The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Show of shame

    • The NLC election fiasco was a disgrace and part of our serial loss of institutional integrity

    If any event qualified to be referred to as a ‘show of shame’, the Nigeria Labour Congress’ (NLC) 11th National Delegates Conference held on February 12 was it. Not only did the conference fail to produce a new president to succeed the incumbent, Abdulwaheed Omar, it ended in crisis.

    Delegates at the conference began throwing chairs and exchanging fisticuffs when they should be electing a new leader. The ugly spectacle which took place at the Labour House Headquarters in Abuja immediately reminded us of the way our legislators sometimes behave or, worse still, the election by members of the road transport workers who often throw caution to the wind on such occasions.

    Things appeared to be going smoothly until some discrepancies were noticed in the ballot papers. Three candidates began the struggle for Labour’s Number One position. They were NLC’s current National Treasurer, Ayuba Wabba; the Deputy President, Joe Ajaero, and the President, Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Achese Igwe. Igwe,however later stepped down for Ajaero. Some of the delegates claimed that some ballot papers had Wabba’s name in three places and   Ajaero in two places and that others which did not   have Ajaero’s name on them also had no serial numbers. These made some of the delegates from Igwe’s constituency to call attention to the discrepancies.

    Obviously, delegates loyal to Igwe felt the errors were deliberately made to give Wabba, who had been favoured to win the election before Igwe stepped down and declared support for Ajaero, an undue advantage. It was at this stage that things degenerated as some of the delegates loyal to either Wabba or Ajaero started throwing chairs at each other.

    Whatever the cause, the fact that the Labour leaders who are supposed to be role models could descend as low as to be throwing chairs at each other during an election shows that there is no difference between them and the average politician on the street who sees election as a ‘do—or-die’ affair. Indeed, and regrettably, that is what the contest for leadership positions has become in the NLC. This is not surprising though because the Congress sits atop hefty sums that are dispensed at the behest of the leaders. The Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and NUPENG contributed N423m, N320m   and N159m, respectively, to the congress between 2011 and June 2014. This is a lot.

    The Labour leaders involved in the fracas must bury their heads in shame. Coming on the heels of the allegation that the leadership of the Congress had duped workers to the tune of N900bn over their failure to deliver houses promised the workers who deposited 10 percent of the cost of the houses since 2013 for their dream houses in a housing scheme promoted by the NLC, there is a lot to ponder over the affairs of the Labour union. With these dents, on what moral pedestal will the NLC leadership now stand to champion the cause of the common man?

    It is unfortunate that these developments are rearing their heads at this point in time when the country is at a crossroads. What is happening on the political plane demands that all hands must be on deck to ensure that democracy is not derailed in the country and Labour, ordinarily has a major role in salvaging the situation.

    The fracas must be investigated, including the discrepancies on the ballot papers, to determine how they came about. Those involved should be punished for the unpardonable blunders that exposed the Congress to ridicule.

    We call on surviving Labour icons like Hassan Sunmonu and Adams Oshiomhole to rise to the occasion and salvage the Congress before things get worse. Nigerian workers cannot be left in the hands of people who cannot manage their own internal affairs. As they say, ‘when gold rusts, what would iron do’?

     

  • Vote for true federalism

    Vote for true federalism

    SIR: It might be a popular cliché but very apt today. Some may assume otherwise because of the seemingly vast natural resources, but it is in the best interest of every region in Nigeria to see this country work and prosper as one corporate entity.

    As the political drums beat louder, some people are threatening fire and brimstone if their candidate does not produce the next president. Others are saying it will be the end of Nigeria and all sorts of myopic, sentimental views.

    Just like the United States of America, the United Arab Emirates and Great Britain, the 36 states of Nigeria need each other to thrive and excel as a big economy. This present system of government is tailored solely for survival, which breeds under-development, corruption, nepotism, parochial, ethnic and chauvinistic tendencies.

    More so, just like the USA, the UAE and Great Britain, we can have a new country that will be called GREAT NIGERIA with a new constitution based on true federalism to the letter.

