Please stop anti Jonathan and anti PDP. Your Muslim party APC will fail woefully in Osun and Ekiti. Idiot
I got this from a reader with telephone number 08067661180 in response to last week’s edition of this column. The reader did not sign it for reasons best known to him or her.
I was thinking about the upcoming National Conference and the modalities for the proposed confab as spelt out by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Anyim Pius Anyim when this SMS came in. That President Goodluck Jonathan would have so much influence on who gets chosen as a delegate was of so much concern to me that I was alarmed when this supporter of the President and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) quoted above, chipped in the issue of religion as we move towards the next round of general elections beginning with the Osun and Ekiti States gubernatorial polls later this year.
It is no longer hidden that one of the campaign strategies of President Jonathan and his handlers in their bid to retain power post 2015 presidential election is to present him as not just a Christian, but a Christian candidate, who would represent and protect Christian interests better. And in doing so, the opposition is to be presented as representing Muslims and Muslims’ interest and as such most likely to be against Christians and Christians’ interest if voted into power.
Even though nobody in Jonathan’s camp is ready to admit this, the 2015 presidential race is gradually panning out to be like that and the presidency is happy to shape it that way.
Ordinarily this like this don’t bother me but the way and manner and intensity with which the President’s supporters like the reader quoted above are using religion to define their candidate and divide the voters is beginning to cause concern among well meaning Nigerians.
Recently a former member of the PDP who served as a Minister in the Obasanjo presidency and now a member of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) revealed that some church leaders are already subtly campaigning for President Jonathan by branding the APC as party of Muslims. For the record, that former Minister is a Christian.
And in matters that concern this government and this presidency, some Christian leaders have been speaking in such a manner as to suggest that Jonathan is their own and any criticism of him and/or his actions is against Christians and Christianity.
The issue of faith has never really played any significant role in the politics of this country especially when it comes to choosing our leaders until now. When late Abubakar Tafawa Balewa became Prime Minister in the first republic, I don’t think Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was chosen as the ceremonial President because he was a Christian, like wise President Shehu Shagari did not pick Dr Alex Ekwueme as his running mate in 1979 because he is a Christian.
I think the choices then were based purely on geographical consideration. The north had always been going into alliance with the east in national politics/elections and because the two regions are heavily populated by Muslims (north) and Christians (east), whoever would come out from such arrangement naturally would belong to different religion.
And to test that Nigerians place little premium on the religion of their leaders, two Muslims, one from the south west and the other from north east were voted president and vice president on June 12, 1993 before the election was annulled. And when President Olusegun Obasanjo was being brought in 1999 ostensibly to placate the Yoruba for the denial of their son Chief MKO Abiola of Nigeria’s presidency in 1993, nobody said he should not come in because he is not a Muslim like Abiola. And I believe the choice of Obasanjo’s running mate in Abubakar Atiku was due more to political pragmatism than his religious leaning.
When Jonathan was paired with President Yar’adua in 2007 for whatever reasons, those who brought them had other motive and consideration than religion. And as was the case in the past, Jonathan running with Vice President Sambo was more of geographic/ethnic balancing than any other consideration. Even though after the Abiola/Kingibe aborted presidency the presidential pairing had always been Christian/Muslim or Muslim/Christian, no candidate or presidency has been seen, portrayed or act as representing a particular religion the was Jonathan presidency is. And I believe it is share mediocrity and incompetence to hide under religion or ethnicity to ask for support for public office especially the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
By portraying him as a Christian candidate, Jonathan’s handlers and supporters are not just setting a bad precedent but also alienating the Muslims who ordinarily would want to vote for him. Islam and Christianity are well rooted in Yoruba land, south west Nigeria and are about evenly spread among Yoruba. The bulk of Jonathan’s votes in 2011 came from Yoruba land, meaning he got votes from both Christians and Muslims from the south west in large numbers. And in those states in the north where his PDP won, the Muslims there voted for him. So, if anybody now wants to present everybody opposed to Jonathan or the opposition party as Muslim or Muslim leaning just to paint them black before Christians and secure Christians votes for him in 2015, then they are not being fair to those Muslims who voted for him in 2011 and are still likely to vote for him if he became a candidate in next year’s election.
Most important however, they are not being fair to this country. If they love Nigeria they would not pander or be pandering to religious sentiments. In those countries where the people have not risen beyond religious sentiments, anything religion has always brought crisis especially when there are sharp disagreements. Lebanon is a good example of how religion mixed with politics can destroy a nation. There are unarguably more Lebanese outside of Lebanon than within, not just because of the small size of their country but also the seemingly unending sectarian violence that has almost turned the once beautiful country into ruins, the fact that the Lebanese are mainly Arabs notwithstanding.
Those nations that have developed and making waves in the world today have no room for religious considerations or sentiments, whatever they do are always based on what is best for their country, their people and humanity in general. Why should our own be different?
Those who want to turn Christians against Muslims or vice versa in Nigeria because of Jonathan’s presidency or anybody’s ambition will not succeed by the grace of GOD. And President Jonathan also has to be very careful and he should rein in his supporters especially those fanning the embers of religious and ethnic divisions. The President knows them; he should call them to order. While awaiting his choice of delegates to the National Conference, it is hoped that his choice(s) would be guided by the best interest of Nigeria. Even though I have my doubts about his conference and to what use he wants to put its reports, I wish his and the 492 “wise” men and women best of luck.
