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Carol Service: Obasanjo’s Bitter Pill-Third Term Agenda Nose Dives! By D .E. Inyang-Mbekwe
I called in to see a friend on Sunday 18, 2005, but was told he is not around and was offered the option of waiting for him in his parlour. I had hardly settled down when I notice this man in white cassock on TV. “Is this Mbang again? He is no longer the CAN president… But he dose not sound like him” I mumbled to myself. I tried turning my mind off the TV to reflect on the latest national tragedy – Sosoliso and how callous policemen could “tear-gas” and manhandle these weeping mothers protesting the avoidable loss of their children. May the souls of these avoidable crash victims continue to hunt those that could have acted to forestall the incessant crash we have recorded from October till now!
The only occupant in the palour seams to be excited and focused on the TV and even excitedly saying “Obasanjo is in this service oh! ”. I gave the TV a glance again and I could notice it was the NTA/FRCN live broadcast of the Carol Service. “What good comes out of Babylon?” I muttered to myself again, after all Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr. Frank Nweke Jnr, in his frankness rightly acknowledge that the public believe more in news emanating from private TV station than NTA and promised to do something to reverse the trend. “Could it be that Frank Nweke Jr has achieved this feet? That someone could be this excited about NTA?”
In no time I gave the TV attention, when it became very obvious that this reverend was getting thunderous ovation from his congregation. “What is the matter?” this reverend was bubbling with the kind of spirit that is different from that of Mbang during his years as a CAN helmsman! He seams to be an oracle, speaking the pains of a nation without “cloud of allegories”. He was current and straight to the point and had the brass neck to tell or remind Obasonjo some gospel truth. This kind of sermon would have earned him an Atiku’s kind of treatment if he were a politician. As he rolled out the people’s verdict the congregation echoed and re-echoed with thunderous applause and approval. I then ask my host who the clergy was, he said: “Catholic Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja”. I started wondering why he was dressed like Mbang and not like Olubumi Okogie.
The clergyman spoke eloquently of successful election in Liberia and Tanzania and asked government to ensure that 2003 election is not repeated; quite unlike a thing Mbang will say then as CAN president. He insisted the President should not join the arrays of African leaders known for sit-tight syndrome .The echo in the congregation was deafening and I doubt if the President, Prof Jerry Gana and other bootlickers took good note, that the third term project is not acceptable to the church and even courageous Muslim clergy has come out against it .The outright rape on the constitution as presently plan will only lay the template for future leaders to change the constitution to suit their whims.
To insist on third term will be preparing to throw the country into avoidable “political pogrom”. The next generation in line to take over the leadership of the country will be phase out .The pressure that will be generated politically as people try to undo themselves to ascend on the political ladder will find expression in social vices like assassination, rigging and political violence at a scale that has not been witnessed by the country. The ease with which power was seeded to the South would have been ruptured and that will greatly affect future political understanding between the northern and southern part of the country. Only a smooth power shift process to the North in 2007 can guarantee the culture of power shift in our polity until a time we have come to terms with the reality of election beyond geo-political sentiments.
As this silver-tongued cleric rounded up his sermon I am sure the President and his co-travelers in the third term project would take note of the mood and approval for position converse by the clergy as reflective of that of the nation. If Obasanjo prides himself as someone who willingly handed over power to the civilian in 1979, he should not squander whatever is remaining of that credibility no matter the watertight arrangement that is on ground to make the whole third term project a “fait accompli.”
To tone down the ecstasy that greeted the fecund sermon, trust the president’s men, they rose to the occasion. First on the line of defense was the Director General of NTA, Dr Tony Ireadia. As he mounted the rostrum he quickly reminded the congregation that the only surviving victim of the sosoliso crash is recuperating. Before you say Jack Robinson trust him, we were already being told the president fast with Muslims. If that was not good enough he quickly draw the lesson of coexistence from there- no one in the church is oppose to coexistence. Then the former (permanent) minister of information Prof Jerry Gana, now a Special Adviser took his turn.
As the service came to an end trust “Baba” looking unruffled though speechless, made a see-me-later sign to the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Dr. John Onaiyekan. Our hope is that Baba will take this as Saul (later call Apostle Paul), Damascus experience –and change his mind about going ahead with the third term just like the bible told us that Saul on his way to persecute Christian, saw the light and change to be a Christian. I doubt if he will change his mind, he hardly dose-the “Conqueror of Biafra” see everything as war that he has always won. Why must he make a see-me-later sign to the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja? We are watching and hope the Archbishop will not start talking like Charles Ugwuh of MAN or Orkuma Hembe of NANS after seeing the president. |