WE WILL NOT WASTE OUR VOTES!!!
TINUBU DON’T BE LIKE NEBUCHADNEZZER !
TINUBU PACKAGED THE PRESIDENT IN 2015 AS AN EX GENERAL THAT WILL END INSECURITY AND FIGHT CORRUPTION
NOW BLOOD HAS BEEN FLOWING ALL OVER NIGERIA AND INSTEAD OF HIM TO COME AND APOLOGIZE, HE IS ANNOUNCING MUSLIM-MUSLIM TICKET
THIS PRESIDENT TINUBU PACKAGED STARTED THE POLITICS OF RELIGION WITH ALL HIS LOPSIDED APPOINTMENTS
CHRISTIAN LEADERS SUPPORTING SHETTIMA HAVE BEEN BOUGHT AND HAVE ALLOWED GREED TO DRIVE THEM
SHETTIMA DID NOT DENY THE RECORDED CONVERSATION WITH AMOSUN IN 2019. WHY IS HE DENYING IT NOW?
WE WILL MOBILIZE AND WE WILL DO EVERYTHING WITHIN OUR POWER TO FRUSTRATE THE TICKET;
EVEN IF SOME OF US DIE IN THE PROCESS IT IS WORTH IT.
NO PEACE, NO JUSTICE!
IF THERE WAS AN ATTEMPT BY A RULING PARTY TO FLAUNT A CHRISTIAN-CHRISTIAN TICKET, EVERYWHERE WOULD HAVE GONE ABLAZE BY NOW.
WE CANNOT WASTE OUR VOTE; IT IS THE ONLY BULLET WE HAVE TO DEFEND OURSELVES.
THERE HAS BEEN AN ASSUMPTION WHICH IS AN ILLUSION, A FALLACY AND A DELUSION THAT CHRISTIANS ARE A MINORITY IN THE NORTH
WE ARE GOING TO TEACH THEM A LESSON
CHRISTIANS DO NOT WASTE YOUR VOTES, LET US DEPLOY OUR VOTES STRATEGICALLY BUT ALSO, IT IS NOT A MATTER OF ETHNICITY.
WE WILL MAKE RIGGING DIFFICULT FOR THEM.
EVEN IF THEY WIN, WE WILL KEEP PUTTING FIRE UNDER THEIR FEET
-Reverend Abraham Sam Aiyedogbon on Arise Tv ||Muslim-Muslim APC Presidential Ticket Controversy||12th July, 2022.
INTERVIEWER (DR REUBEN): Abraham Sam Aiyedogbon, Senior Apostolic Leader, Realm of Glory International Churches, Convener, Catholic for Global Peace and Initiatives.
REVEREND AIYEDOGBON: Thank you Dr Reuben Abati for having me.
INTERVIEWER (DR REUBEN): Where do you stand in this matter of Muslim-Muslim ticket as declared by the All Progressive Congress, some Church leaders says it doesn’t matter, after all there are 18 political parties, but the Christian Association of Nigeria and other groups insist that religion is a very major factor in this 2023 general election and the right of Christians on the ballot at the highest level must be respected by all political parties, where do you stand?
REVEREND AIYEDOGBON: Well Dr Reuben, you just stated categorically the position of the Christian Association of Nigeria and I’ll also like to add that is the same position of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, which is one of the major arms of the Christian Association of Nigeria and I’m a Christian and every Christian leader directly or indirectly belongs to the Christian Association of Nigeria, if you’re of the Pentecostal faith, you belong to the Pentecostal Fellowship, so where they stand is where I stand, you can’t do otherwise. ChurchGist. But much more than that we are first and foremost human and I think the fundamental principle that God put in place at creation is the respect for the dignity of every human.