    As all the past leaders are Nigerians, yet we are not there yet and we are not expecting aliens to come and govern us someday, then we need a better system of true federalism more than we need better persons. The default settings of most humans is to do things wrongly, but a system in place can effectively help them to do things right. More than any other country in the world, Nigeria is the perfect fit for true federalism due to our unrivalled diversity. True federalism is the system that will make this unrivalled diversity a great strength rather than a great weakness as presently manifesting.

    Another name for true federalism is ‘live and let live’. A good system like a car or computer does not need a genius to operate it. Why do we practice democracy if we cannot apply it to the letter like those we copy are doing it? Why do we go the journey half way when we can go full way? Why is it that Nigerians travel abroad and obey all the laws but come back home and flout all the laws? Likewise expatriates in Nigeria? I believe the answers to these questions are the answers to a better Nigeria.

    With this present system, our strengths have become weaknesses. Rather than stand on 36 strong pillars, we are standing on just one weak pillar. Therefore, we need to reverse this tide as a nation by restructuring and practising true fiscal federalism in all ramifications. This should be the agenda of priority for the next political dispensation because it will go a long way in effectively addressing corruption and the mindset of the people and government of Nigeria.

     

    • Ikponmwosa Eriamiantoe,

    W.I.S.E Group, Maitama, Abuja.

  • Okrika : A violence foretold

    As the home town of Nigeria’s First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, Okrika, in Rivers State ordinarily ought to be one of the safest and politically secure places not only in the state but in Nigeria. Unfortunately, Okrika has become one of the most insecure, intolerant and violence-prone towns in the country. For instance, a delegation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) members from the town were ambushed, shot and injured on their way to Port Harcourt, the state capital, last month, to attend the party’s presidential rally.

    Indeed, the APC in Rivers State had repeatedly alleged that Dame Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had vowed that the party would not be allowed to campaign for votes in Okrika.  As if to confirm the party’s claim, the APC Secretariat in the Abam-Ama part of Okrika was bombed on January 11. On January 16, the party’s secretariat at Ngo, Headquarters of Andoni Local Government Area was the target of explosives. The APC gubernatorial candidate in Rivers State, Mr Dakuku Peterside, had to cancel his campaign in Okrika scheduled for January 24 when bombs went off on the playground of the National School in the town where the event should have held.

    It is instructive that the PDP governorship candidate in the state, Mr Nyesom Wike, had earlier campaigned at the same venue on January 22, with Dame Jonathan in attendance. There was no violence. When it was Mr Peterside’s turn to campaign at the National School field, all hell broke loose. It was a violence foretold. Before the arrival of the APC candidate at the venue, three explosives had been detonated ripping off parts of the school building. Neither the candidate nor his supporters were deterred. Thousands of APC supporters thronged the National School grounds to attend the rally. We salute their resilience, courage and commitment to democracy.

    Obviously determined to prevent the campaign from holding at all cost, unidentified gunmen opened fire on the crowd, causing a stampede. At the end of it all, one policeman was shot dead and four others critically injured. A Channels Television reporter, Charles Eruka, was stabbed. At least 50 people were injured. It was another sad day for democracy in Nigeria. We commend the police who did their best to contain the ugly situation even though they were outnumbered by the gangsters.

    What transpired in Okrika at the APC rally was an assault on two cardinal freedoms: of movement and association. They are critical ingredients of democracy. It also raises serious questions again as regards the role of Dame Patience Jonathan in the politics of Rivers State. The APC has pointedly accused her of being responsible for the violence. It will be very difficult for her to credibly deny this given her well-known roles in the series of crises designed to cripple governance in the state.

    The First Lady has never disguised her contempt for Governor Rotimi Amaechi and fervent support for Mr Wike’s ambition. Of course, she is perfectly entitled to her political choices as a Nigerian citizen. However, a genuinely popular party or candidate has no reason to exhibit the kind of political nervousness responsible for the desperate attempt to prevent the APC from campaigning in Okrika.

    We consider it curious that the First Lady was in Okrika at the weekend before the APC rally, holding political consultations. Indeed, 11 members of a delegation that visited her from Bayelsa State perished on their return journey. We thought she and her supporters should still be in a mood of mourning and sobriety. Even though we doubt their ability and will to do so in this season of anomy in Nigeria, we still call on the security agencies to thoroughly investigate this dastardly occurrence and bring the culprits to book.

