The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Sermon

  • That sermon by ex-CDS Badeh

    SIR:  Thursday July 30, Alex Sobundu Badeh, retired Air Chief Marshal and former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was pulled out of the military in furtherance of a well know military tradition. He had put in 38 years in the service of the father land and it was now time to go. Everything went very well, until time came for the Air Chief Marshal to make a valedictory speech. That speech, in my opinion was the low point in an otherwise glorious parade.

    In that sermon, which many newspapers published and which is now available on the internet, Air Chief Marshal Badeh, severely indicted himself and by extension, the President under whose watch he served as CDS. Amongst other things, he stated that there were fifth columnists in the military in his time as CDS! Furthermore, he claimed that he was “head a military that lacked relevant equipment and motivation”.  Recalling one of the challenges of combating Boko Haram elements, he said “the enemy was invisible and embedded with the local populace”. He also claimed that the strength of the military was inadequate.

    If we accept that the claims made by the former CDS in his valedictory speech are true, he must be asked a few questions. If the military under his watch was ill-equipped, ill motivated and lacking in adequate numbers of personnel for the job, what did he do about that? How come he was roaming around and boasting on occasion that Boko Haram would be routed, knowing all the challenges the military had at the time? What action did he take about the “fifth columnists” that he claimed are in the military?  Why did he not ensure that the troops he sent to combat had adequate equipment? What did he do about the motivation of the troops who he now claims lacked motivation? Was it fair to the nation and the troops in combat to  commit them to battle, knowing all that he is now belatedly telling nation? It is very difficult to fathom the purpose of the complaints by the former CDS. If the points he made are true, the audience is certainly wrong. Those who need the kind of information he made available are in the Presidency and not on that parade ground.

    In the light of this outburst of the former CDS, certain events which befuddled the nation in the recent past have become understandable. The widespread belief amongst Nigerians was that Boko Haram elements were better armed and better motivated. Some highly placed government officials made such statements openly and without any inhibitions whatsoever. The rash of desertions and acts cowardice in battle that led to several trials can now be understood. Going by what the former CDS now claims to be the situation, the troops fled probably because they were outgunned and outnumbered. It would be recalled that when former President Goodluck Jonathan, desperate to win the elections provided adequate arms, ammunition and other equipment, the gallant troops, within a period of six weeks rolled back all the gains of Boko Haram in terms of territories lost to them.

    The President has embarked on some whirlwind diplomatic shuttles aimed at shoring up support for Nigerian troops by troops belonging to our neighbouring countries. He has been very successful in this endeavour. However for the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to be successful in the task assigned to it, very drastic steps must be taken to correct the anomalies to which the former CDS has drawn global attention. Thankfully, so much money has already been provided or pledged in support of the MNJTF. Never again should ill-equipped, unmotivated and outnumbered Nigerian troops be committed to battle.

    Finally, those in charge of the humongous sums provided for the purchase of arms, ammunitions and equipment for the military, must be called to account. The President may wish to ask how so much money can be provided and the troops made to go to battle poorly armed.

     

    • Col Ola Majoyeogbe (retired)

     Lagos.

     

  • Mbaka’s sermon and Jonathan’s warriors

    SIR:Following the prophetic warning by Rev. Fr. Ejike Camillus Mbaka forewarning Nigerians that continuity in governance by Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan will bring hardship to Nigerians, an army of Jonathan’s critics of Mbaka has sprouted out fearlessly attacking him.

    Fr. Mbaka’s prophecy in sermon which warned Nigerians that Jonathan cannot lead Nigeria as things stand right now, is a welcome development. Dr. Jonathan and his army of Mbaka’s critics appeared to have been plagued by Pharaoh’s hard-heartedness as they have refused to take a lesson from King David’s open admission of his misdeeds and request for forgiveness following his lust for another man’s wife.

    According to the Bible, King David, the anointed king in course of his reign as king of Israel looked through his palace and saw a beautiful woman taking her bath, and desired to have her. On inquiry, he discovered that the woman was Uriah’s wife. Rather than control his emotion, he decided to have Uriah killed in the battle ground for it was forbidden to take another’s wife.

    Following King David’s evil deed, God sent his prophet, called Nathan who went to David and cursed him that sword would never depart from his house and that he would raise up evil against him. When Nathan told King David the message from God, rather than behave like Jonathan and his army of Mbaka critics, he admitted his evil, repented and asked for forgiveness. Nathan there and then reversed some of the curses and left some others and they came to pass.

    Jonathan and his army are taking lessons from inglorious conduct of Ahab and Jezebel who sought to kill Prophet Elijah and Prophet Micaiah for fore-warning them of the pending doom. Jonathan should also note that when Ahab’s wife, Jezebel sought to kill Elijah, he, Elijah ran to Beer-Sheba and rested under a broom tree; which in Nigeria today, symbolizes APC.

    If questions may be asked, which evil have Nigerians not suffered under Dr. Goodluck Jonathan? Is it ceaseless slaughtering of men, women and innocent children in the North with Jonathan not caring; the abduction and bombing of Nigerians with Jonathan having no remedy?

