THE CHURCH AND POLITICS: By Pa. Olúṣọlá Ajólore, Member Yoruba Delegation To NINAS
01 November 2022
Editor’s comments:
Elder Pa. Dr Olúṣọlá Ajólore is a very active 96-year old former educator and lecturer, and a Christian leader. Rather than be an onlooker while Nigerians face the brutal onslaught of Fulanization, he searched for God’s deliverance – and found it in the NINAS Propositions.
The Notes that informed my participation in the Panel Discussion on THE CHURCH and POLITICS at the Chapel of Redemption, UMCA, Gaa-Akanbi, September 18, 2022. Pa. Olúṣọlá Ajólore
DEFINITIONS
The Church is the body of the called out ones: that is, people who have been saved by Jesus Christ. It is the institution made up of the followers of Jesus Christ in a country or in the whole world.
Interestingly, my Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary has this comment with its definition of the Church: "the church has a duty to condemn violence".
I just want to add that it is the duty of the Church to condemn anything that is contrary to what Prophet Micah says at Chapter 6 verse 8,
"He has shown you, oh man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, BUT to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God". (Emphasis ours)
The tense of the sentence, "He has shown you..." says that the prophet was referring to something that had come earlier in scripture, which is:
"And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?" (Deut. 10:12-13 (NIVUK))
In the context of these scriptures, I wonder how the Church in Nigeria stands with so much oppression, economic hardship, injustice, outright callousness, bare faced lying, incessant blood-shedding, kidnapping, raping, the dastardly destruction of farm lands and farming communities - all by the Fulani race, the government doing nothing about it, because it is headed by, and heavily made up of people of that race.
What would a Nathan, an Elijah/Elisha, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, an Amos or a Micah; even a Zechariah (II Chronicles 24. 20), have done, if he had been here among us since May 29, 2015!
And while on this, is it that the Church does not know that Scripture places the oppressor on the same level as the one who sees oppression and refuses to condemn it?
They have grown fat, they are sleek,
Yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked;
They do not plead the cause,
The cause of the fatherless,
Yet they prosper,
And the right of the needy, they do not defend.
ⁿShall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord.
Shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this"?
(Jer. 5.28 (NKJV)) .
But, following from the orchestrated atrocities, from which the government cannot absolve itself; rather than just waiting to condemn, would it not be a much easier, a much wiser task for the Church to be part of the instrument set up to make and use the laws that govern the country, at every point and level? More specifically, shouldn't members of the Church be active actors in the system that controls their lives?
Now, Politics: Politics is the activity involved in, or connected with acquiring and using power in the public life; politics has to do with being able to influence decisions or opinions that will affect a people, an organization, a state or a country. Politics has to do with how certain groups of people get power from the populace, an organization, a state or a country, and how that power is used over that same populace, organization, state or country.
My perception of politics in the Nigeria of today is that it is an enterprise open only to the highest bidder for getting power, and using it to amass wealth and also at the pleasure of the money-bag godfather, with little or no regard for the good and welfare of the populace. Politics is a cartel for amassing wealth, usually at the expense of the populace. By and large it has become the one stable, most lucrative enterprise which demands a huge initial financial investment, often provided by money-bag godfathers: an enterprise with promotional and hereditary prospects: Promotional prospects: the local government councillor today is aspiring to become the House of Assembly member/governor tomorrow; the House of Assembly member automatically aspires to be the state governor or National Assembly member, the governor aspires to become a senator.
Hereditary Prospects: children of politicians seem to automatically seek elective posts, A governor who was the son of a former senator once boasted that his son would be the next governor in his state, and the youngest in the country: Four (4) children of former governors are in the race for various elective posts in the forthcoming 2023 General Elections. Politics in Nigeria is seen as a dirty game, because clean people abandon it, so contestants maim and kill, steal ballot boxes, employ thugs even just resort to the crudest means to get elected. They do the most un-honourable things to get into honourable positions.
Also, the North has come to see politics as their means of survival, so its politicians will do anything to retain power through politics.
