This is indeed the time for us to answer
some hard questions and speak some
home truths. It is a season that shall
separate the men from the boys. It is a
time that the holy and wholesome light
of truth shall overwhelm and expose the evil darkness of doublespeak and deceit.
It is a season that the enunciation and
exposure of the ugly realities of the day
must not be sacrificed or compromised
on the alter of political expediency or on
the table of fear. Thankfully there are a few courageous and discerning voices
that have risen to the occasion, made the
relevant observations and asked the
right questions. Amongst them are Bayo
Oladeji and Opeyemi Agbaje. Permit me
to begin with the former. Oladeji, a seasoned and experienced
journalist who writes for the Leadership
Newspaper, wrote the following on his
Facebook page on 31st October 2014. ”When Chief Femi Fani-Kayode came out
to expose the plan of the APC chieftains
to impose a Muslim/Muslim ticket on the
party, their attack dogs were ordered to
abuse him using words picked from the
gutter. They even told us he was never part of them! Chief Tom Ikimi came out
and corroborated him and they said he
was telling a moon tale. They then
recalled his participation in the Abacha
evil rule which murdered Ken Saro Wiwa
as if their hero, Muhammadu Buhari did not play same role in the same
government. When I raised the issue here after
confirming from those who were
involved in the plan some who can never
talk to their hero rose up ignorantly to
fault me. But since President Olusegun
Obasanjo did the same, their response remains a deafening silence! When I was
growing up I was told that SILENCE
MEANS CONSENT. Meaning those who
have been saying it are not wrong after
all. The Church has kept mum for so long
and these people in the opposition are cornering all for themselves. For example, I have challenged the
apologists of APC to publish the list of
names and the religions of all their
political appointees in the Southwest
especially the following- the governors,
SSGs, Speakers, Finance Commissioners in all the APC controlled states in the
southwest. Let us see how fair they are
to the two religions in the country. If
they could do this at the state level
where they have someone who claims
to be a Christian as deputy governor, we wonder what they would do when they
have the President and the Vice
President from them. In the whole of the North, there is only
one Christian in the National Executive
Commitee and the National Working
Commitee of the APC. His name Engineer
Babachir David Lawal from Adamawa
State! And if you know the extent he went to get that seat, you would know
what that party is up to. These are the
issues. It goes beyond President
Jonathan. If the party does not change,
God spares our lives, come 2019, you will
still find me doing the same. Until the rotten tooth is pulled out of the mouth,
the mouth will continue eating with
caution. It is a tragic irony that those
who have come out to defend them are
those who claim to be Christians”. Oladeji’s observations are indeed food
for thought even though in fairness to
the APC, their party Chairman, Chief John
Odigie-Oyegun, did come out and
respond to Obasanjo by saying that his
party had no intention of fielding a Muslim/Muslim ticket. Few believe him.
The question is this: in the light of
General Mohammadu Buhari’s latest
assertion that he cannot rule out the
possibility of the selection of a muslim
running mate if he manages to win the nomination as the presidential
flagbearer of his party, can the belated
assurances of the National Chairman be
taken seriously? I doubt it very much but
even if I do take John Odigie-Oyegun
seriously and even if he has the best of intentions, the fact of the matter is that
at the end of the day it is the
Presidential candidate of the party alone
that will make the choice as to who his
running mate will be and what religious
faith that running mate espouses and not the party’s National Chairman. To that extent Buhari’s celebrated and
widely reported comments about not
seeing anything wrong with a Muslim/
Muslim ticket, in my view, speaks
volumes and outweighs Odigie-Oyegun’s
denials and desperate attempts to calm the waters. To make matters worse it is
quite possible that John Odigie-Oyegun
may end up not being National Chairman
for much longer simply because he has
dared to challenge the status quo and
say what no one else in his party has dared to say. To add to Oladeji’s concerns, permit me
to point out the fact that in the APC-
controlled Lagos State today, 80 per cent
of the State House of Assembly members
are muslim, 80 per cent of Local
Government Area Chairmen are muslim, 80 per cent of National Assembly
members are muslim and 80 per cent of
Commissioners and key government
functionaries are muslim. All this in a state that has an
overwhelming christian majority and
that has been governed by a muslim
governor for the last 15 years. I will not
even go into the affairs of the APC-
controlled Osun state which is slowly being turned into a Taliban enclave and
which is a place in which Christians are
fast becoming second class citizens.
