Dear Pastor Sunday,
How do you do? Happy New Year! May you and your entire family FLOURISH this 2015. May you be like the palm tree which is planted by the river and knows not when heat comes in Jesus’ Name. Amen!
Having had the privilege of knowing you and calling you a friend and Ministry Mentor since 2004, I decided to write this rejoinder to your six-part article endorsing the Buhari/Osinbajo Ticket for the upcoming Presidential Election (which is now a little over three weeks away) being certain that it would not in any way jeopardize or undermine our relationship. Our relationship was further strengthened when I participated in the week-long Leadership Retreat which you organised under the auspices of the Apostles in the Market Place (AIMP) in February, 2007. Spending time in close fellowship with you in an exclusive resort in a suburb of Ukraine was an unforgettable experience. I recall you gave our team the unique opportunity of reading the manuscript of your book, Church Shift, months before its publication.
Unlike many “celebrity” Pastors, I have always been impressed by your openness, accessibility, frankness, simplicity, and genuine love for God and people. The authenticity of the language of your reply to my mails made me know that you actually respond to my mails personally and you have always be excited when I call you to speak with you by telephone. Our last conversation a few months ago was very heart-warming. You expressed joy that I had stepped out to serve in the political terrain and gave me some very practical counsel. You were even gracious enough to write a testimonial recommending me to my constituents in Edo Central Senatorial District (Esan Land) for insertion in my Campaign materials. Unfortunately, as you know, I could not go past the Primaries so I had no need to print the materials in which I had planned to use the testimonials which I had solicited from key friends, mentors and supporters. LOL!
Pastor Sunday, your article was rather lengthy; when I saved it on Microsoft Word format using size 12 font, it turned out to be 25 pages! Knowing how busy you are you must have been driven with much passion to do the research and take the time to write such a treatise.
I am impelled to write this rejoinder because I am similarly driven by my love for our beloved country and the belief that, as the LORD said in His Word, there is safety in a multitude of counsel. Discourses about our country and the kind of leadership which should superintend our affairs should be robust. A 360 Degrees Perspective is always helpful to give context to issues. Our people are the better for it when we promote ideas, ideals and ideology in our polity. I trust you will accord my article the same patience and tolerance that reading yours required.
I will address the issues you raised in the same order they were presented in your article.
Part 1: - “The Professor Yemi Osinbajo that I know”
You explained that you were not planning to make your position a public knowledge, but you decided to do so essentially because you were concerned seeing the reactions and the emotions that any form of support for Buhari/Osinbajo generates among Christians. You also said that you believe that you owe it to your friends and posterity to explain why you believe that the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket is “the life line to the Nigerian nation right now”. [sic]
While I was surprised that you chose to make your stance public unlike your close ministry friends in Nigeria who I happen to know quite well too, I remembered that you took a similar partisan stance during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in which you and members of the Embassy of God Church were very visible during the marches which culminated in the change of the national government. I wondered if you have done the same if you were pastoring a Church here in Nigeria and had congregants with competing political views. Yes, you have a lot of Nigerian friends and admirers who follow you on social media, but you their relationship with you is not as intimate as that of members of your Church. So I understand why it was safe for to decide on taking the risk which you said you knew you were taking. The worst that could happen is that your Facebook “Friends” diminish if some are sufficiently offended to “unlike” your page. This is a vital point because you did take for granted the sensibilities of your target audience, the Church in Nigeria, as regard the political preference of each Christian. Most Nigeria-based Pastors prefer to encourage their Church members to perform their civic duty of voting as each is persuaded by conscience inspired by the Holy Spirit. They know how divisive that politics is especially during election season.
In your opinion, the choice of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as General Buhari’s running was not“just a choice made by man” but you believe “it was God who handpicked him as Buhari’s running mate”. This is a rather weighty claim; more so since you said you came to this conviction because you “know the man!”. I guess since you have lived outside Nigeria for almost three decades now, it is understandable that you “personally do not know any other Christian leader in Nigeria with the kind of impeccable reputation, character and integrity as that of Professor Osinbajo”. But, with due respect, my brother, I am at a loss as to how your assessment of your friend’s integrity became the basis of your conviction that God “hand-picked” him. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be pleased to know that his habit of selecting his loyalists for political office can be justified as the Hand of God at work. The members of his political party who have always resented his style and have recently been unusually vocal about the need to emplace internal democracy instead of godfatherism should now know not to fight God regarding Asiwaju’s choices which they had thought to be merely whimsical.
