Ondo State All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain Dr. Segun Abraham spoke with Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU in Lagos on the place of ‘morality in politics’, how religious beliefs can foster good governance and what President Muhammadu Buhari can do to reposition the country in his second term.
How can President Muhammadu Buhari succeed in his second term?
I must be honest with you. Successive governments have not met 30 percent of the expectation of our people. When the military came, they claimed to have come to correct the system. After three or four years, they were worse. Then, military will topple themselves. Now, civilians have also come in. we have been failing and failing. It boils down to only one answer; that this country, before we can produce good leaders that will transform this country, that leader must be very pious, somebody who knows god very well and has the proper training for the job.
The PDP and the APC may not be able to get this country to where it should be, unless they are able to produce leaders who truly know God. The democracy we enjoy today was borne out of Christian doctrine. The people who started it were pious and purists. They were real pastors in the sense of the world. They were not looking for the things of the world; people who had renewed their souls. They looked up to heaven as their final destination. They saw their presence on earth as temporary and an opportunity to prepare themselves for heaven. They worked for the poor; lifting the poor people up. You cannot claim to be serving God and praising God when you are not attending to the needs of the poor around you. You know whether a nation is a Christian nation or a pagan nation when you go out and see people on the streets begging for food, mad people who are not catered for, these are signals that that nation is a pagan nation. That is a nation that does not know God.
It is not the number of churches or mosques that we build that determines whether a nation is not a pagan nation. That is why we are not making progress. We must be renewed from inside before we can carry out any political agenda. Any political agenda that starts from external is temporary. The human nature is greedy, avaricious. Human beings have an element that is good in them, but that element is coloured by evil desires; by human nature. Until we renew that one, we will go nowhere. If we actually want to make progress in Africa, we should study the revival that transformed Europe and America. If don’t study that and we are just reading political theory, we will fail. If you don’t know the roots and you are just looking at the leaf, you cannot know the three.
You are painting a gloomy picture of a democractic experiment…
The democracy we practice today s vague and fake. What even qualifies somebody to become a politician, we don’t have it. What are the characters a politician must have? They don’t have them. So, we have not trained people to become politicians. Opportunists come up here and there and make themselves politicians. There is no way. You are governing people. You are supposed to be servant-leaders. A servant-leader is seeking to protect the interst of the people he is leading, and not his interest. That also leads to the question of conscience. You cannot make progress without having conscience. A nation without conscience is doomed. We are not making progress. How can people survive on N30,000 monthly when some members of the political class get N3 or N4 million naira monthly? They go to the same market. What we have done is that we are increasing and multiplying the number of people who become slaves and masters within the country. As long as you are not giving a salary that is equitable to support the minimum standard of living, these families will become poorer and poorer. You concentrate the wealth of the country into the hands of few families. They will continue to dominate the country and these people will continue to serve them. How will the children of drivers earning N30,000 not serve the children of senators earning N10 million naira in the same country.
You will discover than because of their Christian faith in the western world, they abolished slave trade. Here in Nigeria, they are creating slavery and perpetuating slave trade. As a matter of fact, they now make citizens compulsory slaves. Check these up; during the military and PDP days in power. We can only pray that in our party, God will minister to them and they will take the bull by the horn. When the Israelites back slided, god sent them into slavery. They came back. One of the things they did was to call the nobles, those who have taken their citizens as slaves and taken over the wealth and property of the poor, and they spoke to them and they said it was an offence. So, they returned the wealth to the poor, freed those who were slaves and established them. The nation prospered. Today, the wealth that is concentrated in the hands of the so-called rich, are they ready to relinquish it and deliver it to the poor? Meeting poor people’s need is not about money. If a person is poor, give him shelter, give him work to do and they will contribute to the economy. When you remove the essential needs and you begin to give hi stipends, you are making him and his future generations slaves. You are killing his faith. You destroy his self-esteem. You make him inferior, whereas all of you are created equally. So, we have a lot of work to do. The country has to be continuously renewed.
How should Presidnet Buhari handle the situation?
It is not about government policy. If Buhari wants to do something good, fine. But, what about the people that will implement it? If they have not been transformed, they will destroy that programme. So, there is no way we can get to prosperity. What progress have we made right from the independence and military rule? The only progress we have made was that Nigeria Railways were working at that time. It is destroyed today. We had the National Shipping Line at that time. It has been destroyed. The Consumer Protection Agency that would supply goods at cheaper rate, it has been destroyed today. Universities that were among the best in the world, they have been destroyed today. The secondary schools where people were morally trained have been destroyed. So, if we look at the destruction, what progress have we made then? Today, we cannot even make road by ourselves. We can’t even get water. We depend on foreigners. We cannot manage our sustenance. If you cannot manage yourselves, then, you are not human beings. This is the first standard.
How should the economy be reposition?