    Is it countless loss of lives and goods of hardworking people of South-east on federal roads, the loss of lives of 19 job-seeking Nigerians with nobody punished? What of the extortion of N1,000 from about 700,000 Nigerian jobless youths with no job in sight and no refund made? Is it increase in fuel price from N65 pegged by late Yar’Adua to N97 under the promise of Eldorado which turned out to be deceit?

    Is it lack of electricity at home, office and everywhere? Is it the lack of care to victims of abducted girls in Chibok when the same man postponed his campaign when he lost his sister? Which one will I mention and leave the other?

    What is it that Rev. Father Mbaka said that the likes of Buruji Kashamu and one self-acclaimed national president of Ohaneze Youth Council should berate Father Mbaka in The Nation of January 5 and January 8 that is not the truth and known to Nigerians?

    I know that Father Mbaka talked about Pastors selling their prophetic gifts because of porridge; however, I think, there are Nigerians who may want to turn to Jonathan’s porridge in so far as they continue to eat the crumbs from the masters table.

     

    • Victor C. Nwaugo,

    Aba, Abia State

  • Aliyu’s toxic sermon

    • How a governor should not talk

    When he assumed office as Governor of Niger State in 2007 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Muazu Babangida Aliyu chose to be addressed as the Chief Servant of the state. The loquacious governor projected the image on every occasion of a public officer motivated by an elevated perception of politics as an opportunity to offer selfless and dedicated service to the people. The idea of the occupant of the elevated office of governor perceiving himself as a ‘chief servant’ suggested that he would be an embodiment of the highest and noblest ideals of altruistic leadership.

    It has however turned out that nothing could be further from the truth. Governor Aliyu, whose second term in office ends in May has been engaged in a most cruel game of deception with the unfortunate people of Niger Sate. The governor’s irresponsible remarks while inaugurating the PDP gubernatorial campaign committee this week reveal that he has been a closet Machiavellian, after all who believes that his perverse ends justify any means however immoral and despicable.

    In Aliyu’s shocking words on the occasion, “If you cannot lie, get out of politics. Anything you are involved in has its own rule. You are in politics to win, win first and let other things follow. Don’t be the one crying louder lest you will be the one they will take to court. If you are talking of honesty or morals, go and become an Imam or pastor. Politics cannot be the way it used to be. The challenges are more now, the variables have changed … Our society is not as grateful as it used to be, the values and morals have gone down. If you want to win, use the modern morality”.

    That a man who, by his own admission is so completely deficient in moral integrity occupies high public office is symptomatic of what is grossly wrong with Nigeria. It explains the abysmal level of corruption and impunity that have severely undermined the country’s security, stability and development. Alhaji Aliyu’s noxious sermon illustrates to what depths of depravity Nigeria has sunk under his party, the PDP’s watch in the last 16 years. We shudder to imagine what negative impact the governor’s views will have on impressionable young minds that innocently see a state governor as a role model.

    Given his low estimation of the role of positive values in politics, Aliyu could not certainly have taken the oath of office he swore to uphold as governor with any seriousness. For, the oath presupposes a fidelity to moral values that he has shamelessly disavowed. He openly advocates lying and deception as political virtues. Such a man cannot be trusted with public funds. His temerity indicates an utter lack of respect for the people of Niger State and Nigeria as a whole. Even more dangerously, a close interrogation of his utterances to the campaign committee suggests that he is not averse to election rigging as a means of acquiring political power.

    Aliyu was one of the governors and other top officers of the PDP who left the party in protest against the perceived anti-democratic inclinations of the Jonathan presidency. It is not surprising that he abandoned the struggle against impunity in the party and ran back to his vomit. That is his strange brand of political morality. The same man has canvassed support for the PDP governorship candidate, Umar Mohammed Nasko, as his successor as governor in next month’s election. We hope they are not birds of the same feather with disdain for moral values. Politics is forvalues, not for carpet baggers. men like Aliyu should be shunned in the coming election cycle.

  • Ladoja’s Sermon on the Mount

    Ladoja’s Sermon on the Mount

    Senator Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, former governor of Oyo State, relishes the comparative edge he had over the government of his former deputy and immediate past governor of the state, Adebayo Alao-Akala, in terms of people’s estimation of the quality of their governments. Where Alao-Akala was perceived as a profligate and jolly-good fellow leader who made no distinction between public and private purses, Ladoja came across as a shrewd and miserly governor who had the people at the epicentre of his administration. In spite of the scandal of his EFCC rout over the scandalous sales of the state shares that ran into billions of naira during his government, Ladoja still relishes that phantasma of his popularity.

    Thus, once in a while, like the Roman Emperor peeping out from the patio and issuing codes of association to his people, Ladoja peeps out from the patio; this time through postings on his Facebook page.

    Last week, Ladoja walked to the patio again. This time, he regaled the audience with some codes of good governance. In surprisingly good English and coordinated articulation but flaw-filled logic about how a society must be governed, the former governor sought to teach Oyo State about good governance. But the Sermon on the Mount was so awkwardly penned that you ultimately wondered whether the same Ladoja, credited by his supporters as filled with some political know-how and sagacity, was the one behind that façade. The sermon on the Facebook was riddled with apparently self-serving treatises which showcased him as myopic and lacking the grasp of the dictates of good governance.

