WHY SHOULD A CHRISTIAN SUPPORT A ‘KNOWN MOSLEM FANATIC’
By @dada_rotimi

‘We don’t know whether if we change, things will improve; but for things to improve we must change’.
- Sir Winston Churchill, former British PM

Before I begin my little essay, I’ll like to say that I do not in any way think that my opinion is sacrosanct. Neither do I pretend that everyone will align with my line of thought. Again, one of my core values in life is the belief that people have a right to their own opinion and no one owes me an explanation for rejecting my honest and sincere advice – even if they will suffer severe consequences for refusing my counsel.
Finally before I go on, the purpose of this piece apart from sharing my opinion with the public is to help the undecided. I am not unconscious of the fact that many having decided for GEJ, even if you give them a sound reason to think otherwise, they a likely to ‘stick to their guns’ – I also respect their right to make a choice, however cantankerous I think they are.

INTRODUCTION
One issue I think I should address in my preparatory remark is the fear that Buhari will Islamize Nigeria. I’ll begin by saying that I am a Christian and my furthermost desire is that all men should come to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am absolutely persuaded that Jesus is the one and only way to God. Again, I cannot pretend not to be conscious of an ostentatious plan to Islamize Nigeria through multiplicity of means – some ‘noble’ some others ‘ignoble’. To drive home my point, this plan was not suddenly drawn when GEJ became president. However, as expected it is being appraised and re-appraised episodically. It is also common knowledge that some northern religious, political and traditional rulers aided and abated the scourge of Boko-Haram through their actions or inactions – some of them have paid dearly for this. In addition, the attacks of Boko-Haram affected Northern Christians and Christian communities in the North - who are in the minority, far more than Moslems and Moslem communities in the same region (for example, over 80% of the Chibok School girls are Christians). Hence, the fear by some that the crisis of Boko-Haram is being used to systematically Islamize the north and by extension, Nigeria is not an illusion. Let me point out that naturally, an average Moslem will be happy and support a Moslem candidate and an average northerner will do same for his brother; this is also generally true with Christians and Southerners. However, this does not necessarily translate to ‘my brother who will help in Islamizing Nigeria has arrived’ to all Moslems.
 
Transition from GEJ to GMB
In 2011 I was on the side of GEJ, so was my wife and my brothers. Now we all have switched camps. Why should Christians leave a ‘Christian brother’ and choose to support a ‘known Moslem fanatic’? To begin with, going to Church, praying in Jesus’ name, bearing a ‘Christian name’ doesn’t make a man a Christian. Being a Christian begins with recognition of the sinful nature of man, the inability of man to save himself from sin, the offer of God to save man through Jesus Christ and ultimately the acceptance of Jesus as a personal Lord and Saviour. Secondly, a Christian lives the life of Christ. He can be said to be Christ-like. Anyone who does not follow the life and teachings of Christ cannot be said to be a Christian. I’ll leave my readers to decide for themselves whether GEJ is a Christian or not and by extension if he can use the ‘I am a Christian’ appellation to canvass for votes. However, I sincerely do not think that the candidature of GEJ will in any way help in ‘Christianizing’ Nigeria; rather, his candidature has helped more in ‘Islamizing’ Nigeria, chiefly because of his incompetence. Again, I dare say that no one can Islamize Nigeria. The history of the Church of Jesus Christ is replete with examples of what made the Church to lose out in certain regions of the world. A Church driven by worldliness and materialism like we are seeing in Nigeria is a fertile ground for Islamization. When issues having to do with money becomes more important to the Church than the peril of Christ-less souls; you can only expect people to look elsewhere. For the records, persecution and threat to ‘Unchristian’ a people has never been a threat to the expansion of the frontiers of the kingdom of God. The Church has always come out of persecution chaste and strong. We must not give a wrong impression to the Bokos, that they can achieve their goals through violence and forced conversion. Rather, the body of Christ must remember that persecutions cannot be separated from a true Christian experience. In the end those who claim to be Christians and are not are the engine room of the livid propaganda that GMB will Islamize Nigeria. It is gratifying to know that God is not a respecter of persons and with or without the opinion of some supposed ‘men of God’, his determined counsel cannot be thwarted by money, propaganda, character assassination and whatever tool will be employed to discredit the candidature of GMB.

I will now enumerate below my reason for supporting GMB against GEJ in February 14 elections

1. FAIRNESS AND EQUITY
Whilst I am aware that some people supported GEJ in 2011 for no dignified reason, I strongly believe that some others like me did so for a ‘just’ cause. I supported GEJ then because ‘he had no shoes’ and I felt like for once, someone who could share and relate with the pains and sufferings of ordinary Nigerians has come. I also supported him because his story offered the ordinary citizen a shufti of hope that every height was attainable-even when one is apparently underprivileged. Finally, there was so much pressure from the north on their desire to have a Northern President. They gave an impression that the President must come from the North (– this reason is now being used as a form of misinformation against GMB and the APC). This was added to the fact that during the period of Yaradua’s incapability, nobody wanted GEJ to be near the Presidency. Therefore, I said to myself, “we will prove this people wrong”- and I think we did! Rising from this last point, I am resolute that Nigeria is not all about GEJ; if GEJ has had six uninterrupted years of being the charge-de-affairs, it is only fair for GMB to be given a chance to run the Presidency democratically. If we have seen all that a democratically elected GEJ could offer in six years, it’ll be equitable to give GMB an opportunity that a four-year democratic tenure offers too.

