“I appreciate your write-ups. But your ‘Bird`s eye view of the Tinubu roadmap to Nigerian greatness’is a misadventure. Do you know Sir, that Tinubu imposed Buhari on Nigerians?” Ibe, Enugu (+2348064- 65 – 63)

When I wrote in my last week article that I will leave analysis of the Tinubu Road Map to experts in the various sectors of the polity mentioned in the document, little did I know I would return to the subject this soon. However, two things prompted my early return to it, namely: one of the reactions I got to the referenced article,  captured laconically above in the epigram  to this piece, and, the second, a promise by a decampee, former APC stalwart, now turned Atiku campaign spokesman, Daniel Bwala, to make the 2023 presidential election a referendum on President Buhari’s administration, forgetting that though its leader, Buhari is neither the owner, nor does he equate to APC,  a political party.

Any keen watcher of the Nigerian political scene would have noticed that for a number of reasons into which I shall delve in some future date – God helping us – President Buhari has been particularly lucky as a Nigerian President.  I actually  doubt very much if that Nigerian president would ever come again, no matter where from, South or North, who would be as driven by  considerations  for his ethnic exceptionalism for his actions, as President Buhari has been.

That, Bwala should know, as well as realise that Nigerians perfectly understand. The opposition, Labour  or the Northern Peoples Party ( NPP – National chairman, Presidential candidate, Chairman, BOT,  Chairman, Governors Forum – all Northerners),  in particular,   will therefore, be hard put to ascribe everything President Buhari did, or did not do in office to APC, even though the party on which platform he became president and proceed, therefrom, to use it to blackmail the Tinubu – Shettima ticket.

It will also be extremely difficult for a brilliant but foxy Bwala, who must have deployed his alleged Tinubu promise to make him his presidential campaign spokesperson, to wangle his new position from a desperate Atiku Abubakar going for his 5th(?) and, presumably, last attempt at the presidency,  whilst he (Bwala)publicly hangs on to ‘his alleged angst’, against a Muslim – Muslim ticket as pretext for his hurried, almost impromptu, exit from the APC.

I doubt if he knew that he further gave himself away during his interview with Seun Okinbaloye of Channels TV’s Politics Today,  when he vigorously lamented his having never gained anything from the APC in his many years,  despite his rabid pro APC advocacy during which he described PDP in the most lurid of terms, calling its members all manner of names.

These young men!

Babachir and Dogara had better make hay while the sun still shines yonder or it may be too late – quite a while off the public kitchen too.

Bwala will soon come to know what Nigerians already know of the duo of Tinubu and Shettima, from their distinct and very measurable achievements as governor of their respective states  – development- driven leaders, with an incomparable management of the Nigerian diversity; having people from other geo – political zones, not only among their Advisory cadre, but right in their state executive councils. Indeed, Tinubu’s successive cabinets could have  justifiably been described as Pan – Nigerian.

Granted that elections are an examination of current governments as  we see in even much more advanced countries like both the U.S and the U. K, there can be no denying that there are instances where extenuating circumstances  suffice to  explain some governmental shortcomings.

I have in mind here, for the Buhari administration, as I wrote only last week, things like two consecutive recessions, the low price of crude oil for a substantial length of time, the global pandemic – Covid -19, which shattered the economy of many countries  and, of course,  the no less consequential Russia – Ukraine War.

While the negative effects of all these have been exacerbated in Nigeria by President Buhari’s peculiar management of the Nigerian diversity, nothing – repeat nothing at all – says that any other APC president, or his Vice, would, in future, be that ethnically driven. You can therefore, not successfully run down the APC ticket with whatever you might consider the failings of the Buhari government, no matter how hard they try.

This, therefore, is the juncture at which we must deal with, at least, one of the things which  APC had intended to do for the people of Nigeria and which, had it  successfully pulled through, would have served as a silver bullet for many of our current challenges of nation building.

Here I am referring to Restructuring.

Incidentally, this is one subject which features prominently in the Tinubu Road Map. Even though he refrained from using the term,  the document contains all the ingredients of restructuring.

So concerned with restructuring was APC, even at  inception, that it included Power Devolution in its manifesto. In August 2017, it set up a 9 – man committee on True Federalism, headed by the Kaduna state  governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai. The  committee was given the  responsibility of distilling, and defining true federalism as promised in its manifesto in 2015, and on which basis  it campaigned to Nigerians ahead of that year’s  election. As part of its work,  it was further mandated  to study the reports of the various National Conferences, especially  that of 2014,  and to come up with appropriate recommendations on restructuring the country for more  effective  governance, and peaceful cohabitation amongst its various ethnic groups.

It was a very exhaustive, and painstaking work, at the end of which it came up with very helpful, country- cohering recommendations on things like the creation of state police, introduction of fiscal federalism which would have given the states more financial teeth, rather than their monthly pilgrimages to Abuja for the ever dwindling handouts.

Others included rejigging the constitution to have some powers devolved to states, enshrine, once again, the Derivation  principle, change the unitary legal system to one that is more applicable to a democracy and, among others, grant sole authority to states on Local Government administration.

So excited with the recommendations was then Governor  Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State and some Niger – Delta groups  that the  governor publicly commended the APC for what he called “its far reaching recommendations”,  adding that “the recommendations had further strengthened the agitations for true federalism  and resource control in the Niger Delta”; all this while expressing the hope that APC would be sincere in the report’s implementation.

Unfortunately, President Buhari’s position on restructuring which he explained, as quoted below, killed off all the hopes. I refer to  an interaction between  President Buhari and Abraham Ogbodo, a Guardian reporter, as reported in the newspaper on 29 May, 2016.

Asked if he would go back to the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference, President Buhari answered: “No, I don’t want to tell different stories. I advised against the issue of National Conference. You would recall that ASUU was on strike then for almost nine months”. “The teachers in the tertiary institutions were on strike for more than a year, yet that government had about N9billion to organise that meeting (National Conference) and some (members) were complaining that they hadn’t even been paid. I never liked the priority of that government on that particular issue, because it meant that what the National Assembly could have handled was handed to the Conference while the more important job of keeping our children in schools was abandoned”. “That is why I haven’t even bothered to read it or ask for a briefing on it and I want it to go into the so-called archives”.

Again, I hold firmly to the belief that President Buhari neither owns, nor equates to APC.  His opinions should, therefore, be regarded strictly as his.

Finally, this ever reverberating charge of Tinubu ‘inflicting Buhari on Nigeria’, a charge that literally drives opposition to him mostly in the Southwest. You would  hardly believe that it was Nigerian voters, not Tinubu, who gave Buhari 15,424921 votes in the 2015 presidential election. By a long stretch, and without a scintilla of doubt, APC’s Tinubu – Shettima ticket is, demonstrably, the most qualified team going into the 2023 election when practical, demonstrated management of human affairs is the focus as Nigerians saw when both were the governors of their respective states as mentioned already.