I’m a human being before I belong to any ethnic group, before I belong to any religion. The fundamental principle for the dignity of every human which demands equity, fairness and sensitivity to everyone, I think is violated. So, it is not just that I’m a Christian or a Christian leader or that my Church is Pentecostal, but as a human being I feel traumatized by all that has been going on. ChurchGist. So, it is not just a matter of where I stand, I really feel traumatized and I must say without flattering that Arise Tv team, you’ve been on top of the situation and it has in a way given me some consolation because I follow every proceeding, you’ve really engaged the process very robustly without any sentiment. But you can see what is happening, if I may add; I think our politicians are so tactical, they are masters of the game of dribbling, manipulation and deception. ChurchGist. I believe this whole thing is a tactic/strategy to divert attention away from religion. Before the news of the running mate of the presidential candidate of the ruling party broke out, Asiwaju, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we were talking about the identity of the presidential candidate, we were talking about his certificates and the schools he claims to attend and one of my apostolic friends actually said to me: why is Nigeria’s politics and the issue of governance in Nigeria, why is it deteriorating below the level of demons because we have a story in Mark 5 where Jesus was casting out some demons and they said to Jesus, they said Jesus we know you; you’re the son of God then in Acts 19, Paul did some exploits but there were some sons of Sceva that tried to cast out demons too and the demon said before we respect you, before we obey your directives, before you can lead us to come out or not to come out, tell us your identity? Who are you? Jesus we know, Paul we know, so a friend of mine said; we now have people that want to govern us, we don’t know their background, we don’t know their school, it’s all controversy, but to put a wool on our face to divert our attention, they have now played up this politics of identity, they played up politics of exclusion.
So, I think is just the same old rigmarole and avoiding the real issue thereby taking everybody for granted, so it’s not just the credibility of the Christian community that has been insulted and I dare say, this is like adding salt to the injury, this is like trampling the electoral value of the Christian community, this is like saying to our face that we don’t matter, we don’t count and you don’t give a damn and when you did all your calculations and all your balancing, you realize that it’s not only that you have to satisfy that particular region of the country and a particular religion at the expense of fairness and justice, you’re playing it up to say that you regard, respect and adore these people more than us. ChurchGist. How do you want us to feel, you’re trampling on us and when we talk, you’ll say that we are being sensational, you call it primordail sentiment and all of that? Who started the whole primordail sentiment? Who started the whole sensationalism? It is the same politicians and we can’t go further, this whole issue is a question of bad leadership, but we have gone from bad leadership or maybe we started from lack of visionary leadership, then we graduated to bad leadership, now there is no leadership, there is no governance.
It is the current president of the ruling party that was packaged and sold to us, I have said this before, it was almost like forgery that was presented to us, it was packaged and they were saying he is an Ex-General, he will stop insecurity, he will fight corruption and part of the people that packaged him and sold him to us 2014/2015, is the current presidential candidate and we see all the failures; blood has been flowing, both the blood of Christians, non-Christians and Muslims, blood has been flowing, nobody is safe. Instead of coming to us to apologize.
It is the same president and the leader of APC that played this politics of religion, this politics of identity, this politics of exclusion because it started with all this lopsided appointment, this is the first time in the history of Nigeria politics that the National Chairman of INEC will come from the same region and the same religion as the president, even under the military regime it wasn’t so. ChurchGist. This is the first time the President of the Country is a Muslim and he’s from the north, the Senate President is a Muslim from the north, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is a Muslim. So, if you want to be of relevance under APC government you have to put on the cloth of Islamic religion, is that what you’re telling us? Yet you’re telling us that it doesn’t matter what we say and so on. So, Dr Reuben, Victoria Tundun, MKO Abiola and Rufai, I want to thank you; you’ve actually tried to placate my hurt, I’ve been deeply hurt, I feel very disappointed, I feel insulted, I thought we are going to one way or the other address issues.