Enough of this. Let's go to something more urgent, something that can spell decimation, even extinction of races .
GENERAL ELECTIONS
From all appearances, it is clear that Nigeria is being lured, being goaded, indeed, being decoyed into the General Elections 2023, by the Caliphate, so as to give a new lease of life to the instrument that gave it the authority and power to virtually make itself the master, and the rest of us, the indigenous peoples, the owners of the land - slaves. I am talking about the document called the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, which according to the Constitutional Force Majeure of the December 16, 2020 declared by the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-determination (NINAS) signed by the accredited delegates, is as good as dead.
THE 1999 CONSTITUTION
THE 1999 "FRAUD", "ILLOGICALITY", "LIE".
A bit of background story will shed some light on how we got to where we are today.
The 1914 Amalgamation.
As part of its share in the scramble for Africa, Britain, taking advantage of the fore-runner exploits of the Royal Niger Company, got the Lagos Colony, and the Protectorates of Southern and Northern parts of the land mass that came to be called Nigeria. When Lord Frederick Lugard (who one author described as a one-time mercenary for the Royal Niger Company) later became the Governor-General in charge of that land mass, he, for purely economic gains and administrative convenience, proposed to the British Government what came to be christened: Marriage of the lady of means to the promising and well conducted youth.
Read this extract about it from a writer:
"...The 1914 amalgamation of the two protectorates of Nigeria. It has remained as controversial as the partition of Africa especially mirrored from the lumping together of several heterogeneous nationalities into a questionable whole. The study notes that these heterogeneous groups are distrustful of one another. The amalgamation was an administrative fiat of Nigeria by the British colonialist overlord for economic and administrative convenience. The Northern protectorate predominantly Muslim and animist and the Southern protectorate largely Christians were aggressively "westernizing". The two protectorates were culturally apart, yet in 1914 Lord Frederick Lugard amalgamated them. Indeed, the Northern protectorate was a poor neighbour to the Southern protectorate; lacking outlet for the exportation of its agricultural products or imports of essential goods but in need of revenue to develop its railway lines and improve social infrastructure. The parsimonious British colonial administration unprepared to commit itself such to providing requisite funds, found a convenient way to assist the Northern protectorate through the forced union in 1914. The political and religious turbulence since independence lend credence to the recurring question whether the amalgamation of Northern and Southern protectorates in 1914 was a curse or blessing?"
Curiously, perhaps because Britain shared/still shares expansionist propensities with the Caliphate, it has always sided with the North. This must be why, even at Independence, it made sure that it handed the rulership of Nigeria to the North, which, ever since, has clung to it. Unfortunately what was presented as an attempt to correct the imbalance in 1966 was flawed by ethnic myopic selfishness. The soldiers, almost always headed by a Northerner, during their 33-year military, therefore unitary government, ensured that the North lived on the South.
With that background, I now return to the 1999 Constitution.
THE CONSTITUTION
A country is governed by a set of rules made by the same people to whom the rules will apply, set out in broad terms, in a document called its Constitution. A Constitution is the instrument by which a country is run or one that determines how it is governed.
Lawyers call the Constitution of a country its grundnorm. The Apex Court of Nigeria erroneously called the 1999 Constitution the soul and heart of the country.
It simply follows that if a Constitution is good and the managers, or operators are good and competent, there will be good governance; if it is bad, even if its handlers are more than human, you will still end up with bad governance. Now where it is bad, and you have incompetent, inept, yet arrogant racists as managers/operators, there will be very bad governance, as we have in Nigeria today.
The 1999 Constitution as amended, is clearly a very bad document. Legal luminaries in the land, had expressed and continue to express their opinions about it. The late Chief Rotimi Williams (SAN) described it as "a document that lies against itself".
Itse Sagay (SAN) called it "a fraud".
Ben Nwabueze (SAN), who claimed to be one of those who drafted it, called it an “illogicality”.
Chief Afé Babalola (SAN) described it as "the problem of Nigeria".