  • Nine percent Capex

    Reports that the Federal Government has reduced capital expenditure (capex) to about nine percent of the N4.357trillion 2015 budget should depress not only economic experts but anyone with a little understanding of budgeting, vis-à-vis its implications for the economy. The revised budget submitted to the National Assembly indicates that capex for the current year is now pegged at N387 billion ($2billion) or exactly 8.9 percent of the entire budget.

    Against the 23.7 percent projected for capex last year, this year’s capex budget outlay is a significant drop. Indeed, it is now only slightly more than half of the N634billion that the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, proposed for capex and related items in her budget presentation last month.

    This drastic reduction would no doubt have profound effects on the badly needed investment in infrastructure. Although it was necessitated by the collapse in the price of crude oil, Nigeria’s mainstay, it remains to be seen if this is the best way to handle the shortfall in the country’s revenue.

    Budgets generally consist of two parts: recurrent and capital expenditure. Recurrent expenditure has to do with wages and salaries as well as statutory transfers, debt service and purchase of goods and services. Capital expenditure, on the other hand, has to do with investments in schools, bridges, hospitals, etc. It is therefore no gainsaying the fact that it is recurrent expenditure that keeps government going even though its benefits to the larger economy is neither long-lasting nor comprehensive.

    Civil servants it is that profit mainly from recurrent expenditure. Capital expenditure however has long-lasting impact and it is the one that touches many people directly because it has effects on quality of living. When, for instance, government constructs roads and bridges, they may not put money into people’s pockets directly but they help facilitate movement which ultimately saves the cost of doing business. Their multiplier effects are enormous.

    This is why it should worry us that successive governments in the country, even since the return to civil rule in 1999, have devoted more resources to recurrent expenditure at the expense of capital expenditure. With the reported commitment of only about nine percent of this year’s budget to capital expenditure, it means the chunk of 91 percent would go to making civil servants happy because they are the ones that benefit most from recurrent expenditure. In a country with an acute deficit of infrastructure –  roads, good schools, power, etc., this is not something to celebrate.

    Unfortunately, most governments in the country cannot reverse the trend because of possible political backlash. Of course, our public functionaries too cannot justify the stupendous money they cream off the system by way of allowances and other emoluments. So, asking civil servants to downsize becomes a moral issue. It becomes particularly knotty in a crucial election year like the one we are in, when governments fear treading on workers’ toes.

    This problem has lingered because successive governments failed to plan. It is a challenge that they could have been reducing gradually over the years if the political will had been there. By not addressing it, we are merely postponing the doomsday because it ultimately would continue to haunt the country. The reason why we have been having so little development is because we have been committing so little to it.

    A situation where the government is the largest employer of labour is not good for any country. That is why government must invest heavily in infrastructure in order to stimulate economic activities, especially by the private sector. Power supply is key here.

    Moreover, the time to stop paying lip service to diversification of our economy is now. It is worth it if that is the only lesson we can learn from the current downturn in our fortune due to dwindling crude prices.

  • One scam too many

    • The scandal that has trailed NLC’s plan to provide workers with affordable houses in Abuja underlines decline in standards

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has to do more than explain its part in what has become an illustration of the sorry state of things in the country. Almost all institutions and sectors have been desecrated and what could be called the national standard is well below even regional standard in Africa. More than 3,000 workers who believe in the integrity of the umbrella Labour organisation had responded positively to an advertisement in May 2013, that it was in the process of building an estate where a deposit of at least 10 per cent of a minimum of N4.6 million would make one own a house in the federal capital territory. To those who immediately paid, it was a dream come true.

    It appeared all worked out. A developer who would secure the necessary fund offshore was introduced. The NLC said it was in the process of getting the land and the housing units were to be delivered to subscribers by December 2014. In a short period, about N4 billion had been deposited in the joint account opened for the project jointly by Kriston Lally PLC and the NLC.

    But about two months after the December deadline for delivery, there is no site in place, let alone development. It is as bad as scams go.

