*We’ll punish you for mocking Christians
Outraged Nigerian Christian have been admonished to punish Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu over last Sunday’s unveiling of a Muslim-Muslim ticket by naming Alhaji Kashim Shettima, a Senator and former Governor of Borno State as his running mate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential ticket for next year’s election.
Against the backdrop of the widespread anger over the decision across the Christian faith in Nigeria, fiery preacher, Samson Ayedogbon, told faithful that their anger would amount to nothing if not used to set an example so that no other politician would be tempted to go that route again in the country.
Stating that Tinubu’s action not only insulted Christians, but entire humanity as it indicated that he did not recognise the need to accommodate the feeling of others.
Palpably seething with anger, Ayedogbon, Apostolic Leader of the Realm of Glory International Churches, told his hosts on Arise Television breakfast programme, The Morning Show, that the former Governor of Lagos State must have done the unthinkable in the belief that he would be invincible against the electoral process in the country because of rigging, but urged Christians to stand up to every antic he and his party might throw up to ensure that such a plot did not work.
Stressing that the decision indicated a move to sustain the seed sown by President Muhammadu Buhari, whose years in power were marked by total disrespect for Christians, the cleric, who is also a forceful rights advocate and life coach, enjoined Christians to be strategic in using their votes.
His words: “Why are they rubbing this thing on our face as if Christians don’t matter? The leg of extremist religious bigot has been on our neck. The Owo incident has just been put aside, Catholic priests are being kidnapped, people are still captivity, Christian girls are being kidnapped as booty and as a means of motivating the terrorists. All of these horrible things. Who played up the issue of religion? It is President Muhammadu Buhari. Everything rises and falls with leadership.
“In my village, every story you tell, every folklore is on the head of the tortoise. The President is the tortoise in this matter. His lack of leadership, his lack of balance, his lack of sensitivity to every ethnic group and every religion is what is now being taken to the high heavens. What he and Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu were sensitive to and respected in 2015 is what now being rubbished.”
Arguing that it was insulting for some people to compare Tinubu to the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, who won the the June 12, 1993 presidential election on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, the cleric, stressed that it was like comparing apples and oranges, because the former governor did not possess the same qualities of Abiola outside the fact that Nigerians lived relatively peacefully then.
“We’re now seeing the greatness of MKO Abiola. They should stop comparing this thing with 1993. We did not have this history in 1993. None of them has the quality, the greatness and the personality that MKO had. You can’t be comparing apples and oranges, you can’t be comparing ordinary cocoyam and pounded yam. We’ve moved far from there.
Ayedogbon, who also emphasised the need for principle, equity, justice and fairplay, said Nigerian politics must not be about the votes only, adding that world over, it had been recognised that there could be no peace without justice.
Stating that any consultation by Tinubu with Christians at the moment, including the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) at this moment, would be akin to medicine after death, he said it was no longer a question of whether Christian leaders would mobilise the members to vote against the APC, they had already begun to do so.
“We’re already doing it and we’re going to do it more. I’m saying that some of us, if they have the rigging machinery, if they think they have captured everything – after all, how independent is INEC anyway – okay, we’ve succeeded in mobilising and causing a revolution for the voters to go and register and get their PVCs, supposing they get there and are told that the new PVCs can’t be found on their records and card readers are malfunctioning – they know what they do. They know they won’t allow our votes to count and that’s why they’re confident to do this.
“But we’ve decided this time. We’ll make rigging difficult for them. I was one of the election monitors in the last election and I was in the situation room and we’re mobilising more. My organisation, we’re going to be in the frontline. PFN exco, CAN exco, trust the Catholic Bishops Conference, we’ll mobilise. We want them to pay a high tuition fee. Whether they win or lose, they’ll learn that you don’t trample on people because they’re tolerant.”
