affair with the bride. And again, I ask: are you kidding me? Does anybody really expect differently? Not me! All is said to be fair in love and in war and this was both! Obasanjo fought for and won the presidency with everything that he had, including his future and even his peace of mind. He did it for himself, not for Yar’Adua. So anyone expecting him to go home quietly and leave Yar’Adua to live with the bride and be happy forever after cannot be realistic.
Smart man, he took many steps to ensure that that does not happen. And while he was taking those steps, many were cheering him lustily on. He fixed “Mr Fix-It” long before he re-stepped in by proxy, and it only took the reverberating effect of that to give “Surgeon, the educated Ali” a few months of grace in the grass. The legislators have him to contend with. Whosoever steps out of the legislative agenda being drawn up at Ota would be promptly whipped into line. And the governors also have to answer to him or else. Welcome to OBJ’s Nigeria!
These days Obasanjo must be singing merrily in his bathroom every morning, or afternoon, or evening, or whenever it is that retired but not tired generals and presidents find time to do such un-presidential things: “I did it my way.” Frank Sinatra would be pleased. He might add a chorus, “In my pocket, in my pocket, I have them all in my pocket”. The melody may not be too soothing, the rhythm may be jerky, but the lyrics would be correct. It would reflect the status quo in today’s Nigeria. And I am laughing.
I am laughing, because I know this is only correct for a season. I am laughing because of the sheer folly of men wanting to play God. I am laughing because I am fully persuaded that ONLY God the Almighty is God and he would not share his glory with any man. I am laughing because I know that the dominion God gave man over the works of his hands does not include dominion over his kind. I am laughing because our nation’s political history is replete with examples of the surrogate gone smart.
Let me give one example that still rankles with me till today. At the commencement of political activities in 1978 preparatory to the return of civil rule the following year, Chief Obafemi Awolowo put in place a very efficient political machine that I know ranks favourably with any one of its kind anywhere else in the world. Now, Awolowo was nothing if not a consummate planner and competent administrator. He was a leader per excellence whose heart was with his people. He called that machine, Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, with the party slogan as “UP NIGERIA”. The party had a winning platform built around four cardinal programmes including free education at all levels free medical services and integrated rural development. UPN was the party to beat nationally but particularly in the south-western part of Nigeria. As a result, even if a goat got the ticket of UPN, it was bound to win fair and square in that region. Note that please: win, fair and square. And win virtually all that got the ticket did.
In the event, people who contributed next-to-nothing to their own victories and who were certainly truly beholden unto the party and its leader found themselves in the legislatures across what was then known as the LOOBO states; that being acronym for Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Bendel and Ondo. They were loyal party men until their personal interests clashed with that of the party and the nation!
I recall how the UPN Parliamentary Council consisting of all legislators on the party’s platform met with the leadership and agreed on what was considered as a reasonable level of salaries and allowances for legislators at all levels. They were directed to present those figures at the various assemblies and resist anything higher. It just so happened that the National Party of Nigeria came up with higher figures which were generally considered as scandalous at the National Assembly and before you could say “UP ME”, UPN parliamentarians had broken ranks with their party and its leadership. The party kicked. The UPN Director of Organisation had responsibility to move in and get the men to tow the line. He almost paid for it with his life! Thankfully, Ebino Topsy, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, is alive to tell the story.
This is not nearly like today’s situation, but it tells the story all the same. One very perceptive columnist put it this way: when will Yar’Adua and Obasanjo fight? And the answer is simple: when Yar’Adua’s interests truly clash with those of Obasanjo.
But as I said earlier, the peace that I have in all of these is I know both sides are acting the pawn on God’s own giant chess board. At the risk of sounding like a broken record – scratched compact disc, if you like – a flood is coming. The tide of evil in our nation will be stemmed; a flood of righteousness will take its place. The question is, are you prepared for the flood?
The Lord Jesus, always right on the mark, had this description of the wise man, the one who is ready for the flood: “He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock” (Luke 6: 48).
And you ask, what is the rock? How do I build on the rock? The rock is truth; it is righteousness; it is playing by the rules, not manipulating it. The bible describes the man who will stand “when the come comes to become”, as the late Ozumba Mbadiwe would have put it: “He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil”
(Isaiah 33:15). The actors in this national tragic-comedy must check if they fit.
No I do not judge Obasanjo or Yar’Adua. Who am I to judge another’s servant! But the prophet Isaiah said in a not-so-dissimilar context: “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left” (Isaiah 30:21). Perhaps Kingdom Perspective is echoing that voice.
Thursday, 28 June 2007
ASO ROCK JUST HAS TO GET THE “KOKO”
KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
With REMI AKANO
e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com
It can bear repetition. Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua does smell like roses after the phosphorus-like odour that used to ooze from Nigeria’s seat of power in Abuja. So as I recall saying recently, he would be my idea of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under normal circumstances.
The now suspended general strike was certainly unnecessary and the suffering and losses at all levels avoidable, but it offered us an opportunity to appraise the style of the new “king” on the block. And I personally liked what I saw. I liked the “presidential” reticence which left him room for his “intervention” at the crucial last minute. It’s the way it ought to be. I also noticed the restraint of the Police which ordinarily should be the case but which had become such an exception under the previous dispensation. That I am sure was the “instruction from above.” My hope is that it would become the norm for the citizen’s right of dissent is respected. Did you also note the language of spokesmen for government – temperate and civil; a far cry from the abrasive and abusive effusions that we’ve been forced to live with? There is one little exception though.
Incidentally, that little exception came from Segun Adeniyi, the new presidential spokesman, who in his well-written insider report on what went on and who did what inside Aso Villa during the crisis, inadvertently, I believe, described those who were urging Yar’Adua to “disown Obasanjo” as “the mob.” I cannot find it in me to believe that this was anything but a slip; so, we’ll give that part of his statement a miss.
However, his write-up, informative as it is, does offer an insight into the emerging mindset of the administration. And it shows a glaring lack of appreciation of the key issue in national governance today. In spite of the seeming sincerity and honesty being affected by the new leadership, there is this nagging feeling that they are still missing the point, the “koko” as fans of music star D’Banj would put it. And that “koko”, whether we like or not, is due process, leading to justice, equity and enthronement of righteousness in the land. To play around this, is to misread the mood of the nation and backstep to an era we’ll love to forget in hurry.
Let’s explore this together. Segun Adeniyi wrote and I quote: “…he (Yar’Adua) is also of the view that any government policy that impacts directly on the welfare of the people must meet the criteria of rule of law and public morality.” Adeniyi went on to report how the President directed officials to look into those controversial issues even before Labour’s 14-day ultimatum. He intimated that on the issue of Value Added Tax, for instance, the question asked was whether it could be sustained on the basis of legality? The 15% salary increase, according to Adeniyi was treated as an issue of honour and so Yar’Adua ruled that “government just has to honour its obligations” I am sure you’ll join me in applauding all of that.
But let’s read on: “Now to the issue of fuel price hike done shortly before the administration came in. There were presentations by Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency PPPRA, NNPC and other stakeholders on all the indices that informed the decision…What should government do in the face of harsh economic realities? …The consensus remains that in a democracy, the people have to be consulted and the relevant stakeholders carried along on important decisions that would affect their welfare. Taking into account the hardship that normally goes with fuel price hike, which has been rather evident in across the nation, the president decided tat since kerosene and diesel are more essential for the vulnerable elements of our society, prices of such products should be reversed to the old rates. As for petrol, having factored in the economic indices, a reduction of five naira was also approved even as this would go against the projections of NNPC and PPPRA.”
