Originally meant for publication on June 18, this column appears nevertheless today in view of the currency of its subject matter. This is the heart of the matter of political wrangling for power in the National Assembly … treachery!
We live on a planet where air, water and food are poisoned and where the ethereal environment is despoiled by treachery in human relationships. The inauguration, of Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate President of the Buhari Presidency era smells of nothing but treachery. And if treachery is a wrong or false principle of life and, therefore, stands in opposition to the Creator in whom we all claim to believe, what profit will treachery bring if, in the end of all things, whatever is false or opposed to the Will of God must collapse? I do not think the election of Bukola Saraki as Senate President would be rancorous and divisive and diversionary as it has become if the organizers had followed due process. By the way, due process is not about the constitutionalism or legalism of the Senate forming a quorum for the election. It is about imbuing the process with trust. The process is trust deficient when, for the purpose of the election, a large Section of the Senate is led away to hold a meeting that never was with the President of the Federal Republic and another large Section is retained in the Senate Chambers to elect a Senate President. What has aggravated ill feelings towards the election of Bukola Saraki as Senate President is the fact that, as a member of President Buhari’s party, the APC, he, too, should have been in the group of Senators which went to attend a meeting with the Vice President who was said to have called the meeting. Senator Saraki was said to have ignored him because the Vice President was a “mere commissioner’’ indeed the Vice President was a commissioner for Justice and Attorney General in Lagos State, where, with due respect, a commissioner’s job may bear more value than the Governor’s in some states. Because he was not at that meeting, and because it should have been obvious to him that his fellow APC Senators were not in the Senate chambers, Senator Saraki exposed himself to suspicions that a plot was hatched of which he knew, or was a part to exclude some Senators from the voting. As many commentators have observed, such a process was not only at variance with the Change the APC promised to bring to Nigerian political life and social order, it was inimical to it. For if the foundation is false, the structure on it would wobble.
I am not a politician, and I carry no party card. I love good behaviour and adore upright character, a quality of which is TRUST. In a political party, the general will or the party’s will is supreme. That is why I cannot belong to a political party for I cannot bow my will and spirit to it if it decides to do wrong. In the political party, all members conform to the general will once it has been formed. The APC ran a mock Senate President election in which Senator Saraki lost. As a faithful party member, he should have accepted the general will. In refusing to accept and calling on the defeated PDP to keep him, defeated his party’s general will on the floor of the Senate, exposed himself not only as a disloyal of unfaithful party man, but also as a person who cannot be trusted to honour any agreement. Nigeria has had such untreatable leaders and would appear, with President Buhari’s election, to be searching for trustworthy leaders. Many commentators have suggested there is nothing wrong with what Senator Saraki has done, that it is all politics, the games politicians play. On a more serious note, however, I wonder if they have ever tried to wonder if politics is meant to be a deity affair. My own brand of Christianity teaches me to keep my thoughts, words and actions pure. We know the Creator is all about Purity, Love and Justice and no man goes before Him who does not evince the human variants of their attributes, the equivalent human of Purity is being Chaste or Faith. Senator Saraki presents himself as a devout moslim. And the Prophet (may the Peace of Allah be upon him) taught the need for us all to lead righteous lives. Treachery is the opposite of righteousness by any standard.
t is still unclear if the Saraki Senate thunderbolt is the “major” event President Buhari said last month would happen in early June, or if this is yet to come. Meanwhile, he has promised to work with whichever senate leadership emerges. In my view, that is throwing caution to the wind or, since the statement came after saraki’s inauguration, a way of validating it. Again in my humble view, it should have been better if the president remained neutral, allowing the senate to resolve its differences, especially as he has promised not to meddle, like his predecessors, in National Assembly affairs. By not doing so, the President is saying he is ready to dance to music, any music, even if the fingers of Lucifer are on the strings of the harp. Yet the President was brought to office by the prayers, steadfastness and faith of people who saw him as a man who does not dine with the devil and who would relax Lucifer’s hold on Nigeria.
The PDP, routed in the last elections, has suddenly found its feet and voice in the Senate, with a Senate President who is APC in body but PDP in spirit, and Deputy Senate President who is PDP in body and spirit. We should not forget that the Deputy Senate President is from a region of the country which over whelmingly rejected the President at the polls. What may happen next is that the PDP would bare it fangs, and President Buhari may resort to EFCC in self defense. In that case, will anything have changed. In the second series of Buhari articles, this column warned that APC presidential election victory lifted the lair of the snake and that a snake half smitten is a dangerous snake which would seek to avenge the intrusion on its life for as long as it had any breath to fight back. Now, APC would appear chained in the senate for PDP to begin to work towards recovering the presidency under a Bukola Saraki who would have returned to the PDP after pulverising the APC.
All the die-hard PDP people I met last week had suddenly come alive from hibernation. One of them, a so-called pastor, was most irritating. I call him so-called pastor because, as people who claim to be serving the creator, whether he called them to his service or they are trying to force themselves on him, which is impossible, are supposed to live and act on the basis of certain ethical and spiritual standards which should separate them from Dick and Harry men or the run-of the-mill men, otherwise they may not qualify to lead rustic, emotional and slumbering human spirits out of the morals in which they sink. This pastor was jubilating hilariously. I asked if he had thought of the implications of what had happened to Nigeria, and to the prospects of change.
He said there was nothing like change, that the word was an empty electioneering slogan. I asked if, as a pastor, he did not see treachery at play or know that treachery is a grave betrayal of trust or if, as a Pastor, he had not learned that betrayal of trust, prevalent on earth today, is a sign of an approaching Final Judgement. This Pastor, to my dismay, said all of that didn’t matter, that “this is politics”. To him, life on the pulpit could be separated from life in politics or even business. I did not give up, leading him back to his Bible.
