HIGH SPEED OF MUSLIM-MUSLIM TICKET AND THE PARALAX MOTION OF STATIC BABACHIR, DOGARA

By Razaq Adedeji Jimoh

--Tinubu unveils path to launching his presidential agenda as Oshiomhole describes Babachir as disgruntled “Christian devil”

-- Northern CAN unveiled and denounced the political gambits of Babachir, Dogara for the second time; describing them as biblical “Nichodaemus” and divisive elements.

-- Tinubu meets Northern Pentecostal Church Leaders

The Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had recently cited strict adherence to electoral laws as one reason he was yet to unveil his agenda for the country. He had also said earlier that the need to do thorough work that would give every Nigerian a clear understanding of his blue-print for the road map to Nigeria’s development was one reason for the delay.

All this would yet come as veracity for the observation of the former National Chairman of the party, Com Adams Oshiomole, who gave a hint that Tinubu would want to give his agenda with a backup analysis of he intended to achieve his plans and lambasted Babachir Lawal for condemning Muslim-Muslim ticket of his party after losing his bid to become the Vice-presidential Candidate.

Tinubu made his disclosure at the party’s secretariat Wednesday, September 8, 2022 when he led a team of his presidential campaign committee to visit members of the National Working Committee (NWC), where he used the occasion as a confidence building for the NWC members that had not been included in the Presidential campaign committee, noting that they would all have responsibilities to take in due course.

Speaking to pressmen after his deliberation, described as “strategic meeting” with NWC members led by the National Chairman, Tinubu said his campaign programme was being guided by the timeline of electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). He said part of the solutions he had identified for the country to be great again was that Nigeria would need to be “fully democratized”.

He said: “I admit that democracy is challenging, very hard and difficult a system to manage. We have seen challenges left and right outside in the international sphere of politics, but we are determined to ensure that we democratize Nigeria fully and remain a beacon of democracy as the largest nation of the black race in the world. It is a new horizon and we assure that every Nigerian will benefit and I am very sure that there will be a refreshing (air) and we will continue to develop rapidly.

“On the unveiling of our agenda, we have to comply with INEC rules and regulations regarding the elections. When we finish that, we will unveil to you those things that we have in plan for the country. But our objective, our creed, our commitment is to bring development and our commitment is transformation as our determination is to bring help to teeming Nigerians”.

Speaking on the purpose of his visit to the party’s National Secretariat, Tinubu, who adorned a complete Hausa dressing without his brand insignia cap, said: “What we came here today to do is to discuss the campaign, which is a few days away: when INEC will lift the ban, how do we work out the details, work together, implement all we have been saying. Who are the members of the campaign council; who will not be members?

For those who may not make it to the campaign council amongst the NWC members, he said: “I beg you not to be angry if you are left out because we are going to give you another responsibility. Not every member here can be members of the Presidential Campaign Council”.

He also used the occasion to dispel the rumour of any rift between him and the party’s National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, who he described as a “big masquerade”. He said: “I read in some papers about a disagreement between myself and the chairman. That was a big lie. They didn’t know we have come a long way. The big masquerade dance not in the cage, but the market square; and that is what Adamu is to me. He is full of wisdom. We were governors together before God put us together on this project again. He is going to deliver as the Chairman of the party for me to become the President and I am very confident of that.

“They can say whatever they want to say, throw all the jabs that they want; we are a party strongly determined to fulfill our dreams of turning Nigeria into a very progressive, highly developed, prosperous country.

Meanwhile, Tinubu’s statement would seem to be vindicating the former National chairman of APC, Adams Oshiomhole, who had earlier given a hint that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was only being guided by the principle of needs to speak at the right time with the right details for the revelation of his presidential agenda, as once published in a past edition of this magazine.

He spoke on why Tinubu had not come out to reveal his political agenda while fielding questions on Arise TV on Wednesday, August 4, 2022, when he also asserted that Tinubu would not want to give his agenda without backing them up with how he intended to achieve them. It may also be recalled that the former Governor of Edo State used the same platform of media interview to describe the former Secretary to the Government of Federation, Babachir Lawal, as “a devil by heart” for rejecting his party after he was denied the Vice-presidential ticket.

