Politics
By Danjuma Byang
THERE is no gainsaying that Christians in Nigeria have been outsmarted in the chessboard of Nigerian politics in the just concluded primaries in the major political parties. Except there is divine intervention and/or a serious self-introspection by the Church, political power may have eluded Christians in the foreseeable future in Nigeria! This has become the case despite the undisputed numerical superiority of Christians in the country.
Just before the primaries started in earnest news filtered in that the World Muslim League, a group based in Saudi Arabia, had sent in a challenge to the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria, to ensure that only Muslims were chosen as flagbearers of the major political parties in Nigeria, to make sure that a Muslim is elected in 2023 to consolidate on the achievements Buhari has secured for Islam in Nigeria. This ought to have alerted the Church to put its act together and fight the insidious move to subjugate Christians to perpetual second class citizens in their own father’s land. The Church didn’t!
But the Ummah took the challenge seriously! They quickly strategized to ensure Muslims took over the major parties. They made sure, with the help of several 5th columnists in the Church, that Atiku took PDP. Peter Obi, whom many felt would give Atiku a fight for his money in PDP, saw that the ground wasn’t level for him to even attempt it, left the party even before the primaries. Kwankwaso quickly moved to NNPP, and used money to chase away the strong Christian contenders there and took control of the party and eventually became its sole flagbearer! The last hope was the APC!
There was a parade of lion-like juggernauts and heavy weights in the likes of the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, two time former governor of Rivers and former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, former Senate President, Sen Ken Nnamani, the performing Governor of Ebonyi, Engr David Umahi, the Governor of Cross River, Ben Ayadi, Governor of Ekiti, Kayode Fayemi, former Gov Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, Pst Tunde Bakare, etc. Surely, these ones will put their heads together and support one of them to beat Sen Bola Tinubu. That’s what we thought! But it was not to be! When the dust settled, the votes all of them got put together is just a fraction of what Tinubu got! Baffling! But why?
It will take a very long time to decipher what really happened that led to this unprecedented disgrace of the Christian brotherhood! But let me hazard some trial! I am talking about why the Christians could not put their act together:
1. No collective vision and no strategy. The Church in Nigeria has no political vision of ensuring that a credible Christian rule Nigeria. There is no Christian body that I know that has developed a clear vision of how Nigeria can raise Godly believers to get into politics and rule the country. The only thing that has come close to it are the efforts of the National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF), and their brain child, Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN), which have attempted to address this abysmal gab in the Body. Both the NCEF and CSMN are the creation of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), when Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor was the President. What NCEF and CSMN have done so far is to create awareness among Christians about this need. I am not aware that they have started to mobilize Christians towards this goal yet. But the most disturbing thing is that both NCEF and CSMN don’t see eye to eye with the CAN leadership that set them up! This is very unlike what obtains among our Muslim co-citizens. Apart from bodies like the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (SCIA), the Jamatul Nasir Islam (JNI), both of which are headed by the Sultan of Sokoto, National Council of Ulamas, Supreme Council of Sharia in Nigeria, MURIC, etc., prominent Islamic Sheikh or cleric can summon all the Muslim political elite to come and take instructions on what to do to promote Islam when in power, and they will gladly succumb. (That is why moderate Muslim suddenly turn fanatical when they get into power! They are literally arm twisted into it!)
Christian politicians who get into politics do so to fulfill personal and/or tribal agendas. Just imagine that the World Islamic League is tele-guiding elections in Nigeria for Islamic purposes!
2. “It has got to be me, or nobody else” mentality! Because there is no global or national vision that impels the Christian politicians, they go for personal and/or tribal reasons. And they will not forfeit this vision for anyone. I know several states in the North that would have been producing Christian governors but have never been able to do so because no two Christian candidates can step down for each other! They fight to the end by sharing the Christian votes among themselves and the Muslim minority gives their block votes to their candidate and wins! One of the Christian candidates was caught saying that while it is good for a Christian to win, he must be the one or else let the Muslim candidate take it!
3. Culture of Poverty and Corruption has penetrated the Church! In both the PDP and APC primaries it was the votes of Christians that tipped the scales in favor of the winners! How? The delegates who went to vote were looking for money! And so the highest bidders bought them over! For example, in the just concluded APC convention 17 delegates from a certain state voted for someone else other than the Christian contestant from their own state! Why did they do so? Money!
4. Party Loyalty. This point may not be applicable to the just concluded primaries, but this is appealed to in most general elections that cut across different parties. This disease of party loyalty is found almost completely among Christians only! Muslims always vote candidates, not parties!
5. Finally, some of the Christian candidates did not pull their weights! For example, the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo came a distant third at the polls! Why? For more than 7 years of being Vice President, it has not been recorded even once that he openly or secretly disagreed with his boss, the President, with all the unprecedented manifestation of bigotry he has demonstrated against the Christian community! I was in a meeting where he was asked why he had remained silent on these issues. He said he didn’t want to be a social media activist! That he knew what he was doing! But unfortunately, the Christians he should have represented didn’t know what he was doing behind the scene. But it didn’t seem like he did anything! That’s why they couldn’t trust him with their votes! Someone even mocked that the Vice President is a good gentleman, too good to hurt a fly! And that such good people should be selling ice cream and not aspire to lead a country like Nigeria! Painful as this may sound, I can’t begrudge anyone for saying this!
Way Forward.
For want of space I will just mention the points without elaborating on them. May do so, some other time. Here are some of the things the Church must do to regain lost territory.
1. Formulate a clear cut vision, template and strategy for Christians to get involved in politics and aspire to national leadership. Reactionary politics will not help us!
2. Shun personal greed, tribal/regional agenda that are at cross purposes with those of the Church.
3. Vote Candidates, not party! For example, in 2023, the best person that can carry Nigeria and the Church out of the woods is Peter Obi. But he is running on a party that has little or no structures. But there is enough time for Christians to join forces with the Labor Party and vote Peter Obi to be President in 2023! We must shun personal, tribal, regional and partisan loyalties to do this!
4. Reduce apathy to politics and public life.
Conclusion. Christians have made many blunders that have landed us where we are today. But we have a chance to redeem and recover lost ground in 2023. For the sake of our children not yet born we must intentionally put our act together and take over power! The first thing is to drum the need for all Christians to get their PVCs! A pastor said that in his church, no PVC no Holy Communion! Every pastor should go and do likewise! May God help us!
– June 12, 2022 @ 15:16 GMT | C.E
Tags: Ken Nnamani Peter Obi
