According to Kperogi, VP Osinbajo’s RCCG memo is ‘just a small part of a bigger incitement strategy’. He went on to cite a Pentecostal pastor’s unguarded utterances of not wanting another Muslim president in 2023. This is no different from southern governors’ demand for power to shift to the south, for the purpose of equity.
Professor Farooq Kperogi, a professor of linguistics, veteran writer and columnist recently outlined 10 reasons why Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Vice President, and also a pastor becoming President ‘will’ ignite a civil war. I don’t think I have come across an expert writer within the Nigerian political space that uses adjectives as creatively as Prof Kperogi does. I can only dream of becoming half the writer he is (being my mentor in his use of the English language). I can bet he has already identified several lacunas in my writing.
Thankfully, I am only concerned about each of the 10 justifications he provided and not the grammar and syntax he employed in his delivery. I am going to outline each of these 10 reasons and objectively explain why I believe the Professor is wrong, and that the Vice President’s potential ascension to the ultimate price of Nigeria’s politics in itself, cannot be the reason why the country ‘will’ descend into a civil war, at least not as a backdrop of these reasons.
1. Prof Kperogi claims that the memo from the RCCG that asked churches under their ownership to support members seeking political offices, was inspired by the VP. This is not new in Nigeria’s religiously-inclined politics. While this may be new within the RCCG, politicians have been seen to romance their religious bases to score cheap religious votes. President Muhammadu Buhari rode on Pastor Osinbajo’s RCCG senior membership to win over many of the Pentecostal followers by having the former as his running mate. In 2011, and indeed in 2015, popular Islamic sect leadership of JIBWIS openly campaigned for President Buhari, over the incumbent Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Pockets of violent conflicts were seen across the country after the elections. None of these can be categorized as anything close to a civil war, and nothing that our security agencies could not handle.
Secondly, Prof. Kperogi pointed out to the fact that a Muslim has never governed Ondo and Ekiti states, while the only Muslim to have governed Ogun state was Ibikunle Amosun. He went on to infer that the Vice President was ‘okay’ with the arrangements but actively advocated for a Christian governor in Lagos. The flaw in this assumption is that the people of South-west Nigeria have historically looked further than religion as a major determining factor in choosing their governors. VP Osinbajo’s preferences are immaterial, and he knows this.
3. According to Kperogi, VP Osinbajo’s RCCG memo is ‘just a small part of a bigger incitement strategy’. He went on to cite a Pentecostal pastor’s unguarded utterances of not wanting another Muslim president in 2023. This is no different from southern governors’ demand for power to shift to the south, for the purpose of equity. No facts have been provided to support the claim that this memo was just a small part of the VP’s strategy. I mean, it could be true but these are not dissimilar to the strategies used by politicians in Nigeria to gain votes and steer sentiments.
In his fourth reason, Prof Kperogi admits that the VP is charming and possesses oratory prowess. However, he is only associating with Muslim’s because of his political agenda – visiting mosques ‘with his shoes on’ in a ‘stoop-to-conquer’ strategy. All of these as a strategy to secure the Presidency, suppress Islam and then cause a civil war? A professor and his group of conspirators could surely not be this illogical! The presidency is not only about the president or just the cabal. The vice president, the ‘cabal’, the political party, the Governors’ forum, the legislature are not existing for the president alone to actualize his sinister agendas, least of all a Christianization agenda!
His securing of the presidential ticket is just the beginning of another political journey and upheaval for any President that requires continuous ‘stoop-to-conquer’ strategies. President Goodluck Jonathan ‘stooped’ prior to 2015 but couldn’t still ‘conquer’.
APC leader and presidential hopeful Bola Tinubu’s call for the Supreme Council for Shari’ah in Nigeria to support Muslim candidates seeking for election is more of his readiness to ‘get dirty’ and also because the VP is now emerging as one of his big threats to clinching the Presidential flag of the APC, and not because Tinubu was hitherto secular-minded, only to be triggered by RCCG’s antics.
5. According to the Professor, the VP sees Muslim’s as ‘lost souls in need of salvation’. His only major argument here is the VP’s supposed mocking of Yoruba Muslims during the funeral of the mother of the former governor of Ondo state, who was said to have converted to Christianity before her death. Again, the VP could not be so petty and sloppy to show-off his perceived disdain for the Muslim faithful if at all this disdain exists. The only thing this argument does is to fuel the existing suspicion and distrust between some members of the two major religions in the country.
The sixth reason according to the professor is because of an unverifiable ‘standing rule’ that mostly Christians should be recruited into The VP’s law firm, which has ’99 per-cent’ of its staff as Muslims. I cannot claim that this is absolutely false, just like the Professor (too) cannot claim that it is true, as part of the VP’s ‘agenda’. Using this as a factor that could lead to civil war is farfetched. The seventh reason according to Kperogi is that the VP’s presidency would be a fulfiment of the General Overseer’s prophesy of one of his members’ becoming a President during his lifetime. This theory is as ridiculous as claims by opponents that Barack Obama’s aim was to Islamize the USA due to his distance blood relations with some Muslims! Just like in any faith, most people’s beliefs are traced to the sect they affiliate with. The VP happens to be a Pentecostal pastor and that has served his party well thus far. Claiming that he is the highest ranking religious bigot, even if remotely true, is a matter of opinion. For some who may not possess the Professor’s impeccable writing skills, the President is the biggest religious bigot in the country, for example.
The singular fact that a wordsmith like Professor Kperogi could stylishly insinuate that a high-ranking Nigerian like the VP hates Muslims and also has a plan to destroy the country by becoming President has more potential for causing an actual war than the VP’s supposed intentions, even if true.
Ultimately, Muslims have been assured by Allah (subhanahu wata’ala) that ‘Indeed, it is We who sent down the Qur’an, and indeed, We will be its guardian’ (Quran 15:9). Muslims should not believe that the Vice President, or any other power can destroy Islam, the same way that a Buhari Presidency cannot make it grow further than HE (Allah) has ordained. Similarly, Psalm 62:11 in the holy Bible denotes the sovereignty of God and the absoluteness of his power – ‘God has spoken once, Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God.’ God gives power to whom he pleases. Nobody can strategize his way into power without God’s permission, under whose watch we remain!
Aliyu Sulaiman