Even the current Honourable Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr. Femi Gbajabimila, was quoted as saying:
"A nation's Constitution is the foundation of its existence. It is supposed to set the terms of our nationhood and define who we are in a manner that reflects both our common truths and highest aspirations. Our Constitution falls short of this standard because the 1999 Constitution is the product of a horrid national compromise that we entered into two decades ago, in order that the military returned to the barracks and that we returned to democratic government..."
Why did Chief Rotimi Williams (SAN) describe the 1999 Constitution as "a document that lied against itself"? Read the Preamble to the Constitution:
PREAMBLE
"We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
Having firmly and solemnly resolved, to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God, dedicated to the promotion of inter-African solidarity, world peace, international co- operation and understanding
"And to provide for a Constitution for the purpose of promoting the good government and welfare of all persons in our country, on the principles of freedom, equality and justice, and for the purpose of consolidating the unity of our people
"Do hereby make, enact and give to ourselves the following Constitution:-
Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila's comment, just quoted, has partially answered this question. It was a document hurriedly handed over by General Abdulsalami. Erudite lawyers have continued to ask where and when the document was made, who and who made up the "WE" in a nation of well over 300 ethnic groups, so many cultures and at least three major religious persuasions!
I am a case in point: I am a Nigerian, a Yoruba, and a Christian. I am a Yoruba, I cannot remember when any one of my race was called to write the document, as would have been the case if the "We" was truly "We".
Similarly, the document mentions Sharia 73 times, Grand Khadhi 54 times, Islam 28 times, and Muslim 10 times. BUT there is no single mention of my religion (Christianity), Christ or church. So, who are the "We" in the Preamble?
Another thorny point - one that totally negates the notion of federalism - is that, the document, as it stands today puts 68 out of 98 items government handles, under what is called the Exclusive List - the Federal Government has absolute control over them. (You are talking about the Presidency here). Chief among the items under the Exclusive List, are: security and policing, economy, generation and distribution of power. The remaining 30 supposedly under the Concurrent List, are only so in name, because in reality, a clause in the same document gives the Central Government precedence over a State government where there is a clash of interests on any matter: so, you can rightly say that all the 98 items are under the Unitary Government that parades itself as a Federal Government.
CONCRETE EXAMPLES OF STRUCTURAL INJUSTICE
Here is a concrete example of the structural injustice which late Justice Oputa discussed. Security is under the Exclusive List. Police is under the Exclusive List. We just want to humour ourselves when we talk about executive governor as the chief security officer of his State. Under the 1999 illogicality, the Commissioner of Police in the ṣtate is not answerable directly to the State Governor. No, hẹ is answerable to the Inspector-General of Police who is under the Exclusive List. That is why, even when culprits are caught in the very act and handed over to the police, even at the instance of a sitting Governor, “orders-from-above” can and do release the culprit, especially if he was a Fulani or a Muslim; and lock up the complainant, if he is a Christian. Is it not the loss of confidence that they can get justice from the police that makes the citizenry to resort to acts like roasting any criminal they catch!
Yet another example: the six states in the South-west decided to address the daily worsening insecurity in their region, by creating the ÀMỌ̀TẸ́KÙN outfit. The North, even when it has its own internal security outfit similar to ÀMỌ̀TẸ́KÙN denounced it, and called it rebellion, and the Inspector General of Police refused to allow it to carry arms. In fact, he directed that it could only operate in concert with the Nigerian Police.
Is it not history that whereas the Inspector General of Police in 2017 ordered that all arms, including the Danẹ guns used by local hunters, be surrendered, under pain of arrest and prosecution; yet Fulanis openly and freely carry AK47/49 even in cities and in public view?
Was this carrying arms with impunity not stoutly defended by the Bauchi Governor to be part of the Fulani herders outfit!
And still about security: a clause in the 1999 illogicality allows any Nigerian indigenous or foreign-imported, or migrant via visa-on-arrival Presidential fiat of Muhammadu Buhari - to move anywhere he chooses in the country; which accounts for why [we read reports that] Dangote vehicles have been conveying lorry/truck loads of Fulani young men, with arms and ammunition, to the South, and offloading them in the uncultivated, uninhabited area of each Southern state and the Middle Belt!
