Tinubu And The Scam Of The Cassock!

Recently, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the upcoming presidential poll of February next year, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presented his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, to the public at the Shehu Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja. The unveiling of the former Governor of Borno State has since been mired in national controversy over the cassock scam that went with it. After the presentation the APC duo, accompanied by the party’s executives, visited President Muhammadu Buhari at Aso Villa.

While there, the embattled underwhelming President had assured Shettima that he would be handing over power to his boss (Tinubu) and himself upon the expiration of his second mandate next year’s May. He said he would only respond to his speech on that day upon bestowing power to the ‘winners’ from his party.

Since he decided, against the groundswell of public opinion, to pick a fellow Muslim as his running mate Asiwaju Tinubu had faced serious opposition from critical stakeholders (including some powerful Christian associations and leaders). They are united in their vociferous condemnation of the Muslim/Muslim ticket of the APC candidate. Tinubu’s argument for the pairing holds no water in our reckoning.

It is manifestly indefensible for anyone aspiring for the highest office in the land to seek to dismiss the religious sentiments of millions of those professing Christ in a complex multi-ethnic deeply-divided religious nation like ours. Ordinarily, the Muslim/Muslim ticket preferred by Asiwaju Tinubu ought not to pose serious problem had Buhari and his Fulani Ruga gang not bastardized leadership rendering same myopic, sectional, regional and religious.

When the late democratic hero of our generation, Bashorun MKO Abiola, ran for the office of the President on June 12, 1993, he decided without much controversy to choose Ambassador Babagana Kingibe as his running mate. Then and now (almost three intervening decades down the line) things have changed for the worse. Then, the military Generals (Buhari, Babangida, the late Abacha and Abubakar) had terribly messed up governance from Lagos to Abuja.

Then, too, despite the administrative nonsense of the Jackboot Nigeria was a better secure place to live in socially, religiously, ethnically and econo-politically. Then, Nigerians were more united and tolerant than now. Then, the present challenges of insecurity, unemployment, poverty etc were practically non-existent or existing marginally.

Today, Nigeria is disfigured and the system is rotten and broken! Nigerians are now at the receiving end of the Buharian presidential pestilence. No one is safe anywhere. Blood flows on a daily basis from Daura to Minna, Abeokuta to Ihiala.

Asiwaju Tinubu as the so-called National Leader of the misruling APC appears to be ignorant of the current realities on the ground. He is apparently lost about the present Nigerian condition (having been living criminally in obscene opulence).

Now, the Shettima public presentation, beyond the positive eulogies and rhetorics, was marked by a religious scandal never before seen. Asiwaju and his handlers had devised a plan to swindle the public opinion by presenting irresponsible characters, scoundrels, clowns et al, to grace the occasion giving some semblance of legitimacy and general acceptance of the same-faith presidential pairing.

But not many were fooled by that scam of the cassock. Dressed in borrowed robes the ‘Bishops’, ‘Pastors’ and ‘evangelists’ were allegedly picked up somewhere in backstreets of town and told what to do for a handsome financial reward! And the hired artisans (yam-sellers, gate-keepers etc) some wearing dark goggles made an enduring embarrassment of themselves as they filed into the hall.

One of those fake men of God so hired confessed that indeed they were recruited for a fee to do what they did, to wit: defraud God! He declared confessionally that instead of the promised sum of one hundred thousand Naira the Tinubu camp reneged on the agreement handing them between thirty and forty thousand Naira each!

Like professional prostitutes the phony clergymen should have demanded and obtained their pay before rendering their ‘services’.

Asiwaju Tinubu’s desperation to be President has scored yet another ‘own goal’! Convinced that majority of Christians across the land are resolutely up against the Muslim-Muslim ticket the Lagos godfather decided or was advised to hatch and deliver the plot for the consumption of gullible Nigerians.

If Asiwaju Tinubu, the ’emi-lokan’ local champion, is sure of his winning strategy early next year why not invite established Bishops like Oyedepo, Adeboye or Enenche to the event? Why go for the scum of the earth? So this is how he intends to lead if he ‘wins’ the presidential election?

Tinubu and his many handlers, freeloaders et al, must know that Nigeria has indeed evolved. And that an elaborate electoral revoLution is imminent! No force can stop a radical change whose time is upon us.

The cassock scam card played by Tinubu and co failed woefully because this generation is determined to take back our ruined country from the corrupt morally-bankrupt elite, including the man suffering from the presidential self-entitlement syndrome.

Come February, therefore, their political retirement is already sealed in the spiritual realm and here on earth. Perhaps the confusion and crises in their various political parties could be a pointer to the fact that God has decided to answer our supplications for a messiah!

Nigeria must be saved, one me or one you at a time! And the time is now!!

 

SOC Okenwa

soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr

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