What is Bola Ahmed Tinubu bringing to the table? We are all Lagosians, we see what He has done and what he has been doing, I have spoken to him one on one when he was a governor, I have respect for him, because I was writing for This Day then and there was an issue of a Church that was to be demolished then, I felt like it was not fair, it was Victory Christian Centre of Reverend Nkechi Iloputaife and I wrote to This Day and the then governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was humble enough to call me and he explained issues to me, he said I should come so that he will explain things to me, I said I don’t need to come, I was afraid as to whether I would be manipulated, but he explained to me and they stopped the demolition. ChurchGist. So, I believe he is somebody that has a listening ear and so on and so forth, he is married to a Christian that is a pastor, I respect that because that magnanimity and that liberal man that he is, I don’t know if I can allow my wife to belong to another religion or even to go to another Church. So, I respect him on many grounds.
But he is not just balancing the equation. Who will deliver more votes? Who is compatible with you? They just put aside the Owo massacre and so on, a Catholic priest is being kidnapped, people are seen in captivity, Christian girls are being kidnapped and are distributed as bounty, as a means of motivating the terrorists, Christian girls are seen in captivity, I don’t know if they take Muslim girls, all of these horrible things? ChurchGist. But who played up religion to the maximum, it is President Muhammad Buhari, everything rises and falls with leadership, in my village they say every story you tell, every folklore is on the tortoise head, the President is the tortoise in this matter, his lack of leadership, his lack of balance, his lack of sensitivity to every ethnic group and every religion and what he and Asiwaju, Ahmed Bola Tinubu were sensitive to and respected for in 2015, why should Tinubu not run with it? He said because of the figure.
Having seen the greatness of MKO Abiola, people should please stop comparing this thing with 1993, we did not have all these issues in 1993, none of them have the quality and the personality and the greatness that MKO Abiola had. ChurchGist. So, you can’t be comparing an apple to an orange, you can’t be comparing ordinary cocoyam and pounded yam in my place, it’s incomparable, we’ve moved far from there. But still, the polarization and the trampling of some regions by our president and you’re now showing us that from a region in the country you don’t have competent people, you don’t have intelligent people. Is it all about vote? Where is the place of principles? Where is the place of fairness and justice? I’m not speaking just as a Church leader, I convene Catalyst for Global Peace and Justice, but there can be no peace without justice.
The other time I was on your program, I was representing the Custodians of National Consent. As a person that represents custodians of national consent, I’ll feel like these people are acting as if there is no consent. So, the whole thing is very provocative. ChurchGist. I heard you and Rufai saying the other day! What is this? Before now the placeholder as the running mate to Asiwaju was also discovered that he couldn’t fill out his school and the certificate he has and when we are doing this, they will say it is primordail for us to be talking about religion and identity, they have played on the sensibility and the intelligence of Nigerians enough. I’m sorry if I’m a bit emotional.
INTERVIEWER (TUNDUN): Now you mentioned the electoral value of Christians that has really been dismissed in your view by this choice of Muslim-Muslim ticket. So, let’s talk about the electoral value of Christians. Sir, I’d like you to think of a hypothetical scenario. Can you imagine a Nigeria with a Christian-Christian ticket? I don’t think any of us can, but why can we not have a Christian-Christian ticket? Let’s talk about the issue underlying that and the constant message that has constantly been reinforced that Christians have less electoral value and I also want you to address how Christians should use their electoral value this time around, because we’re told that we are close to a 50-50 split in Nigeria between Muslims and Christians, that’s a huge chunk of the population that’s been dismissed in this way.
REVEREND AIYEDOGBON: That’s Correct, thank you so much Tundun. This is the real issue, it is not that they are lessening the value of Christian voters, they’re actually trampling on it. I am not a politician, but you don’t have to be a hunter before you can recognize animal footprints. When it comes to politics you don’t act like some people don’t matter and so on.
