| God Didn't Annul June 12 |
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| Written by Reuben Abati | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 22 June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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God Didn't Annul June 12 THE 15th anniversary of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election has attracted many comments and controversies recently, but the most atrocious is the statement credited to Professor Yusuf Obaje, former Chaplain of the Presidential Villa during the Obasanjo era to the effect that the annulment of June 12 was "An act of God". It is precisely this kind of illiterate reasoning, this blind standing of facts on its head, that has brought Nigeria to this sorry pass. Professor Obaje should be told that he is wrong. So, if Obaje were to to do a researched, academic paper on the June 12 phenomenon, his conclusion would be to blame God for June 12? His words: "I will always believe that God annulled June 12, 1993 election because it would have led the whole nation into a religious war. Our case would have been worse than that of Sudan, because we have not yet attained maturity for the number one and two positions to be occupied by perosns of one religious persuasion. I am not a religious bigot. Given the balance of our population Christians and Muslims, any party that takes the first and second positions for a particular religion will fail." Obaje was not only a spiritual adviser to the Presidency for about eight years, he is also an academic, and in the 2007 elections, he was the Governorship candidate of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) in Kogi state. Young persons who may not remember the details of the June 12 story or even adults who may have forgotten, may be tempted to accept Obaje's reasoning, he being a man of God, in a country where so many believe that a Pastor's words cannot be questioned because he is in direct communication with God. On the question of June 12, Obaje and all other revisionists looking for unseen scapegoats, should leave God alone. It is not true that the victorious Muslim-Muslim ticket of MKO Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe would have led Nigeria into a "religious war". Indeed, the significance of the voting pattern on June 12, 1993 is the possibility of change and unity that it demonstrated. Before then, nobody had ever thought that Nigerians would accept a Muslim-Muslim ticket at the centre, ours being a country where religion had always been expoloited for political purposes. In the lead up to the June 12 Presidential election, both Muslims and Christians chose to focus on ability and merit rather than tribe or religion. Many of the supporters of the Abiola-Kingibe Social Demcoratic Party candidacy were Christians. Even the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) urged Nigerian Christians to go out en masse and vote. That association did not complain about the domination of the Presidential race by Muslims. In the results that were released before the process was halted, Abiola and Kingibe of the SDP got their largest chunk of votes from the Eastern part of the country where the people are predominantly Christians. This was a special moment in Nigerian history. The people wanted change, and the MKO Abiola/Kingibe team offered them hope that change was indeed possible. It has since come to light that the anti-June Twelvers, the IBB-must-stay choir had calculated that a Muslim-Muslim ticket would result in tension within the country, and that woudl have given them an easy excuse to annul the election. The beauty of the June 12 process is that they were disappointed. So where would the war of the scale of Sudan have come from? Obaje is a teacher. He should not teach his students nonsense. And God? When Nigerians are unable to think properly about an issue or when they wish to be mischievous, they turn God into a scapegoat for their own omissions. The name of God has been dragged into virtually every misdeed in Nigeria since 1914; he has been blackmailed so often, he ought to be pitied. If it were possible, God would take Nigerians to court for defamation. If he were not so forgiving, he would have visted his wrath upon those who tell lies in his name, and that includes pastors and priests who mislead the congregation. What has His name not been dragged into? Treasury looters talk about God, bad leaders claim to have been guided by God, armed robbers also swear by his name. Between 1999 and 2007, former President Olusegun Obasanjo referred every matter to God, including his second term in offfice and the Third Term gambit, so frequently, it appeared as if the man had God's telephone number, known only to him. God is ever-present in the belief system of the average Nigerian. Once he is dragged into a matter, by those who claim to know him, all arguments are expected to end. An act of God is an accident, a natural disaster, over which no man has any control. The annulment of the June 12, 1993 election was not an accident. It was a pre-meditated, calculated crime against the Nigerian people executed in a cold-blooded fashion, and the culprits are known: General Ibrahim Babangida, members of the Armed Forces Ruling Council and their agents in civil society who wanted a continuation of the nigerian military in power against the wishes of the people, and who thereby sought to veto the popular will. They held meetings and resolved that they did not want democracy, and they annulled an election that was adjudged to have been free and fair. And they issued a statement and stopped the process. A June 12 list of heroes and villains exists, and Professor Obaje, a trained researcher ought to know. So where has God committed an offence here? It is unfortunate that it is a man of God who is accusing God wrongly. The annulment of the June 12 election was in every measure man-made. Obaje should be reminded that he is perhaps the only priest who is blaming God for June 12. The annulment of the election had drawn the ire of many Nigerians and this included religious personalities who stood at the barricades to defend the right of the people to choose their own leaders freely. Progressive priests turned the pulpit into an arena for frank declarations about the evil of military tyranny, and they did so at great personal risk: Olubunmi Cardinal Okogie, Most Revd Peter Jasper Akinola, Archbishop John Onaiyekan, Bishop Gbonigi, Rev. Adebiyi of NADECO, the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Mathew Hassan Kukah, Fr George Ehusani etc. Where was Rev Obaje then? The struggle against the annulment of June 12 revealed the best and the worst in the Church of Nigeria and in the relationship between the Church and the state. There were priests who turned the Church into the church of the poor, reflecting in sermons and programmes the fears of the poor, providing them succour at a time of great difficulties in their lives and their environment. At the same time, there were thsoe priests who consorted with the tyrants, serving them as spiritual advisers, and thrusting their resumes into their hands. The Church of Nigeria has always had to address the crisis