That yet came as the Northern Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) warned politicians to be wary of “Christian leaders” who might want to exploit them in the name of CAN.

Asked “what exactly does the APC Presidential Candidate want to do if he becomes the President?” He replied that while people had been saying different things about what Tinubu would come to do as a President and Commander in Chief, he (Oshiomole) was not prepared to speak “extensively” on that. He said: “I won’t say more than what I have said. On the issue of people saying different things on his behalf, sometimes, it is very difficult to curtail your followers. I am not able to speak extensively of what he is going to do.

“The fact that he has not spoken doesn’t mean he does not know what to do or say. Also, why rushing out to talk on your agenda? Those that have done so have failed to tell us how. Many of them talk but they don’t say how they will achieve what they say they will do. Talk, they say, is cheap. At the appropriate time, the candidate will speak for himself and we can only expand on his manifesto after he unveils it”.

The former labour leader also hit the former SGF, Babachir Lawal; describing him literally as hypocrite for goading Northern Christians to vote against Tinubu over the controversial Muslim-Muslim ticket. He said the new anti-Tinubu position of Babachir was informed by his disappointment that he (Babachir’s) was not considered for the post of Vice-presidential Candidate. He said: “You do not expect people who had expectations, and when they suddenly found out that their expectations were not met, not to sing another song. Some of them have personal interests. Those crying out had the opportunity to canvass and vote one of the (numerous) Christians (amongst the APC Presidential aspirants to get) a Christian candidate during our primaries. But it is on record that those whipping the sentiment of religion led Asiwaju’s campaign (in the primaries) knowing full well that he is a Muslim”.

This comment was believed to be a direct response to “a summit” of the APC Northern Christians where Babachir Lawal and Yakubu Dogara condemned the APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket as unacceptable to the Northern Christians. At the event curiously described as the party’s Northern Christian Leaders’ Summit held on Friday, July 29, 2022 with Babachir as Chairman of the event, he described Kashim Shettima’s choice as “injustice” to the Northern Christians. Even though Lawal observed that it was an issue with historical antecedent in the Northern shore, he said the Summit was called to seek the pathway for the Northern Christian. Accordingly, he would seem to say the APC Northern Christian was set for a war with their party. “We will resist anyone trying to discriminate against us and our religion. Let it be known that we are not the ones that started this fight”, he said.

In a manner that deemed to be the walking of the talk, Lawal and Dogara left for Rivers State to meet the State Governor, Nyesom Wike, the next day for what was described to be a closed door meeting. Analysts suggested that the meeting was designed to be a clandestine mission because it was held at the Wike’s country home in Rumuepricom of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area. Although Babachir dismissed the meeting to be a connection with the previous Abuja APC Christian Summit, observers were nevertheless apt to see the relationship in the comment of former House of Representatives speaker, Dogara, who said the visit was “to build an all-inclusive Nigeria” and promised that all other facts about the meeting would emerge in the future”.

Some of the observers have gone ahead to suggest that the meeting could as well be a move to prevail on Wike not to support the APC Muslim-Muslim ticket as being speculated in some quarters on account of his feud with the PDP Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Perhaps it is the concatenation of all this that informed Oshiomole to expand the view of Babachir’s hypocrisy of Christian zealotry to reminding Nigerians of the corruption burden yet on the latter from his first opportunity of public service appointment as Secretary to the Government of Federation in this Buhari administration.

Oshiomhole said: “Even people who are on record of being prosecuted for misappropriating money that a Muslim President appropriated in favour of Christian children who were displaced; they are now the new voice of Christianity. So we must distinguish between Christian by mouth and devil by heart, who wants to see Nigeria engulfed in a war that nobody can win”.