Adeniyi continued: “Of course it is politically expedient to just reverse everything, but one fact often ignored is that Nigeria is a poor country with the potential for changing our fortunes if we do the correct things, though the problem remains that the people, for good reasons, do not trust those in power to act in their interest. That explains why public opinion is today against government on the vexatious issue of petroleum pricing…”
This is the beginning of my point of departure with Adeniyi and his principals. They admit that “the consensus remains that in a democracy, the people have to be consulted and the relevant stakeholders carried along on important decisions that would affect their welfare” but proceeded to act unilaterally. “There were presentations by Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency PPPRA, NNPC and other stakeholders on all the indices that informed the decision…” The question here was to whom were these presentations done? They decided to bypass the one body, the PPPRA Board, a government dominated body through which some semblance of consultation could have been done. The indices were prepared by the NNPC and PPPRA and other stakeholders. Obviously some stakeholders are more stakeholder than others!
He spoke about how politically expedient it would have been for his principal to simply reverse everything. We are therefore supposed to applaud his courage for taking a difficult decision. I say, on the contrary it was expediency to dispense with the consensus “that in a democracy, the people have to be consulted and the relevant stakeholders carried along on important decisions that would affect their welfare.”
At the heart of the matter is that decisions were taken in the twilight days of a government run by the Peoples Democratic Party, to which Yar’Adua belongs. The correct thing was for the outgoing president to have intimated him with the decision before it was taken. In the process of such intimation, he should have had all the facts and figures. If he had, it should have enabled him prepare for the fall-outs. Adeniyi’s write-up gave no hint of that. In fact that pointed issue has been studiously avoided. So if he was not briefed, why was it difficult for him to suspend those decisions when they became contentious and proceed to institute consultations with all stakeholders and thus be able to take decisions from a position of knowledge, which he could rightly own?
Or are we dealing here with the kind of position Adeniyi himself foresaw in his ThisDay column last year? In a piece titled, “Where are the Davids”, he had written: “From Abuja to virtually all the states, the outgoing public officials are thinking, not in terms of what is best for the people but rather scheming for self-preservation as we see the unsettling prospects of incumbents and other tin gods seeking to install their wives, their sons, their cousins, their concubines and other cronies in power…Having wasted the past, they have now taken it upon themselves to also legislate on our future by imposing on us their puppets so they can continue to rule beyond their tenure.”
Obviously Adeniyi was so irked by any thought of Yar’Adua as a puppet that it was at this point that he committed the faux pas of describing those who dared to hint at it, as members of a mob. But what followed that particular slip incidentally talks to the heart of the state of our nation. Wrote Adeniyi: “The pundits who argue that the (then) outstanding issues on ground can be resolved simply by Yar’Adua disowning Obasanjo clearly miss the point. Even if he does that to please the mob, it would still not obliterate the fact that the April elections were messed up, a fact he has admitted and made a solemn commitment to redressing by reforming the electoral process so as to bring integrity to the ballot box…”
That is the “koko” that Aso Villa has gotten and yet not gotten. The man or woman who runs Nigeria has to have been the one who polled the highest number of votes cast in a free, fair and credible election. The gentleman currently attempting to call the shots does not exactly answer to that description. Conjectures by certain well-meaning people, including Adeniyi before he joined the administration that Yar’Adua would still have won were the elections “not messed up”, remain just that – conjectures, not empirically provable. He does not hold a mandate, properly so called; what he has is the result of fraud, brazen robbery and violence. He needs to understand that and let it inform his choices! I once had occasion to offer suggestions in this column.
But I doubt that he does, going by his characterization, according to Adeniyi in his last ThisDay column, of his election victory as a low-score lead in an examination that had no passes. No sir, it is actually like scoring very high grades through “expo”. And you know what JAMB and WAEC do to such results? They are cancelled.
To everybody who professes Christianity, due process must be non-negotiable! I said it here before. God had to go through the painful due process of allowing his son to die on the cross that he may retrieve control of the earth given away to satan by Adam! He could have done it any other way. He did not, because he would not violate his own law. Yar’Adua may not know this, but I am sure Vice President Jonathan and Adeniyi do. Let’s face the “koko” please. (thegreatcompany.blogspot.com)
With REMI AKANO
e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com
It can bear repetition. Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua does smell like roses after the phosphorus-like odour that used to ooze from Nigeria’s seat of power in Abuja. So as I recall saying recently, he would be my idea of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under normal circumstances.
The now suspended general strike was certainly unnecessary and the suffering and losses at all levels avoidable, but it offered us an opportunity to appraise the style of the new “king” on the block. And I personally liked what I saw. I liked the “presidential” reticence which left him room for his “intervention” at the crucial last minute. It’s the way it ought to be. I also noticed the restraint of the Police which ordinarily should be the case but which had become such an exception under the previous dispensation. That I am sure was the “instruction from above.” My hope is that it would become the norm for the citizen’s right of dissent is respected. Did you also note the language of spokesmen for government – temperate and civil; a far cry from the abrasive and abusive effusions that we’ve been forced to live with? There is one little exception though.
Incidentally, that little exception came from Segun Adeniyi, the new presidential spokesman, who in his well-written insider report on what went on and who did what inside Aso Villa during the crisis, inadvertently, I believe, described those who were urging Yar’Adua to “disown Obasanjo” as “the mob.” I cannot find it in me to believe that this was anything but a slip; so, we’ll give that part of his statement a miss.
However, his write-up, informative as it is, does offer an insight into the emerging mindset of the administration. And it shows a glaring lack of appreciation of the key issue in national governance today. In spite of the seeming sincerity and honesty being affected by the new leadership, there is this nagging feeling that they are still missing the point, the “koko” as fans of music star D’Banj would put it. And that “koko”, whether we like or not, is due process, leading to justice, equity and enthronement of righteousness in the land. To play around this, is to misread the mood of the nation and backstep to an era we’ll love to forget in hurry.
Let’s explore this together. Segun Adeniyi wrote and I quote: “…he (Yar’Adua) is also of the view that any government policy that impacts directly on the welfare of the people must meet the criteria of rule of law and public morality.” Adeniyi went on to report how the President directed officials to look into those controversial issues even before Labour’s 14-day ultimatum. He intimated that on the issue of Value Added Tax, for instance, the question asked was whether it could be sustained on the basis of legality? The 15% salary increase, according to Adeniyi was treated as an issue of honour and so Yar’Adua ruled that “government just has to honour its obligations” I am sure you’ll join me in applauding all of that.
But let’s read on: “Now to the issue of fuel price hike done shortly before the administration came in. There were presentations by Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency PPPRA, NNPC and other stakeholders on all the indices that informed the decision…What should government do in the face of harsh economic realities? …The consensus remains that in a democracy, the people have to be consulted and the relevant stakeholders carried along on important decisions that would affect their welfare. Taking into account the hardship that normally goes with fuel price hike, which has been rather evident in across the nation, the president decided tat since kerosene and diesel are more essential for the vulnerable elements of our society, prices of such products should be reversed to the old rates. As for petrol, having factored in the economic indices, a reduction of five naira was also approved even as this would go against the projections of NNPC and PPPRA.”