Education is under the Concurrent List. (Except for the Caliphate Agenda, apart from providing broad guidelines, the Central government should have no business with education). But the caveat mentioned earlier placed it under the Exclusive List.
Under the pre-military regimes, each of the four administrations handled the education of its youth the way most convenient for it.
A personal example: My home town, Mopa in Mopa-Muro LGA in Kogi State, is, by the structural injustice of 1914, part of the North. Under the near-true federalism of pre-military era, the Northern Regional government of the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, ensured that every Northern young man or woman who qualified for tertiary education and gained admission, had a scholarship to run it. In fact the government sought and got admission for its youths. The scholarship covered tuition and boarding, clothing and book allowances, plus an allowance, which we recipients, called BULGARIA. (On a lighter note, I financed my wedding in December 1962 from my Bulgaria).
Oil money had not begun to flow in then. Where did Sir Ahmadu Bello get the money to fund our education in those days? And how come [now], with so much money around, each parent has to struggle to get their children educated, or have them go without tertiary education?
And still on education. Our children, who should be in school, have been forced to come stay with us at home for close to nine months because, for the Caliphate dominated government of Buhari, it is the playing out of a crucial scene in the script of the 1989 proclamation of OIC. (OIC started as Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM), was later renamed Organisation of Islamic Conference, and is now called Organisation of Islamic Cooperation). Look at this summary of the resolutions of the 1989 Abuja Conference: they will open your eyes to most of the things happening today:
FOUR 1989 OIC DECLARATIONS
"To ensure only Muslims are elected to all political posts of member nations."
"To eradicate in all its ramifications all non-Muslim religions in member nations (such religions shall include Christianity, Ahmadiyya and other tribal modes of worship unacceptable to Muslims)." (The word Christianity is underlined in the declaration)
"To ensure the ultimate replacement of all western forms of legal and judicial systems with the sharia in all member nations before the next Islam in Africa conference."
"To ensure the appointment of only Muslims into strategic national and international posts of member nations."
Objectives 2 and 3 are targeted at ultimately replacing all western civilization with Islamic civilization in Nigeria. What else is the carrier of civilization outside of education? How do you kill a living organism? Deprive it of food.
And, by the way, do you know that but for the outcry from Kwara State CAN in 2017, no Actuarial Studies student from our public universities would be able to graduate without a pass in Arabic language?
Do you also know that Christian Religious Knowledge has been blotted out of Northern Nigerian public schools?
The 1989 OIC Declaration script.
In Kwara State, I know that Islam features in at least three different forms in the school curriculum.
Has anybody bothered to ask why National Education policy had dropped History and Geography in favour of a nebulous programme tagged National Values? You may not see the connection. But maybe someone is planning that our youths should grow in ignorance of their background and the terrain and weather conditions of their country.
Education is capital intensive. The public universities are grossly under-funded. ASUU is demanding that university education be properly funded. What ASUU is asking is under twenty billion Naira. The government, in which public officers are found to have embezzled hundreds of billions of Naira - the Accountant General of Nigeria for instance - is intransigent: notorious for unreliability, always breaking agreements.
Refusing to adequately fund universities could be a deliberate plan of the Caliphate working through the Buhari administration to make the public institutions of no effect, so as to pave way for introducing an Islamic-compliant higher education system that will almost be free.
Alongside of this is the fact that the Fulani rulers and the few indigenous Nigerians who have access to the crumbs dropping from the table of the master, could not care less. Their children are either in private universities in Nigeria, or are in universities in other countries.
I have taken just bits of only two of these 98 items: security under the Exclusive List and education under the Concurrent List according to the 1999 Constitution. And with the way things are today, if we vote 10 times over, under the provisions of that same lie, that fraud, that illogicality, that problem of Nigeria, we would be endorsing a lie, endorsing illogicality, endorsing fraud. And nothing will change. Lagos, Delta and Rivers will still be generating the revenue: Kano, Sokoto, Borno will be spending it. Injustice, corruption, stagnation, further retrogression, agitations for self-determination and brain drain will continue, no matter who is President.