    It is unfortunate that the NLC is trying to explain away the situation, blaming it all on the developers. The questions being asked by the subscribers include whether due diligence was conducted before the developer was chosen for the project? Who are the developers and what is their antecedence? What has become of the money deposited and how could the developers have made away with it without the connivance of Labour leaders who are joint signatories.

    More importantly, we ask: what steps has the NLC taken on the matter so far? At what point did it become apparent that something fishy was going on and were the subscribers fully briefed at that point? We call on the Labour movement to get the security agencies involved in the matter at once. Both the Labour bureaucrats and Kristal Lally’s promoters should be grilled for the part they played in this messy scandal.

    How could a working people’s organisation prey on deficit in housing supply to the same people? By the World Bank account, there is a deficit of 17 million housing units in Nigeria and most of the poor people cannot even afford decent meals. The bank also says about N60 billion would be needed to provide the shortfall over coming years. Realising this, the NLC plotted to draw in people who saw it as the way out of their predicament.

    There was a time when the Labour movement was the conscience of the nation; at the forefront of the fight for a better life for the people and the first to lead the struggle for a just society. This seems to be in the distant past now. It seems what we now have in place are a bunch of Labour leaders who are too seized of personal comfort to think of the working people. The show of shame at NLC’s 22 delegates conference last Wednesday is a pointer to how low the Congress has sunk.

    By these developments, the Nigerian people must have lost a natural ally in the struggle to raise standards. The NLC has lost the moral right to query the state of things. Veteran labour leaders such as the first National President of the Congress, Comrade Hassan Sunmonu, and the Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole should step in to stem the rot and restore the confidence of Nigerians in the organisation.

    As a first step, the subscribers and general public must be fully briefed on what went wrong and who played what roles. Thereafter, if the Congress is unable to make good its promise within a short period, a full refund of deposits, plus interests should be made to the subscribers. This is clearly one scam too many.

  • Better be speculations

    •Any attempt to suspend or remove Jega will not stand

    In spite of persistent denial, even by President Goodluck Jonathan, the speculation that the Federal Government may be contemplating to send Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on forced terminal leave from March 1 or cause his outright replacement  before the expiration of his tenure, continues to gain momentum. The presidency is purportedly disenchanted with the reasons adduced by INEC for postponing the general elections.

    Despite Prof. Jega’s debunking, through Kayode Idowu, his chief press secretary, of his rumoured resignation when he said: “Jega is busy preparing for the elections and you are asking about terminal leave. Does anyone planning to conduct elections go on terminal leave? There is nothing like that,” we still believe that the issue should not be treated with levity.

    We know from the antecedent of the impunities of the current administration that the issue of Jega being sent on terminal leave is not beyond the president. The presidency that could, without recourse to extant law, remove Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor for blowing the lid off the allegedly missing $20billion crude oil money, can go to any length on the Jega matter.

    Since the postponement of the elections from February 14 and 28 to March 28 and April 11, respectively, the polity has avoidably been over-heated. The target of the PDP and the presidency has been Jega that the ruling government plans to ambush so as to stampede him out of office so that a pliant man could be picked as replacement for him before the rescheduled dates of the elections. Succeeding with this infamous plan will definitely de-legitimise the results of the elections generally and probably lay the foundation for a constitutional crisis that might elongate the speculated stay-in-power plan of President Jonathan.

    We would not subscribe to the idea or any attempt, whether overt or covert, by the government to overthrow the constitution. Something drastic has to be done to truncate the on-going deliberate official attempt to discredit Jega and by extension INEC, as the rescheduled March/April elections approach. At a period when all hands should be on deck in ensuring hitch-free elections, it is sad that distracting speculations are rife about possible replacement for the INEC chairman in the person of Professor Femi Mimiko. We expect Prof Mimiko to dissociate himself from such speculation. His silence on this issue, in view of its national significance and timing, is quite disturbing.