As their campaign will  copiously demonstrate, a country on its belly, as Nigeria presently is, needs nothing more, or less, than the warrior pair of Tinubu and Shettima to see it through the tough days ahead. Tinubu completely re-engineered  Lagos at a time when former president Obasanjo said no human being, in his right senses, would live there, just as Shettima performed wonders in a Borno state at war,  at a time when a coterie of PDP presidents were at sixies and sevens, as Boko Haram descended on the Northeast.

Without the slightest of doubts, Tinubu and Shetimma are divinely made for post Buhari Nigeria.

 

The starting point for every presidential aspirant should be the appreciation that disaster looms in Nigeria. It is a nation on crutches. It worsened the other day when bandits, or was it Boko Haram elements looked President Muhammadu Buhari in the eye, figuratively speaking, and  said they will kidnap, not just him, but together with a serving state governor and bring them straight into the bush where they had then  just finished giving the remaining 43 victims of the Abuja – Kaduna train kidnap they have held for over 100 days,  the beating of their lives.

What made it worse was that many days after,  according to the equally threatened governor El Rufai of Kaduna State, the president was still unaware of the gratuitous insult. Nigerians  are going through a lot of trauma. Unfortunately, insecurity is only one of the many demons tormenting the soul of the country. The economy lies prostrate as epitomised by the fact that we spend about 118 percent of our revenue on debt servicing; the Naira is now hardly worth its name just as education, at least at the tertiary  level has been literally  dead for the past 5 months with nearly all the universities shut down.

All these may not have been for lack of trying on the part of the  Buhari government. Indeed, presidential spokespersons are never tired of saying that the President is doing his best. I think it is time we agree with them but we must let them know that the President’s best has certainly not been enough. While we may concede all the unexpected headwinds – the low oil prices for a considerable length of time, two successive recessions, Covid – 19 and the ongoing Russia- Ukraine war, much more could still have been done and it is safe to say that the government is clearly overwhelmed.

This past week, however, Ladi Williams, a guest on Channels TV Morning Show, introduced a very brilliant insight into the whole discourse. According to him, the time has come for Nigerians to realise that at about 80, President Buhari is no longer the young Buhari we knew as the fire-eating, non-smiling Nigerian military Head of state of the ‘80s. Therefore, rather than all the criticisms, we should appreciate, and commend the bit he has been able to do. I agree with him. It was also his suggestion that Nigerians must now begin to look more seriously at those individuals angling to succeed President

Buhari in less than a year. This is what his spokesperson has always told Nigerians, adding for emphasis, that no one government can do it all. So whatever rough edges the president might leave behind, we must now begin to critically look at, not political parties, but rather that individual, who would be most fit for purpose, sorting things out and rebuilding Nigeria.

That, I must say, drove me to today’s piece. It will bring to the public space again, what one of the three leading presidential candidates, namely, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC has presented to Nigerians as his roadmap to Nigerian greatness.

Being multi-sectoral, the document’s critical analysis shall be left to those who are competent to do it. All I would do, therefore, is list the key things he promised, while also making some brief comments on the candidate and the two other leading candidates beginning with the redoubtable former Nigerian Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

Thanks to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerians now know that almost as soon as Atiku got into office, he, unfortunately, became distracted, plotting to replace him as President. This he said Atiku did because the marabouts who told him that he would be elected governor of his Adamawa State, but would not rule as such, because he would be nominated into a higher office, also told him he would become president, almost without trying. President Obasanjo further said that the dislocation caused by this in government was why Atiku couldn’t achieve much in office, even though Nigerians would, forever, remember that under his direct supervision, national investments worth about $100billion were sold off for less than 20 per cent of the cost.

President Obasanjo described Alhaji Atiku in his book, in words that are far beyond me to repeat on these pages. The former President also wrote that Atiku “achieved federal character in the manner in which he acquired wives – Yoruba,  Hausa, Fulani and Igbo – Christians among who he, willy nilly, converted to Islam; an aspect in which he differs from Tinubu who is married to a Christian, Oluremi, an Assistant Pastor of the Redeemed Church, to boot.. Concluding on Atiku, President Obasanjo wrote:”And knowing all that I discovered about him, what would have been an unpardonable mistake (that is, after calling making Atiku his Vice a mistake), and sin against God would have been to foist him on Nigeria. My mistake wascontainable and it was contained, “.(quotes excerpted from Olusegun Obasanjo’s Memoirs: My Watch(Part 2) If Atiku was not good enough to lead Nigeria in 2007, Nigerians must now look critically to know if he is the man Nigeria, literally on its knees, needs in 2023. Former Governor Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, would best be remembered for investing Anambra State’s funds in his family business.

In addition, there is unconfirmed talk of his actions leading to Hausa traders leaving the state for Delta State during his time as Anambra State governor. As the tenure, in public office, of the three leading candidates were contemporaneous, let us then say that this was the same time APC’s Tinubu was laying the foundations of a then absolutely  rustic, refuse – laden Lagos State, to turn it  to the fifth largest economy in Africa. That was the Lagos President Obasanjo described as follows in early 2001, while launching the Global Campaign for Good Urban Governance in Nigeria, as part of a key programme  of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (HABITAT):”Lagos, with its notoriety, qualifies as an urban jungle which should not be inhabited by any sane person.”

The same Obasanjo would later seize Lagos State Local Government funds in 2005, an action which Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, speaking at the

Ekiti state’s “Fountain Summit 2021,” said  provided ample opportunity

for the Tinubu – led Lagos State government “to think like a sovereign state, able to overcome its financial challenges” adding that. “the capacity of the state to rethink its predicament at the time resulted in a huge increase in its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), which is today in the region of N45 billion”

With a promise that TEAM TINUBU will lead Nigeria “to a new era of economic prosperity, peace, security and political stability,” below is a bird’s eye view of his promise to the nation: To decentralise the police and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs simultaneously.

To transform Nigeria into an enviable country, where there will be justice, peace, and prosperity for all; a great country, the pride of Africa, is a role model for black people worldwide. To make Nigeria a thriving democracy, with a fast-growing industrial base, capable of producing the basic needs of the people as well as exporting to other countries. To turn Nigeria into a robust economy where prosperity will be shared by all; irrespective of class, region, or religion as well as a safe and secure country with abundant food, affordable shelter, and quality health care for all. A nation founded on justice, peace, and prosperity for all.” He promised to launch a new National Industrial Policy which will focus on special interventions to reinvigorate specific strategic industries.

He undertook that stimulating jobs will be his top priority as President and that he will launch a major public works program with heavy investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, and agriculture.  His administration, he promised, will build an efficient, fast-growing, and well-diversified emerging economy with a real GDP growth averaging 12% annually for the next four years, translating into millions of new jobs, especially for millions of  Nigerian youths.