Adeniyi continued: “Of course it is politically expedient to just reverse everything, but one fact often ignored is that Nigeria is a poor country with the potential for changing our fortunes if we do the correct things, though the problem remains that the people, for good reasons, do not trust those in power to act in their interest. That explains why public opinion is today against government on the vexatious issue of petroleum pricing…”
This is the beginning of my point of departure with Adeniyi and his principals. They admit that “the consensus remains that in a democracy, the people have to be consulted and the relevant stakeholders carried along on important decisions that would affect their welfare” but proceeded to act unilaterally. “There were presentations by Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency PPPRA, NNPC and other stakeholders on all the indices that informed the decision…” The question here was to whom were these presentations done? They decided to bypass the one body, the PPPRA Board, a government dominated body through which some semblance of consultation could have been done. The indices were prepared by the NNPC and PPPRA and other stakeholders. Obviously some stakeholders are more stakeholder than others!
He spoke about how politically expedient it would have been for his principal to simply reverse everything. We are therefore supposed to applaud his courage for taking a difficult decision. I say, on the contrary it was expediency to dispense with the consensus “that in a democracy, the people have to be consulted and the relevant stakeholders carried along on important decisions that would affect their welfare.”
At the heart of the matter is that decisions were taken in the twilight days of a government run by the Peoples Democratic Party, to which Yar’Adua belongs. The correct thing was for the outgoing president to have intimated him with the decision before it was taken. In the process of such intimation, he should have had all the facts and figures. If he had, it should have enabled him prepare for the fall-outs. Adeniyi’s write-up gave no hint of that. In fact that pointed issue has been studiously avoided. So if he was not briefed, why was it difficult for him to suspend those decisions when they became contentious and proceed to institute consultations with all stakeholders and thus be able to take decisions from a position of knowledge, which he could rightly own?
Or are we dealing here with the kind of position Adeniyi himself foresaw in his ThisDay column last year? In a piece titled, “Where are the Davids”, he had written: “From Abuja to virtually all the states, the outgoing public officials are thinking, not in terms of what is best for the people but rather scheming for self-preservation as we see the unsettling prospects of incumbents and other tin gods seeking to install their wives, their sons, their cousins, their concubines and other cronies in power…Having wasted the past, they have now taken it upon themselves to also legislate on our future by imposing on us their puppets so they can continue to rule beyond their tenure.”
Obviously Adeniyi was so irked by any thought of Yar’Adua as a puppet that it was at this point that he committed the faux pas of describing those who dared to hint at it, as members of a mob. But what followed that particular slip incidentally talks to the heart of the state of our nation. Wrote Adeniyi: “The pundits who argue that the (then) outstanding issues on ground can be resolved simply by Yar’Adua disowning Obasanjo clearly miss the point. Even if he does that to please the mob, it would still not obliterate the fact that the April elections were messed up, a fact he has admitted and made a solemn commitment to redressing by reforming the electoral process so as to bring integrity to the ballot box…”
That is the “koko” that Aso Villa has gotten and yet not gotten. The man or woman who runs Nigeria has to have been the one who polled the highest number of votes cast in a free, fair and credible election. The gentleman currently attempting to call the shots does not exactly answer to that description. Conjectures by certain well-meaning people, including Adeniyi before he joined the administration that Yar’Adua would still have won were the elections “not messed up”, remain just that – conjectures, not empirically provable. He does not hold a mandate, properly so called; what he has is the result of fraud, brazen robbery and violence. He needs to understand that and let it inform his choices! I once had occasion to offer suggestions in this column.
But I doubt that he does, going by his characterization, according to Adeniyi in his last ThisDay column, of his election victory as a low-score lead in an examination that had no passes. No sir, it is actually like scoring very high grades through “expo”. And you know what JAMB and WAEC do to such results? They are cancelled.
To everybody who professes Christianity, due process must be non-negotiable! I said it here before. God had to go through the painful due process of allowing his son to die on the cross that he may retrieve control of the earth given away to satan by Adam! He could have done it any other way. He did not, because he would not violate his own law. Yar’Adua may not know this, but I am sure Vice President Jonathan and Adeniyi do. Let’s face the “koko” please. (thegreatcompany.blogspot.com)
UPON THIS ROCK…
KINGDOM Perspective June 24, 2007
It easy to reconstruct the scenario. A certain powerful man finally came to terms with the fact that he could no longer remain in power. He looked lovingly into the eyes of one his sons. He recalled the many late nights the not-so-young man had had to keep on account of he, the father, being a nocturnal animal who was not averse to working and playing afterhours. He recalled how many personal, possibly intimate issues he had efficiently handled to his pleasure. He could not forget that this dutiful son was the last person he saw at night as well as first thing in the morning.
This good and faithful son, he told himself must be amply compensated and he assured his son so. He must have sworn by himself to the son like God the Almighty who finding no one higher to swear by swore by himself to Abraham in the bible. This powerful man loves to play God, you see.
Anyway, he set about fulfilling his promise. His son has to become Governor of his (the son’s) home state at whatever cost. After all the state had then only recently been prised out of the vice-grip of his brother. He had literally been licensed to maim, kill, raze down properties and do whatever else caught his fancy in order to recoup his investment from the erstwhile custodian of the mandate they stole in 2003.
Fortunately, the man who would supervise the election was already beholden to his son, anyway – he holds office through the persuasive power of his beloved son. So that part of the grand scheme was all but sorted out. But this father, being a war general versed in the strategies and tactics of war by other means, visited the incumbent governor to serve him notice: “no second term for you, ok?” And just in case he was hard at hearing he applied a bit of visible and physical pressure, by way of causing the gale of impeachment to blow in that direction. Let him feel it, so he can know it, he must have thought.
As if in parody of the lawyer’s concept of “covering the field”, the umpire either operating out of the abundance of his thankful heart, or under orders, or both, decided to clear the field of any other potent opposition. He identified two and promptly pronounced them “disqualified by the constitution”. Nothing was being left to chances. Even the famous “G-Factor” was considered; a mass was said to have been booked at a certain church in Abuja to pray for the victory of the favoured child of his powerful father.
In spite of all these elaborate planning; the war-room was still not satisfied that all ends had been tied up. So somebody came up with this wonderfully effective idea: “have only symbolic election in this particular state; disenfranchise as many of the people. The worst case scenario, they’ll go to the tribunal and when we get to that bridge, we’ll cross it. “The author of this idea must have received a standing ovation. They did exactly that and before you could say “nba”, the favourite son had been declared winner of the non-election and eventually sworn in as Executive Governor.
A very satisfied father must have told himself, “I have delivered on my promise and we can both now live happily forever; albeit apart!” But that was not to be.
You see, while that plot was being executed, a sub-plot was unfolding in parallel. A certain well-known eagle-eyed lawyer had spotted an innocuous, harmless-looking clause in the laws of the land and flown a little kite. Ignored at first, the favoured son’s opponent caught a whiff of the sweet scent of victory through that clause. Through the usual tortuous route he had become familiar with, he persevered and 17 days after, Papa’s son was scampering out of Government House.
No prizes for identifying the actors in this drama: Father is Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, immediate past President, Federal Republic of Nigeria while the son is Dr Andy Uba. You also know that the great umpire is Professor Maurice Iwu, chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the hero is Mr Peter Obi, reinstated Governor of Anambra State.
Since the April elections which served as a rude wake-up call for many of us to open our eyes to the extent of evil that’s being perpetrated in our land under the guise of nurturing our “nascent democracy” and “moving the nation forward”, many spiritually sensitive people have sensed that God was set to move against the flood of evil.