    This country, especially her government must give serious thoughts to how enduring institutions are built in other climes. For instance, in other countries, the head of an electoral institution barely appears in the public domain except where such appearance becomes compelling. But here, the henchman of the electoral commission has become a routine figure in the media for mostly the wrong reasons, and orchestrated largely by the ruling party. Unlike Professor Maurice Iwu, whose tenure as INEC chairman was marred with scandals, that of Jega, despite his shortcomings, has been quite an improvement over that better forgotten Iwu era. And he should be encouraged to foster more progress on that path in the coming elections rather than be persecuted by the ruling party.

    As far as we are concerned, Jega has not been found guilty of any serious misconduct to warrant his being forced to go on terminal leave. Moreover, he has the serious task of conducting the forthcoming general elections to a conclusive end. He should be left to concentrate on his job, as anything contrary could only be tantamount to an attempt to avoidably destroy democracy in the country.

     

  • NNPC’s forensic audit

    •FG should publish the report in full if it has nothing to hide

    For a corporation long known to be inured to shame and probity, it comes as no surprise that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would mount an orgy of self-exculpation barely hours after the Auditor- General of the Federation, (AuGF), Samuel Ukura, made public the highlights of the PriceWaterHouse Coopers (PwC) forensic audit report on the alleged missing $20 billion. Not even a key highlight of the PwC report asking NNPC and its subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) to refund “a minimum of $1.48bn,” to the Federation Account, it seems, could suffice to temper the corporation’s mission in self-justification and image laundering.

    By the way, were the NNPC to be any guilty of the aforementioned, the Jonathan administration would be just as complicit for allowing the corporation to go public with the cherry-pick even as Nigerians are denied the opportunity of seeing the entire document.

    To be sure, the PwC can claim to have delivered on its mission of investigating the shortfall in remittances to the Federation Account as alleged by the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. What remains at issue is whether the process – from duration to the point of submission – has resolved the riddle of the missing $20 billion.

    We have no difficulties in stating the obvious – which is that the entire process is, as would be expected in the circumstance, highly disappointing. To start with, it is worth noting that the report is actually coming four months late. Given that the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala had stated in April last year that the firm had 16 weeks to do the job, the report ought to have been submitted last September. Without the relentless pressure mounted by various segments of the Nigerian society, it seems unlikely that the report which the administration is now so eager to claim some credit for would have seen the light of the day. That the administration finally caved in would owe in part to the fact that the general elections are only a few weeks from now; and the nigh impossibility of being able to fob off questions about the scandal.

    Of greater interest to us however is what President Goodluck Jonathan has chosen to do after receiving the report. Ordinarily, given the intense public interest generated in the wake of the allegations, we would have expected the administration (ever so eager to prove that it had nothing to hide) would cause the findings to be published to enable citizens – at whose behest the investigation was undertaken – draw their own conclusions. Rather, the President opted to hand the report to the AuGF with a directive to the latter to publish its highlights.

    The point really is that things have gone beyond the attempt to cherry-pick the report. Asking the AuGF to do what is no more than an executive summary, aside being opportunistic, is hardly helpful to the cause of establishing the truth. Moreover, audit reports are by their nature public documents. Why the Jonathan administration would choose to treat it as a matter covered by the Official Secrets Act is hard to comprehend; just as the notion that Nigerians cannot comprehend let alone draw their independent conclusion is absurd.

    As for the order by Minister of Petroleum Diezani Alison-Madueke to the NNPC to pay the outstanding $1.48 billion due to the Federation Account, we consider it superfluous and utterly condescending. Clearly, the magisterial directive merely confirms what is today known as the farce going on at the petroleum ministry where the minister doubles as sole administrator. Until the nation is availed the entire PwC report, we would expect the NNPC and the petroleum ministry to spare Nigerians the distractions.

  • PVCs or nothing

    •It is inconceivable that PDP kicks against using the cards even after securing postponement

    This seems like the election that will change all elections in Nigeria. If this election holds eventually, it is poised to serve as a watershed both for Nigeria’s democracy, her electoral processes and even the structure and fundaments of the Nigerian state.

    We make this postulation based on the high-wire tension the 2015 elections have generated and particularly, the seeming desperation of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In the annals of Nigeria’s elections, it is not often that the party in power gets fidgety and shows obvious signs of panic suggesting the imminence of defeat. This is what Nigerians have witnessed in the run-up to this election.