He promised to create six new Regional Economic Development Agencies (REDA) which will establish sub-regional industrial hubs to exploit each zone’s a competitive advantage and optimise their potential for industrial growth. The presidential aspirant also promised to formulate a new National Policy on Agriculture to boost food production. He promised to formulate a new National Policy on Agriculture to boost food production. He promised to promote the establishment of a new commodity exchange boards, while also strengthening the one in Lagos in order to guarantee minimum pricing for agricultural products such as cotton, cocoa, rice, soya beans, corn, palm kernel, and groundnuts.

On infrastructure, he promised to “Build A New Nigeria (BANN)” by developing a National Infrastructure plan, which will cover strategic roads, bridges, rail, water, power, seaports, and airports, spanning the length and breadth of the country.

His administration, he promised, will combine government funding, borrowing, public-private partnership, private sector financing and concession to initiate a medium and long-term financial model for the BANN initiative.

“On Electricity, he promises an action-oriented, and immediate, focus on resolving existing challenges of power generation plants, gas purchasing, pricing, transmission, and distribution.  The administration’s critical goal will have 15,000 megawatts, distributable to all categories of consumers, nationwide to ensure 24/7 sustainable supply within the next four years,” he added.

On the oil and gas sector, Tinubu said there would be no need for asubsidy because the market will be open and transparent. “Supply will come from local refineries, and the forces of demand and supply will determine the price of petroleum products will establish a National Strategic Reserve for Petroleum Products to stabilize supply during unexpected shortages or surplus periods. This will eliminate any form of product shortages and prevent wild swings in prices. 25 percent of the nation’s budget will go to Education.

He will continue the free school feeding programme of the APC, feeding “millions of primary school children across the country.” In tertiary education, his administration will eradicate strikes by encouraging the institutions to source funds through grants and corporate sponsorships, with all the institutions granted financial autonomy.

Like Education, he will increase funding for health care to 10 percent. The National Health Insurance Scheme will be relaunched to grant health insurance cover to most Nigerians.

Let us all now put the fire to his feet for details and further elucidation as we must do for all the contestants.

I have met Governor Shettima at different fora and I must say I have been very much attracted to his personality. He is a leader whose vision is broad and whose hands are large enough to embrace everybody.ý Earlier, the Archbishop of Maiduguri Diocese, Bishop Oliver Dashe, had in his introductory comments, spoken of how Governor Shettima had been rebuilding churches destroyed by Boko Haram, supporting activities of Christian bodies for all denominations and being fair to Christians in the affairs of government” – The Daily Post, 26 November, 2017 quoting Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, and his brother, ArchBishop, Oliver Dashe, of Maiduguri Diocese.

I perfectly understand, and do appreciate, the position of Christians who are genuinely miffed in regard to APC’s Muslim – Muslim presidential ticket.

But that is when you think only as a Christian, and perhaps, momentarily forgetting that your country, Nigeria, is in such dire straits that you can, with considerable justification, say it is verily on the verge of becoming a failed state. You can, at that stage, be as justifiably  emotional, angry, vitriolic even iconoclastic, as one Pastor Sam Aiyedogbon was this past week when he appeared on the interview segment of Arise TV’s Morning Show programme. The way he  spoke, you  could see he has obviously shed his pastoral garb, and transmogrified to a political consultant, from which new position he now speaks like he had gone round all Christians  in the country to ascertain how they would vote in the 2023 Presidential election. The sheer Babel that  has descended on the country this past one week shows that Pastor Aiyedogbon is certainly not alone in his rabid posturing at a time when what is called for is a sober

reflection on the current Nigerian condition – no thanks to the Muhammadu  Buhari government’s untramelled iniquitous mode of  governance that places a section, a minority at that, over all others in every part of government which  makes everybody, particularly  Christians, see in the horizon, the possibility of an attempt at Islamising Nigeria, if not by the President himself, but obviously by elements who, leveraging on his insular government, now do whatever it is they like, with law enforcement agencies becoming nothing more than onlookers.

When the Fulani Nationality Movement is not threatening war on Nigeria, with both the IGP and the SSS Director- General looking askance, and not once inviting them for questioning, murderous herdsmen – turned killers, and kidnappers for ransom, are in all nooks and crannies of the country unleashing mayhem, whether at Owo, in Shiroro, Kuje or elsewhere, gruesomely killing in numbers. Worse is it the fact that even as they attack in hundreds, never is a single one of them arrested. So nauseating is this fact that not a few are now  asking why the police, the military and assorted government forces could so heavily descend on IPOB and Igboho but not on the ubiquitous marauders from the North and outside Nigeria who have turned Nigeria to worse than Somalia.

Nor has it not been suggested that these are organised crimes, complete with controllers who are amassing funds for the war they have long promised. This is the only way one can understand how  something that started out as ragtag  essemble over 10 years ago have almost bested our fighting forces, especially anigerian army that  is widely respected and once eagerly craved by the UN for all its military engagements all over the world. Why, for instance, would the  C – in – C, not give the military the directive to go and free the Nigerians kidnapped from the Abuja- Kaduna train as far back as Monday, 27 March, 22 rather than his almost impossible go and “wipe out terrorists” command of last week?

Who in these circumstances would not understand the fears of the average Nigerian Christian for that time in the near future when both the President and his vice are both Muslims?

But that exactly  is where the error originates from as all that has nothing to do with religion but Fulani exceptionalism.

As you read this, moslems are also being killed in their thousands especially in the North where some people have already fled to neighbouring countries, just as hundreds of thousand Moslems in IDP camps with their villages and lands already taken over by marauding Fulani herdsmen who never get questioned by Nigerian so- called, law enforcement officers. Also, despite the lies of presidential spokespersons and the minister of information, large parts of states like Niger, and Zamfara, are now directly under the control of Boko Haram and bandits who permanently govern them and,  like an elected government, collect takes from the people. Information has it that in some parts of Kaduna State, rather than the Nigerian police, elements of Ansaru, an Islamic fundamentalist Jihadist militant organisation, now provide ‘security’, and collect huge taxes  from farmers to be able to go to their farms.

Given these extant circumstances what should concern Nigerians the most, rather than raising hell over religion , or even ethnicity,  should be the enthronement, in 2023, of  a government that would rule for all, and not for only a section of the country.

To do this, a political party would have to win election, and winning an election is, as the saying goes, a matter of numbers.  What the presidential candidate of the APC  did in opting for governor Shettima as running mate, therefore, is to have on the ticket, a running mate who has not only demonstrated competence during his 8 years as governor of Bornor state, but is  well known to be very emphatetic to Christians as he  showed in re-building  churches that were burnt, indeed obliterated, by Boko Haram, as well as sponsoring many Christians  on pilgrimage, and who is also more than capable of attracting votes in large numbers in the North from where comes the candidate’s main opponent, the equally formidable Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

I, therefore,  expect any sober Christian,  weighing in on this matter of a Muslim – Muslim ticket, to ask who, or which Christian Northern member of the APC, could appropriately fit the bill, rather than simply be opposing  for the sake of opposition.