    Ladoja’s sermon was chequered. He dwelt on health, education, hospitality and road construction and in all, his vainglory and self-congratulations were as vivid as Mount Everest. If you read his sermon, you would almost believe that you were reading one of Obafemi Awolowo’s imperishable thoughts on how to administer a developing nation, the blueprint of which he had successfully practicalised. For once, you wouldn’t believe you were listening to Ladoja, whose reign as governor was as unimpressionable as himself and whom many in Oyo State still wonder why the EFCC had suddenly gone docile over his case of alleged sales of billions of shares belonging to the state.

    The most instructive of Ladoja’s intervention in his sermon was his statement over the commendable Ajimobi government initiative of building the first civilian-constructed fly-over bridge in the state after the one constructed by the David Jemibewon administration over 30 years ago. A very mercurial politician that he is, Ladoja had earlier quipped, in a radio interview late last year, in the guise of commending Ajimobi, that his administration midwifed the idea of constructing over-head bridges in Ibadan. Craftily, he sought to appropriate the glory that Oyo State residents and visitors to the state had been heaping on the governor for building the fly-over. In the sermon on Facebook under reference, Ladoja again brought up this sickening quip. His administration was the one that conceived the project, he said, ad infinitum.

    This stomach-churning sermon has elicited several comments. One, since when did dreamers become actualizers? How many leaders of Chief Awolowo’s time dreamt to change the faces of their province but ended up disappointed and going to their graves with their dreams? Leaders throughout the world do not claim success for their dreams and designs but what they actually achieved while in office. How does anyone go into the basement of Ladoja’s mind to gouge out or gauge his dreams? How does one establish the veracity or otherwise of this claim? Even though he claimed that his government designed three over-head bridges but as at the time his cousin and current governor took over office, none saw the light of the day, despite spending over three years in office. The present government has only spent less than two years and Mokola overhead bridge is almost completed. Ladoja never laid any foundation of any of the bridges, not to talk of awarding their construction. It’s high time our leaders stopped claiming glory for dreaming dreams.

    The former governor again went on in his dream world sermon. He believed in 30 students per class, he said and attempted to actualize it during his administration. Whether Ladoja dreamt this or not, what the current state government inherited was that, between him and his nemesis, Alao-Akala, a decayed educational system was the lot of Oyo State. Structurally and in all other facets, education was in stasis in Oyo. The state was placed Number 34 out of 36 states of the federation; classes had become dilapidated and moribund. But less than two years of Ladoja’s cousin, Ajimobi, coming on board, the situation has totally changed. The state’s position moved to 23rd and a massive rehabilitation of classrooms is on-going. Thousands of furniture are also being procured for the schools. That is the difference between a dreamer and an actualizer.

    Ladoja the dreamer and sudden critic was not done. Admittedly in innuendoes, he criticized the state government for, according to him, building a hotel when there are other needs of the people. This also reveals the quality of or the knowledge base of the former governor of the state. Is Ladoja ignorant or is on a mischief roller-coaster? Because this is a gaffe that even a toddler in Oyo State or Year 1 student of Development Studies should not make. First, Oyo State government is not building any hotel. The one he sees springing up on the Mokola Hills is being built by Hilton Group, in partnership with the state government. In other words, the state’s liquid fund injection is not only minimal but negligible, except its land deposit to the Private Public Partnership venture. But for Ladoja’s rabid ambition to destroy anything not his, building a gigantic hotel should have been commendable because it will expand the economy of the state and employ thousands of our people. It is apparent that the former governor neither appreciates the dictates of a new and modern economy that is thriving throughout the world, nor is he happy to have his cousin be the engine of such economic innovation in Oyo State.

    Funny that in his unsolicited homily, Senator Ladoja never commended the present government for its unprecedented strides in aggressive expansion of the economy, in order to alleviate poverty and its quest to push this with unprecedented vigour. Nor did he commend the government for its massive urban renewal that has become the sing-song even in the mouths of babes and the suckling. The hotel he talked so glibly about, for instance, is meant to provide envisaged investors with a place to stay. Right now, even Premier Hotel, one of the biggest in the state, does not have the wherewithal to accommodate international investors of the hue envisaged in Oyo State. Aside infrastructure, security and clean environment have also engaged the attention of the present government. But Ladoja’s self-righteous homily does not have room for such.

    Is it not a gratuitous insult to the people of Oyo State that all Ladoja talked about his having done was combating guinea-worm when he was in government? How come he would turn his bile at a government that has done more roads than him and his former deputy put together? Why would he not have kind words for a man who has literally and metaphorically cleaned the dirt that they foisted on Oyo State? Oyo State is better than before and is wearing a new look. Our leader(s) should not mislead the public because of their ambitions. Ladoja had an opportunity to do exactly or even better than his cousin in government now but he was too busy designing and dreaming.