APC Muslim-Muslim Presidential Ticket: An Arrogant Strategy To Outmuscle Christianity In Nigeria.
The Oasis Reporters
July 17, 2022
By Sir Don Ubani; KSC, JP
Okwubunka of Asa Gburugburu and Oke Amadi Nd’Asa.
Two amongst prominent religions of the world, Christianity and Islam, are genealogically traced to the Jews of Middle-East and Arabs of the same Middle-East.
While Christianity is said to have originated from Jesus Christ, a descendant of Jacob, a Jew, a grandson of Abraham and second son of Isaac who later became Isreal, Islam is said to have been founded by Prophet Mohammed, a descendant of Ishmael. Both Jacob and Ishmael are descendants of Abraham.
While the Children of Jacob are the Jews of today, those of Ishmael are believed to be the Arabs of the contemporary world.
Christianity sprang up in Judea in 1st Century CE immediately after the death of Jesus Christ while Islam was founded in the 7th Century of the Common Era.
Through Trans-Saharan trade and commercial activities, the Arabs who traded with Kanem and Bornu traders brought Islam to Kamen-Bornu Empire about 11th and 12th Century CE.
On the other hand, Christianity found its way to Nigeria in 15th Century CE, through Augustinian and Capuchin Monks from Portugal who came in through the Benin River, made contacts with the Itsekiris and settled in Warri.
It was, however, only in 1842 that Christianity was able to properly establish its presence in Nigeria when the Church Mission of England built its first Church in Badagry by Henry Townsend.
Islam in Nigeria from the Kamen-Bornu Empire had peacefully spread up to Hausa Kingdoms of Gobir, Kebbi, Katsina, Zaria, Bauchi and Kano before the migration of a fulani Islamist Preacher from Futa Djallon in Guinea; Usman Dan Fodioyo, to the Kingdom of Gobir about 1800 CE. It was Usman Dan Fodioyo that introduced violence in conversion of non-adherents to Islam.
He hid under the camouflage of Islamist Jihad to fight and conquer Hausa Kingdoms of Northern Nigeria as to take over total control the people’s economy.
On its own, Christianity did not adopt violence as its method of spread. It was rather by evangelism and persuasion. It has always been a religion of peace.
Meanwhile, having conquered the Hausa Kingdoms and even Ilorin which traditionally and historically was Yoruba because of the recklessness of General Afonja, Usman Dan Fodioyo then had the audacity to feel he could conquer the whole of Nigeria.
Unfortunately for him, he was defeated during his expedition to Oyo Empire and, as severally told, he received an arrow shot in Tiv Land that incapacitated him and eventually led to his death on 20th April, 1817.
Even though he died without accomplishing his ulterior motive of islamizing the Nigerian State, his descendants have never relented in pursuit of that ignoble and primitive agenda.
Late Premier of defunct Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was boastfully immersed in that inordinate ambition.
President Muhammadu Buhari has gone beyond constitutional decency and sanity to ‘conquer Nigeria religiously as to enthrone Islam as the only religion in Nigeria. Under his watch, Christians have continued to be killed, without any iota of check, by his fulani kinsmen.
His Political Party, All Progressives Congress, APC, has never condemned mass killings of Nigerian ancestral Christians going on in Nigeria.
President Muhammadu Buhari and his APC are working heartlessly ceaselessly to make sure what happened to Christianity in Turkey happens to it in Nigeria.
Unfortunately for Christians, Islamist irredentists in Nigeria know that many Nigerian Christian Leaders are so gullible and materialistic that what matters to them is assurance and protection of their selfish parochial personal interest. Give a Christian Leader an opportunity to buy a Private Jet, he will tell you ‘to hell with your Christianity’.
Islamist jingoists in top echelon of Nigerian Government use every means available to cajole Christians to work against their own faith.
In 2015, Major-General Buhari avoided having Alhaji Ahmed Bola Tinubu, a Moslem, as his running mate. Since he was not the President then, he cleverly avoided anything that could constitute a stumbling block on his way to the Presidency. He, therefore, used Professor Yemi Osibanjo as his running mate. Even at that, Christian-dominated zones of the country became APC’s bloodbath day in day out. Vice President Osibanjo could not muster the guts to raise a voice against wanton killing of Christians in any meeting of the Federal Executive Council.
Who would blame him? By being subservient, he had erroneously thought he would be considered President Buhari’s successor. That ambition, at the expense of his fellow Christians, was like hitting his head against a brick wall.
Fast forward to 2022, Major-General Buhari driven by what he overestimates as powers of his Presidency, has now emboldened Alhaji Ahmed Bola Tinubu to pick a Moslem from the North-East, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, as his running mate. By so doing, Islamist jingoists in Nigeria have bluntly told Christians to their face that they are not worth any consideration.
As long as Major-General Buhari is concerned, Christians have no sensibilities to be sensitive to. Their choice of a southern Moslem in the person of Alhaji Tinubu to prosecute the Islamization agenda is well made. Alhaji Tinubu is voraciously in charge of the affairs of Lagos State, where he plants his lackeys as Governors and who, through his Alfa Beta conduit pipe, siphon almost all money accruable to Lagos State to his Bullion Vans. He has, unknown to many, introduced Sharia law in the judicial system of Lagos State. Already, there are cases of people being, in accordance with Islamic law, stoned to death and physically burnt in Lagos State.
Alhaji Tinubu tries to deceive Christians by making references to his marriage to a Christian Pastor. He only did what Islam encourages as a subterfuge to decimate Christianity. While Islam encourages a male Moslem to marry a female Christian, no Moslem female is allowed to marry a Christian Man.
APC Muslim-Muslim Presidential Ticket is anchored on Moslems’ belief that Christians will always be ready, due to avarice, to show indifference even to major existential threats to their faith.
To buttress the fact that Major-General Buhari and APC leaders have no regard, whatsoever, for Christians in Nigeria, they opted for Shettima , a Man that is strongly believed to have many unanswered questions concerning Boko Haram invasion of Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok where many Christian female Students were inexplicably abducted in 2014 while he was Governor of Borno State.
Any day Christians in Nigeria rise to the consciousness of their slavish plight in Nigeria and vehemently decide to protect their faith, doing away with greed and avarice, that is the day their subjugation to slavery will stop.
Come to think of it, who says that Moslems are more in number in Nigeria than Christians. Not minding that the APC Federal Government of Major-General Buhari unlawfully flung northern borders of Nigeria porously and dangerously open to all manner of Fulani from the Sahel, if a technologically-guided Population Census is conducted in Nigeria, it would be obvious that Christians are not numerically inferior to Moslems in Nigeria.
It is, therefore, imperative that Christians should arouse in themselves the consciousness of protection and projection of their Faith. Let us say no to Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State and writes from Asa.
