The adoption of the incumbent President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Ebere Goodluck Jonathan, as against his major contender, Gen Muhammed Buhari (rtd), has been nothing based on quality performance of the presidency but sentiments: ethnic, religious, educational and some others that do not come to mind readily. Of all the different sentiments I have heard, the religion coming to play, perhaps to me, sounds the most awkward as my people in the Christendom have circulated a CD tape suggesting that the retired general and the APC want to Islamise the country. As a result, the church has opted to help God by foiling the supposed plan of the General and his party.
Considering an incident in the Bible, the saints in the case of Nigeria have got it wrong. It is recorded that the people of Israel were bringing back the ark of God to its rightful place, the carriers stumbled and the ark was about fall. At that point, an individual tried to support the ark that it might not fall; but he was instantly struck dead by God. Christians in Nigeria are about to take same overzealous action of helping God by pledging support for a somewhat imcompetent president all in the name of not making power stumble in the hands of an ‘unbeliever’. The battle is the Lord's and not ours. I wonder why we should try to help God fight His battle. What is expected of us as good citizens will be to vote based on credibility and not on religious sentiments as it were. Need I also remind the ‘saints’ of Proverbs 29:2? "When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn". Can we say that the nation is in a state of rejoicing at the moment? Absolutely no! Note that the Bible in the scripture says “the righteous” and not “the Christian" or " the born again” as a matter of fact. This means that irrespective of religion, being righteous is the criteria for ruling a country well; an attribute the President is far from possessing.
With a critical passage through the Nigeria electoral history, no party has played the worst religious card than this present leadership. Christians are blindly supporting the incumbent not for progress but out of zombism of their religious leaders who have dined on the platter of corruption with politicians whom they can no longer scold or show the right path if they deviate. Hence the saying, "if you cannot beat them, you join them". The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has lost its relevance and worth in the society. It is now somewhat a pressure group associated with arms smuggling, money laundering, bribery among others. The Christian society needs to shamefully bury its heads in the sand courtesy the 7 billion naira scam it has associated itself with. It is clearly evident today that the Church in Nigeria, has lost its essence and purpose. The Church has gone real cold and lacks welfare system of her flocks, abandoning them to the gnashing of teeth in suffering. Little wonder why the faith flourishes so also poverty in the church. The Church trend today is the number of personal private jets for the ministry, ordaining future political leaders and public holders and gaining top rank in the world list of richest pastors. Simplicity is a sin as the shepherds would take the horse instead of the donkey. So I ask myself “What would Jesus do if he were these present day pastors?" Hilarious things are happening and like 'Baba 70' would say, “through Jesus Christ, our Lord – this na wonderfulment...."
So bad, we forget or don’t know that President Goodluck Jonathan led a delegate to an IOC meeting. But during Buhari's regime in the 80’s, he rejected an offered membership of Nigeria into IOC even though his deputy, Idiagbo was a devoted muslim too. Buhari had his flaws but it hurts so much to play the religious card against him. It is quite ironical that it is PDP that has clearly taken advantage of the zombism of Nigerians in the sphere of religion. There is a viral video of the Vice President, Namadi Sambo accusing the APC of being largely dominated by Christians and PDP by Muslims. People should ask themselves what is the relevance of such campaign strategy? Is it not crystal clear that Nigerians are highly religious with no sense of direction but from their religious leaders? Thus, it is quite simple that if you can control the minds and the hearts of the people through the man or servant of God, then the zombies will adhere. This is the new indirect rule and it is worse because the victims believe the orders is from the highest power or supreme being. There is a great need to separate religion and state distinctively.
However it will be fair to look at the religious propaganda objectively and ask why the Sharia law is part of the constitution. I don’t think the Sharia law needs to be a part of the constitution for it to be used amongst the devoted Muslims. These are major matters of concerns that a person like Buhari should be asked and how it might or will affect the state of the nation especially her judiciary.
We should also bear in mind that God can choose to make use of anybody of any religion. King Cyrus according to Isaiah 45 in the Bible was not a believer yet God chose to make use of him to subdue nations who are the enemies of Israel.
Like King Saul in the Bible, President Jonathan who is perceived to be the anointed of the Lord to rule Nigeria in 2011 has been rejected for obvious reasons similar to that of his counterpart in the Bible. One of the offences of King Saul was visiting a soothsayer (a witch) for divination. This is a similar situation President Jonathan finds himself in Nigeria having being openly adopted by the National Association of Witches and Wizards of Nigeria as their candidate in September 2014 against the 2015 elections. What relationship exists between darkness and light? I therefore wonder why my fellow Christians would want to give full support to him whom God seems to have rejected.
On a final note, His (God's) ways are not our ways. He says, “for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”. We should therefore shun every form of sentiments perhaps greed and for once do what is right, vote out a president who has not performed in all ramifications. So when next you want to tell why a candidate should be voted for, you know what you ought not to say.
Oladipupo [truncated by WhatsApp]