BUHARI AND THE RELIGION FACTOR

Buhari

No matter how we look at it, the two leading factors that will determine the manner with which people will vote in the coming presidential elections are religion and ethnicity. In my previous essay, I had come down hard on Christians for their inability to objectively weigh the candidature of Gen. Muhammadu “Okechuckwu” Buhari beyond the mere fact that he was a Muslim. But if I must be honest with myself, I will admit that the majority of those voting for Buhari  are doing so because they are of the same relgion with him or they are from the northern of Nigeria. So the Christians should not be blamed too much. Following the dismal performance of President Goodluck Jonathan in office this past six years, Muslims in the south-west are generally rooting for Buhari. Christians are largely divided over voting for Goodluck Jonathan. Many Christians agree that Jonathan has not performed well in office these six years but they still cannot fathom the thought of voting in a Muslim into office – especially one that they allege to be a fundamentalist. As we face the 2015 elections, the ethnic factor will yet play a deciding role on who becomes president too. It can be taken for granted that the core north will be voting overwhelmingly for Buhari, while the South-south and the South-east (in spite of the public denunciation of Jonathan by Fr. Mbaka) will vote largely for Jonathan. The South-West will be the deciding factor for the coming elections and the All Progressive Congress (APC) in choosing a South-western Christian as Vice-Presidential Candidate, may actually have thrown in the joker that will cause for the elections to favor Buhari in “FeBUHARI”14th.

In this essay I hope to analyze the religious aspect of the coming elections and come to conclusions that would favor Buhari in the coming elections. Despite being a professing Christian, I think that religion can have a negative consequence on the manner people handle issues of life. That is why any true Christian with knowledge

of scriptures will agree that religion is an antithesis of what Jesus Christ advocated. In fact I could argue further that it was religion, helped by the political powers of that time, which crucified Jesus on the cross. So when he rose again and bequeathed Christianity to us, he certainly was not giving us mere religious duties to observe. Our Lord bequeathed a way of life that will transcend religion in all aspects. When the ordinary man looks at the true Christian, he might conclude that he is a man of religion but the Christian knows that what he practices goes beyond religion. So despite the fact that the coming elections will be determined by whether  the leading candidates are either Christians or Muslims, I am particularly interested in expressing the views of some folks like myself who are not blindly led by religion in their decision making. These men and women are not religious in the strict sense of the word and so can judge the candidates objectively. I hope that my conclusions will help other people roped into viewing the candidates from a religious prism alone cease from doing this. As a Christian, my essay is directed to other Christian. I am arguing basically that even if the Muslim decides to vote Buhari on mere religious sentiments alone, the true Christian, not bound by the blind folding nature of religion, should not be voting Jonathan on religious sentiments too.

Sunday Adelaja

Pastor Sunday Adelaja is a charismatic pastor of the Pentecostal type and leads one of the largest churches in Europe. In a six part paper series the cleric lent his voice to the candidature of Gen. Buhari. He explained in his papers that he was not initially decided on who to vote for until the APC picked Prof. Osibanjo as Buhari’s running mate. Knowing Osibanjo well, it was not difficult for him to pitch his tent with the team Buhari. Following this development, he took his time to research the man Buhari and he published his discoveries in his papers. This man’s Damascus-like conversion to Buharism reminds me of how I also became a Buharist. I had been a long time enthusiast of Pastor Tunde Bakare. One day in December 2010, a friend of mine approached me in church and told me that the Save Nigeria Group, the civil society group Bakare leads, has thrown in their support for Buhari. I couldn’t believe it, “Buhari ke” I said in Yoruba vernacular. Days after that time I took my time to research the person of Buhari and came to same conclusions that Pastor Adelaja enumerated in his papers. What was the challenge initially was that I could not think of voting Buhari before this time in December 2010 because I was largely ignorant of his person and was falsely informed by the information his enemies had sold out on him. The truth was that Buhari was not even among my first three candidates at that time. Unfortunately majority of Christians who cannot fathom themselves voting for Buhari today were like me in 2010: bound by religious and ethnic prejudice, and largely ignorant or misinformed on the person of Buhari. You may look up the essay of Pastor Adelaja to see some of the things about Buhari that he enumerated there but I will just pick on a few and discuss them here.