It may be recalled that Babachir Lawal was unceremoniously relieved of his appointment by President Buhari, following allegations that he misused the money meant for food and welfare for the Northern Displaced People by the Boko Haram terrorists. He allegedly diverted a sum of hundreds of millions of naira into grass cutting project he backwardly awarded to his private engineering company as a contract. He had since been arraigned in court and currently standing trial as a corruption suspect.

Meanwhile, following the purported Northern APC Christians Summit and the subsequent meeting of Lawal and Dogara with Wike on the Friday and Saturday respectively, the Northern chapter of the Christian Association of Nigerian (CAN) aptly convened a meeting on Sunday to disassociate itself from the activities of those they called the biblical “Nichodaemus” parading as modern day “Christian leaders”.

Addressing the press conference called for that purpose, the Secretary General, Elder Sunday Oibe said: “Northern CAN wants to use this meeting to call on political parties to be wary of those who might seek to meet them secretly, like Nichodaemus in the name of Christian leaders from the North, with the sole aim of wetting their political appetite and desperation for monetary gains. Northern CAN, as a reputable religious organization, will never engage in any secret dealing with any politician as a matter of policy”.

Few months down the line, precisely about Tuesday of September 13, Babachir and Dogara yet called another meeting of purported “Northern CAN” to reaffirm their opposition to the APC Muslim-Muslim ticket. But in swift reaction, the official body of the Norther CAN denounced the meeting as attempt at “dividing the Church” for their political gambits. The General Secretary, Elder Sunday Oibe, said the CAN chairmen that attended the meeting to give impression of the CAN’s partnership in the forum were deceived into attendance through a claimed invitation to an event by an NGO.

He said: “We take exception to that. We are not part of it and will never be part of it. Any time we want to speak, we have our channels for speaking. It is not true that the leadership of CAN in the northern states met in Abuja to take a position on the issue of Muslim-Muslim ticket. Northern CAN was one of the Christian groups that earlier took a stand against Muslim-Muslim ticket. Our position had been taken. We don’t dwell on the past. For some people to gather in Abuja to say that chairmen of CAN in the 19 northern states met is an attempt to divide the Church and it will not work. The few chairmen that attended said they were invited for a meeting by a non-governmental organization. Behold, the meeting was called by the former Speaker and the former SGF.

“Why must they call church leaders to their meeting? CAN is not a political party. We have our members across all political parties. When it was good for them, they did not call Northern CAN leaders for meetings. Why are they calling CAN leaders to their meetings? Those who attended the meeting were taken aback because it was not the kind of meeting they told them. Unfortunately, some certain persons were being used to reach out to the leadership. We want to use this opportunity to tell the world that the Northern CAN has a leader in person of Rev Yakubu Pam, who is the Chairman; Rev. Fr. Dodo, who is the Vice Chairman and I am the Secretary, among other officials. We have an official channels of communication.

“For anybody to use the name of CAN to garnish their political agenda is unacceptable. Politicians should know that some people see this era of politicking as an opportunity to make money and they will do all sort of things to collect money from politicians”.

Moving on from that, Tinubu would later on Thursday, September 22, have a closed door meeting with some Northern Christian Leaders, led by Archbishop John Praise of Dominion Chapel International Church. He was said to have used the forum to explain the bases of his decision to Kashim Shettima to them. As stated on his twitter handle, he said: “Earlier today at a lively, productive and amiable meeting with a delegation representing the Pentecostal Bishop Forum of Northern Nigeria (PBFNN), we discussed important issues of national significance as well as my determination to deliver unity, harmony and lasting peace to Nigeria”.

In many of the public reactions to trail this, questions were raised if the Northern CAN would want to “deny” members of PBFNN as part of it. Some commentators also argued that the Church was already “divided” from the time the “Northern CAN took a position as if no member of APC that were not disgruntled as Dogara and Lawal as Christians and member of CAN” And for Dogara and Lawal, they seem to be on motion in reverse order to the Muslim-Muslim Ticket they are struggling to 'abort after birth'. As a Yorubal axiom says, Eda to n reti atisun akan, a pe leti odo - one awaiting the sleep of a crab will stay long by the river bank.