There are, without a doubt, many of such but who, for one reason, or the other couldn’t have  been chosen.

Let us now critically, and quite objectively, interrogate such individuals, again, bearing in mind the very crucial question of that Christian APC chieftain who, in a Muslim dominated North, will be able to attract votes in the quantum required by a southern presidential candidate to win a presidential election as election is not analogous to Olympic games in which participation is more for the mere honour  (of participation) than for winning.   .

In doing this, we should remember that of the 11 names submitted to the presidential candidate by Engr Babachir Lawal, who chaired the candidate’s Planning and Strategy committee of the Tinubu Campaign Organisation saddled with the responsibility – but who has since Senator Shettima’s announcement been shedding crocodile tears – only the names of two Christians appeared.

Now to the possible Christian VP candidates:

Babachir Lawal

Lawal is no doubt a respected and  very experienced professional, and a good friend of the presidential candidate. He is also a former Secretary to the government of the ,Federation.  He should, however,  be the very first person to object, were he to have been nominated.  This is because his candidature would have had a k- leg, arising from  his yet to be rested grass – gate court case. Otherwise, both the media and  political opponents would simply have eaten him raw. He is, therefore, very much out of contention as, rather than be an asset, he would have fatally impacted the ticket.

BOSS MUSTAPHA

Lawyer and  politician, Mustapha is  the suave and decent, incumbent Secretary to the the Government of the Federation (SSG). Unfortunately, he comes from Adamawa state, the same state  as the presidential candidate of the PDP. For a certainty, he wont be in any position to attract enough votes, not just in his home state,  but elsewhere in the North, for a candidate who is very desirous of victory.

Governor Simon Lalong

Another very  decent gentleman and experienced politician, serving his second term as governor of Plateau state  but whose reach, being a minority, would surely hamper his ability to attract significant votes in the crucial Northwest and Northeast regions with very high voting population.

 Yakubu Dogara

A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, and of a minority tribe in Bauchi state, he has. since leaving office, literally been fighting for his political life. He is obviously not the man to compliment a candidate who has set his eyes on huge votes from a region from where his most potent opponent comes from.

These observations should not, in any way, be seen as detracting from the incredible worth of these highly regarded  chieftains of the APC, whose critical support, one and all, is very important, and will be much needed for the party’s victory in the election.

Another unavoidable area to examine is: who is this Muslim Vice- Presidential candidate over whom there has so much needless fuss? Where is he coming from, and with what track record?

Fortunately, we have, among others,  the views of no less a Christain personage than that of the respected Borno state Chairman  of the Christian Association of Nigeria, (CAN), Bishop Naga Williams Mohammed to rely on.   Concerning Senator Kashim Shettima, the bishop said the following and that was far back in 2017:

“Governor Shettima, in the history of Borno, is the only Governor that has sponsored the highest number of Christian Pilgrims every year since 2011. When Gwoza people were driven from their ancestral homes and they fled to Maiduguri, the Governor personally came to CAN Centre in Jerusalem ward two times, in June and July 2014. He gave N10 million for their upkeep. By the end of October 2014 when the IDPs from Gwoza increased to 42,000 in that camp alone, he came again and gave another N10 million. He also gave  N5 million for Christians from Borno who fled to Cameroon to be returned home. He gave another N5 million for non-indigenes who fled to Cameron to come back to Nigeria, and directed the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA to be supplying food directly to the IDPs in under the Christian leadership”. He also added that, in two instalments, Governor Shettima gave the CAN leadership N205M to rebuild the churches that were burnt by Boko Haram.

Is that the man over whom some people are shouting themselves hoarse for reasons of religion, or they are merely, coyly campaigning for the political parties they belong to or support?

Does Senator Kashim Shettima or Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Presidential candidate, whose wife is a pastor of the Redeened Christian Church of God, look like people who could think of Islamising Nigeria?

As I have indicated earlier, I cannot blame Christians because a lot has happened in this country in the last few years of the Buhari administration to make Nigerians honestly fear. For instance, it is well known that  the primary objective of both Boko Haram and ISWAP, both of which the Nigerian military has been unable to finally defeat, and thousands of whose members are being aggressively rehabilitated under a de- radicalisation programme, is the Islamisation of Nigeria as they have severally said. Added to that is the fact that murderous Fulani herdsmen literally do whatever it is they like, completely unchecked, just as bandits kill, maim and kidnap as they wish.

 

These are the factors needlessly fuelling the opposition to a Muslim – Muslim ticket. It is not that Nigerian Christians do not know that Tinubu,  whose wife is a pastor, does not carry religion on his sleeves or that Shettima has been anything other than a friend, supporter and financier of Christians as well as their causes.

Rather, it is President Muhammadu Buhari who has given the complainants the reasons for their objection, having  unfortunately mismanaged the Nigerian diversity. Or was it not only in 2011, a mere 12 years ago, that Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of the ACN, a Muslim, chose the banker, Fola Adeola, another Muslim, as his running mate without Nigerians  raising any eyebrow whatever? That is, in fact, not to go all the way back 30 years  when Chief MKO Abiola and Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, ran on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, and won the 1993 presidential election.

Unfortunately, between 2015 when President Buhari came into office, and now, so much water has passed under the bridge that today, Nigeria has become completely run down by a combination grinding  poverty, an indescribable insecurity, but much more, a fractured inter- ethnic relationship the type of which Nigeria has never experienced in its entire history.

It is important to let our protesting pastors know the objective  Nigerian  political realities which the APC cannot afford to disdain in choosing its Vice- presidential candidate, especially, after having elected Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,  a Muslim from the South as its Presidential candidate.

That is presented below as brilliantly captured by a friend of mine:

“I lived and worked in the North for a considerable period of time. I know that it is largely assumed that most Northern Christians are Middle Belters, even if they reside in Sokoto but below is Nigeria’s political reality:

Christian Northern states – Benue, Taraba and Adamawa are  ALL NON-APC states, going by their respective state governments;

Christian states in the South East are mostly NON -APC  states judging by the people’s sentiment, and past voting pattern.

For instance, most of them  voted President Goodluck Jonathan by almost 90 per cent in 2011.

Christian states in the South South are no different, being  largely NON – APC states, judging by the state governments in the region.

Southwest Christians are, of course, mostly APC, judging by their state governments, and their progressive voting pattern, going back more than half a century.

Sans the Southwest, Nigerian Christian states can reasonably  be designated as PDP states.

We are here discussing APC and its chances of victory at the 2023 Presidential election and as we learn in Politics 101,the primary objective of a political party is to win elections, and then, to use that power to improve the lot of the people through a judicious allocation of state resources.

Therefore, APC like every other right-thinking political party, the world over,  is in politics to win. It is not in politics for the mere fancy of it, or to  please some people who, incidentally, mostly belong to opposing political

parties, anyway.

