I greet you sir in the name of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I
trust God that it is well with you and all of yours. I, along with
other Nigerians, came into this new week - a week preceding the coming
election - with the news that the leadership of the Christian
Association of Nigeria (CAN), along with prominent members of the
Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), held a meeting at the Redeemed
Camp along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway over the weekend, with you present,
where it was said that the candidacy of Goodluck Jonathan was endorsed
over Gen. Buhari for the coming elections1. I wish to state
categorically in this letter that CAN has not expressed the general
opinion of Nigerian Christians. I want to encourage your spirit by
saying that even if leading Pastors in this country have chosen Jonathan
ahead of Buhari, your principal in the coming elections; there are some
Nigerian Christians who disagree with this position. And I want to
apologize to you for the trauma that you must have endured this last
weekend as you watched men in the same work of Christ along with you,
reject you for whatever reasons best known to them. I will start my
letter to you by briefly telling you the story of my conversion to
Buharism. Then I will try to locate the underlying motive behind the
decision of these pastors in rejecting you. Finally, I would encourage
you to focus on the task ahead of not just winning this election but
also helping to salvage Nigeria from the grip of the lawlessness ones.
My Conversion to Buharism
As
a Christian minister, there is an incidence in the bible that I am sure
you are familiar with. It is one that involved the bible character
Joshua. It reads: "13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho,
that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man
over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto
him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 14 And
he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And
Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto
him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 15 And the captain of the
LORD'S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the
place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so."2 Many bible
scholars agree that this story is one of many incidences where the Lord
Jesus Christ appeared in his pre-incarnate form in the Old Testament.
Here our Lord gives a relevant instruction to both Joshua and all of us
Christians as you face probably the biggest warfare of your life. Joshua
waned to know whether Jesus was for Israel or for the enemies. Jesus
announces to him that he was for neither. In the process Joshua
discovers something that causes him to worship God. I believe what
Joshua discovered was that at the point of life's greatest wars, God
never appears to take side with any group; rather he stands on the path
of truth, verity and justice. And God will side with any group that has
these elements present in their make up. I wish to state that God is
neither for a Christian candidate in the election nor for a Muslim
candidate; he neither for CAN or for a Muslim group; rather God is
siding with any group or party that espouses the principles of truth,
justice and development this country desperately needs at these times.
Any other group that might mouth these tenets but deny them in practice
will not have the support of the Almighty God.
These are
essentially the sentiments that I came to grasp with when I converted to
Buharism. Following Pastor Tunde Bakare and the Save Nigeria Group's
endorsement of the candidacy of Gen. Buhari in December 2010, I gave the
GMB option a thorough study and came to the conclusion that he was a
better presidential candiditate in the 2011 elections. What solidified
my position further was the attitude and sentiments expressed by fellow
Christians to this decision of mine. It was clear to me that unlike our
Lord and Savior who will side only with truth, Christians very readily
threw away the Buhari option merely because he was a Muslim. The lie
that he would Islamize Nigeria also did not help. On becoming a
Buharist, I sat down to understudy the whole foundation of my faith in
Christ and I discovered that many of it was faulty. Since then I have
had to discard many cherished practices in the Christian faith and even
leave the local assembly I had worshipped with for eight years. At the
close of the day, Buharism brought me into a firmer and clearer grasp of
the person of Jesus Christ. And I am sure anyone will agree that this
is spiritual growth indeed. Buharism showed me that Christianity is not a
mere religion but sincere love for human beings, regardless of the
faith they profess. It showed me that truth and justice are the
foundation on which God's throne was founded. It showed me that a person
need not profess Christ to be used by him to better society. It showed
me that God could still replay the story of Cyrus in rebuilding a fallen
nation of Israel in our present political history. Despite my
conversion to Buharism, I remain a Christian. But a Christian with a
clearer grasp of the person of Jesus Christ. I am now a Christian that
is not bound by mere religious sentiments or parochial mindsets. This is
what I believe a lot of Christians become when they come to know and
support the candidacy of Gen. Buhari.
The Motive of these Pastors in Rejecting You
About
two weeks ago, a news items surfaced from one of the many online news
agencies in our country. It said, among other things, that a certain
individual had been given large sums of money from the presidency of
Nigeria to distribute to leading pastors in this country to garner their
support towards the coming presidential elections3. While the veracity
of this news item can be disputed, it is yet to be refuted by the
individual who was clearly named by the news agency. I hope to show here
that the motive in rejecting you at that meeting last weekend may not
be too far from this incidence. Jesus taught us that there are two gods
men worship: mammon or God4. There are no other options. This challenge
is bedeviling the Christian faith at the moment and the end result is
that the motives that underlie people's actions generally in life might
either be for gain or for God. It is not news anymore that Nigerian
Christianity is becoming the leading harbinger of a money gospel that
many have very appropriately labeled the prosperity gospel. Neither is
it surprising that majority of the men who rejected you in that meeting
are the leading propagators of the prosperity message in our country.