In a recent piece, one had dared to intimate that a flood of righteousness was on the way. That flood, we said then, would sweep away the authors and beneficiaries of evil and uplift the victims of these evil machinations. As was implied in that piece based on the events before the Flood in the days of Noah, God will identify the righteous, protect them and assign them to fulfil his purpose for our nation. Without any equivocation, Peter Obi is one such person. And his reinstatement is but the early days of that flood.
Thankfully, he seems to know it. In an interview with Sunday Independent, which was held before the Supreme Court judgment that correctly put his tenure as enduring till 2010, but which was not published until after it, Obi was quoted as saying the following prophetic words:
"Mark my word, I will return to the Government House, Awka, to complete my tenure. I say so because the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria makes it imperative that I serve out my term as elected governor of the state. Besides, I see myself as a child of destiny raised by God to salvage my people and, as a Christian, I know that God does not lie…At the appointed time, the will of God concerning me and Anambra State will be made manifest. It may seem that justice is being delayed now, but definitely, it cannot be denied when that time comes…I have asked just one thing from my people, and that is: that they should continue to pray for the will of God to prevail in my situation and in the situation of Anambra. God, in his infinite mercy, should give the Supreme Court justices the wisdom and courage to do the right thing whenever they will take the final decision on his matter."
He did not have any doubt whatsoever about the triumph of good over evil. He was fully persuaded of the victory of righteousness over wickedness. And he did not mince words. As those of the school of political correctness would have cynically put it, he was “wearing his faith on his sleeves” or “playing the religion card.” But a man, any man who would swim against the swift current of evil flooding our land and stay the course must stand firm on his faith. That is what Obi has done and is doing. That is the secret of his success.
For this columnist, Obi’s statement on arrival on Monday was simply out of this world. It was simply Christ-like and I believe it came from a heart sold out to God. Listen to him: “This is not a time for division, but a time for unity .It is not a time for war, but a time for peace. This is a time for our perceived differences and difficulties to act as instruments of making us join hands together as a people with a common destiny. This landmark victory underscores the fact that our God is faithful. He has answered our prayers and indeed Anambra State is the light of the nation. We have continued to master our challenges without recourse to violence and bloodshed”
Is anybody out there as ecstatic as I am about this man’s comportment and what he currently represents; a new move of God in our politics and governance? Let’s together lift him up in prayer that he does not derail on the long journey to 2010 and beyond. I am so excited I want to mimic the Master’s words to an earlier Peter, Peter the Apostle in the bible, “you are Peter and upon this rock of revelation, of righteousness and of decency shall we rebuild our nation.”
You see, in my relatively short walk with God, I have found how the word of God amazingly always comes true. For Peter Obi, it is certainly true that: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19).
Thrice the forces of evil were arrayed against him; thrice he vanquished them.
As for the trio of ex-President Obasanjo, INEC chairman Iwu, and 17-day governor, Andy Uba, the scriptures did prove true too! Check out Job 5:12: “He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise” or Proverbs 19:21: “There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand; or even Psalm 33:10: “The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.”
Are you a professing Christian? Don’t toy with the Word. Please.
*KINGDOM Perspective is published weekly in the Faith section of Sunday Independent, a Lagos, Nigeria-based quality newspaper.
It easy to reconstruct the scenario. A certain powerful man finally came to terms with the fact that he could no longer remain in power. He looked lovingly into the eyes of one his sons. He recalled the many late nights the not-so-young man had had to keep on account of he, the father, being a nocturnal animal who was not averse to working and playing afterhours. He recalled how many personal, possibly intimate issues he had efficiently handled to his pleasure. He could not forget that this dutiful son was the last person he saw at night as well as first thing in the morning.
This good and faithful son, he told himself must be amply compensated and he assured his son so. He must have sworn by himself to the son like God the Almighty who finding no one higher to swear by swore by himself to Abraham in the bible. This powerful man loves to play God, you see.
Anyway, he set about fulfilling his promise. His son has to become Governor of his (the son’s) home state at whatever cost. After all the state had then only recently been prised out of the vice-grip of his brother. He had literally been licensed to maim, kill, raze down properties and do whatever else caught his fancy in order to recoup his investment from the erstwhile custodian of the mandate they stole in 2003.
Fortunately, the man who would supervise the election was already beholden to his son, anyway – he holds office through the persuasive power of his beloved son. So that part of the grand scheme was all but sorted out. But this father, being a war general versed in the strategies and tactics of war by other means, visited the incumbent governor to serve him notice: “no second term for you, ok?” And just in case he was hard at hearing he applied a bit of visible and physical pressure, by way of causing the gale of impeachment to blow in that direction. Let him feel it, so he can know it, he must have thought.
As if in parody of the lawyer’s concept of “covering the field”, the umpire either operating out of the abundance of his thankful heart, or under orders, or both, decided to clear the field of any other potent opposition. He identified two and promptly pronounced them “disqualified by the constitution”. Nothing was being left to chances. Even the famous “G-Factor” was considered; a mass was said to have been booked at a certain church in Abuja to pray for the victory of the favoured child of his powerful father.
In spite of all these elaborate planning; the war-room was still not satisfied that all ends had been tied up. So somebody came up with this wonderfully effective idea: “have only symbolic election in this particular state; disenfranchise as many of the people. The worst case scenario, they’ll go to the tribunal and when we get to that bridge, we’ll cross it. “The author of this idea must have received a standing ovation. They did exactly that and before you could say “nba”, the favourite son had been declared winner of the non-election and eventually sworn in as Executive Governor.
A very satisfied father must have told himself, “I have delivered on my promise and we can both now live happily forever; albeit apart!” But that was not to be.
You see, while that plot was being executed, a sub-plot was unfolding in parallel. A certain well-known eagle-eyed lawyer had spotted an innocuous, harmless-looking clause in the laws of the land and flown a little kite. Ignored at first, the favoured son’s opponent caught a whiff of the sweet scent of victory through that clause. Through the usual tortuous route he had become familiar with, he persevered and 17 days after, Papa’s son was scampering out of Government House.
No prizes for identifying the actors in this drama: Father is Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, immediate past President, Federal Republic of Nigeria while the son is Dr Andy Uba. You also know that the great umpire is Professor Maurice Iwu, chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the hero is Mr Peter Obi, reinstated Governor of Anambra State.
Since the April elections which served as a rude wake-up call for many of us to open our eyes to the extent of evil that’s being perpetrated in our land under the guise of nurturing our “nascent democracy” and “moving the nation forward”, many spiritually sensitive people have sensed that God was set to move against the flood of evil.
In a recent piece, one had dared to intimate that a flood of righteousness was on the way. That flood, we said then, would sweep away the authors and beneficiaries of evil and uplift the victims of these evil machinations. As was implied in that piece based on the events before the Flood in the days of Noah, God will identify the righteous, protect them and assign them to fulfil his purpose for our nation. Without any equivocation, Peter Obi is one such person. And his reinstatement is but the early days of that flood.
Thankfully, he seems to know it. In an interview with Sunday Independent, which was held before the Supreme Court judgment that correctly put his tenure as enduring till 2010, but which was not published until after it, Obi was quoted as saying the following prophetic words:
"Mark my word, I will return to the Government House, Awka, to complete my tenure. I say so because the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria makes it imperative that I serve out my term as elected governor of the state. Besides, I see myself as a child of destiny raised by God to salvage my people and, as a Christian, I know that God does not lie…At the appointed time, the will of God concerning me and Anambra State will be made manifest. It may seem that justice is being delayed now, but definitely, it cannot be denied when that time comes…I have asked just one thing from my people, and that is: that they should continue to pray for the will of God to prevail in my situation and in the situation of Anambra. God, in his infinite mercy, should give the Supreme Court justices the wisdom and courage to do the right thing whenever they will take the final decision on his matter."