With regard to Pastor Prof. Yemi Osinbajo’s “integrity”, I will only refer you to my recent article which I had earlier emailed to you as I do with all my articles. In case you had not read it, it is available on my blog which you can access with this link:
Part 2. “My main reason for endorsing Buhari/Osinbajo ticket is because of my personal encounter with President Goodluck Jonathan”.
Pastor Sunday, you said that you believe that “even though God must have given President Jonathan the chance to become Nigeria’s President” you believe “he is not capable”. You then cited as essential proof your allegation that the President “was always in a ‘sleep mode’”. And this happened on the two (2) occasions that you had met him. You omitted to disclose the time of the day you held the two (2) meetings. Your conclusion about the President “always looking lost” was reached when you observed him “through videos and photographs of his meetings” which confirmed to you that the “man is never in the ‘here and now’”. You also determined that the President was not decisive because he referred you and a team of foreign Christian philanthropists who wanted to execute humanitarian projects for the poor, disabled and elderly to meet with the State Governors. So the philanthropists changed their minds about implementing the projects!
Pastor Sunday, this is rather odd. You judged the President’s presence of mind from two (2) meetings you held with him at which you said he was sleepy and form watching videos of him at events. And because he referred you to State Governors for implementation of some philanthropic projects the Christian philanthropists were discouraged and decided that the needy Nigerians they came to help could do without their assistance? Hmm....
Sincerely, Pastor Sunday, if President Goodluck Jonathan were on trial in a court of law regarding his capacity to lead and his decision-making skills, no reasonable Judge would convict him based on the evidence you gave in your article. Your sub-title, created an expectation of some earth-shaking revelation regarding his “cluelessness” which Nigerian opposition politicians often allege out of mischief.
Part 3. Is Gen. Buhari an Islamic fundamentalist?
I must confess, Pastor Sunday, that this part of your article was the one I was looking forward to reading the most given the well-known evidence of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s Islamism. I assumed you must have some new disclosure about the man to change the perception which he himself created through the overflow of his mouth. Disappointingly, you just repeated the tired excuses which Buharists push on Facebook and other social media: “Buhari did not Islamise Nigeria as a military Head of State”; “Buhari’s cabinet comprised more Christians than Muslims”; “It was not Buhari that took Nigeria into OIC”........etc.
Pastor Sunday, is it that you are unaware of what Gen. Muhammadu Buhari used his own mouth to tell his audience at an Islamic seminar held in Kaduna in 2001? Gen. Buhari said: “I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the Sharia movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria. God willing, we will not stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the country.”
Till date, after 14 years, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has not denied making the statement and he has not claimed he was misquoted. What is your understanding of this avowal, Pastor Sunday? In fact, no less a person than the former Chief Justice of the Federation and himself a committed Muslim, late Justice Mohammed Bello, declared that the brand of Sharia Law which was Buhari said was “sweeping all over the Nigeria” in 2001 is unconstitutional and so illegal. It is the Sharia Law regarding criminal cases whereas the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria only permits Sharia in matters of Personal and Family Law. The brand of Sharia Buhari promotes prescribes that the hands of thieves be cut off. Buhari made his famous statement about one year after Buba Jangebe became the first victim of this law in Zamfara State in 2000 for stealing a cow. And Lawal Isa later had his hands amputated for stealing a bicycle. Boko Haram recently resumed the amputation of the hands of victims of its jihadist terrorism. (Please visithttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2587039.stm). Happily, Ms Amina Lawal, who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, was delivered because of the international outcry that followed her case when some activist lawyers escalated it in the media.
Pastor Sunday, has Gen. Buhari renounced his commitment not to stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the entire nation of Nigeria? Has he also recanted his statement made in January, 2002, during the closing ceremony of the 16th National Qur’anic Recitation Competition held in Gusau, Zamfara State, urging Muslims across the country to vote only for the Presidential Candidate in the 2003 Election that would defend and uphold the tenets of Islam? He was also reported to have told Muslims at the event that they have every reason to thank Allah for restoring the Islamic Sharia which he said was destroyed by British colonialists during their crusade in 1903 against the Sokoto Caliphate. (Please see
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is not only an Islamic fundamentalist he is also a sectionalist.
Please see below a Thisday newspaper’s report of 3rd June, 2013, after the declaration of State of Emergency in the North East states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States (http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/buhari-military-offensive-against-boko-haram-anti-north/149256/):
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) National Leader, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has criticised the declaration of state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States and the subsequent military offensive against the Boko Haram Islamic sect.
