"I was greatly saddened to read the material written by
Mr. Eyieyien urging “The Remnants” to vote out the current Governor of
Osun State Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and vote in Chief Iyiola Omisore. I am
also still somewhat puzzled as to how what appeared to be an opposition
to a bond issue and other sundry allegations degenerated to the running
down
of the APC as an Islamic party, a propaganda tool notoriously
deployed by the PDP through its various organs. Are we as Christians now
being
urged to support the PDP or what exactly is the message? Reason,
is one of the most important contributions of the Gospel to
development. From it emerge the practical concepts of fairness and
justice for all, especially our enemies. Which is why lynching, even of
an intellectual kind is unacceptable I am not an unbiased intervenor, I
had the good fortune of serving in an AD/ACN government in Lagos State.
The ACN is a major partner in the APC. I will come back to the PDP/APC
issue presently. Also, I have known Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Governor of
the State of Osun, since 1999. We served on the policy committees of
the then newly elected AD governor of Lagos State. He served in the
infrastructure sub-committee and I, in the Justice sub-committee. I also
served with him for 8 years in the government of Lagos State. He as
Commissioner for Works and I as Attorney General. I developed a close
personal relationship with him. His early ideological belief was shaped
by Marxist-Socialist thinking, which probably influences his left- of-
centre world view in governance. His first son Kabir went to university
in Cuba on a scholarship. In 2005 when he graduated, only Rauf and
I attended his graduation . He is a devout Muslim but liberal in his
approach to other faiths. This is not unusual amongst the Yorubas
largely because most families have both Muslim and Christian members and
have always interacted without rancour. Of his six siblings only one
other is a Muslim. All the others are Christians. His sister who is of
the RCCG, is widowed (her husband died a Christian) her two sons have
lived with Rauf for years, he insists that they must practice their
father’s faith faithfully. They both attend the RCCG.
He and I shared and still share a burden to provide honest,
transparent, people-centered governance. He is a scrupulously honest
person, as Commissioner for Works in Lagos State he left office without a
home and no financial comforts. I know, because aside from my personal
and official interaction with him, I coordinated his legal team for the
reclamation of his mandate for over three years. I know first hand, his
difficulties with sustaining his family, and a small staff for that
period. Not surprisingly no one can accuse him in Osun State of
corruption. He is just not wired that way. Indeed, in keeping with that
commitment to serve the people with complete fidelity, his major
projects have been solely directed at alleviating the suffering and
deprivation of his people. The hiring of, now 40,000 unemployed
graduates , the provision of free balanced meals for all primary school
children, provision of free uniforms, the provision of tablet computers
for senior secondary school students
containing all their textbooks,
past jamb questions etc., monthly stipends to the elderly – all of
these in a State that is the third poorest in Federal allocations and
currently gets N2.6 billion monthly, a 40 percent reduction from 2013,
courtesy of the Federal government. Mr. Eyieyien
perhaps was not aware that even the 10 billion sukuk bond was
purely for the building of 24 model state-of the art schools, most of
which are now completed. The Wole Soyinka led Osun education summit
recommended the replacement of the completely broken school
infrastructure in Osun State with schools capable of accommodating 1000
students with modern labs, classrooms, power and sports facilities.
The idea was to use economies of scale to benefit the largest number of
students. When Mr. Eyieyien describes him as “Sheikh” it is clearly to
give the impression that he is an Islamic fundamentalist. The facts on
the
man completely belie this. First, as Commissioner for Works in
Lagos State, he built the chapel at the State House Marina. Pastor
Adeboye at the opening commended him and remarked that he would be a
pastor soon! Within a year of coming into government, he commissioned in
Ilesa the Open Heavens Christian Evangelical Arena , a purpose-built
facility for evangelism which according to him was to celebrate the
icons of the Christian faith who are from Osun namely- the Late Apostle
Babalola , the Late Apostle Obadare, Pastor E.A. Adeboye, Pastor W.F
Kumuyi and Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo. Today, his government supports the
establishment of five Christian universities in Osun, including The
Redeemers University at Ede, the Joseph Babalola University, Dominion
University , and Bowen University. How about the composition of
government in Osun State? You will notice that his critics are never
able to say that Christians are marginalised in government, why ?
Because only Muslims can make that allegation! In the Cabinet of Osun
State there are 10 more Christians than Muslims. In addition, the
largest Ministries are headed by Christians-Ministries of Finance,
Justice, Education, Health, Environment, Agriculture, Physical Planning,
and Youth and Sports . The Legislature (House of Assembly), which came
into office after he won back his mandate in court in November 2010, has
a majority of Christian members – 18 Christians and 8 Muslims. Everyone
knows that at that level if the Governor does not support your
nomination by the party your ambitions are dead in the water. The State
Judiciary is headed by a Christian who he appointed although he had
preferred and
proposed a judge from Lagos Justice Olubunmi Oyewole also a
non-Muslim. Of over 30 new Permanent Secretaries appointed by him 22
are Christians. If the majority of your cabinet, (including your
Attorney-
General), your Legislature, Judiciary and top echelon of
your civil service are Christians how can we in truth say that such a
person has an Islamisation agenda? Surely the least a “Sheikh” with an
Islamisation agenda should do to achieve his objective is to populate
the structure that can achieve that objective with Muslims!
It
is also entirely false that he patronizes or uses “TAAWUN” guards for
his security. It is common knowledge that he hardly even uses any
security at all, except for a couple of SSS men, his monthly LIFE WALKS
where he walks alongside his people for kilometres without any
significant security cordon was commended recently by a former Governor
in the South East. It is incredible what prejudice can do to us.
Everyone in Osun knows that the State was nicknamed “State of the Living
Spring” in reference to the Osun River after which the State is named.
Renaming the State “the Omoluabi State ” – meaning “the State of
children born of God” or “the State of men and women of virtue”
certainly gives greater glory to God. To suggest that benefiting from a
Sukuk bond to better the lives of his people of all faiths, is enough to
justify the grave allegation of an Islamisation agenda, is with all due
respect , calling a dog a bad name simply to hang it. I agree that it
may have served the politics of religion better not to take the bond,
but it is a fairer judgment of his motives, knowing him, that this was
borne out of his desire to serve his people well.
The 24 mega
schools with state-of -the art facilities is a quantum leap in education
for the majority of children of the poor who before now schooled in
what the Soyinka committee saw as scandalous. The alternative was not to
build the schools. When a man who is doing right by the poor and
deprived people he governs, is being condemned by those of us who are
called to serve the poor, the sick, the naked, and the hungry then it is
fair to ask what the values in governance we really intend to
promote are? In any event the alternative is Chief Iyiola Omisore whose
antecedents we ought, to put it delicately, be cautious to associate
with. A problem with uncritically accepting as useful advice this
viciously anti-APC propaganda, is that it throws the baby out with the
bath water. So we are now expected to reject the landmark achievements
in Lagos, in Ogun (the huge infrastructural developments), Oyo (which
for the first time most admit is making real progress), Edo, and Ekiti
(where almost everyone agrees the governor did a good job but Fayose
understood stomach infrastructure better!) Or now Kano or Rivers (where a
REAL rail service is about to begin; Lagos is also about to complete a
rail service amongst other exemplary achievements )! It is also false
that the APC’s
new executive reserved its top positions for Muslims!
The Chairman of the party Chief John Odigie-Oyegun is a Christian, the
Deputy National Chairman (South) Engr. Segun Oni is a Christian, so are
the National Organizing Secretary Senator Osita Izunaso, Deputy
National Secretary Hon. Orji Ugofa and Chief Pius Akinyelure, the Vice
Chairman of the South West. For what it is worth, there are 22 Muslims
and 21 Christians in the APC National Executive Committee.
Regarding the rather thinly veiled ‘support the PDP/ JONATHAN’ message,
it is incredible that we are invited to ignore the cynical manner that
our President Goodluck Jonathan uses Christianity and the church to
further his political ambitions. Why are we being urged to support a
PDP/Jonathan bid again? The platform has largely on account of its
tragic failure to perform, decided to exploit Nigeria’s religious fault
lines in
the most cynical manner to win support, in the process he
continues to divide Nigeria in by the far most extreme manner in our
history. I have worked with many brethren since 2002 on issues around
Islamization in Nigeria, in particular with Revd. Ladi Thompson of the
Macedonian Initiative and the Omoluabi network. It is clear that Al
Qaeda, ISIS, and more recently Boko Haram and their splinters are
committed to an Islamization agenda. Their symphathisers certainly cut
across all boundaries. The Late General Azazi, then NSA, pointedly
accused the PDP of being behind the escalation of Boko Haram, I have
that statement on DVD. The President, also openly lamented the
infiltration of his cabinet by the Boko Haram. Recently a Nigerian
pastor in a widely circulated CD, speaking on the Jihadist agenda
accused General Babangida of funding the Islamization agenda from his
days as President. Today President Jonathan’s most influential Northern
supporter is General Babangida. His narrative unfortunately gives no
credit to Gen Buhari, and his deputy Gen Idiagbon (also a muslim) who
refused to join the OIC despite pressures. Or that Gen Buhari remains
the one head of State who was able to defeat an extremist insurgency,
the Maitatsine.
How can we fail to see that the incredible
corruption, incompetence, poverty of 2/3 of our people after almost
seven years of the present government is unsupportable? How is it that
Diezani’s use of 10billion Naira to run her private jet (the same amount
of money for the building of 24 mega schools in Osun!) and the complete
silence of the President on this travesty does not lead to calling for
him to be voted out in 2015? So the allegation of the missing or
unaccounted for 20.8 billion USD with 110 million desperately poor,
should be dismissed as pure propaganda? So it doesn’t make a difference
to us that under the PDP Nigeria has fallen behind in every human
development indicator? 55,000 women dying yearly of maternal related
ailments, only recently Stanford’s Professor Larry Diamond compared the
yearly deaths of over 300,000 children yearly in Nigeria to the killing
of 800, 000 mainly Tutsis in Rwanda. The latter was described as
genocide, what is the description to give to mass deaths of infants
caused by grand corruption?
We discredit our treasured platforms
such as this when we mask our political preferences with a religious
veil. The vast majority of our people need to be delivered from terrible
want and deprivation, what is required now are capable, honest men and
women of all faiths, who know that this country may not long survive the
daily punishment of its own people."
Professor Yemi Osinbajo SAN