Now, from the definition of a Constitution, and the way
Nigeria's Apex Court prized the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Nigeria's position today is like the picture that which Psalm 11:3 paints in the Eugene Peterson's translation of the Holy Bible, The Message: "The bottom's dropped out of the country; good people don't have a chance"?
And the New Living Translation of the same verse: "The foundation of law and order have collapsed. What can the righteous do?
Differently put: Nigeria is like a vehicle with a “k n o c k e d e n g i n e". Whoever has a knocked engine, if he is wise at all, and wants to continue to use the vehicle, knows that the only solution to his problem is not a new driver, even if that driver holds a Nobel Prize for driving; but a serviceable engine. The foundation of the edifice, called Nigeria, is destroyed. You don't go for a construction engineer for repairs; you pull down the building, clear the rubble, dig out and lay a new and solid foundation.
Late Justice Oputa (JSC) is quoted as saying: "The problem with Nigeria is structural injustice embedded in the system itself. Men will come and go but the system will remain, producing degenerative outcomes. That system is simply the imposed Unitary Constitution of Nigeria."
So, what we need is not a change of personnel. No. What we need is a change of principle, a change of foundation, a change of system, a new/serviceable engine.
This 1999 fraud, illogicality and lie, must be brought down before we can hope for any clean, credible and meaningful election: because, if it is not, we will be voting under the provisions of fraud, therefore legitimizing fraud, endorsing fraud, and whoever emerges winner, will have to swear on the same fraud, the same illogicality. So the "problem", according to Chief Afé Babalola (SAN), the "degenerative results" according to Justice Oputa, will continue. Would definitely get worse and worse.
The Church should not repeat the mistake it made in 2015. Those whose voices got heard, sold Muhammadu Buhari to Nigerians, and the Church, in particular, which, because of his running mate, Pastor Prof. Yẹmí Òsìbanjo (SAN), voted on sentiment, for Alhaji Muhammadu Buhari. Did we ever remember to ask from God whether Buhari was His man? Is anyone in doubt that we voted purely on sentiment?
And here we seem to go again. Have we clearly heard from God that Alhaji Ahmed Bọ́lá Tinubu, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku or Peter Obi is His choice for Nigeria?
REALITIES ABOUT ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA
1. The one constant, veritable characteristic of elections in Nigeria is r i g g i n g. Because of this and other past experiences, there is always a heavy feeling of apathy in the Middle Belt and the South. By contrast, because the Northern elite have come to see politics as their one source of livelihood; they intensely mobilize, and do anything to get into power through the ballot box.
2. It is common knowledge that children of 8, 9, 10, 12 years are registered and freely vote in the North-west and North-east. I watched a video of a 22 year old young man from the North, who said that he had voted in 4 elections in this country. So when did he start to vote? Would such ever be allowed down South or in the Middle Belt?
3. It is a known fact that a large number of people carry more than one voter's card in the North-west and North-east. Is that ever allowed in the Middle Belt and the South?
4. Everybody knows that politics is a game of numbers. The voting strength of an average Southerner or Middle Belter family today is 4/5, father, mother and 2/3 children. Middle Belt and the South also have more celibates. By contrast, the average voting strength of a Northern Muslim family ranges between 13 and 29: father, 3/4 mothers with 5/6 children each.
5. It is no secret that at every election, trucks and buses import hordes from Niger and Chad to come and participate in voting, and no-one has ever challenged this.
Has General Muhammadu Buhari's visa on arrival policy not brought and continues to bring hordes of Fulanis from all over Africa, and who had been, and continue to being given National IDs?
6. Even we - the Church. Will every Christian vote on the basis of their faith and competence? I am sorry. We need to face realities.
One report I read said that at one of the recent primaries this year, where there were 95 Igbo delegates and aspirants, all the Igbo aspirants got less than 40% of the Igbo delegates' votes.