of integrity among the clergy, there are too many priests who are serving God in so many ways they have made the doctrine unrecognisable. This is an issue for the training and promotion of priests if the Church must retain its relevance in civil society. In his reported interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Obaje soon revealed his motive when he declared that he supports the celebration of late Chief MKO Abiola but that Nigerians should stop opening up old wounds, stop fighting over June 12, stop blaming past leaders, don't blame Babangida or the military, he says, if anybody should be blamed, Nigerians should blame themselves. Hear him: "If there is any blame at all,we should blame ourselves that we allowed such a thing to happen. We shoud not blame an individual". Another Babangida apologist? We should blame ourselves for preferring democracy to military rule? We should blame ourselves for going out to vote on June 12, 1993? Professor Obaje may have been motivated by his clerical background to speak the way he has done. He wants everything to be forgiven about June 12 and for the people to blame themselves. It is such a convenient and unscientific way of resolving the June 12 dilemma. It is obvious enough that June 12 continues to haunt its enemies and they are uncomfortable, so true is this that even General Halilu Akilu, IBB's Mr break-their-limbs-in-the name-of-security, is threatening to write a book on June 12! He is certainly welcome. Even General Ibrahim Babangida owes us a book on June 12 and his career in the public sphere. But the mesasge for Professor Revd. Obaje is as follows: his Christian mind should not be worried about Nigerians blaming past leaders. If anything, past leaders should be held up to public scrutiny. Those among them who are guilty of misdemeanours should be named and shamed. For too long in this country, have we overlooked the transgressions of public officials and when we do so, we encourage them to commit greater atrocities or to carry on as if ours is a society without a soul and conscience, and unwittingly, we encourage others to follow the path of impunity. Obaje says "...I think the tragedy of the so-called black man in general is his spirit of running down the leaders". What kind of talk is that, if I may ask? Obaje's sermon if that is what it is, is misdirected. The clergy in Nigeria should be more interested in national progress not using religion to encourage the people to forget, ignore and downplay the truth about their own circumstances. June 12 was annulled by human beings and we are beginning to know who they are. The annulment was not an act of God, it was man-made, the act of men, under the influence of no one else but Lucifer. Obaje as priest, citizen and academic should be more concerned about the reign of Lucifer in Nigerian affairs.
A Failed Protest? In the past week, students of the Tai Solarin University of Education in Ijebu Ode, Ogun State reportedly went to the Ijebu Ode area office of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to complain about what looks like the permanent withholding of power supply in the Ijebu Ode area. For more than two months, the students had lived in darkness, their academic activities were being affected. So the students union in its wisdom decided that a protest march to the PHCN office would be in order, all the Aluta activists were mobilised, the students drew attention to the need for solidarity in pursuit of this important protest. So-li-da-ri-ty for ever, so-li so-li, so-li-da-ri-ty for ever.. And so they marched on the PHCN area office, led by the Students Union President and other officials. A protest march by Nigerian students is always a serious matter, with the ever-present threat of violence and the students fully prepared these days for any eventuality including having to match the security agencies bullet for bullet if it comes to that! But the students of TASUED were in for a shock. When they got to the PHCN office, they met an instructive spectacle. The office was being run with the help of a power generating set, and there were lanterns all over the place. Even PHCN cannot help itself, the electricity supply company is in darkness most of the time, like other Nigerian spaces. If the students had planned to deliver any major sermon about effieciency, the loud whirring of the generating set and the litter of kerosene lanterns made the effort worthless. They simply suspended the protest, and listened to the PHCN officials who assured them that there would be electricity supply soon. The students walked back quietly to their school! Nigeria is a nation in darkness, literally because the authorities are unable to provide electricty for homes and industries. The same week that the Ijebu Ode incident occurred, a similarly funny drama took place at the Abuja sitting of the Justice Kayode Eso-led Rivers State Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In the course of proceedings, just when Abiye Sekibo, former Minister of Transport and an emergent Godfather in Rivers state politics, was making the point that politics in the state is dominated by cultists, there was suddenly a power outage and the entire hall was thrown into darkness. This caused great panic. People switched on their cell phones to provide light! And "there were shouts of no movement oh, no movement oh!, and remain where you are! The panic was understandable. The man in the witness stand had been talking about cultism in Rivers state politics and this is a state where there have been reports of abductions of innocent persons and all forms of violence. Suppose the cultists wanted to prove a point under the cover of darkness. When eventually light was restored, the Chairman, Justice Kayode Eso had to caution: "Plrease let the hotel management know we want light here all the time." Was his Lordship scared? In Nigeria, it is better not to leave anything to chances. The power outage on this occasion was for a few minutes, in other parts of the country, power supply is not epileptic, it is just unavailable. And it is because President Yar'�dua wants to prevent this continued embarrassment that he has now promised to declare a state of emergency in the power sector in July. But there is a twist in the tale. The National Union of Electricity Employees says the proposed state of emergency is unconstitutional and that there is no guarantee that it will make any difference. The electricity workers argue that President Yar'�dua "lacks the vision and vigour" to make a difference in the supply of electricity and in the past, similar efforts were hobbled by narrow, personal interests. The electricity workers want promotion and the payment of their salaries and arrears. They probably know something that we do not know. President Yar'Adua has promised the end of year 2009, as the beginning of a revolution in power supply, but to get to that promised Land, he would first have to prove the National Union of Electricity Employees wrong. In the meantime, the country remains in darkness. Diesel consumption, for fuelling generators alone has hit 12 million litres per day!
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Posted by Robot| 22.06.2008 02:14