Should anyone be surprised or alarmed
by all this? I don’t think so. It is a well-
orchestrated, well-thought out, well- designed and well-implemented agenda. That is the APC for you. With them you
will never see what you will get until it
is too late. They are very good at using
religion to achieve their objectives and
at playing double games. And of course
propaganda and the manipulation of the mass media is their forte. They
implement their hidden agenda by guile,
stealth, deceit and subterfuge and they
prey on our sense of fair play, generosity
and magnanimity. In short they have
taken us all for granted and they have mistaken our genuine sense of liberalism
and the desire to accomodate other
schools of thought and perspectives as
weakness and stupidity.
Yet it gets worse and it doesn’t stop
there. It is also a fact that every single state that is under the control of the APC
in the south west today is governed by a
muslim whilst 90 per cent of APC
governors throughout the Federation are
muslims. If this does not paint a clear
picture about what the overall agenda of the APC really is and if it does not give a
clear indication about what their
intentions for our country really are then
nothing ever will. Let us come to Opeyemi Agbaje who is a
banker, an economist and a lecturer at
the Lagos Business School. He made his
own contribution to the debate by
asking the following insightful questions
on his Facebook page on 31st October, 2014 . He asked: ”How come the only debates we have in
Nigeria are over a “Muslim-Muslim”
ticket? How come the opposition partys
instincts are always in that direction-
Nuhu Ribadu/Fola Adeola in 2011 and
now all sorts of Muslim-Muslim permutations and possibilities? How
come a discussion of a Christian-Christian
presidential ticket is completely
inconceivable and has not been
countenanced by anyone? How come
Buhari, who even in a military regime instituted a Muslim-Muslim/North-North
ruling clique along with Idiagbon and 8
or 9 out of 11 Supreme Military Council
members, is now testing the ground
again with another possible Muslim-
Muslim pairing? Is it that we have a shortage of capable Christians in
NIgeria?” I wonder if anyone can answer these
questions. I believe that the Nigerian
people deserve to hear the answers. The
fact of the matter is that even though
many in our country are in deep denial
and have buried their heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, religion has
not only become a factor in our politics
today but it has actually become THE
factor. This was never meant to be the case and
it is a sad and unwelcome development
but, sadly, that is the reality and we
have no choice but to live with it. Those
that dispute it ought to be reminded of
the fact that these are the days of Abubakar Shekau and Boko Haram. They
ought to be reminded of the fact that
this is an age that has witnessed the
unprecedented and meteoric rise of
Islamic fundamentalism, religious
intolerance and ISIL-like barbarity in the affairs of our nation. They ought to be reminded of the fact
that these are the days that have
witnessed the advent of an opposition
party that is hell bent on using religion
as a major political weapon in an
attempt to grab power at the center regardless of the dangers of undertaking
such a dangerous and unpredictable
course of action. They ought to be
reminded of the fact that this is a time in
which the leading Presidential candidate
of the opposition party is on record as saying that an attack on Boko Haram ”is
an attack on the north”. They ought to be
reminded of the fact that the same man
told the Nigerian people in 2002 that he
wishes to spread sharia law ”all over the
Federation”. They ought to be reminded of the fact
that the official spokesman of the
opposition party only last year said that
the proscription of Boko Haram by the
Federal Government was
”unconstitutional and unjust”. Given all this only a fool would suggest that
religion is not a major factor in the
unfolding events in Nigeria’s political
arena today. Yet I am not surprised and neither should
anyone else be. That is style and manner
of Nigeria’s opposition party. That is the
APC way: lies, deceit, doublespeak,
Byzantian manouverings, subterranean
plots and hidden agendas are their stock in trade. They are nothing but darkness
and only the light of God and the power
of truth will expose them. May God
deliver our nation from their ilk.
There is no gainsaying that both Oladeji
and Agbaje have raised some very pertinent issues and their deep concerns
reflect the thinking of millions of
Nigerian who are very worried about
the unfolding agenda. We await the response of anyone within
the ranks of the Buharists and the
Haramite hordes for an answer to these
pertinent questions and observations
that these two courageous and deeply
patriotic Nigerians have raised. Whichever way we choose to look at it
one thing remains clear: the reaction of
the Nigerian people will be decisive and
swift if those that wish to turn our
nation into an ISIL-style state push their
luck too far.

Let no Christian vote for APC.
They must be Stopped!!!