Now you asked a question, can I imagine a hypothetically scenario of a Christian-Christian ticket in a ruling party, I can tell you, many places will be burning by now, blood will be flowing because there are extremists on the other side of religion that are not tolerant at all, they’ve been impoverished, poverty has been weaponized and those people have been turned into weapons. So, they will just tell them, can you imagine, both the President and vice president of the next election will be a Christian, in fact they have decided that it will be so, before you know it, they will start burning and killing. ChurchGist. I lived in the north for almost 10 years, I know what we suffered and one of the northerners was addressing issue about Peter Obi recently, he said they have slapped them on the right, they’ve slapped them on the left they’ve no other cheek to turn because Jesus said turn the other cheek, he was saying the northerners are the most tolerant. I’m not taking away anything from that, but I can tell you, if there was an attempt by a ruling party to flaunt a Christian-Christian ticket, everywhere would have gone ablaze by now, this is the truth.
The point is that, what I don’t agree with some of my Church leaders, may be out of frustration they will say Christians waste your votes, if anyone comes with Muslim-Muslim ticket don’t vote for them and this and that, we can’t waste our vote, it is the only bullet we have to defend ourselves. This is the time for us to now deploy our votes and let them know that they have made a terrible mistake, we should make them pay heavily, a heavy tuition fee. Even though they call themselves experts, they call themselves the wisest and the best strategists. The Bible says in Job 5:12, that God frustrates the counsel of the crafty and their hand will not perform their enterprise. ChurchGist. We Christians, it’s not just about praying alone, we’ve been praying every night for 70 days and we will continue till after the election, I mean we mobilize hundreds of people by webinar, Nigerian in diaspora, we are praying but let’s use our vote to show them the value of our community as Christians because even when you capture slave and you’re torturing them and you put your leg on their neck, you can’t tell them not to cry. So, I’m advising Christians; not to waste their votes, let us deploy our votes strategically but also, it’s not a matter of ethnicity.
My issues with my friends that are on the Obident side is that, I don’t want you to make me feel that the reason you’re promoting him is because he’s from your ethnic group or whatever, I don’t play ethnicity and religion, I have voted for Yar’adua, I have voted for Muslims in the past, we voted for Fashola, we voted for Asiwaju himself and so on. The truth of the matter is that they are making a terrible mistake and we are determined, even if they win, we will keep putting fire under their feet.
By the way, Kazeem Shettima has a lot of bandits, they can be denying it now. There are leaked conversations he had with Amosun, it has been in circulation, I kept it since it was released after 2019 election, it wasn’t denied then, go and listen to the things he said there, against the South-East, against Christians, we know his antecedents, even as Governor of Borno and if any Christian leader will now begin to support Muslim-Muslim ticket we will suspect that you’ve been bought, because the reason they are treating us like this is because some of the Christian leaders that represented us have allowed greed to drive them, they have showed that they are cash and carry, they have a price, this time we will be on the watch, any Christian because they put something in your mouth and you can’t talk or you will pretend as if you don’t know what is happening and you’ll now start patronizing what is not tenable, we will now know that you don’t have the Spirit of God, let’s use our vote to show them our value.
INTERVIEWER (RUFAI): The decision has been made by the ruling party, there are many other parties. Nigerians still have a say in all of these, because they have the right to vote. But for the sake of study and education. I want to interrogate the empirical number behind the Christian vote, is it a viable number or is it that there is more dominance on the other side? Let’s interrogate that because in our analysis we also have to be empirical. So, let’s interrogate the Northern Christian vote, what is the electability of the northern Christian vote? What is it like?
REVEREND AIYEDOGBON: Thank you, I know that you guys are trying to make me less emotional and to address this calmly. So, let me tell myself to calm down. The issue you have raised is rooted in the fact that there has been an assumption which is an illusion, a fallacy and a delusion that Christians are a minority in the North, I started my mission work in Katsina, which is less than 2 hours to Daura, President Buhari’s hometown, these are places where we did practical mission work, in Jibia and other places in Taraba and outside Nigeria. If you tour the North the first thing you would notice is that they have made the South think that everybody in the North is Hausa. Now they started calling it Hausa-Fulani, there is nothing called Hausa-Fulani. ChurchGist. There are people in the South that buy the lies that everybody in the North is a Muslim, so you hear names like Yakubu, you think it’s Islamic, there are people bearing Islamic name that are not Muslim. ChurchGist. So, the first thing is that the whole analysis is based on a false premise and there has always been inflation of figure from pre-independence to post-independence, the population has always been manipulated, because the culture that says you can’t enter a married man house in the North and be counting his wife and children. So, when people come to count during the population census, somebody will just come out and tell you he has 12 wives and 70 children, you have no right to go in and verify, figures have always been inflated and the whole calculation is based on that false premise.