2. WEAK LEADERSHIP/INCOMPETENCE
I am a firm supporter of a strong leadership. A leader that is ingenious, whose idea about nationhood and leadership is original, however awful, is always better that a leader that depends on ‘kitchen cabinet’ of some sort and supposedly astute men to form his judgment. A case in point is the Chibok Girls kidnap. Permit me to make my point clear by asking these questions:

i. Was the president informed on the hour that these girls were kidnapped?
ii. If he was, why did he not act promptly?
iii. If indeed as the president was alleged to have been made to accept as true, the girls were not kidnapped, why didn’t the president send a dispatch party to Chibok to verify the genuineness or otherwise of the kidnap?
iv. If the president’s daughter was among the kidnapped and he was made to believe that the opposition was behind it, would he have done nothing immediately he heard? – If your enemy raises an alarm that your house was on fire, would you dismiss it as a prank or promptly validate his claims?
v. What prevented the president from visiting Chibok for an on-the-spot assessment? Was he afraid for his life? Couldn’t he have employed the avalanche of state security apparatus at his disposal to visit the hurting and the bereaved? Couldn’t he have visited the place and returned secretly? - A standard practice employed in other parts of the world where the visit of a President to a war zone is a risk is to pay an unscheduled/secret visit. Such visits have been known to bolster the confidence of officers and men.
So these girls were kidnapped and the President did nothing when it was sensible to act. Rather, he sacrificed girls who don’t belong to any political party on the altar of politics, thereby foreclosing any hope that one of them could be a President in the future.
Another area where weakness in leadership has been exhibited by the President is the Pension Fund scam and Petroleum product subsidy scam.
i. What has become of Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina and his cohorts who chose to steal from the pension of millions of powerless Nigerians?
ii. If he has escaped to UAE-as some claim- why hasn’t he been extradited?
iii. Is it that the instrument of State cannot be maximally used to protect the weak and vulnerable
iv. Does the government have a detailed and verifiable account of the Subsidy programme?
v. How did the amount spent on subsidy increase astronomically during GEJ’s government? Can we infer that every Nigerian now own an automobile?

One last example is the debacle we are experiencing in the power sector. While I do not have anything against Prof. Chinedu Nebo, the experience of having GEJ as President has re-enforced my belief that a good intension is never enough in the place of leadership. Before Prof. Bart Nnaji was fired as the Minister of power, we were almost generating 5000MW and somehow Mr. President was made to believe that he must be sacked. Ever since he has been relieved, we’ve been going from bad to worse. Power generation is now probably less that 2000MW (compare South Africa with a population of 60 million generating about 40,000MW).
This weakness in leadership is largely responsible for some of the challenges we are facing as a people. The President is aware that Boko-Haram members have infiltrated his government and does nothing about it. He is probably aware that high-level corruption is crippling the Military and by extension, the prosecution of the war against Boko-Haram too. When the leadership at the centre is perceived to be weak, the heart of corrupt minded individuals is fully set on corrupt practices. Don’t forget that the leader might not benefit directly or indirectly from corruption. However, when his body language suggests that he doesn’t ‘give a damn’, hell is let loose.

3. DEBT MANAGEMENT
OBJ transverse the globe campaigning and pleading for debt forgiveness; he did this probably because he understood that however rich you are, once you are debtor, your debt reduces your wealth. Somehow, we are so to say ‘back to zero point’ ‘as a dog to its vomit’-whatever happened to us. Presently, the volume of foreign and domestic debt is alarming to say the least. My worry is how the DMO was able to convince Mr. President that ‘we are on-top of the situation’. It also baffles me that the same NOI who was OBJ’s chief economic advisor in his drive for debt forgiveness is still in GEJ’s chief economic advisor-now with an additional ‘title’ – the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and GEJ couldn’t spot the difference. Couldn’t she have been relieved of her appointment and bogus portfolio? How do we move forward by going backwards? Did OBJ sack NOI towards the end of his tenure for the same reason? How do we go back to our creditors for a second dose of debt cancellation in less than 20 years?

CONCLUSION
As I conclude, I’ll like to say that I have never met GMB or GEJ in person, and I will not destroy relationships/friendship I have cultivated over the years because of anyone of them. This is partly responsible for my refusal to trade words with some of my friends concerning the candidature of GMB or my desire for a change in the party ruling Nigeria. My support for GMB and APC is not a blind one. While I understand that it will be an uphill task for anyone who becomes the President come May 29, 2015, I won’t turn a blind eye just because ‘my party’ did wrong. I will withdraw my support from any party that fails to perform and give it to another party (even if it is PDP) - as long that I am convinced that we will have a better deal. As I am anti-PDP and anti-Jonathan now, so will I be pro-PDP if in my own opinion, they measure up to my expectations.
I welcome all shades of criticism and comments, especially from those who won’t agree with me.

SAI BUHARI!
GOD BLESS NIGERIA!

Nice points.
But please try harder next time.

Gej is a christian or his not o...dat one is between him and his God...for mi,if buhari likes let him islamize nigeria..if dat one will bring our dignity and respct b4 international community it's fine by me...we wise nw,religion can't b use to deceiv us again.