Who then, should APC try to please in the choice of its Vice Presidential candidate from the North, when Christians there, as in the South, mostly vote for the opposition party? The party is also aware that for some historical, and primordial reasons, some ethnic groups  would not vote for the APC candidate, even if he chose Bishop Hassan Kukah as his running mate”.

That said, it is apposite to further expatiate on the very unfortunate circumstances that have seen a country of over 200M people, in Black Man’s most populous nation on earth, reduce an election which is guaranteed to be so consequential it will impact her far into the second half of this century, to mundane issues of religion and ethnicity, especially, at a time a full- blooded Nigerian, Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch, is  in the running for the Prime ministership of  United Kingdom, that very country that colonised Nigeria.

If that does nothing else it should, at least, tell us exactly where Nigeria currently finds itself.

It  can bear a repetition, in fact for the  umpteenth time, that so much did I admire, and believed, in then candidate Muhammadu Buhari that I wrote in 2014, well ahead of the APC presidential primaries that:”Nigeria, in its current dire straits, needs Buhari more than he needs Nigeria.”

The quote was later echoed in a book by  his friend, the late Professor Tam David West, when he wrote in his book: “Buhari -The Politics Of Age: “Nigeria, in its current dire straits needs Buhari more than he needs Nigeria.” -Femi Orebe – “The Nation On Sunday”, September 28, 2014, Page 183 .

Unfortunately, President Buhari  has not justified Nigerians expectations but  has  demonstrated “an unbending and unyielding pandering to tribe and religion” to quote a friend,  all the while making short shrift of everything the generality of Nigerians want.

I give instances.

To ensure that murderous Fulani herdsmen cannot be easily smoked out of other peoples’ communities, and forests, which had become the hideouts from which they launch their daily killing and kidnapping escapades, President Buhari saw to it that state Police did not see the light of day. That in spite of the support of most of the 36 state governors. That is not all. To further concretise their official protection, “the Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim K. Idris NPM, mni, on 21st February, 2018 directed the Commissioners of Police of all the State Commands of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja and their Supervising Assistant Inspectors General of Police of the Twelve Zonal Commands in the Country; to immediately commence simultaneously throughout the Country, the disarmament and recovery of prohibited firearms, ammunition and weapons in the possession of all suspected Militias, Bandits, vigilante groups, Neighbourhood watch and other groups or Individual(s) or Bodies bearing prohibited firearms and ammunition, illegal weapons and lethal devices whether locally fabricated, modified or otherwise fashioned to kill or that can cause harm or injury to persons or that can cause panic, fear, apprehension, security breach, breach of Peace or that can cause threat to law and order anywhere in the Country”. Good as that looks, while all these guns were withdrawn from the millions of  Nigerians having them for peaceful purposes, Fulani herdsmen as well as bandits, even boys  looking no older than 16 years, are today, everywhere carrying AK47 all over the country, be it on city streets, village alleys or in the deep forests;  the  very reason they were able to commit their holocausts in Owo, in Shiroro, on the Abuja – Kaduna  train etc. As you read this, not a single one of these irritants, who attack in hundreds,  has been reported arrested.

Nor is the Buhari government done yet. Nigerians saw how aggressively RUGA, cattle colonies and a National Water Resources Bill were being pursued- the last remains a cat with nine lives, having just been represented to the National Assembly. Indeed, at a time, President Buhari even gave his Attorney – General the marching orders to gazette a no longer existing grazing routes,  just so  Fulani herdsmen  could very easily seize other peoples’ ancestral lands.

While all these are happening, worsened by Northerners having a proponderance of all the consequential appointments in the country, President Buhari has stood ramrod against restructuring, which all Nigerians, except the Northwest, want even calling its advocates “naive and dangerous”. He even proudly told Nigerians that he did not read the report of the 2014 National Confab.

It is the inequity that Christians see at the highest level of  government that Nigerians should hold squarely responsible for the outright Babel the country has become since the presidential candidates of the two leading political parties named their running mates, rather than thanking both parties for attempting to kill off our two demons of religion and ethnicity both of which have retarded the country.

We must put the responsibility for this all- round mayhem: the killings, the kidnappings, the darkness,  the long fuel queues, the strikes  and all the indescribable fear permeating the entire nation, squarely where it belongs and these pentecistal pastors should, please not add, to the utter bedlam convulsing the nation.

This is, after all,  an election,and everybody  should just go and vote his/her conscience. We need not be at daggers drawn, nor should we give those who had long threatened war on Nigeria, the flimsiest excuse to go and rouse the sleeper cells which they have, allegedly, planted all over the country. Equally, we must all refrain from tempting any anti- democratic groups who may see these times as being ideal to foist on Nigeria, things we would all come to regret dearly. Therefore, our so – called “genuine heaven- bound Christians” should please, in the name of God, do no more than plan towards casting, and protecting their votes, come February, 2023, while the Almighty God, in His infinite mercy, does the very best for Nigeria. Enough of the harangue, the call to arms, and all the hell raising by anybody, or group of persons.

 

 

In the absence of  any 11th hour miracle, whenever an assessment of performance of the Buhari government is carried out,  as from May 29 next year, using economy, security and corruption as indices, President Muhammadu Buhari may likely go down as a failed president.

If this happened, the legislative arm of government would largely be blamed.  Firstly, for failing to invoke the doctrine of checks and balances to ensure that the president discharged his statutory obligations in line with national interest and aspirations.  Secondly, for failing to halt his breach of the federal character principle, and thirdly, for failing to interrogate the executive for sliding economic indices, worsening corruption, rising insecurity, capital flight, mounting loans, multiple tax burden, unemployment, and decaying infrastructure, including poor electricity and education.

For these flops, the 9th National Assembly is an accessory to the country’s current woes and, therefore cannot, in any way, be absolved.  The legislature is an arm of government, co – equal, free and independent  of  executive control, yet made itself no more than an extension, or a mere apron string of the president” – Dr Mike Owhoko, in ‘Thumbs down for the 9th National Assembly’, The Nation, Tuesday, July 5, 2022.

Personally nothing, not the present punishing fuel scarcity which, despite the trillions voted for petrol subsidy, Timipre Silva now tells us will continue, ad infinitum,  the galloping inflation or the complete ruination of the Naira which is now about the weakest currency on the continent, depresses me like President Muhammadu Buhari always giving bragging rights to those who, during the 2015 and 2019 presidential campaigns, saw nothing good in him, while some of us celebrated him to high heavens,  sure he would rid Nigeria of insecurity, fight corruption to a standstill and restore sanity to the economy before the end of his second, and final, term which is now a mere 10 months away.

 

Looking back now, we could not have been more wrong.