7. Curiously, since elections have been holding in this country, I cannot remember one time when the results from the big centres in the North, like Kano, Bauchi, Maiduguri had not come a day or two after the last results from the Middle Belt and the South had been declared. The excuse has always been that the terrain and distances make it impossible for easy collation of votes from those areas.
8. And by the way, what race has held the INEC Chairmanship position since 1999?
9. I do not know whether this was in the way of casting aspersion on INEC; but I read in the social media some time ago that that body said that final collation would be by manual.
10. There had always been loud outcries against deliberate manipulation of electronic gadgets and computers.
11. Party thugs always disrupt elections, snatch the boxes of opponents and openly attack and chase away rival parties' accredited representatives.
12. Vote selling and buying, even at election sites are common sights.
13. The power of incumbency, expressed by the presence of battle-ready soldiers and mobile police, has always weighed heavily, especially when the incumbent is clearly unpopular.
NOW THE THREE FOREMOST CANDIDATES:
Mr. Peter Obi:
From what I had heard him say at a public lecture, and the reports about his administration as Governor of Anambra State, especially his frugality with public finances, liberal funding of education and health facilities from his security votes, and other easily verifiable attributes, Mr. Peter Obi is the best of the top three aspirant. He is a business man always gunning for profit in every investment. He will make a great difference in our economy, if the Caliphate will let him get there.
But unless the vehicle of Nigeria has a new/serviceable engine; unless the system of structural injustice is replaced, unless there is a new foundation: [it remains that] he will vote for himself and be voted for on the basis of the problem of Nigeria, the document that lies against itself, the instrument that is a fraud, an illogicality.
And by voting, at all in the election, you and I would be endorsing a lie, we would be endorsing a fraud, legitimizing an illogicality.
Then, if he gets there, it automatically follows that he will be sworn in on the flawed document.
And, assuming that he gets there, is getting a new Constitution made, going to be his priority? Also, isn't there something in power (the thing that Dr. Reuben Abati called the demon in Aso Rock) that makes the one who wields it want to retain every bit of it? I mean, does anyone ever want to lose, even just one, out of the hundred things they control?
And can't we learn from both Obasanjo and Jonathan, who now appear shocked at Buhari's misuse of power, that rulers do not always see the flaws in the system they preside over until they are out and a new person is wielding it!
How will Mr. Peter Obi carry the National Assembly, the 36 governors, plus the Administrator of FCT and the 774 local governments, along to get a new Constitution written within one year or two of his being in office? What is he going to use to get his bills through the National Assembly without a sizeable number of Labour Party members!
If Mr. Peter Obi is God's choice, I know God will make a way: He always makes things align with His will. But because we always have a role to play, we will have to pray:
(1) That God will help him to get there.
(2) That between February and May, God will incapacitate any and every thing that might make the handing over impossible.
(3) That his victory will make LG men, State House of Assembly men and women; and the National Assembly men and women swing into the Labour Party, so he will have a strong support for his reform policies. It is not enough to win. He needs strong numerical strength to carry out his agenda: or they can frustrate him.
Other Presidential Candidates:
Alhaji Abubakar Atiku
Abubakar Atiku is out of the question for me, because he is a Fulani, and he will definitely want to push the Fulani agenda revived and grown by Alhaji Muhammadu Buhari. True, he has a large Christian following, even a Christian wife. But he is a Muslim. He will just want to continue with the Caliphate agenda. Getting a new Constitution written cannot be part of his priorities!
Alhaji Abubakar Atiku's 4-yearly crossing from one party to the other in every election year does not paint the picture of stability. His principal's report on his trustworthiness with public wealth is not savoury. A person who, in one of his campaign discourses in 2019, vowed to sell Government's establishments and institutions to his friends if he became president; already sent out warning signals. Finally, an aspirant who became the flag bearer of his party on the principle of zoning in 2019, who suddenly began to speak and work against same zoning for 2023 only so power can be retained in the North, clearly shows his level of allegiance to the principle of fairness and equity in a democratic setting.
Now, watch it: I will not be surprised if all Northerners decide to vote for him so that power can be retained in the North. And since that is the mindset of the North, what would he need than for the Sultan to direct who to vote for!