    First, the presidency and PDP had to corral the rest of the country into shifting the long-fixed Election Day dates just one week before. Though they denied it, it was obvious that the party in power noticed a high-wave momentum; it feared defeat and the only option available to it was to force a postponement. It hid under the pretext of a weak security situation and the supposed unpreparedness of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

    Having forced its way to secure a shift in the polls, why does the PDP and presidency seek to distress the process further by introducing more extraneous conditions? Barely a few days after the postponement of the polls was announced, the ruling party started calling for the rejection of the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs)! All parties, and the National Assembly had agreed ab initio that the PVCs must be used for the elections.

    The reasons are as simple as they are obvious: the PVC is a digital and advanced method of casting ballot; it has biometric properties thus less susceptible to rigging; it is a permanent device as the name suggests and provides a permanent and easy to manage voters’ database, among other benefits. There was unanimity among all stakeholders that Nigeria must migrate from the old, unreliable, analogue and temporary voters’ card (TVC) to the vastly improved PVC.

    It is therefore troubling that the ruling party would begin to question the use of the PVCs after it had secured an adjournment which gives INEC ample time to distribute the cards – a matter that had been the sore point of INEC’s preparations and a major plank presented for the postponement.

    According to reports in national newspapers quoting a presidency source: “We are not comfortable with the card readers. For example, we have not seen any and we don’t know how it works? We have not even been told they would not fail. And if they fail what would happen? I think the issue of card readers must be re-examined.”

    While we agree with some of the concerns, especially as regards functionality of the card readers and the need to have carried out extensive test-runs, we must point out that all the parties would be affected equally. Secondly, if it is not borne out of bad faith, we do not expect the ruling party to embark on a media campaign in condemnation of INEC. There must be better ways to correct lapses in the activities of the nation’s electoral umpire. A periodic meeting of all stakeholders and INEC could be convened for instance, to thrash issues that arise as preparations get on to high gears.

    The Presidency and the ruling PDP, we must admonish, need to recognise that they owe the country a duty to see to it that an acceptable general elections are held as scheduled. The consequences of mismanaging this election are too grave to be contemplated. Let it be noted that it shall be on record that it was during the era of a certain President Goodluck Jonathan and his ruling party that a general election failed and the country imploded. History will be unkind to them.

  • Open letter to President Jonathan

    IR: Dear President, please pardon me for writing you at this tense political moment in our country history, a time when you have serious political campaigning to do. Obviously this is not the best time to write this kind of letter but I feel compelled to write after the postponement of the general elections and the backlash that followed.

    In 2010, we watched you do your thing as leader of our republic; and as has been the reality over the past five years of your rule, there are as many people singing your praises as there were those excoriating you for all that is not right with our beloved country. We have been listening to speech after speech from you where you invariably promise us a better life, better leadership, corruption-busting, jobs, a better economy, freedom, justice and a “new” Nigeria where young people can aspire and prosper.

    Indeed, our hopes as Nigerians are that we would finally get to have a feel of the good life during your administration, and not endure the pain and indignity of watching our relatives, friends and acquaintances living in other countries doing well and showing off to us. Among other things we hoped for after your historic election in 2011 were: fixing the potholes on our roads, constant electricity supply your promised would be achieved within a few years, among others.

    But you failed to meet our aspiration and the pain of the populace has become unbearable, making your departure through the ballot box almost a certainty. But you should leave honourably instead of trying to buy time by postponing the election. The postponement will do you no favour; surely. If the army could not defeat the insurgents in six years, then only a fool would believe six weeks extension will be the answer. Even the super powers have not defeated any kind of rebellion in six weeks.

    Dear President, we all remember how you promised to create job opportunities for Nigerians. What you rather did was sending our beloved graduates to their early graves. The immigration recruitment tragedy is something that I will never forget, and the families of the departed souls can’t wait to avenge their loss through the ballot box come March 28. You may want to know that many of my colleagues who graduated same year you were elected president are still unemployed, and they have also failed to secure loans to start their own businesses. Their percentage on the total numbers of eligible voters may be small, but they have resolved to ensure it makes the needed difference come March 28.