As attested to by Dr Owokho in the above quote, President Buhari is not all to blame as the National Assembly, particularly the 9th, has been completely servile and so deserving of the guillotine, for sleeping on duty while the presidency had a full day, treating Nigeria like it  is made up of only the North, or for Fulanis. If only our legislators have been alive to their responsibilities, and aware that,  like the president they too are elected, and represent their people, Nigeria would not be where it is today.

In their virtual absence, a very attentive hegemonic mafia crept in, and has since been busy actively liaising with every section of government they could leverage on to make government work mostly for only a part of the country.

Apart from the presideni’s lopsided appointments over which we no longer need shed tears or  waste any valuable time, even though as a result of which you would hardly see President Buhari hold officials who fail in their responsibilities accountable.

Other policies which the  Buhari administration attempted to foist on the country include, but are not limited to: RUGA, which would have  planted Fulani herdsmen settlements in every part of  the country, grazing routes, which were intended to link grazing colonies, a National Livestock Transformation Plan for which the government was prepared to seize lands (belonging to states) as it actually attempted to do in Benue state, and the ever recurring National Water Resources Bill which has recently, according to trending news, again been re-presented by the President after it was earlier rejected by the no- nonsense Saraki – led National Assembly. Incidentally, all these programmes were for the  benefit of Fulani herdsmen, Nigerian as well as foreign ones, as if that is all the government  lives for.

Meanwhile, at the last count, Nigerian Universities have been shut down for over 140 days with nothing concrete being done to reverse the ugly situation, nor has the president  demonstrated any personal anxiety over something that is guaranteed to maximally, negatively impact the future of Nigeria, beginning with its teeming youths.

Below is how a trending Whatsapp post announced the news that President Buhari has re – presented the National Water Resources Bill to the ever obsequious National Assembly which you can be sure will, most probably, lap it up with all enthusiasm, eager never to offend the president:

“President Buhari has submitted an executive bill to the National Assembly for the Federal Government to take control of all waterways and their banks. It will be recalled that he first brought it during  his first term and that the National Assembly under the leadership of Saraki and Dogara flatly rejected it”.

“Now with a rubber stamp National Assembly  President Buhari has again returned the bill, intending to grab the banks of all Nigerian rivers for his people”. “Of particular attention is the proposed annexation of all the lands adjoining the river banks. These are all ancestral lands belonging to families. Without a doubt, President Buhari would, as soon as the bill is passed, hand over permanent grazing rights to his kinsmen, the Fulanis, herdsmen, who will then commence an expansion/conquest of the hinterland”. “The bill is also  intended to  abrogate the Land Use Act which vests all lands in state governors. This will amount to bringing grazing colonies through the backdoor”. “Nigerians must rise up to resist this obnoxious bill aimed at enthroning and legalising anarchy.”

No close watcher of events since  the summit of Fulanis from 16 west African countries in Abuja, early June,  would be surprised at this development.

While the meeting might have been well intentioned, it has since coincided with increased incidences of kidnapping and mass killings, as we saw in the gruesome attacks in Owo, Ondo state, and in Shiroro where each accounted for about 40 people killed. There has also been an increase in the kidnapping of religiously linked persons, especially Roman Catholic priests, as if these criminals are acting out a script.

It has just been reported, for instance, that gun men have  just killed the two sons of Pastor Daniel Umaru, of the Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa Njairi Nigeria (EYN) in Mubi LGA of Adamawa state, while he was shot and his 13-year-old daughter abducted.

These criminals who claim to own Nigeria are obviously becoming edgy at the thought of President Buhari’s tenure coming to an end soon. This is because they know that with his exit, no Nigerian president, even if Fulani, would ever again have the audacity they presently have, as no matter how many hundreds attacked, they hardly ever get arrested to face the law of the land.

Back to the re presented National Water Resources Bill and my task has been really made somewhat easy by the fact that this government is obviously hard of hearing. Otherwise, even if its minister of justice will not waste his precious time reading newspaper columnists,  a diligent one should, at the very least read, as well as  internalise, the views of a lawyer of Femi Falana’s standing, particularly, on a subject as controversial as the National Water Resources Bill.

It is my pleasure, therefore,  to again, quote Falana SAN, at some length, as I did in my article of 22 August, 2021 titled: “The Story of Two Bills: What are these ministers of Northern extraction up to?’

I wrote, therein: “Last week, I had cause to peripherally mention this bill while discussing how reticent state governors have been in confronting the Buhari government in areas where even a blind man could see that the government had over reached itself. Happily that appears to be changing, with the 36 state governments jointly sueing  the federal government at the Supreme Court over an alleged illegal diversion of over N1.8 trillion in recovered loot. Below are highlights of theNational  Water  Resourcss Bill as recently presented by Femi Falana, SAN: “Section 13 of the Bill empowers the Minister of Water Resources to formulate national policy and water resources management strategy to guide the integrated planning, management, development, use and conservation of the nation’s water resources and provide guidance for formulation of hydrological area resources strategies under section 94 of this bill.

“The Bill recognises the right of Nigerians to take water from a water source to which the public has free access for the use of his household or for watering domestic livestock and for the purposes of subsistence fishing or for navigation, to the extent that such use is not inconsistent with this Bill or any other existing law. Section 75 states that no corporate organisation or individual shall commence borehole drilling business in Nigeria unless such driller has been issued a Water Well Driller’s Licence by the commission. The Bill creates a commission to regulate, protect, conserve and control water resources identified in this Bill as water sources crossing state boundaries in accordance with section 2 as well as the first schedule of this act for equitable and sustainable social and economic development and to maintain environmental integrity. The Commission shall also regulate the allocation, supply and distribution of water resources for all uses, and to promote equitable, sustainable and efficient best practices and conduct. Section 37 provides that whatever the commission decides is binding and enforcement may be done by the federal high court “as if the decision is a judgment of such court provided that the commission has issued a certificate to the complainant for leave to proceed to the court for enforcement of the decision.

Stiff penalties have been prescribed for contraventions of the provisions of the Bill by individuals and corporate bodies.

The above was drawn up by a legal draftsman who was either ignorant of the following illegalities, or so cocksure of their success, he just wouldn’t be bothered: Contrary to the provisions of the proposed Bill the Federal government cannot authorise or licence persons who may want to sink boreholes outside the federal capital territory. In Attorney General of Lagos State v Attorney General of the Federation the Supreme Court held that the power over physical planning in any state of the federation is exclusively vested in the state government and that the National Assembly lacks the power to legislate on the physical planning outside the federal capital territory. In Attorney-General of Lagos State v Attorney-General of the Federation (2003) 4 WRN 124 the Supreme Court (per Uwaifo JSC held that “In the circumstances, I have to say that Professor Osinbajo is right, in my view, in his submission that urban and regional planning for the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja is within the exclusive legislative function of the National Assembly but only by virtue of section 299(a) conferring residual power on it and not the controversial section 20 of the constitution. Similarly, each State House of Assembly has the exclusive function to make planning laws and regulations for the State under its residual power. It must follow that the National Assembly cannot make a law in the form and to the detail and territorial extent of the present Nigerian Urban and Regional Planning Decree No.88 of 1992. To do so will be in clear breach of the principles of federalism and an incursion into the legislative jurisdiction of the States. But it can make planning laws for the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja only on the basis of its residual powers. Again, the National Assembly cannot enact any law, in contravention of the constitution, imposing any responsibility on a state and expect obedience to such a law. It is a noncontroversial political philosophy of federalism that the federal government does not exercise supervisory authority over the state governments.”