Alhaji Ahmed Bola Tinubu:
As for Alhaji Ahmed Bọ́lá Tinubu, his "Èmi ló kàn, ẹ gbé kinní yẹn wá" speech, (It is my turn... Bring the thing to me, please), shows that all he wants is that it be said and placed on record that he was once a president - a hopelessly selfish motive - even if for a day! But his receiving the party ticket has in it a Caliphate agenda. If he ever gets there, he will not last a year: they will kill him, like they killed Abiola: and the heavens won't fall. Then Shettima, his Vice, and the alleged spawner of Boko Haram, will take over. This is the rationale for the Muslim-Muslim ticket - a clear case of insensitivity to the religious diversity of Nigeria!
And by the way, has Alhaji Ahmed Bọ́lá Tinubu not openly and freely said that he will continue with the good policies of Buhari? G o o d p o l i c i e s!
Listen to the Caliphate's voice through what the Katsina State APC governorship candidate was quoted as saying:
"If Asiwaju Tinubu/Shettima ticket fails to win 2023 Election, it is like Islam has failed".
Alhaji Tinubu's and Alhaji Shettima's presidency will definitely be catastrophic for the country. Their team will, at the best, give us a Sudan.
In any case, the Church must hear clearly from God which of the three is His choice. Until we hear God through His prophets and confirmed by two or three, specifically saying this is His choice, we must be weary of flowing with the tide of sentiment, the way we did in 2014/15.
Let our God's prophet seek His face and give us direction.
SO, IN THE MEAN TIME, WHAT IS THE WAY OUT? WHAT SHALL WE DO?
Let us stand on NINAS' Constitutional Force Majeure of December 16, 2020, titled:
"NOTICE OF CONSTITUTIONAL GRIEVANCES, DECLARATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL FORCE MAJEURE AND DEMAND FOR A TRANSITIONING PROCESS FOR AN ORDERLY RECONFIGURATION OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF THE FEDERATION OF NIGERIA. (Being the Joint Proclamation of a Sovereignty Dispute by Accredited Delegates of Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities of the Southern and Middle Belt Territories of Nigeria. Issued This 16th Day of December 2020 in Lagos)
This Proclamation Is Titled: CORRECTING THE MISTAKE OF 1914"
Signed by the Accredited Delegates: 45 from Western Nigeria (Yorubaland); 50 from the Middle Belt; 35 from South-South (the Lower Niger), and 43 from Igbo (the Lower Niger).
Let us mobilise and shout it at the top of our voices that there shall be no elections until there is a true Constitution. We should shout that we do not feel comfortable any more with the master-slave contraption, called Nigeria, forced on us by the British Colonial rulers on January 01, 1914, stamped by same powers at Independence, and codified in the 1999 fraud, illogicality and lie. If we fully appreciate our predicament, and make sufficient noise, we can pull down that Constitution - that lie, that fraud, that illogicality, that structural injustice.
How?
You now have an idea what awaits us. Alhaji Muhammadu Buhari and his Fulani race are determined to take our land of inheritance by all means, and have been saying so.
(1) They are poised for outright conquest: that is why their militia are posted into our forests and woodlands waiting for signal, (2) If (1) does not work favourably, they will escalate insecurity to the point where a state of emergency would be declared to make room for the imposition of Martial Rule.
(3) If (1) & (2) do not get them the desired result, they will lure us into an election, the results of which had been pre-determined. Muhammadu Buhari and his race of terrorists are perfectly covered in all the three approaches by the 1999 lie, fraud, illogicality and system of structural injustice a.k.a. 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Go back through what I have tried to share about politics and the church, politics in Nigeria, the realities of elections in Nigeria, and the one problem of Nigeria. You should be able to compose your prayers for the country, and the candidate of God's choosing.
Tell someone else who hasn't heard it, that if we want to get out of the prison yard erected in 1914, into which the 1979 Constitution as amended, and the 1999 lie, fraud, illogicality, problem of Nigeria, had securely confined us - the indigenous peoples of the land mass called Nigeria - we must insist that there be no election, until there is a new system, according to late Oputa's description, until there is a solid foundation, until the vehicle called Nigeria has a new/serviceable engine.