He did not have any doubt whatsoever about the triumph of good over evil. He was fully persuaded of the victory of righteousness over wickedness. And he did not mince words. As those of the school of political correctness would have cynically put it, he was “wearing his faith on his sleeves” or “playing the religion card.” But a man, any man who would swim against the swift current of evil flooding our land and stay the course must stand firm on his faith. That is what Obi has done and is doing. That is the secret of his success.
For this columnist, Obi’s statement on arrival on Monday was simply out of this world. It was simply Christ-like and I believe it came from a heart sold out to God. Listen to him: “This is not a time for division, but a time for unity .It is not a time for war, but a time for peace. This is a time for our perceived differences and difficulties to act as instruments of making us join hands together as a people with a common destiny. This landmark victory underscores the fact that our God is faithful. He has answered our prayers and indeed Anambra State is the light of the nation. We have continued to master our challenges without recourse to violence and bloodshed”
Is anybody out there as ecstatic as I am about this man’s comportment and what he currently represents; a new move of God in our politics and governance? Let’s together lift him up in prayer that he does not derail on the long journey to 2010 and beyond. I am so excited I want to mimic the Master’s words to an earlier Peter, Peter the Apostle in the bible, “you are Peter and upon this rock of revelation, of righteousness and of decency shall we rebuild our nation.”
You see, in my relatively short walk with God, I have found how the word of God amazingly always comes true. For Peter Obi, it is certainly true that: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19).
Thrice the forces of evil were arrayed against him; thrice he vanquished them.
As for the trio of ex-President Obasanjo, INEC chairman Iwu, and 17-day governor, Andy Uba, the scriptures did prove true too! Check out Job 5:12: “He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise” or Proverbs 19:21: “There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand; or even Psalm 33:10: “The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.”
Are you a professing Christian? Don’t toy with the Word. Please.
*KINGDOM Perspective is published weekly in the Faith section of Sunday Independent, a Lagos, Nigeria-based quality newspaper.
Friday, 15 June 2007
OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT: THINK ON THESE THINGS, PRESIDENT YAR’ADUA
KPerspective June 17, 2007
KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano
e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com
Dear Mr President. I know I have your permission to dispense with all the fawning genuflections that I understand you find a bit irritating in spite of your aristocratic pedigree. I sense too that you must have had so much to read and listen to about your divine call to lead Nigeria to some kind of Promised Land. All of which, is the lot of men of power, men in position to dispense largess. Your predecessor was reputed to have loved that particular perquisite of office so much that some cynical wit complained about the “babarisation” of governance.
This notwithstanding, I shall be in denial, were I to fail to acknowledge your reputation for frugality, incorruptibility and general decency for which I truly count among your admirers. I might even say that at NTP (normal temperature and pressure; if you permit my recourse to the language of science) you would be my idea of a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. You sure come across like a breath of fresh air after the suffocating stuffiness of the recent past.
But these are not normal times in our nation. These are indeed times which, as the cliché goes, try the souls of men; men who have not sold their souls to the devil, that is. And I am sure you know what I am talking about: the gargantuan nature of the evil perpetrated in the name of election and democracy by those who decided to put you in office at all costs. You couldn’t have forgotten the do-or-die characterization of that exercise, could you?
It is against this background that I have had the unpleasant task of alluding to you in some not-so-flattering manner on this page. On one occasion I described you as a “reasonably good builder (being contracted) to build on quicksand…” On another, I raised the question: “Should we be encouraging a man who admits to being in possession of stolen goods to enjoy the loot, just because he seems a decent man enough to begin the process of making stealing more difficult in future?”
In this latter connection, certain newspaper reports have left many of your admirers, including this writer, wondering whether amnesia is already setting in about the status of the last election – within so short a time. A newspaper report of your interview with TIME magazine said that you “argued that contrary to the claim by some foreign media, his election had no credibility problem,” and quoted you as follows: “Elections in Nigeria have never been without problems. We have made a commitment to review the electoral process. We are keen to correct some of the inadequacies that have created problems for our elections, but I am absolutely certain I was duly and fairly elected.”
It is easy to spot the difference between this and your earlier statement at inauguration in which you stated: “We acknowledge that our elections had some shortcomings. Thankfully, we have well-established legal avenues of redress, and I urge anyone aggrieved to pursue them. I also believe that our experiences represent an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Accordingly, I will set up a panel to examine the entire electoral process with a view to ensuring that we raise the quality and standard of our general elections, and thereby deepen our democracy.”
Revisionism, my dear President, will only chip at your integrity bit by bit until only something skimpy is left; which God forbid.
These lead me to the real substance of this letter. Permit me to explain sir that this column’s modus operandi is to examine issues from the lens of the word of God as contained in the bible. Because you are a Moslem, I was reluctant to engage with you on this platform, but then I remembered that you cannot be averse to listening to the Kingdom perspective of things since you had the grace to visit one or two men of God in the run-down to the elections. As for whether you’ll feel obliged to run your government the scriptural way, I thought that with Dr Goodluck Jonathan as your assistant, the bible cannot but get the occasional look-in.
The matter at hand, Mr President is how to exercise the highly disputed mandate that you have in your custody. You see sir; the history of our nation has shown that we have so far built our political house on the quicksand of electoral fraud and manipulations and watered it with the blood of very many innocent citizens. In 1999, it was tolerated out of the expediency of getting the military off our backs. In 2003, the extent of the fraud was so benumbing that only a few people with doubtful democratic credentials saw the need for protest. Somebody characterized what happened in 2003 as the plight of a woman who having found herself in a position where rape had become inevitable wisely decided to derive whatever fun she could from it! 2007 therefore became more brazen; more dastardly; more violent. So bad was it that even our acquaintances were ashamed for us!
Now, an edifice, any edifice built on a weak foundation cannot stand. And there is no weaker foundation to build upon than that of evil! No matter how hard we try, it is bound to unravel someday. As one wise man has said, no matter how long you have travelled, no matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
Mr President, I know you do not lack for advice and advisers. Many of them would be well-meaning too. But as my senior pastor, Dr Tunde Joda would say, you can be sincere, but sincerely wrong. I also know that many of them, clergy men from both Christianity and your own faith not excluded, would be self serving. It is not unheard of. Ask Dr Jonathan, examples abound in the bible. A classical one featured two kings, Jehoshaphat of Judah and Ahab of Israel who desirous of guidance on a planned expedition invited all the prophets they could assemble. All but one of them saw the truth and spoke the truth. He got a jail sentence for his effort but Ahab did not survive the war (see 2 Kings 22). Mr President, beware who you listen to! A simple rule of thumb in this matter for those who are yet to sell out to that intellectual hocus pocus called relativism is this: “…Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good “ (Romans 12:9).
Now to the vexed issue of the real way forward. Some have suggested an Interim National Government. This has been shot down by those who equate it with military president Ibrahim Babangida’s disingenuously constructed booby trap. According to those who argue this way, if it goes by the same name, it must have the same content and end up the same way! Many of this same people say that the ING has no place in our constitution. How simplistic! In a particularly disappointing intervention, a respected constitutional law teacher and columnist, writing in a respected newspaper on two different occasions hid his personal preferences under so much intellectual verbiage and ended up speaking from both sides of the mouth. ING, goes his argument cannot hold because it is unknown to our constitution which is our grundnorm. Then faced with examining whether Nigeria as was being run could be described as a constitutional democracy, he deadpanned: not quite! Now this later is the truth, the unemotional truth that must guide our search for solution to the existing situation.