 

 

“In granting the reliefs sought by the plaintiff the Supreme Court held that urban and regional planning as well as physical development were residual matters within the exclusive legislative and executive competence of the state governments. It is therefore submitted that on the authority of the Supreme Court judgment the provision of the Bill seeking to confer power on the federal government to give approval or licence for digging boheholes in any part of the country is illegal and unconstitutional.

It  is trite law that the Land Use Act is one of the laws  entrenched in the Constitution by the defunct military junta. To that extent, it enjoys statutory flavour and  cannot be altered via the National Water Resource Bill or  through any other bill. In other words, the bill is illegal in so far as it seeks to take over water resources on landed properties without amending  section 315 of the constitution in accordance with  section 9 thereof. In Nkwocha v Governor of Anambra State [1984] 1 SCNLR 634 at 652

the Supreme Court held that the Land Use Act is not an integral part of the constitution but claims the special protection of section 9(2) of the constitution in terms of its amendment. It was however made clear by the court that the land comprised in a state is vested in the governor of that state”.

Need I say more after the legal guru has so comprehensively handled the matter?

Yes, of course.

In concluding many of my articles, I have always wished President Buhari well, especially out of office. I will not stop doing so.

But in all honesty, now that the end of his tenure is being counted, no longer in years, but months, it is important that he relies less, and less on insular, and ethnically motivated advisers and public servants whose loyalty is shifty at best. This is because it is only his name that will be on the lips of history. It is, therefore, important that he now resolves to rule for Nigeria, and not for only a part of it.

He still has more than enough time to make amends, and the place to start is to withdraw that Bill today.

Again, I wish him well.

 

 

The success or lack of it of a Muslim/Muslim ticket will depend largely on WHO the Muslim Vice Presidential candidate will be.

If it is a Muslim that has a track record of killing, persecuting, denigrating, hating, undermining, marginalising or working against Christians in ANY shape or form, I and millions of Christians all over this country will oppose it decisively and aggressively regardless of the consequences because we will not allow anyone to destroy the church, intimidate or persecute our people or mess with our faith – Femi Fani Kayode

Pray, what does CAN want in this country? Is it good leadership or a failed one even if their religious member is the vice president? All the while we have been having Muslim – Christian ticket, has it in any way translated to good governance? How has that helped Nigeria as a country? The presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his remarks shortly after his victory at the Eagle Square in Abuja, emphasized that religion is of the mind, meaning that it is what you do, your concept of life, and your attitude to your neighbor that will determine if you are what you claim to be; not the religion you profess – Ifeonu Okolo.

Participation in the Olympic Games is, by common consent, for the honour and not necessarily for winning. Do I understand some Nigerians as saying that what a candidate in a presidential election seeks is mere honour, and not victory?

It will be asinine to believe the latter, and so to proceed, therefrom, to say that the APC cannot choose a Muslim Vice Presidential candidate will be absolutely disingenuous.

What should decide who a Vice Presidential candidate is, for any serious political party, should be the running mate’s capacity to enhance the party’s chances to win an election. Election mathematics, not emotional therapy.

Having said that, let me quickly add a caveat to show that I perfectly understand where the naysayers are coming from. It is, is fear, legitimate fear. Given the absolutely unfair manner the Nigerian diversity, particularly religion and ethnicity, has been flagrantly mismanaged in the Buhari administration, there is no way we could have avoided the present rancorous debate on the desirability, or otherwise, of a Muslim – Muslim ticket, about which the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has become so bellicose you would think that President Buhari’s VP was a Muslim when the Methodist Prelate, His Eminence, Samuel Kanu-Uche, was kidnapped and had to cough out a humongous N100m in ransom to his kidnappers. Therefore, what is on display, simpli cita,  is the truism that we cannot plant potatoes and harvest yams.

The outgoing Buhari administration has, most unnecessarily, given undue attention to our ethnic and religious divides. Today, not a few Nigerians believe that we would not be in our present insecurity quagmire if the president had not allowed these divides to underpin most of his actions and policies, especially his do nothing stance toward the murderous activities of the herdsmen who were the forerunners of the banditry that has since overrun the country.

On no occasion, for instance, did Nigerians hear President Buhari condemn their criminalities; not even when they killed so many people in Benue State that Governor Ortom had to undertake the gory duty of superintending over their mass burial. When the president paid them a ‘sympathy’ visit, he did not truly empathise with the people as all he told them was to learn to cooperate with their neighbours; the same people they allegedly killed their compatriots.

Also, many of the policies dear to the President -RUGA,  which Bauchi State governor, Bala Muhammed, said must accommodate Fulanis from all over the world because, as he put it, ‘Fulanis have no nationality’; Grazing routes – the now completely non-existent paths the president ordered his Attorney – General to Gazette and the National Water Bill which they did everything, though unsuccessfully, to get the  National Assembly to pass all with the primary intent of facilitating herdsmen’s seizure of ancestral lands all over the country.

Conversely, as I have mentioned on these pages before, President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered unruly OPC members, his Yoruba kinsmen, shot at sight. I have personally wondered at the sudden spike in killings, and kidnappings, since immediately after the recent 16 – nation Fulani conference which we were told was to discuss “The Future of Fulani Pastoralists in Nigeria.”

The Owo gruesome killings and several kidnappings of church personalities since then have brought this ‘coincidence’ into bold relief.

These essentially are the facts feeding this, otherwise, the unnecessary debate as if the Muslim VP candidate will be headhunted from Yemen, or Afghanistan.

But what really is the truth?

Before I go on to the specific issue of the APC presidential candidate, a man who, as if he knew that today would ever come, had tremendously shown what a Christ-like human being he is, let me quote the views of a friend of mine, a retired Commissioner of Police who has been on duty in literally all parts of the country and knows the average Nigeria’s duplicitous approach to religion. He wrote as follows in a Whatsapp post:

“I do not know where the pendulum would eventually swing but whichever way it does, heaven will not fall. I, as a bona fide citizen of this great country, will like to be caught on the side of Truth”. Who are the real Muslims or Christians in this country? I dare say we only mouth religions, but they are not in our hearts.” Who are the thieves in this country? Who are the bad policemen, the corrupt Custom and Immigration officers, or the audacious legislators? The thieving, corrupt public and civil servants, who or what are they? Who are the fraudsters? Who are the gamblers? Who are the drug barons and who are the big smugglers? Who are those who have cornered and converted our commonwealth then and now? Who annulled the freest election ever in this country leading to the loss of lives and property, and the consequent economic disequilibrium from which we are yet to recover?” “Who are the sex for mark professors? Who are the slippery, conscienceless delegates who recently milked candidates/contestants to the bone, and still vote with a blank conscience?