One thing the Pastor discussed about that I wish to shed light on was the manner with which Christians were failing to obey the Golden Rule Jesus Christ gave to us. The Golden Rule simply states that every man should treat other men the way and manner they themselves wish to be treated (Matthew 7:12). Pastor Adelaja explained that if Buhari had been associating with Muslim clerics in the same manner and frequency that Jonathan does with Christian leaders, he would have been called something worse than the Muslim fundamentalist that he is being alleged to be today. The Pastor wonders why no one calls Jonathan a Christian fundamentalist. He even goes further to explain that the Muslim community in Nigeria has been more tolerant of Christians than Christians have been of their Muslim counterpart and I

Religious Harmony

think this is a great indictment on the church. Incidentally, the occasion that led many Christians to conclude that Buhari is a Muslim fundamentalist was the one occasion in 2001 where he chaired an Islamic program that was discussing the shariah. His statements in that program were misconstrued to mean he was advocating shariah for the nation and it was also published in ThisDay Newspaper. Buhari has since explained his true position on the matter(), but the Christian inquisitionists have refused to hear and have run to town with their own version of the story. It is not enough for them when they are told that as paramount ruler of this country in 1984/85, Buhari did not Islamize Nigeria, rather Christians were predominant on his cabinet. Many have explained how Buhari’s close associates in his private life are Christians and the fact that in all his four times running for President, he has only had Christian running mates. No one has been able to provide a verifiable document for the lie that Buhari sought to bring Nigeria into the IOC when he was head of state. All that the Christian needs to do at this moment is to judge Buhari in the same manner with which he himself wishes to be judged.

All available evidence shows that Buhari is a true Muslim. A man of religion who religious persuasions have informed his manner of life both in private and public. Very few people know that despite the liberty that his religion permits him in regards to the numbers of wives he could marry, Buhari had only always been married to one wife at a time. His first wife had four girls for him and this did not push him to marry another wife so as to give him a male child. Buhari’s leading problem might be his inability to trumpet himself – the very mark of a man of integrity. The Babangida government that slammed him in jail for three years after he was removed from office could not find one evidence of corruption against him. The Obasanjo government that proscribed the PTF that he chaired could not find one evidence of corruption against him. He remains the only former head of State that does not have a foreign account. He remains the only former chairman of NNPC that owns no oil rig. Following the 2011 elections, he had to move out of the apartment he rented in Abuja because he could not afford to pay the rent. At the moment he still owes his party, the APC, N21.5 Million on the presidential form that he bought, which he

The People’s General

insists on paying for himself. He is said to collect only 10% of the monthly allowance that the government pays past heads of state. He wrote a letter to the ministry of finance explaining that the money that was supposedly meant for him was too much and will amount to corruption if he accepts it. Buhari built only one house for himself in Kaduna and inherited another from his father in Daura, Katsina State. Every function he has undertaken to carry for Nigeria following his retirement from the military has always been for free as he insists that the government was already paying his pension allowance. It is not for nothing that the northern people call his “mai gaskiya”. Buhari, over the years, has shown himself to be a man of integrity and one that is committed to truth. It was his penchant for sticking to what is right that led to his government being overthrown in 1985, as corrupt elements in the military were becoming increasingly threatened by his upright manner of life and saw to it that he was gotten rid of. Prof Pious Adesanmi, in a recent debate on the coming election, argued that the only problem with the Nigeria system was the lack of integrity found in virtually all of its institutions. He then proposed that it makes abundant sense to elect a man like Buhari with integrity to lead this country in a time like this. Hopefully, his life of integrity will rub off Nigeria and all that is our problem will begin to find solution.

I wish to remind my Christian brethren who are still not settled on the candidature of Buhari to look up the life and words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ never advocated any religion. In fact many believe that Jesus was not even a Christian – he would more accurately be called a Judaist. Jesus however taught a basic principle and that is that the true godly man was the man who does what is right not just the man who professes what is right (Matthew 7:21). We have all sort of leaders in this country, including the present that professes Christianity but is alleged to have a “body language” that supports corruption. None of these leaders have measured up to Buhari in integrity. In the same manner that he towers over all past leaders in physical height, so also does he lead them in integrity and manner of life. Nigeria is in desperate times again and in the same manner that Buhari and his colleagues helped save Nigeria from collapse in the second republic, Providence may have returned him again to help deliver this nation now. I call on my Christian brethren to vote beyond religious sentiments; to look up the lives of the candidates presenting themselves for president; and to vote based on the conclusions they find. The conclusion that I have found on Gen. Buhari based on the information I have on him is that this man is a man of integrity and a man that possesses the requisite qualities to lead Nigeria in these times.

BUHARI AND THE BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN

As we draw near to the 2015 General Elections, it is important that all vital questions are answered; especially the ones regarding the candidature of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. As a Buhari supporter and also a born again Christian, I encounter questions from fellow believers that range from “should a Christian vote for a Muslim, since we are taught in scriptures not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers?” to “how does a Christian vote for a Muslim, seeing that Muslims are one of the goals in our evangelistic efforts?” The answers to these questions are not easy ones but we must provide them or we run the risk of losing a large section of the electorate to the “other side” or to indifference which is making some people decide to stay home rather than vote for either of the two leading candidates.

The born-again Christian community in the Nigerian political space has since become a force to reckon with since the advent of steady democratic process in 1999. In 2011, Gen. Buhari recognized this and adopted Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Latter Rain Assembly, Lagos, as his running mate. In the same period the two of them went and court the blessing of Pastor E.A. Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a leading Pentecostal minister in the country. In like manner, President Goodluck Jonathan attended the Redeemed Church Annual Holy Ghost Convention and that picture of the president kneeling before a towering and praying Adeboye might have single handedly handed over the 2011 elections to Jonathan. Though Adeboye never made his preferred candidate known publicly, most born-again Christians concluded from that picture that Jonathan was “Baba’s” preferred candidate and like they say, the rest is history today. It is no longer news that Buhari has since settled again for another born-again individual, in the person of Prof. Osibanjo, as his running mate for the 2015 elections. Osibanjo happens to also be a Redeemed Pastor. Quite naturally the born-again Christian is not fooled by these political maneuvering. He still has questions in his heart. He still wants to understand whether it is right, in a moral sense, to cast his vote for a Muslim. He want to understand whether he is not being unequally yoked with an unbeliever for choosing to support Buhari.

To answer these questions we as born-again Christians must first understand that voting and being voted for is a civic responsibility that we are enjoined on by scriptures to carry out. Romans 13:1 says “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God…” God is the author of ordered society. And it happens that in our time, the monarchical system of government that was prevalent in bible times has given way to democracy. And democracy consist of the populace voting in its leaders so that the individual that carries the most vote becomes the ruler. Therefore, part of being "subject to higher powers" will be to partake actively in the process in which these powers are elected. It is important to know that Romans 13:1ff did not give some conditions for Christians to be subject to the rulers. It didn't say "be subject only if the rulers are good rulers"; neither did it say "be subject only if the rulers are born again or professing Christians". It simply commanded us to be subject to all authority, as rulers are of God. Submitting to civil authorities and its processes is therefore submission to God. So it is safe to say that the basis of choosing a ruler cannot be based on the individual's religious persuasion but on his competence. For this election, the born again Christian has essentially two people before him: he must choose between them both based on their record of performance in public office and not just their religious profession.

The precedence of Buhari in public office is clear for all to see. The records of his performance in the military, as Chairman of the NNPC, as head of state and as chairman of the petroleum trust fund (PTF) are a testimony to excellent service to ones fatherland. The records of Goodluck Jonathan are also clear to all, especially his six year in office so far. So born again Christian, judge their performance in public office and vote rightly.

The Christian cannot also be said to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever for choosing to support and vote another person from another faith or religion. When scripture speaks of being unequally yoked with unbelievers in 2 Corinthians 6:14, it was talking about not partaking in the evil deeds that non Christians partake of. 2 Corinthians 6 was speaking about the need to walk in holiness as Christians and be separated from evil. It is interesting to note that Buhari, despite being Muslim, is the one out of the two leading candidates that has a public record of incorruptibility and uprightness. While President Jonathan had once being quoted as saying "corruption is not stealing". It makes a lot of sense that the Christian community will vote for a candidate who by his lifestyle and record in public office is known to be upright. This is what the bible will have us to be associated or yoked with! There is a lot of problem with an individual professing to be Christian in one hand and not living up to the tenets of the faith in another hand. This is certainly not one we should be yoked with. Islam and Christianity have diverse point of view on religion but they share some basic rules on morality. There is nothing wrong with associating with a Muslim who lives in a morally upright manner.

Lastly, voting in a Muslim does not compromise our evangelistic duty to Muslims or people of other faiths. Born again Christians must beware of one thing: we must not turn evangelism to a means of conquest. The very nature of our witnessing allows the individuals we witness to the freedom to accept or reject our views. Christian evangelism should not be reduced to the sort of Jihadism that Boko Haram and other extremist groups are championing. Our calling is not a political takeover of a society but a spiritual one. A situation where the Christian is known more for his fruit than just mere talk. The Christian greatest voice of evangelism is his lifestyle. The Christian also accentuates this with his preaching of the gospel where occasion demands it. When he preaches Christ, he is not meant to impose Christ. God by his Holy Spirit then uses the Christian's life and words to brings the Muslim and others to faith. So the manner in which we handle this political situation would go a long way in witnessing to the world. If others are voting on mere religious sentiments, the born again Christian should not be found doing the same.

There is a lie that is being sold that voting in Buhari is voting in someone who will Islamize Nigeria. If Buhari did not Islamize this country as paramount military ruler some thirty years ago when he had all the machinery of government to do it; if he crushed the very first Boko Haram menace, the Maitescine group, in one fell sweep; he will not islamize Nigeria under a democratic rule. Rather he would allow for religious freedom and help crush Boko Haram as he did in 1983/84. No one can Christianize or Islamize Nigeria. This country is a secular state run by a secular constitution. What Christians should fear is a party whose chairman helped implement sharia when he was state governor. And whose presidential candidate has not been able to solve the Boko Haram menace six years since assuming office.

Brother or Sister Born Again Christian, you do not need to fear voting Buhari as President. By doing this, you will be carrying out your civic duty in a manner that will receive the blessing of God and also secure a future for our unborn children.