A time like this calls for men; leaders with vision, able to see beyond self and own-group interests. The Lord Jesus Christ, who for us Christians, is the model (or ought to be) is the best known example of true leadership. He gave up himself for the good of mankind. In the men’s ministry in which I am deeply involved, it is said that “manhood and Christ-likeness are synonymous”. And believe me it is true. You have to resort to self sacrifice in this matter.
One of the Lord’s counsels, which I consider appropriate, in this case reads: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain” (Matthew 5:41). To appreciate the import of this advice one needs to understand that at the time Jesus was speaking it was customary for soldiers of the Roman colonial army to randomly pick a Jew on his way to work or wherever and order him to carry his bag for the next mile. It was mandatory.
Mr President, you may not agree with me, but everything you have announced as your plans; an inclusive government, electoral reforms and even your promise of servant-leadership which the method of your election negates conceptually all belong in the first compulsory mile. They are the minimum made inevitable by the manner of your arrival in the saddle. You must now take the voluntary next mile.
You must now voluntarily go out of your way to vigorously work for restructuring of this blighted federation. Our current constitution is faulty; it is a rickety foundation built upon evil and sustained by evil and can lead us nowhere. You must find it in yourself to engage with civil society, the opposition and conscientious elements in the international community to put something more concrete, more enduring in place. You must do it quickly; within the shortest possible time, possibly within 18 months. We can then hold fresh elections. If the new arrangement allows you to run and you wish to, I am sure your people will give a clean mandate. On the other hand, if the new arrangement excludes you or you decide not to run, you would not have been the longest serving President in Nigeria, but you would be her greatest. Think on these things, Mr President.
KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano
e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com
Dear Mr President. I know I have your permission to dispense with all the fawning genuflections that I understand you find a bit irritating in spite of your aristocratic pedigree. I sense too that you must have had so much to read and listen to about your divine call to lead Nigeria to some kind of Promised Land. All of which, is the lot of men of power, men in position to dispense largess. Your predecessor was reputed to have loved that particular perquisite of office so much that some cynical wit complained about the “babarisation” of governance.
This notwithstanding, I shall be in denial, were I to fail to acknowledge your reputation for frugality, incorruptibility and general decency for which I truly count among your admirers. I might even say that at NTP (normal temperature and pressure; if you permit my recourse to the language of science) you would be my idea of a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. You sure come across like a breath of fresh air after the suffocating stuffiness of the recent past.
But these are not normal times in our nation. These are indeed times which, as the cliché goes, try the souls of men; men who have not sold their souls to the devil, that is. And I am sure you know what I am talking about: the gargantuan nature of the evil perpetrated in the name of election and democracy by those who decided to put you in office at all costs. You couldn’t have forgotten the do-or-die characterization of that exercise, could you?
It is against this background that I have had the unpleasant task of alluding to you in some not-so-flattering manner on this page. On one occasion I described you as a “reasonably good builder (being contracted) to build on quicksand…” On another, I raised the question: “Should we be encouraging a man who admits to being in possession of stolen goods to enjoy the loot, just because he seems a decent man enough to begin the process of making stealing more difficult in future?”
In this latter connection, certain newspaper reports have left many of your admirers, including this writer, wondering whether amnesia is already setting in about the status of the last election – within so short a time. A newspaper report of your interview with TIME magazine said that you “argued that contrary to the claim by some foreign media, his election had no credibility problem,” and quoted you as follows: “Elections in Nigeria have never been without problems. We have made a commitment to review the electoral process. We are keen to correct some of the inadequacies that have created problems for our elections, but I am absolutely certain I was duly and fairly elected.”
It is easy to spot the difference between this and your earlier statement at inauguration in which you stated: “We acknowledge that our elections had some shortcomings. Thankfully, we have well-established legal avenues of redress, and I urge anyone aggrieved to pursue them. I also believe that our experiences represent an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Accordingly, I will set up a panel to examine the entire electoral process with a view to ensuring that we raise the quality and standard of our general elections, and thereby deepen our democracy.”
Revisionism, my dear President, will only chip at your integrity bit by bit until only something skimpy is left; which God forbid.
These lead me to the real substance of this letter. Permit me to explain sir that this column’s modus operandi is to examine issues from the lens of the word of God as contained in the bible. Because you are a Moslem, I was reluctant to engage with you on this platform, but then I remembered that you cannot be averse to listening to the Kingdom perspective of things since you had the grace to visit one or two men of God in the run-down to the elections. As for whether you’ll feel obliged to run your government the scriptural way, I thought that with Dr Goodluck Jonathan as your assistant, the bible cannot but get the occasional look-in.
The matter at hand, Mr President is how to exercise the highly disputed mandate that you have in your custody. You see sir; the history of our nation has shown that we have so far built our political house on the quicksand of electoral fraud and manipulations and watered it with the blood of very many innocent citizens. In 1999, it was tolerated out of the expediency of getting the military off our backs. In 2003, the extent of the fraud was so benumbing that only a few people with doubtful democratic credentials saw the need for protest. Somebody characterized what happened in 2003 as the plight of a woman who having found herself in a position where rape had become inevitable wisely decided to derive whatever fun she could from it! 2007 therefore became more brazen; more dastardly; more violent. So bad was it that even our acquaintances were ashamed for us!
Now, an edifice, any edifice built on a weak foundation cannot stand. And there is no weaker foundation to build upon than that of evil! No matter how hard we try, it is bound to unravel someday. As one wise man has said, no matter how long you have travelled, no matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
Mr President, I know you do not lack for advice and advisers. Many of them would be well-meaning too. But as my senior pastor, Dr Tunde Joda would say, you can be sincere, but sincerely wrong. I also know that many of them, clergy men from both Christianity and your own faith not excluded, would be self serving. It is not unheard of. Ask Dr Jonathan, examples abound in the bible. A classical one featured two kings, Jehoshaphat of Judah and Ahab of Israel who desirous of guidance on a planned expedition invited all the prophets they could assemble. All but one of them saw the truth and spoke the truth. He got a jail sentence for his effort but Ahab did not survive the war (see 2 Kings 22). Mr President, beware who you listen to! A simple rule of thumb in this matter for those who are yet to sell out to that intellectual hocus pocus called relativism is this: “…Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good “ (Romans 12:9).
Now to the vexed issue of the real way forward. Some have suggested an Interim National Government. This has been shot down by those who equate it with military president Ibrahim Babangida’s disingenuously constructed booby trap. According to those who argue this way, if it goes by the same name, it must have the same content and end up the same way! Many of this same people say that the ING has no place in our constitution. How simplistic! In a particularly disappointing intervention, a respected constitutional law teacher and columnist, writing in a respected newspaper on two different occasions hid his personal preferences under so much intellectual verbiage and ended up speaking from both sides of the mouth. ING, goes his argument cannot hold because it is unknown to our constitution which is our grundnorm. Then faced with examining whether Nigeria as was being run could be described as a constitutional democracy, he deadpanned: not quite! Now this later is the truth, the unemotional truth that must guide our search for solution to the existing situation.