While the prosperity message has many tenets that one cannot explore at
the moment, the key point of it all is money: how to get it and how to
retain it. Thus the harbingers of this message follow the gangster
rapper's philosophy of life: "Get Money or Die Trying"5. This philosophy
stands in stark contrast to that of our Lord that instructed us not to
make money our god or that of the apostle Paul that taught that if we
have food and clothing we should be content6.
Therefore, when
these pastors who espouse a money gospel came face to face with deciding
on who to support in the forthcoming elections, it was not difficult
for them to decide against a sound and properly laid out manifesto of
the APC; neither did they have any qualms in discarding brilliant minds
in the person of yourself and other leading APC stalwarts; they could
not see any virtue in a leader that has no trace of corruption in his
record of public service in the person of Buhari; neither did they see
the new opportunity for change that the APC offers. These pastors very
easily chose what has from the foundation of their ministries informed
every other decision they have made in the past: they simply chose what
will bring them money, advantage, acceptance with the powers that be;
they fell to the god of mammon and gain that they have all along
worshipped.
The Road Ahead
I was part of the
people who met with you at the "I Have Decided" rally held at Teslim
Balogun Stadium two weekends ago. I had received an email requesting my
presence and had to travel from Ibadan on short notice that weekend to
see you enumerate in fifteen minutes the vision of the APC for the
coming political dispensation. That vision is what I wish you will focus
on now because we shall reach that goal as a nation by the help of God.
At that meeting, you taught us, Christians and Muslims alike, to join
forces together to deliver our streets, neighborhoods and offices to
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming elections. The "Change" fever
has since caught everyone and most people I know are ready to vote
anything but this present contraption we call a government. I receive
calls for money and aids from Pastors in Maiduguri and I realize that
what I could actually give them to help salvage that besieged Nigerian
city is a new government of Buhari who is known to have tackled
insurgency in the past and can do it again.
The road ahead will
include a preparedness to enter into the greatest assignment of your
life so far, which is to lead the largest black nation on earth. A
nation that has been bastardized by years of harlot leaders but which
now has the opportunity to have a scion of the late Obafemi Awolowo lead
her and help introduce and implement the hundreds of laudable ideas
that late sage had written in his books. You have a great opportunity to
do well for Nigeria in the coming years. The road ahead will also
include forgiveness and a reevaluation of your faith in Christ. When you
come to power, like Joseph did, you must forgive your brethren who are
at the moment selling you away for a pot of red porridge. You are coming
to power to help save Nigeria from imminent doom and this is the path
that God has chosen for you. These men, who have rejected you now, will
face their shame in the days to come. But it is your duty and mine to
forgive them and help them realize the folly of their action. To employ
the words of the sitting president when he came to power in 2011,
General Buhari and yourself "must hit the ground running" from May 29th
onwards.
There is so much to do. There is a nation to save and
rebuild. There are insurgent elements all around the country that must
be silenced. There is an economy to revamp. There is a nation to help
place in the map of advancing countries in the world of science and
technology. There is a sea of human capitals among Nigerians youths
waiting to be harnessed to turn this nation into a developed country.
There is an African continent waiting for Nigeria to offer the lead to
development and progress. The list is endless. In short, Nigeria is
waiting for the manifestation of a son of God7.
Conclusion
It
is my sincere hope that the aim of this letter, which is to uphold your
hand in the events of the coming elections, has been achieved.
I
had argued in previous essays that Christians were not participating
enough in partisan politics. I envisioned that a day will arise when a
position shall be left in public office that a Christian alone could
fill and there would hardly be anyone around to fill it. I am happy to
see that when that situation arose in the APC, the leadership of the
party found an experienced individual in your person to fill the gap.
Despite your rejection by an arm of Christian leaders in the country,
please be informed that a host of others support you. And more than
anything else, the God of heaven is with you.
Be rest assured
that the prayers of God's people are with you and you have our unalloyed
support in this mission. The duty of nation building is undoubtedly
prominently connected with our responsibility to make disciples of all
nations. If Nigeria, our Jerusalem, knows peace and progress; our
calling to reach the world with the gospel of Christ will only be made a
lot easier. Go forth and make history.
God bless you.
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