And we must begin our own cry right now, so that it is not hijacked, by the, northern youths, who were reported to have threatened that if insecurity continues the way it is, there will be no election. If they took the wind out of our sail, i.e. if they had it their own way, what we would get is the invocation of Martial law. After all, hadn't Malami - the Federal Attorney General and Minister for Justice - urged President Muhammadu Buhari, way back in 2020, to declare a State of Emergency!
If we do not want this to happen, we must begin to cry out loud that until there is a new Constitution, there should be no national elections in 2023.
What I have tried to do, is to let you see the odds we face. The admonition of our Lord Jesus: "watch and pray" (Matt.26. 41; Mark 14. 38 and Luke 21. 26) is just apt here. If you don't watch, you won't know what to pray for, or how to pray. I know that with God, there is nothing impossible. But He expects you to play a role. He expects you to use the brain He gave you. Knowledge is available; your Creator expects you to search for and use it. I have led you into some. Find out some more, pray and act.
We are in a state of war. The Ọ̀wọ̀ incident is a clear pointer. The enemies of peace and progress have no sense of values. All our big churches and cathedrals hold no value for them.
We have no physical weapons to fight or defend ourselves with, we don't even know what to do. Let us tell God our eyes are on Him. Our rulers, therefore, we have sinned against God. Let us confess our sins, humble ourselves, and turn from our wicked ways.
The Church must provide true leadership. It must tell the members what is going on. It must lead the people where to go.
Since politics is about acquiring and using power, the Church must get involved in how that power is acquired from and used on its members. The least the Church can do right now is to ensure that the vehicle of Nigeria has a new/serviceable engine, that the pot called Nigeria has a new bottom, that Nigeria pulls down the crumbling edifice, excavate deep, and erect a new and solid foundation.
Yes! The world knows that leadership is a problem for Nigeria. And we, ourselves know too. But right now, it is not our top priority. A solid bottom, a new and solid foundation, a new/serviceable engine, a new system is.
The Church must deliberately embark on teaching on governance: and the Scriptures have so much to say about good rulership.
May God frustrate the dastardly plans of the Caliphate, making their hands incapable of performing their enterprise. It will be a terrible day for the leadership when the followership comes to know that their leaders did not know about these plans of the enemy, or that they knew, but were either afraid to speak, and act; or they knew, but naively thought such would never happen here.
The Church must not be like the people of the days of Noah. It must not be so heavenly minded to the point of being earthly useless, either.
Christians who have a clear leading of the Holy Spirit to get into politics should let the leadership of their congregations know. After seeking God's face over it, and securing His go-ahead, the leadership should give him, not only their spiritual and moral support, they should embark on preparing him to face the challenges his calling poses.
It must specially groom those going into politics so they can stoutly stand on the Word. And when its members get into politics the Church must ensure that they are not abandoned: they need to be followed up diligently and painstakingly by mature Christians; in fact, bombarded - so to speak - with teachings on holiness, faithfulness and integrity.
The Church must develop a crop of Issacharites (I Chronicles 12. 32), and prophets: those who know the times and seasons, and what people ought to do and when. The Church must have great faith.
The Church must pray fervently.
The Church must speak out, loud and clear against all appearances of evil and oppression.
The Church must go on to act.
God bless the Body of Christ!
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of its author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of this Publication.
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Many thanks to Pa. Olúṣọlá Ajólore who having a community focus, knew that God would have made a way out that includes EVERYBODY, including the poor and the weak, for they have not the means to "jakpa" (flee overseas). Pa. Ajólore found God's rescue pathway for all, in the non-violent, intellectual, international law-based, justice-based NINAS Propositions whose destination is the TERMINATION of a cruel death-promoting fraud called 1999 Constitution, to release the inalienable right to Self-Determination for indigenous Ethnic Nations, and a RECONSTRUCTION of the imposed unitary constitutional basis of the space known as Nigeria.