A time like this calls for men; leaders with vision, able to see beyond self and own-group interests. The Lord Jesus Christ, who for us Christians, is the model (or ought to be) is the best known example of true leadership. He gave up himself for the good of mankind. In the men’s ministry in which I am deeply involved, it is said that “manhood and Christ-likeness are synonymous”. And believe me it is true. You have to resort to self sacrifice in this matter.
One of the Lord’s counsels, which I consider appropriate, in this case reads: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain” (Matthew 5:41). To appreciate the import of this advice one needs to understand that at the time Jesus was speaking it was customary for soldiers of the Roman colonial army to randomly pick a Jew on his way to work or wherever and order him to carry his bag for the next mile. It was mandatory.
Mr President, you may not agree with me, but everything you have announced as your plans; an inclusive government, electoral reforms and even your promise of servant-leadership which the method of your election negates conceptually all belong in the first compulsory mile. They are the minimum made inevitable by the manner of your arrival in the saddle. You must now take the voluntary next mile.
You must now voluntarily go out of your way to vigorously work for restructuring of this blighted federation. Our current constitution is faulty; it is a rickety foundation built upon evil and sustained by evil and can lead us nowhere. You must find it in yourself to engage with civil society, the opposition and conscientious elements in the international community to put something more concrete, more enduring in place. You must do it quickly; within the shortest possible time, possibly within 18 months. We can then hold fresh elections. If the new arrangement allows you to run and you wish to, I am sure your people will give a clean mandate. On the other hand, if the new arrangement excludes you or you decide not to run, you would not have been the longest serving President in Nigeria, but you would be her greatest. Think on these things, Mr President.
THE STATE OF THE NATION
KPerspective June 10, 2007
KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano
e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com
State of the Nation addresses are normally reserved for presidents and/or heads of states and I am neither. That it why I have carefully omitted the word ‘address’ from the headline of this piece; lest somebody smells treason. But we really need to engage ourselves in a continuous dialogue over the state of Nigeria and I am concerned enough, driven enough or as some might think, conceited enough to want to be part of that dialogue.
I know that many of my compatriots are doing just that, at the pubs and sundry watering holes (yes, I used to be part of that scene too!); in the comfort of our homes; after church services on Sundays; some through newspaper articles like this, and many more on several forums and blogs on the internet. So it is tempting to not want to get lost in the crowd; it is attractive to not want to be one of a cacophony of voices and; if, like me, you believe that so many of the brilliant solutions being proffered to our national malaise are lacking in the discernment of the deep things of God, it is perhaps the expedient thing to stay away from the fray. And for very long, one had succumbed to that temptation and expedience. But no more!
The more I surf the net and burrow through newspapers and magazines, the more I read our experts in politics and policies, constitutional historians and legal minds - all of them - brilliant minds, the more persuaded I am that the voice of righteousness, hitherto restricted to the matter of life after death and matters related to it, has to become louder in the running of the affairs of our nation. And I have become more persuaded that the matter is urgent, made very urgent by the magnitude of iniquities visited upon the national psyche at the April elections. That is why I seem to have been unable to stop talking about it.
You see, I have this strong knowing in my spirit that now, more than at any other time in our history, this nation is on the threshold of a breakthrough, a new beginning of peace and the abundant life for the Nigerian. But I also know that like the Jews in biblical times, we are being hindered by the selfsame five-man army that kept the Israelites out of the Promised Land.
In his book, Maximized Manhood, the late Edwin Louis Cole, acknowledged as founder of the modern international Christian men’s movement, identified the big bad five as, lust, idolatory, fornication, tempting Christ and murmuring. Extracted from I Corinthians chapter 10, which I urge you to read, these are the things keeping us from fulfilling our destiny as a nation, recognized by many men of God worldwide as, crucial to the end-time plans of God.
As a servant of God, who is involved in the men’s ministry and who does not claim to “have apprehended”, I know that these five deadly sins are present in many of our lives and hindering the fulfillment of many individual destinies. I also know that they are present to varying degrees in the conduct of affairs of state. It is therefore my thesis that for our nation to fulfill her destiny, we must expunge these infamous five from our lives – beginning from the leadership. We must identify them wherever they exist, call them by their names, condemn them and refuse to stomach them.
Someday I believe we shall have the opportunity of examining all of them, but I’d like to dwell a bit on what I consider the deadliest of the five, which is pervasive in the nation and which seems to enjoy the tacit approval of even the Church I Tempting Christ.
Let be explain that assertion about the seeming tacit approval of the church in tempting Christ. In a piece that was meant for this column two weeks ago but which found its way in part to the letter’s page two days later, I tried to expressed my exasperation with the amoral attitude of most of the church in Nigeria to Election 2007 and its aftermath. I quoted copiously from the statement made on behalf of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria by its president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor.
Among other things the respected founder and Pastor of Word of Faith Bible Church, Warri, Delta State was reported to have said: “What we wanted to see is not exactly what we saw. We’d have wanted a better, more organised and smoother election but that is not exactly what we got. That is true but we are still saying even at that we should thank God because we still have Nigeria after the fears generated before the elections".
He continued: “(Though) the elections were not particularly smooth the results should be accepted in good faith in the interest of the nation. Nigeria is greater than individuals...Yes, there were problems but they were not enough to say everything should be cancelled…Aggrieved politicians should explore constitutional means in seeking redress, (and) avoid actions that will truncate the transition programme. Winners should also form all-inclusive governments by reaching out to others on a broad spectrum.”
The statement, in my understanding translates thus: yes there may have been something akin to evil, but we can live with it in the interest of peace and survival of our “nascent democracy. In other words, we should thank God that through some clearly ungodly methods, we still have Nigeria!”
And if you thought the statement was the result of poor draftsmanship, no less a cleric than the vice-president of this umbrella body for all Pentecostals, Rev Dr Wilson Badejo offered evidence that this was the opinion in the top cadre of the Pentecostal group in Nigeria.
Speaking after a thanksgiving service to mark his 60th birthday soon after, Badejo said: “We appeal to those who lost in the elections to accept it in good faith. There will always be another opportunity. 2011 is round the corner. They should wait for their time. Abraham Lincoln contested 10 times before becoming President of America. We must be patient.” My translation: all of this is about politicians angling for office. It has got nothing to do with good or evil.
One cannot but be puzzled, at least, when you recall that in a statement jointly issued by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), the very first round of the elections drew a sharp rebuke of the process and a call on INEC to “purge itself of iniquity, partiality and inefficiency before the federal ballot…”
Well, some of the churches, particularly the big denominational ones and their leadership also weighed in with their opinions. All were united in finding fault with the election, yet only the Catholic Church managed to resist the temptation to urge Nigerian voters to accept the rape of their rights as an act of God. At a press conference addressed by Most Rev Felix Alaba Job, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, the Church said among other things: “Nigerians must in a constitutional and dignified manner come together to resist any form of dictatorship, domination and subversion of their rights. We must defend our political rights as a people.”
On his part, Most Rev Dr Sunday Ola Makinde, Prelate, Methodist Church Nigeria has since led a delegation of his church on a solidarity visit to President-elect Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua during which he assured him: “God has chosen you and He will not disappoint you.”
Now as I said in that piece, I dare not criticize servants of God. The bible has said very clearly: “Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand” Romans 14:4.
But I know that God will forgive me for thinking aloud. I am sure I can be forgiving for wondering if we are not tempting Christ when we put the stamp of God on fraud; when we pray to God to sustain the custodians of stolen goods; when we seem all too eager to fraternize with the perpetrators and beneficiaries of ungodly activities.