Buhari, who featured on the “Guest of the Week,” a Hausa programme of the Kaduna-based Liberty Radio, yesterday said the federal government’s action was a gross injustice against the north.
Buhari, who featured on the “Guest of the Week,” a Hausa programme of the Kaduna-based Liberty Radio, yesterday said the federal government’s action was a gross injustice against the north.
According to him, unlike the special treatment the federal government gave to the Niger Delta militants, the Boko Haram members were being killed and their houses demolished.
He said he was not in support of the declaration of state of emergency in the three north-eastern states because President Goodluck Jonathan had failed from the outset in addressing the security situation in the country.
“You see in the case of the Niger Delta militants, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua sent an airplane to bring them, he sat down with them and discussed with them, they were cajoled, and they were given money and granted amnesty.
They were trained in some skills and were given employment, but the ones in the north are being killed and their houses demolished. They are different issues, what brought this? It is injustice.”
So, my dear Pastor Sunday, GEN. MUHAMMADU BUHARI IS NOT JUST AN ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST, HE IS AN AN ISLAMIST SHARIA-JIHADIST!
Part 4. “Why I believe President Jonathan is far more a fundamentalist than Gen. Buhari”
Pastor Sunday, sadly, your attempt to robe President Goodluck Jonathan in a fundamentalist garb is the most tragic aspect of your write-up. Your evidence?
You wrote: The “President is always flanked by leaders of his religion in a country where we don’t just have only Christians. In a diverse country like ours where Christians and Muslims are mostly on an equal footing, a Muslim could easily think why should his President often be surrounded mainly by Christian leaders? Either he is with the respected leaders of the Christian association of Nigeria (CAN) or on the prayer ground of some of the highly regarded and respected Christian churches. Supposing you are a Muslim and you see your president in such situations, is it not understandable for a Muslim to call him a Christian fundamentalist? Now let’s imagine that it’s a Muslim president (for example Gen. Buhari) that is always going from one mosque to the other always surrounded by various Muslim groups. I can imagine what kind of accusations would have been coming from my Christian brothers and sisters, in which case Gen.Buhari would not only be accused of been a fundamentalist, he would also have been accused of Islamizing Nigeria”. [sic]
You wrote: The “President is always flanked by leaders of his religion in a country where we don’t just have only Christians. In a diverse country like ours where Christians and Muslims are mostly on an equal footing, a Muslim could easily think why should his President often be surrounded mainly by Christian leaders? Either he is with the respected leaders of the Christian association of Nigeria (CAN) or on the prayer ground of some of the highly regarded and respected Christian churches. Supposing you are a Muslim and you see your president in such situations, is it not understandable for a Muslim to call him a Christian fundamentalist? Now let’s imagine that it’s a Muslim president (for example Gen. Buhari) that is always going from one mosque to the other always surrounded by various Muslim groups. I can imagine what kind of accusations would have been coming from my Christian brothers and sisters, in which case Gen.Buhari would not only be accused of been a fundamentalist, he would also have been accused of Islamizing Nigeria”. [sic]
WHAT?! This is your proof that President Jonathan is a “fundamentalist” and so should not be given a second term?!
With due respect, man of God, this is so ludicrous it is amazing that you wrote about it! What about all the past Muslim Heads of State and Presidents who were always travelling for both the lesser Hajj and greater Hajj? You never saw them worshipping in Mosques?
If your concern is really that Muslim Nigerians may feel alienated because of the President’s attendance of Church Services, are you not aware that the Vice President, Arc. Namadi Sambo, is a Muslim and that he goes to the Mosque to worship too? How is this even an issue worth talking about, Pastor Sunday? Then you accused the President of bigotry. Oh no!
And you wrote: “Can someone tell me the last time you saw Gen. Buhari been flanked by popular leaders of his religion or kneeling down, praying with his Muslim clerics in a mosque? No, he makes his faith a personal affair.”
You appear to forget that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is a private citizen and holds no public office. Why would his attendance in a Mosque attract the media attention which Arc. Namadi Sambo, Gov. Raji Fashola, Gov. Rauf Aregbesola, Gov. Babangida Aliyu and other Muslim Governors get when the go to the Mosque?
My brother, with due respect, this is a non-issue please.
Part 5. ‘‘Pastor Sunday how dare you support a Muslim candidate’’?
Pastor Sunday, I will not say much on this part of your article because it is obvious you made the assumption, like most people who live in outside Africa and assume that the religious divide in Nigeria is so great that Christians and Muslims generally antagonise each other. But for the religious sentiments which the All Progressives Congress has raised in northern Nigeria by surreptitiously getting Muslim clerics in the North West and North East geopolitical zones of Nigeria to preach that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is the “Candidate of Allah” and the “only One who can advance the cause of Islam”, many Muslims voted for Christians and many Christians voted for Muslims in previous Presidential Elections.