    Rightly or wrongly, many people see you as the catalyst behind their success or failure, and I understand it could be difficult carrying the burden of having to make the wishes of over 170 million people come true. I do not have much to ask, but that you keep your promise of handing over come May 29, if you lose the election. Our desire is to try something new, something different from the PDP. And no amount of bribery can stop it; we need to save the future of our children and that of the unborn generation.

    All eyes are on you this year, as they have been for the past five years, hoping that we finally say goodbye to your government that has brought us so many agonizing and painful experiences; we have had enough of impunity, fake promises, insecurity, and unemployment that has become the trademark of your administration.

    • Comrade Ahmed OmeizaLukman,

    Kiev Ukraine

  • Adeboye’s admonition

    Adeboye’s admonition

    The church will benefit immensely if the pastors heed this warning

    Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) is not given to frivolity. So when the renowned cleric on his Facebook page admonished that pastors collecting bribes from politicians should prepare for God’s wrath, we cannot but give the insidious cankerworm the deserved notice.

    Pastor Adeboye was obviously reacting to the allegation by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and Director-General, Buhari Presidential Campaign Organisation who alleged that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gave a bribe of N6billion to some pastors to work against Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate in next month’s presidential election. Adeboye declared: “I read in the newspaper this morning that one of the serving governors in Nigeria said that some pastors in Nigeria collected N6bn from politicians for the purpose of influencing their members to vote a certain candidate in the coming elections. May I humbly request that if there be any pastor or pastors who collected such money, they should please return such as quickly as possible before the fire of the Almighty consumes them.”

    Amaechi had, during an APC governorship campaign rally in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State reportedly accused some pastors of having collected N6 billion from the ruling government so as to discredit his party’s (APC’s) presidential candidate, a Muslim. While this allegation is difficult to accept for want of concrete evidence, it was given impetus by the conduct of President Goodluck Jonathan who is taking advantage of religion to bolster his political standing. He is fond of moving from one church to the other, forgetting that religion should be separated from the state and that what Nigerians want is performance. Perhaps, it would not be hyperbolic to state that the president had surpassed all his predecessors in exploiting religion to achieve undue political end.

    The problem of pastoral corruption affects all denominations and the ecclesiastical order must restrain itself because it opens the churches up for this. Yet, most pastors are ill-prepared to deal with such problems, compelling the public to robe the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) with the derisive epithet of ‘can of worms’. Some pastors are too cosy with the president and other top politicians, losing in the process the instinctive capacity to protect the institution. No wonder, most churches now wish such cases away or stifle their spread to the public domain.

    What is happening among many pastors and in religious houses is a reflection of the abysmal nature of all institutions and values in the society at large. Unfortunately, it would not be far from the truth to say that the country is under the hegemony of spiritually bad people. Such leadership, political and spiritual, have forgotten that God’s standards are clear and unambiguous. That He hates bribe and expects us to shun it; that God wants pastors to stand out. Unfortunately, most pastors have been overwhelmed by the prevalent evil culture of bribery and corruption induced by politicians. Sadly, these corrupt men of God want their congregation to overcome the vice. How?

    It is sad to note that the pulpit has been turned into platform for making illicit money from politicians that probably stole from the public till, seeking undeserved positions. Pastoral duty is a call to serve God. The wearing of that pristine robe makes God to overlook the times of ignorance but some pastors, through their corrupt inclinations, have made it difficult for the public to differentiate between their period of ignorance and that of divine call. Surprisingly, pastors of nowadays hold strongly to the wrong belief that money is the wheel on which the gospel rides, which we doubt has any foundation in the Bible.

    We note in recent times that the biggest givers in churches are close politician friends of pastors.   They shower pastors with gifts that perpetually silence them from discharging their pastoral obligations in a candid way to their congregation. We consider this as sacrificing scriptural values on the altar of personal greed. Pastors are by calling expected to live ascetic lifestyles and not one in pursuit of pleasure and the good things of life which money offers from invidiously corrupt politicians.

    The soiling of Christianity under the guise of evangelism must be curbed now; not later.