Dr Cole said in his Maximized Manhood, “Tempting God is demanding that God do what is contrary to his will or inconsistent with his character…Lying and cheating in business and demanding that God bless and prosper it is tempting Christ…” Should we be encouraging a man who admits to being in possession of stolen goods to enjoy the loot, just because he seems a decent man enough to begin the process of making stealing more difficult in future?
I am truly at sea about our values; about whether having recognized and pronounced something as evil we should still romance it. I am just wondering whether the biblical injunction to “abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22)“ can be rightly varied in the interest of an amoral larger picture such as national interest. What I do not wonder about, however, is that evil must bow before the good; and the wicked at the gates of the righteous (see Proverbs 14:19).
KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano
e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com
State of the Nation addresses are normally reserved for presidents and/or heads of states and I am neither. That it why I have carefully omitted the word ‘address’ from the headline of this piece; lest somebody smells treason. But we really need to engage ourselves in a continuous dialogue over the state of Nigeria and I am concerned enough, driven enough or as some might think, conceited enough to want to be part of that dialogue.
I know that many of my compatriots are doing just that, at the pubs and sundry watering holes (yes, I used to be part of that scene too!); in the comfort of our homes; after church services on Sundays; some through newspaper articles like this, and many more on several forums and blogs on the internet. So it is tempting to not want to get lost in the crowd; it is attractive to not want to be one of a cacophony of voices and; if, like me, you believe that so many of the brilliant solutions being proffered to our national malaise are lacking in the discernment of the deep things of God, it is perhaps the expedient thing to stay away from the fray. And for very long, one had succumbed to that temptation and expedience. But no more!
The more I surf the net and burrow through newspapers and magazines, the more I read our experts in politics and policies, constitutional historians and legal minds - all of them - brilliant minds, the more persuaded I am that the voice of righteousness, hitherto restricted to the matter of life after death and matters related to it, has to become louder in the running of the affairs of our nation. And I have become more persuaded that the matter is urgent, made very urgent by the magnitude of iniquities visited upon the national psyche at the April elections. That is why I seem to have been unable to stop talking about it.
You see, I have this strong knowing in my spirit that now, more than at any other time in our history, this nation is on the threshold of a breakthrough, a new beginning of peace and the abundant life for the Nigerian. But I also know that like the Jews in biblical times, we are being hindered by the selfsame five-man army that kept the Israelites out of the Promised Land.
In his book, Maximized Manhood, the late Edwin Louis Cole, acknowledged as founder of the modern international Christian men’s movement, identified the big bad five as, lust, idolatory, fornication, tempting Christ and murmuring. Extracted from I Corinthians chapter 10, which I urge you to read, these are the things keeping us from fulfilling our destiny as a nation, recognized by many men of God worldwide as, crucial to the end-time plans of God.
As a servant of God, who is involved in the men’s ministry and who does not claim to “have apprehended”, I know that these five deadly sins are present in many of our lives and hindering the fulfillment of many individual destinies. I also know that they are present to varying degrees in the conduct of affairs of state. It is therefore my thesis that for our nation to fulfill her destiny, we must expunge these infamous five from our lives – beginning from the leadership. We must identify them wherever they exist, call them by their names, condemn them and refuse to stomach them.
Someday I believe we shall have the opportunity of examining all of them, but I’d like to dwell a bit on what I consider the deadliest of the five, which is pervasive in the nation and which seems to enjoy the tacit approval of even the Church I Tempting Christ.
Let be explain that assertion about the seeming tacit approval of the church in tempting Christ. In a piece that was meant for this column two weeks ago but which found its way in part to the letter’s page two days later, I tried to expressed my exasperation with the amoral attitude of most of the church in Nigeria to Election 2007 and its aftermath. I quoted copiously from the statement made on behalf of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria by its president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor.
Among other things the respected founder and Pastor of Word of Faith Bible Church, Warri, Delta State was reported to have said: “What we wanted to see is not exactly what we saw. We’d have wanted a better, more organised and smoother election but that is not exactly what we got. That is true but we are still saying even at that we should thank God because we still have Nigeria after the fears generated before the elections".
He continued: “(Though) the elections were not particularly smooth the results should be accepted in good faith in the interest of the nation. Nigeria is greater than individuals...Yes, there were problems but they were not enough to say everything should be cancelled…Aggrieved politicians should explore constitutional means in seeking redress, (and) avoid actions that will truncate the transition programme. Winners should also form all-inclusive governments by reaching out to others on a broad spectrum.”
The statement, in my understanding translates thus: yes there may have been something akin to evil, but we can live with it in the interest of peace and survival of our “nascent democracy. In other words, we should thank God that through some clearly ungodly methods, we still have Nigeria!”
And if you thought the statement was the result of poor draftsmanship, no less a cleric than the vice-president of this umbrella body for all Pentecostals, Rev Dr Wilson Badejo offered evidence that this was the opinion in the top cadre of the Pentecostal group in Nigeria.
Speaking after a thanksgiving service to mark his 60th birthday soon after, Badejo said: “We appeal to those who lost in the elections to accept it in good faith. There will always be another opportunity. 2011 is round the corner. They should wait for their time. Abraham Lincoln contested 10 times before becoming President of America. We must be patient.” My translation: all of this is about politicians angling for office. It has got nothing to do with good or evil.
One cannot but be puzzled, at least, when you recall that in a statement jointly issued by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), the very first round of the elections drew a sharp rebuke of the process and a call on INEC to “purge itself of iniquity, partiality and inefficiency before the federal ballot…”
Well, some of the churches, particularly the big denominational ones and their leadership also weighed in with their opinions. All were united in finding fault with the election, yet only the Catholic Church managed to resist the temptation to urge Nigerian voters to accept the rape of their rights as an act of God. At a press conference addressed by Most Rev Felix Alaba Job, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, the Church said among other things: “Nigerians must in a constitutional and dignified manner come together to resist any form of dictatorship, domination and subversion of their rights. We must defend our political rights as a people.”
On his part, Most Rev Dr Sunday Ola Makinde, Prelate, Methodist Church Nigeria has since led a delegation of his church on a solidarity visit to President-elect Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua during which he assured him: “God has chosen you and He will not disappoint you.”
Now as I said in that piece, I dare not criticize servants of God. The bible has said very clearly: “Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand” Romans 14:4.
But I know that God will forgive me for thinking aloud. I am sure I can be forgiving for wondering if we are not tempting Christ when we put the stamp of God on fraud; when we pray to God to sustain the custodians of stolen goods; when we seem all too eager to fraternize with the perpetrators and beneficiaries of ungodly activities.
Dr Cole said in his Maximized Manhood, “Tempting God is demanding that God do what is contrary to his will or inconsistent with his character…Lying and cheating in business and demanding that God bless and prosper it is tempting Christ…” Should we be encouraging a man who admits to being in possession of stolen goods to enjoy the loot, just because he seems a decent man enough to begin the process of making stealing more difficult in future?
I am truly at sea about our values; about whether having recognized and pronounced something as evil we should still romance it. I am just wondering whether the biblical injunction to “abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22)“ can be rightly varied in the interest of an amoral larger picture such as national interest. What I do not wonder about, however, is that evil must bow before the good; and the wicked at the gates of the righteous (see Proverbs 14:19).
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
ON THE WINGS OF SACRILEGE
KingdomPerspective
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.
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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