So, if we really interrogate that and subject it to forensic analysis, things will fall apart. Remember that politicians thrive on controversy, they thrive on manipulation, they thrive on deception and there are Northern intelligent elite that knows what we are saying, but it pays them to keep doing these things and impoverish those Northerners, the Children and the youth that are illiterate, they keep them like that and of course they’ll keep producing them and make them Almajiri, everything that Jonathan did to promote the human development dimension of Almajiri have been truncated and frustrated. Then they come out and say the North has the chunk, go and check the numbers, from Kogi to Kwara, everybody is Northerner. It is not true.
INTERVIEWER (RUFAI): That is why I’m asking this question, what is the empirical fact to back up your argument, that there is a mass Christian vote in the North? Because when the other side comes with their argument, they say they have majority of the vote, for example states like Kano will give you a sizeable number of votes, states like Katsina will give you a sizeable number of votes, state like Kaduna will give you a sizeable number of votes and they say it is all majority Muslim. So, that is the argument we’ve had over the years and that’s why I’m saying what is your own empirical fact on ground? As a Christian leader, you said you’ve stayed in the North for over 10 years, are there numbers or can I even say how many million Christians are there in the North of the voting population in the first place? It’s just for general education.
REVEREND AIYEDOGBON: Thank you Rufai. I left the North; Katsina and Kano in 1990. That was when I came to Lagos. I am not a Statistician, I don’t have the statistics and my Christian faith does not permit me to inflate just for argument’s sake. So, I can’t give figures in exactitude. ChurchGist. The point is this, I toured Kano and Katsina state and different parts of the North and I discovered there are different Christian communities, before I went to the North, I used to assume everybody is a Muslim but I’m saying the real figures have never been allowed to see the light of the day, from pre-independence to post-independence, even in every census. Now it has become more difficult to do a proper census and know our real population, we will just wake up and say we are 200 million, by next year people will start saying we are 215 million, nobody really has those details. So, I can’t give you the exact number.
Another point to note (I’m not shying away from your question) is that there have always been under age voters, go and check the last three or four elections in Kano and see the people that queued up, apart from inflating the vote and all of that. In Borno under Shettima, when almost all local governments had been taken over by Boko Haram and nobody could move and charity workers, volunteers and red cross workers were kidnapped and being killed, they delivered almost 100 per cent votes, millions of vote were turned out, the thing they say about the number they turn out for vote are all assumptions and manipulations, I’m not arguing the fact that they are not much in number. ChurchGist. There are more Muslims in the North than Christians but we really know the exact ratio, just like there are more Christians in the South than there are Muslims but you can’t also say the Muslim population in the South don’t matter, I grew up in a town in Kogi State where it was 50:50 in the town and nobody tried to manipulate the figure.
Rufai, maybe we now need to make this one of the major issues, when we now have a responsible leader, a responsible government, we may now be able to do our population count properly, there is no documentation, we are just operating and flying blindly. We can’t get the fact, that is why they can play the game they are playing.
INTERVIEWER (DR REUBEN): Pastor from what you’re saying, your position is clear, the position of the Christian Association of Nigeria is also clear, are we likely to see a situation whereby the leadership of the Church in Nigeria, will direct their members in the same manner in which many churches directed their congregation to go get their PVC? Are we likely going to have Church leaders in Nigeria directing their congregation not to vote APC or are we likely going to see a situation whereby the Christian Association of Nigeria will have audience with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, if he didn’t consult them previously but if he reaches out to the Christian community and say look you have nothing to fear, if I win this election, after all the campaign is not going to exclude Christians. What is likely going to happen?