Personally, I have been advocating that Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwambo, the Governor of Gombe State, be elected the President of Nigeria in 2019 because I believe he is eminently qualified and ha the right temperament, experience and the vision to lead the country. Of course, Gov. Dankwambo is a Muslim. So, Pastor Sunday, few Christians will wonder why you “dare support a Muslim candidate” as you have assumed.
You took time to write about what you consider to be Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s virtues and then you made the rather ambitious claim that “Above all, he is not associated with corruption of any form or sort”. I’m sorry, Pastor Sunday, but I could not help but laugh when I read that statement which is more or less your canonization of Gen. Buhari. LOL!
My brother, so you have never heard that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was “associated” with the $2.8Billion stolen from the NNPC on his watch? You have never heard that he was “associated” with appointing Afri Projects Consortium (another “APC”!) as the sole consultant on all projects executed by the Petroleum Trust Fund and that the company milked our nation of billions of Naira through over-invoicing and other scams? Are you also unaware that Gen. Buhari was “associated” with Gen. Sani Abacha, his benefactor, whom he publicly declared “not corrupt” despite the fact that his family returned billions of dollars which he stole?
Pastor Sunday, as a man of God, how you can virtually declare a man you obviously know little about a “saint” beats me.
Part 6. “Reasons why I cannot support Jonathan/Sambo ticket”.
Pastor Sunday you wrote: “I believe God chose President Jonathan for a reason and I also believe that his time span is over. Just like God choose Saul, he had his time, but God also chose David to take over from him. I personally think that President Jonathan has had his time to prove his worth in the last six years. What he could not do in six years I doubt that he will be able to do in the next four.” [sic]
Now, I must ask:
v Since you believe God chose President Goodluck Jonathan, when and how did the LORD tell you He had rejected him as He did Saul and as you have plainly suggested?
v When and how did God tell you that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is now His Chosen (like King David) and as you have implied?
As a man of God, I am really surprised that you actually think a person cannot do well in the future simply because you have judged that the person did not do well in the past. As someone who is involved in rehabilitating destitute people, beggars, prostitutes, drug-addicts and others who are considered misfits in the Ukrainian society, it is sad that you suddenly have no faith in another man’s capacity to change and improve on his performance.
Yet, Pastor Sunday, you have so much confidence that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who failed woefully to do anything memorable as Nigeria’s Head of State over 30 years ago when he had no legislature to submit his plans to and when he was in his prime years, would now bring “change” to a more complex Nigeria which is faced with many challenges even though he is in his twilight years as an infirmed septuagenarian and is yet to articulate any empirical agenda for his “Presdiency” despite having run unsuccessfully for the office thrice before.
You really do have Great Faith, bro! LOL!
CONCLUSION
Pastor Sunday, you wrote: “I feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulder to destroy the mountain of ignorance and darkness that I see emanating from the Christian community. I’m amazed and alarmed that Christians who are supposed to be having the mind of Christ, the wisdom of God and the analytical faculty to digest any complex situation are out rightly refusing to use their minds or their intellect for that matter…….However, sadly from the Christian reactions that I have seen so far, excuse me for my use of words but it’s like we are hypnotized, brain washed or just out rightly biased. Too much of emotions and clichés but too little substance.” [sic]
My brother, it is ironic that you would so easily dismiss the Nigerian Christian community as ignorant and under darkness and assume you are in the position to destroy that “mountain of ignorance and darkness” when you no so little of the actual goings on in our country and barely disguised your own prejudice based on assumptions and fables about the “integrity” of Pastor Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. I wished you had shown a little more humility in your assessment of the Church in Nigeria and its leaders.
Pastor Sunday, you have the Holy Spirit of God; you are a wise and greatly anointed man of God; and you have very close friends who are Pastors of great congregations in Nigeria; I hope you will be open to their counsel (which I am in no doubt they must have already given you) and that you would somehow see how wrong you are about Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan, Ph.D., GCFR.
Pastor Sunday, I am now even more certain than I have ever been that….
#BuhariWillNeverBePresident
…..And I also have the Spirit of God.
Please do give my very warm regards to Pastor Bose, Perez and Pearl.
God bless you.
God bless Nigeria.
NIGERIA DI FURE!
Best regards,
Egheomhanre Emmanuel Eyieyien, FCA.
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