Today, who are those managing our economy? We depend on foreigners. Even, the Villa was built by white people. So, they have our secrets. How can we call ourselves a nation? How can we have pride? How can our children have pride? They will tell them they built your roads and everything. You could see the way they profile us. They don’t lie. They say we are drugs syndicate. We have destroyed our character.
What is the meaning of the next of kin? The way we define it here is that, if I die, who will co end take may money? Next of kin is taken from the Bible. It is called Chrisma Redeemer. That is why Jesus Christ derived the word: redeemer. Anybody that is successful in the family takes care of the rest. There is nothing like nuclear family. God did not creat family to be nuclear. It is one family, one God. Anybody that is successful is supposed to take care of the poor in the family, their children, widows, everybody, so that there will be no slave. What now happens? Those who are rich created a boundary and called it the nuclear family, and they separate themselves. They don’t know their villages again. They have become strangers. That is that leads to areas boys and miscreants because people who are supposed to come to their aid when they were young neglected them. We can’t blame government. We blame the individuals.
Again, this is where the church has failed. The church that is supposed to provide succour now follow the idol culture by building temples and cathedrals. The pagans built cathedrals for their deities, for worship. God warned David when he wanted to build a temple, that he will not live in a house built by an individual. He is the owner of the wholw world and He has not complained since he has been going with them from tent to tent in the wilderness till the time of Samuel, Saul, judges and so on. He did not complain. David may have looked at his own house and how others were building houses for their deities and said he wanted to build a house to put the Ark of God there. Today, the churches are taking that as a success, as a tradition. They neglect their responsibilities. The church is supposed to be a thermostat, a conscience to measure behaviours. The church now have more thieves than pagans. Onstead of focusing in Christ, the church is now focusing on pastors from America where they visit; those pastors from America who have embraced capitalism and turned the church to a commercial venture. They influence our own people.
For any country to grow, there must be partnership with the church and mosque, instead of partnership with a crowd of unbelievers. Government may not be able to solve our problems alone. If we wait for government to do that, poverty will continue to grow. Every institution must do its own. The church must support efforts to build good leadership. As long as the church continues to see the secular standard as their yardstick-big cars, europlanes-these are the things Satan promised to Jesus, which he rejected. I will give you power. I will give you this or that. Today, that is what our leaders are embracing. If Jesus Christ is our standard, we must follow him. How many temple did Jesus build? When Christianity was spreading from Judea to everywhere, how many churches were they building? It is a pagan thing; at best it is a political building. It is kings that build cathedral. David, through Solomon, built one. When it was burnt down, another was built by Dairus. The one they built in Turkey was built by Constancetin. We need leaders that will be politicians to transform society. The church can be the factory.
The political situation; we are in a state of chaos and confusion. We want progress. But, where are the people to do that? There is corruption everywhere. Honest people are in minority. These people have to be retrained by the church. The church cannot retrain unless they renew themselves. When a pastor knows that someone, a governor, is a thief. He comes for thanksgiving. He is praising him. He didn’t warn him. Everybody is clapping because the man brought money. When pastors and politicians and thieves smile to bank, what is the difference?
But, some people are saying that morality has no place in politics….
When people are ignorant, they will say anything. In a Christian nation, there is a place for morality in politics, except in a pagan nation where they have ecuperial mentality whereby they think that what they get in life is what is important; that they are not accountable to God and that here is no other world they are going to. So, they can say there is no morality in politics. But, if you know God and you are a child of God, you will know that what comes first in politics is morality. The second thing is conscience. I will tell you how they formed democracy in America. When they formed a nation and they realised that power was very dangerous, they resolved to look for people of conscience; moral people to lead them. They got people of conscience to vote for people of conscience. They linked the education to the church. The church will teach you morality, character and knowledge. While voting, you vote with conscience because you have conscience. You vote for people who can deliver. So, their ministers don’t steal money. Democracy is not from Africa or Asia. It is from the western world. So, when someone steal the country’s money or destroy public institutions, then, you ask: where did they get those values? We are graduates from the western universities, but we don’t behave like them. You are Generals; soldiers. You went to their war colleges. But, the way they practice their soldering, you don’t practice it here. The way doctors practice in Europe and America is different from the way they practice here. The doctors and nurses here do not care whether you die or not. If you don’t have money, you are gone. But, there, they have conscience. They believe they have a duty to save your life. Soldiers there have a duty to defend their country, not to kill their people. They believe in leadership, which is service to the people. It is sacrifice, not self-serving. Anything you are doing without morality is not worth it. It will only lead to ruination and condemnation. If they say there is no morality in politics, is there morality in marriage? Why are our children rushing abroad? Even, rich people are rushing abroad to stay there. Why?
We are working without foundation. What is the foundation of our political system? Their foundation is based on Christian value and character. There, they take Christian values and character to politics.