•Cain killed his brother Abel. Treachery.
•Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus. Treachery.
•King David took the wife of Uriah, a soldier fighting in the war front to protect the land over which David was king. To cover his shame, David recalled Uriah home only to give him a letter for the commander. Uriah in trust, did not read this letter. David asked that Uriah be posted to the hottest sector of the war where he would be killed and Uriah was killed. Treachery.
•David’s son, Amon, loved his sister, Tamar, a virgin, so much he wished to sleep with her. His friend Jehonaidab, the son of David’s brother, advised him to pretend he was ill and would get well only if Tamar brought him a meal in the privacy of his bedroom. Tamar, ususpecting, took a meal to her brother. When they were both alone Amnon seized Tamar. Tamar tried to struggle free, pleading. Amnon did not listen, and raped her. This was a classical case of treachery.
•Rebecca deceived Isaac, her blind husband by making him give his last blessing to Jacob one of his two sons, instead of Esau, his beloved. Esau was hairy. Jacob had a smooth skin. Esau went hunting for a game to feed his father, after which he would receive the blessing. Rebecca made Jacob slaughter a goat, wear the skin, present the smoked food to his father and pretend to be Esau.
The blind Isaac felt the goat skin and thought the young man before him was Esau but when Jacob spoke, Isaac became confused. He made the classical remark. This is the body of Esau but the voice of Jacob. Nevertheless, he gave the blessing. At about the same time, Esau returned home with his game. Jacob was afraid. Rebecca thought him to flee from home and handle the ensuing crisis in Jacob’s favor. This was another act of treachery in his story.
•Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers simply because he was destined to be greater than they would. Treachery.
•We hear of the war in heavens from where treacherous Lucifer was cast “to the earth” we know his activities among men, for which we all despise him, is TREACHEROUS.
President Buhari, as military head of state was a victim of treachery which led to his overthrow and his succession by General Ibrahim Babangida. Before then, General Buhari had been involved in treachery which led to the overthrow of Shehu Shagari. President Buhari hate treachery so much that he divorce his first wife on allegation of treachery against him. What was her treacherous act? When he was in detention ordered by General Banbagida, she took upkeep allowance every month from Babaginda’s government. General Buhari consider this treacherous. He is probably not conceptual about what has happened in the senate, otherwise he would have seen it embalmed with treachery. If he did, would he wish to “work” with treachery? Already, many commentators are painting possible aftermath scenarios.
•Some senators may quit the APC to form another party.
•Some APC senators who came from the PDP may return to the PDP.
•Some senators may hang on with Buhari in the APC
•The senate may become tumultuous.
•The PDP may return to power and Bukola Saraki become the next president of Nigeria.
•President Buhari may fight dirty with Senate, making it a hollow Senate and block and pulverizing Saraki’s ambition. Making the senate hollow may mean depriving it’s members contract, constituency allowances and fat salaries. The contracts may go to foreign companies which will perform and make President Buhari achieve his dreams. It perhaps for this reason that President Buhari has been visiting foreign capitals seeking support for his programmes and making commitment. The world is waiting and watching.
One point I cannot easily forget in the senate upheaval is that cycles open and close. Hundreds of years ago, the Alaafin of Oyo (king of Oyo Empire) sent Afonja, his work general, to Ilorin, northern outpost of the empire, to stop Fulani Jihadist from entering the empire. When Afonja arrive in Ilorin, he rebelled against the Alaafin and asked Alimi, commander of the Jihad forces, to support his adventure.
limi supported Afonja, the Alaafin held back. Ilorin became independent of Oyo Empire. But Alimi was to later kill Afonja and take over Ilorin. Till this day, the descendant of Alimi rule over Ilorin. Afonja and Alimi committed treachery. Today, Senator Saraki, would appear set to destroy the APC and surreptitiously hand its presidential election victory to the PDP, which he may wish to ride to power in 2019. But he may find at that time an Alimi had lain in wait for an Afonja.
The world still hate treachery however it may have become fashionable in today’s world. Pharmacist Jimi Agbaje would appear set to win the Governorship election in Lagos. But the tide would appear to rise against him, when he sided with immigrants who would appear bent on taking the land from his owners. The political eyes of many of his supporters suddenly opened. They remember the Alaafin, Afonja, Alimi and more.
Even the Oba of Lagos spoke publicly. The political pendulum swung in favor of Akinwunmi Ambode, the new Governor of Lagos State, who it is believed would protect the land against immigrant’s treachery.
Treacherous immigrants stole Australia and present–day United States of America from the Aborigenes. They vanquished “Sons of the Incas”. They trampled over Zimbabwe and South Africa.
We do not know as yet where the treachery in the Senate would end. An APC general has brought the opposition PDP to power in the senate, strangling his party. It is clear however all falsehood will collapse in the fullness of its time.
Concept
We can understand events better if we examine the concepts they throw up. Inherent in these concepts are the messages events bring to us. For this false pastor in reference, I would say such people like him, unable to see in events the concepts which power them, are typical of those people our Lord Jesus describe as seeing but not comprehending. When you claim to be a Pastor, a representative of the Lord among this “flock’’, and you do not lead a deep Christian life which would enable you see the content of events, that is the concept, but rather the dust and heat they throw up, you are a surface man, and in no way different from the emotional men of Babel. Treachery has found its way into the new song we are trying to sing. Surely, it will not crack our throats or make them coarse. For we stand in the deep conviction that all falsehood will eventually collapse.
