The time requires men fit for the season. Men seasoned in truth, honesty and devoid of political correctness. Nigeria, especially those from the Middle Belt, are in need of prophets in the mould of Elijah that would tell bare faced truth to President Muhammadu Buhari.
It is no longer a matter of debate that Buhari suffers from a serious malady of ethnicity and religious zealotry. He is like Hamlet in Shakespeare’ book by that very title.
Buhari has contradicted every adjective that was used to describe him by those who sold him to Nigerians during the 2015 general elections. Like Hamlet, he has demonstrated how conflicted he is. On May 29, 2015, Buhari showed that he could be rational, but after that day, he has shown a serious predisposition to ethnic madness.
I had to lay the basis upon which one has to view Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, who is not only a ‘prophet’ of God, but weaned in the best tradition of civility and accommodation of different philosophies.
It is therefore disturbing when the vice president on Sunday, January 7, 2018 stood truth on the head, waxed overly politically correct and more or less, spat on the graves of those who were butchered in the most senseless manner by Fulani herdsmen on the Benue Valley during the Armed Forces Remembrance Day church service in Abuja.
While it was proper of Prof. Osinabjo to ask those pillaged and raped by the amoral herdsmen not to seek vengeance, he failed woefully to call evil by its name. The vice president mentioned Rivers, Ogun, Lagos, Boko Haram, badoo, cultists and their likes, he failed to specifically mentioned states that have witnessed horrendous and primitive attacks of herdsmen like Benue, Southern Kaduna and Taraba states.
Does this not show that Osinbajo, an ordained senior pastor, is unlike Prophet Elijah? Can one safely request that he removes his pastoral cloak and become the politician he is meant to be?
If a man called to the altar of God, to be an apostle of fearlessness, truth and justice, can shirk these godly virtues, what should we expect of those without the fear and call of God?
Mr. Vice President, were it not better to have stayed away from the subject than to like Brutus to Caesar, thrust the dagger in an unkindest cut?
In another instance, the vice president said; “We must not permit the politicisation of this tragedy. One of the reasons why for years Boko Haram strife was because of the politicisation of the insurgency. They were those who were planning to benefit politically from the tragedy and the painted the opposition then as the perpetrator.
“Our obligation is to stop them from playing dangerous politics that could threaten our unity and stability, just as we continue to enforce the peace in the troubled area.”
How uncharitable can a man be! Sir, the regime you serve is the one that has politcised the heinous crimes on the Benue Valley like it did with Boko Haram. The obvious inaction and baffling inertia of President Buhari is a testimony to the politicization of the near-genocide in not only Benue, but across the predominately Christian Middle Belt.
The Federal Government has at its disposal the might of legitimate force, it has shirked from undertaking this constitutional guarantee while mad herdsmen run amock raping, pillaging and sacking entire communities in Benue and elsewhere.
Mr. Vice President, let me refresh you mind of the immortal words of John Lathrop, a pastor like you, in his sermon, ‘Innocent blood crying to God from the streets of Boston,’ on March 6, 1770.
Pastor Lathrop was compelled by the horrid murder of Messieurs Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, and several others badly wounded, by troops under the command of Captain Preston to ignore the foibles of power, and speak the truth.
Quoting Genesis III. 10: “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground,” Lathrop went on; “The unparallelled barbarity of those who were lately guilty of murdering a number of our innocent fellow-citizens will never be forgot.
“Future generations will read the account with sorrow, indignation and surprise: sorrow for the dead, who sell victims to the merciless rage of wicked men: indignation against the worst of murderers; and surprise that any rational beings could be so destitute of every human feeling, as wantonly to destroy those who never did, or thought of doing them any hurt.
“I pray God we may never behold a like appearance on a like pretence! It is time for that magistrate to resign, who cannot depend on the assistance of his neighbours and fellow-citizens in the administration of justice. And that government which rejecting the foundation of the law, would establish itself by the sword, the sooner it falls to the ground the better, that in its stead another might be established, more agreeable to the nature of man, and consistent with the great ends of society.”
Mr. Vice President, you are a man of letters, therefore, given to understanding, so let Heaven judge!
Ogbeche is the editor of Abuja Enquirer and the NUJ chairman, FCT.
