As a member of the Niger State Chapter of the Christian
Corpers Fellowship in 1989/90, I was close to one particular sister who
happened to be the prettiest in our set. My closeness to her put me in a
position to know that in the course of our service year, no fewer than five
brothers "received" for this sister (a Pentecostal euphemism which
means God had directed them to seek her hand in marriage). Curiously, every of
these brothers had an interesting account of the way God 'spoke' to him about
the sister. But this, as I would find out later, did not also prevent 'God'
from speaking to these brothers about other sisters. The truth, however, is
that the brothers were not led by God; they admired the sister, evidently for
her beauty, and lacking the courage of their conviction, they had to come in
spiritual garb.
Incidentally, that is what most Nigerian politicians do
when they want to seek public office. Rather than tell us they want to be
President or Governor or Senator or House of Representative/ House of Assembly
member because they like the job (or the money they know would accrue
therefrom), many would want to hoodwink us with lies about God leading them to
seek such offices. Even when they have prepared all the infrastructure of
rigging (money, marabouts, arms) and were certain to run, they would still tell
us they are waiting for 'God's direction'. This time, we should be able to tell
anyone who comes out to say he/she is contesting to be president, governor,
senator, etc., because God has told him/her to do so that he/she is nothing but
a fraud!
Unfortunately, given that Nigeria is a very 'religious'
country, we are going to hear a lot of these tales in the next couple of weeks
as politicians strut the landscape. That explains why it is incumbent on us all
to be wary of those who would play the religious card, those who would want to
use the faith they profess as the launching pad for their ambition. Not many
are brazen in this direction and that is why we should be careful in that some
can be rather subtle about it. But it still boils down to the same thing:
anyone who would use the name of God to rationalise a personal ambition is not
worthy of our votes.
In fact, I am always suspicious of people who use the
name of God frequently within the political arena because it is most often pure
gimmickry since such Godliness hardly reflects in their character. While we
desire that our public officials be religious, it is in the conduct of such a
person that we prefer to know how much he/she believes in the God he/she
professes. What we expect of our public officials is that they be fair and just
to all, maximize our potentials and put our people to work.
However, I need to state that while I do not believe
that religion should influence the way we make our choices, this is not, and
cannot even be assumed to be, an endorsement of any presidential or
gubernatorial ticket that is insensitive to our diversity, including in
religion. What I am saying in essence is that those who seek to be
president/governor should be bold enough to say why they are seeking such
offices so we can assess them on merit rather than hide under the shadow of the
religion they profess. For 2015, as the aspirants come to the threshing floor,
we should weigh each against his/her background of integrity, capacity to do
the job and track record.
By Según Adeniyi
Source: This Day
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