REVEREND AIYEDOGBON: Thank you Dr Reuben. That raises another fundamental question, when Asiwaju said he was consulting and I even heard some of the APC stewards saying that he consulted both within the party and outside the party. The questions I’m asking is that were the Christian Association of Nigeria National Executives and other groups, were they consulted. ChurchGist. Do you know that for the first time the Catholic Bishops Conference also has taken a position on the basis of fairness and justice that they will not have this, they won’t support this? Were CAN and PFN consulted or are we treated like we don’t need to be consulted? Or because there are some few big men that they talked to in secret and they told them not to worry.
I have no record, whether from CAN or PFN, that have told me and I dare say, it’s a privilege that you brought me up to come and speak on behalf of the Christians, it’s not by merit, it is just by the mercy of God. So, I’m the least among Christian leaders, but if they have consulted CAN leadership and PFN leadership, in a way I’m significant enough in the Christian community in Nigeria to know, there has been no record that there has been such a consultation. ChurchGist. Even if the consultation starts now, it is medicine after death, so to get to your question it is not whether Christian Association of Nigeria or Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria will mobilize their members or we Christian leaders to vote against APC, we are already doing it, we are going to do it more and I’m saying to you. Some of us don’t care, if they think they have the rigging machinery, if they think they have captured everything. I don’t even know how independent INEC is anyway.
Okay we have succeeded in mobilizing and causing a Revolution for voters’ registration, get your PVC but you may hear that the people that got their PVC in a rush, they can’t find them online or somewhere, the card reader is not reading and all of that. So, they know what they are doing, they know that they don’t allow our vote to count, that is why they are confident in doing what they are doing, but we have decided this time, we would make rigging difficult for them, I was one of the electoral monitors in the last election, I was in the situation room and we are mobilizing more, my origination, Catalyst for Global Peace and Justice we are going to be in the frontline, the Custodian of National Conscience, PFN executives, CAN executives, I believe and trust the Catholic Bishops Conference, we will mobilize, we want then to pay a high tuition fee, whether they win or lose they will learn that you don’t trample on people because they are tolerant, you don’t trample on people because you have bought some few people that can compromise. ChurchGist. We are going to teach them a lesson. So, we are telling Christians, yes let us keep praying, that these people instead of them to alleviate our pain and the blood that has been flowing and many of our people that are in captivity, instead of alleviating it, they are exalting themselves and gaslighting us. We want to teach them a lesson, we are already mobilizing them, Dr Reuben this is to your question, we will mobilize, we will do everything within our power to frustrate them, even if some of us die in the process it is worth it.
The reason we are enjoying democracy now is it not because the great M K O Abiola gave his life for it and I’m glad anytime they are talking and making references about it. So, if some of us die in the process let it be, I don’t seek for any political office in CAN or PFN but the reason I fought for victory when Tinubu’s government wanted to demolish the Church, I said even if it is Celestial Church of Christ, because the name of Christ is there, I will fight it, if you kill me in the process, Jesus will say welcome and well-done. So, we are mobilizing and we will mobilize, except they engage us and convince us otherwise, not on TV and not showing some arrogance because you feel you are invisible, you don’t lose any battle, you don’t lose any election.
The article I wrote before Governor Tinubu was going for his second term is a battle Tinubu cannot win. ChurchGist. I said don’t think because you’ve won all the controversial battles and the scandal battles in your process of politics you now think you can take up on Churches, you can take up on anybody and you’re invisible.
Don’t allow the virus of Nebuchadnezzar that drove him to the wilderness for 7 years for him to learn that the most high is the one that rules in the affairs of men and gives it to whosoever he wishes. Daniel 4:17. Sometimes God sets on the affairs of men the lowest, the basest of men, it’s not always the best that sits there. But we are going to teach them a lesson.
DR REUBEN: We would like to thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you very much.
#MuslimMuslimAPCPresidentialTicket
#ReverentAbrahamSamAiyedogbon
#AriseTV
#ChurchGist
