Apparently ruffled by
the momentum generated by the nomination of Yemi Osinbajo, a professor and pastor, as the
running mate of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress
[APC], Muhammadu Buhari, President Goodluck Jonathan is asking a group of
Pentecostal pastors to help him avert what he fears could be a loss in next
month’s presidential polls.
Mr. Osinbajo, a
prominent cleric with the Redeemed Christian Church of God, law professor and
Senior Advocate of Nigeria [SAN] emerged APC’s presidential running mate last
month giving President Jonathan and the ruling party, PDP, what sources
described as sleepless nights.
Specifically last
Thursday, the President held a meeting in Abuja, with a number of Pentecostal
pastors led by Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel, with the main agenda
being how to fashion out ways to solve the “Osinbajo” problem.
Sources at the meeting
confirmed that President Jonathan confessed in a rather rattled and humbling
manner that “Osinbajo is my problem”.
According to those at
the meeting, the President added that “everything was okay until APC picked
Osinbajo”.
The APC picked Mr.
Osinbajo as vice presidential candidate just as the PDP was busy branding APC
as an Islamist party and describing Mr. Buhari as a religious fundamentalist,
allegations APC leaders have consistently dismissed as unfounded, baseless and a scare
tactic by the PDP.
Many observers say APC’s
nomination of a prominent Pentecostal pastor from the fastest growing church in
Africa may have effectively doused such speculations and the attempt to label
the party as one with an islamization agenda.
There has been a rather
conscious attempt to make next month’s presidential polls a religious one
especially in the Southern part of the country where there is a much larger
Christian population, observers say.
At the meeting organized
by the Executive Secretary of the National Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC)
John Kennedy Okpara, President Jonathan poured out his mind that running
against a leading Pastor of the RCCG, who is also known to be very close to the
much reverred General Overseer of the church, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, is an uphill task.
Sources at the meeting
said Mr. Jonathan was ruffled and much distracted as he confessed to the
challenge the APC naming of Mr. Osinbajo as Mr. Buhari’s running mate is posing
to his reelection.
In response, the
Pastors, led by Bishop Oyedepo, assured the President at the meeting that they
would, “starting from today,” use every device possible including social media, the pulpit and influence peddling, to campaign in support of President
Jonathan and against the Buhari-Osinbajo ticket.
Before the meeting with
the President, sources said the pastors held a meeting on the same day to
strategize and agree on how and what they would present to the president.
At that pre-meeting,
some Pentecostal pastors suggested that they use the opportunity of the meeting
afforded by the President to express their genuine fears on growing insecurity
in the North with Boko Haram killing and attacking Christians and other
innocent Nigerians.
But Mr. Oyedepo, the
most influential pastor at the meeting rejected the idea, insisting that
the meeting was to encourage and strengthen President Jonathan ahead of the
elections and not to discuss compelling national issues of concern to majority
of Nigerians.
While some of the
pastors were shocked and disappointed that Bishop Oyedepo would not allow them
to raise important issues bothering most Nigerians, they decided to keep silent
not to be seen as spoilsports.
And later after meeting
the president, the pastors gathered together again on the same day to device
strategies they will use to campaign against Buhari/Osinbajo, with the main
scheme being to label the ticket as an Islamist one.
Some of the pastors also
suggested that there is need to impress it on Christians that the position of
Vice President is not an effective one, and that having a Christian in the
post makes no difference, although the Nigerian constitution and the
order of precedence makes the office the next in rank to the president.
Indeed as if
implementing the resolution reached at the meeting, members of the Winners
Chapel told Empowered Newswire said Mr. Oyedepo has already started using the
pulpit to achieve the goals set out at last Thursday‘s meeting in Abuja.
Some of the members said
yesterday, Sunday January 18, Mr. Oyedepo raised a prayer point that an
Islamist would not become the President of Nigeria in the coming to the chagrin
of many of the church attendants on Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment