By Tunde Asaju
I declare that I am not Catholic and that I wouldn’t know what to do at the entrance of a Catholic church.
But let me start this journalistic homily by thanking the president, commander in chief for taking time off his incredibly hectic schedule to meet with Catholic bishops. As an Alhaji married to a protestant pastor, this large-heartedness is hardly appreciated. Perhaps not until a younger member of the First Family embraces ìṣẹ̀se before we all give this unique blessing to Nigeria its due.
Imagine if the president wasn’t a magnanimous person, he would have consulted with his wife who would have probably preferred the Pentecostal Fellowship making the first visit to the biggest Rock. Again kundus to Mr. President.
Now, good citizens will agree with me that you do not go to a host to tell him that his nose is dripping with mucus. No! Faced with a sensitive host, you praise him for his fashionable invention to public appearance.
In fact to fit in, you pray or pretend to catch a cold and generously contribute to the new fashion accessory while you are visiting so that you align with the party. If the host is impressed, they usually reward you handsomely with Ghana Must Go bags. In fact, as Bishops, you offer to wear a mandate hat on your zuchetto.
Not Cardinal Oniaiyekan. The man not only led his bishops to the President, and they had the effrontery to tell the president to his face that Nigeria is not doing well. That must be hard for the poor chap to swallow, no visitor tells the president he is not doing well. Like all truth; that must sound rude when all you hear from the palace is how you have come to change Nigeria for good.
How dare these men in cassocks, envoys of a foreign God come to the seat of government to tell the ruler of the time that he is not doing well on most fronts? Who does that?
The bishops reminded the president of a lie that has been told for nearly 40 years that it has finally buried factual truth – that he fought for democracy. They didn’t say the same of the late General Sani Abacha who was a very close friend of the president. Graduates from General Abacha’s school of democracy have found practical internships in the Tinubu government where they finally exposed the lie that an insurgency can last three years when government doesn’t have the political will to put an end to it. This type of state secret is not supposed to be open to Bishops who ought to be preparing people for their heavenly mansion instead of seeking peace, progress and tranquility on earth. This dereliction of duty changed the tone of the president’s response and we must thank him for not ordering them to go and cut grass.
The bishops believe that Nigeria is bleeding. Yet, not a speck of red on their cassocks. No be juju be that?
They believe that the economy is not doing well. Could that be a reflection from the counting room of weekly or daily offertories? If that were their reason, the president expects to be given an excel worksheet to convince him when their pentecostal counterparts are expanding work on their permanent sites. Broke people don’t ask for more responsibilities as the Bishops requested for schools to be handed over to their religious founders while pretending that things are hard. The IMF doesn’t think so, and the report of the IMF is to be believed over those of people whose leader was executed for interferring with the political order of his time.
Milord the Bishops are partisan, otherwise how do they know that INEC, our electoral umpire is not independent? How else is dependency gauged when the presidency appoints the chairman and its commissioners? That is independence practicalized in the breach except they want to be nominated for these posts. Give them that and next, they might be asking for independent funding. Before you know it, votes might start counting thereby putting democratic plans in serious jeopardy.
Indeed, in appreciation of the excellent job that INEC did in the last elections, President Tinubu appointed its chairman as an Ambassador, a political first anywhere in the world. The new ambassador has since assumed duty, unlike some nominees unable to secure accreditation in spite of their incredible turn coat credentials.
This is the greatest endorsement by democratically advanced nations that police emergent democracies and ought to have been acknowledged and praised as answers to prayers by believers. But the bishops failed.
My problem with Cardinal Oniaiyekan is three fold. As a very senior vicar, a Kogi State indigene, he should have recused himself from this visit for two important reasons. For one, he is a Kogian. He is aware that Prof Amupitan, the incumbent INEC chairman is a fellow Kogian, Kogians don’t blight the chances of other Kogians except they want to be a Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
It is unfair to assume that our brother learned professor won’t be impartial, even as we have seen the beautiful charade that INEC has laid down for the tran-sit-on come January 2028. The professor acting up to script.
The second reason is that milord the Cardinal has not been going home as frequently as required. Kogi has no airport and probably doesn’t need one. Although nobody talks about this, it is a state locked down by insecurity. Insecurity is not a respecter of cassocks.
The road from Kabba to Ilorin has remained a death trap for a over 40 years. According to Adams Oshiomole, you need to be in the good books of the president to get the presidential order to the works minister to get these roads fixed. People who are known to be critical of established orders are not only liable to die poor, the infrastructural developments of their area are destined to stay stunted for a long time.
President Tinubu has been receiving kudos from Kogians when rumours started filtering out that the road may be fixed under him. The way governance works, you don’t want to go and annoy the King, sorry I meant the president, in case your insolence makes him change his mind.
Of course we all know that the new head of fire brigade is also a Kogian from the Western axis. We don’t want anything that could make our generous, hard-working, effective and efficient president change his mind on the state of our road now that we know that insecurity is not a federal but state issue. We need all hands to be massaging egos before and after the January 2028 coronation. Any Kogian especially from Kogi West, criticising the president or the presidency at this time is not doing so at the interest of Okunland.
It is often said that all politics is local, I think Cardinal Oniaiyekan should apologize to the presidency not only for leading the pack of discontented bishops to the villa, but also for doing a post mortem of the visit on Arisetv. He should apologize to the corterie of boothlicking assistant, special assistant and senior special assistants whom he has roused from slumber. The rate at which they are up in arms against the Cardinal, if they work so hard on the issues plaguing the country and ginger their principal to work harder than he flies to Paris, Cardinal Oniaiyekan would have remained in his relative political irrelevance.
Now they are knocking on the doors of every editor and influencer, asking for their right of reply. Except Cardinal Oniaiyekan recants, these slovenly sloppy writers won’t stop spewing their idiotic biles on my timeline. As for the Cardinal, for standing with truth, I can assure him that his phone will stop ringing. We won’t play with him again and as he knows, if real bishops do not support our president, there’s always a synod of rented bishops who can do the job better.