Aren’t they all Muslims and Christians?”

“So why are we fretting over the religions that have no obvious impact on our day -to- day activities? Why are we deceptively sounding concerned about whether a VP is from  Islam or Christianity that haven’t the least meaning in our lives?” “Go to the courts or the prisons. Everybody there bears Abdullai or John. How come? Let me now get a little more personal. I am a Muslim and I say with all sincerity that except for the few fanatical ones, Muslims are more tolerant of Christians than the other way round. Muslims are not bothered when their co-students or co-workers or business associates are Christians. Now the clincher: Muslims freely marry Christians. It is not so on the Christian side. Check out among the top politicians: be it Tinubu, Raji Fashola, Amosun, Ajimobi, and a host of others who have Christian wives and in the process end up having their children become Christians. If we can entrust our lives into the hands of our Christian wives,  how come the larger Christian world still mistrust us? How many prominent Christian politicians in Nigeria have, live with, and flaunt their Moslem wives in the open like Muslims do with their Christian wives”? Let us go ahead and pick people who are “human beings,” with human feelings who will be Godly. Christians and Muslims have failed the test. They cannot now pass. Let us pick a good, committed individual who will love Nigeria and Nigerians and wipe away our political, social, and economic tears.

Let me now correlate the above with the life trajectory of the man in the eye of the storm, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate. Here is a man who has always wanted the best for this country and has, for that reason, spared nothing in the past several decades – not his time, resources, or intellect.

Some ignoramuses who have done nothing to uplift even their villages, or communities, in any way, go about saying Tinubu’s health is not good, as if they are his doctors. If only they know what this man has done for Nigeria and, particularly for democracy, not just here in Nigeria, but in the entire West African sub-region where he has ensured the electoral victory of more than two Presidents, and is, for that reason today, the most recognised contemporary Nigerian politician. If only they knew that many Nigerians no longer remember the names of half of those with whom Tinubu was in the Senate, or that of those who were state governors with him when he turned Lagos State to the 5th biggest economy in Africa. Yet he remains this relevant in, and to our country.  If only they knew that he was one of the pillars of NADECO, that incredible pan – Nigerian organisation that sent the military back to the barracks, thereby ensuring that democracy survived in Nigeria against the vile hopes of many a military general who wanted to transmute to Life Presidents, and ipso facto, bury democracy in Nigeria. Nor could they have known that in the past 20 years or so, that is from his time as governor of Lagos State,  this man hardly sleeps before 4 am, busy working on one Nigerian challenge, or the other, unlike some cavorting with women of easy virtue, as the immortal AWO put it. This is a man who in the past 3 months has criss- crossed the entire country like no one else, and is still going strong. All these on top of an excruciating knee surgery.

Do some people think at all?

These are the reasons we continue to thank God for his life and pray that God is God, who knows the minds of all men, and therefore knows Tinubu’s plan for Nigeria will, in His Almightiness, see him to victory at the next presidential election in February 2023, defeating all those who sold Nigeria’s prime possessions, on the cheap, thereby denying millions of well- educated Nigerian youths gainful employment and leaving them no alternative to hopping abroad, some through the desert.

Let me now present the views of the unknown author of a trending Whatsapp post on the APC presidential candidate.

Wrote the unknown author in what he titled ‘Justice for Tinubu on religious sentiment’: “When Tinubu was donating to churches, sponsoring pastors and contributing huge sums of money to Christians, they didn’t reject him because of his religion. When he empowered them financially, CAN & PFN didn’t call him a Muslim.

When he nominated Osinbajo, a Pentecostal pastor, as VP, almost all these Christians sang his praises. They didn’t call him by his religion.

Between 2011-2019 in the Southwest when Muslims dominated the region as governors, CAN was all over the place shouting marginalization, Islamization. But now that the only Muslim governor is that of Osun State, CAN is silent.

In Osun State, where there is a significant population of Muslims, PDP has settled for a Christian/Christian ticket for the 2023 governorship election. You will never hear CAN speak against it.

 

 

Now, because two pastors contested and lost to Tinubu in the just concluded APC presidential primaries, CAN has started crying foul, playing the religious card. Do they really want Tinubu to win the presidential election? Of course, no. Rather, they are secretly rooting for Peter Obi, the Christian.

Although there are many capable Northern Christians, who can perform as VP, what if that puts Tinubu’s candidacy at a disadvantage? Is he in the race to win or to balance some religious equation? Are CAN and those saying he should pick a Christian as VP sincere? Many of them will not vote for him, even if he picks Bishop Kukah as VP.”

“However, there are still many of us in Christendom, who are independent-minded and see things differently. We do not relate with people based on religion or tribe. We relate based on the mutual understanding that we are all creations of God, who must love and help one another. And by God’s grace, we will massively vote for Tinubu in 2023.

“The only sin Tinubu committed against CAN and Southeasterners was his support for Buhari to defeat Jonathan in 2015. CAN just  played along all these many years because Osinbajo is VP. So now that Osinbajo lost to Tinubu, all hell is let loose.

It is time, therefore, to end this needless debate”.

For the APC to choose a Christian VP, in a region that is globally regarded as having  Muslims in the majority, would be an egregious disrespect to the likes of the Sultan and the party will pay dearly for it. Courtesy, common sense,  as well as realpolitik, demands that a Muslim VP be chosen from the North. Otherwise, it would simply be to gift the election to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who is not only on record as dead set to sell whatever remains of our common patrimony if he ever becomes president, and would think nothing of throwing Nigerians,  particularly the poor masses, into the cold and unfeeling hands of economic forces which could see a litre of petrol go for more than N500 and cost of cooking gas, and electricity increase, geometrically, beyond the reach of most Nigerians.

Finally, a matter of urgent national interest. For the second time in as many years, I have come across some allegations against His Excellency, Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party. In the petition, written on behalf of IGBO KWENU, and signed by the duo of Edwin Chukwujekwu, (Chairman), and Nonyelum Nwokoye (Secretary), grievous accusations of drug dealing and use, were made.

Not since I first came across it some two years ago and now that it has popped up again, have I been privileged to read governor Obi’s denial nor have I heard he has taken his accusers to court for defamation. Now that he has emerged as a highly rated presidential candidate in the  2023 presidential election in which he says the only political structure he needs to win is the Nigerian youths, I believe it behooves him, for the sake of these youths, to now come out of the shadows, and exhaustively, react to damning allegations.

The Die Is Cast (2) will be in limbo until we rest this debate.