By Kassim Afegbua
I have repeatedly opined unequivocally and with conviction too, that Peter Obi, despite all the razzmatazz, would have been a calamitous president for a nation with several pluralistic realities. In the recently leaked audio, Obi’s alleged telephone conversation with Bishop David Oyedepo is another teaser to the several invidious plots that propelled Obi’s political ascendancy; taking it to the hilt. I thank God he didn’t win. He would have polarised Nigeria’s religiosity to an abysmal depth of crass intolerance. Just imagine the leaked audio, and what Obi was heard saying: declaring that the 2023 election was a religious war, and that Bishop Oyedepo should talk to Christians in Niger, Kwara, and Kogi to endorse his aspiration, some kind of profiling. He also informed his “yes daddy” choir master that his visit to Offa was an eye opener because it was the first time a presidential candidate was campaigning in that ancient town. That is Obi for you. He bungled his opportunity by his hare-brained clutch at the Christian faith to sail through the turbulent waters of politics. Going by the concerns he expressed in that leaked audio, I wonder why Obi is trying to present a scenario of victory to his jaded supporters; if/when he knew there was problem for which he sought the intervention of David Oyedepo
Peter Obi is surely a dangerous politician of the desperate sort. He included in his armament, the strong sword of religion, wore the garment of his pastoralism, pretentiously galvanised Christians to support him by attending their church programmes, shrouded in deceit, and poured unholy sacraments on the pulpit of his political infamy, just to garner votes. He murdered sleep in the Cathedrals; he cajoled the people into thinking they were fighting a religious war, with him as the avenger, against the muslim-muslim ticket of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. At some point even, he declared that “Christians must take back their country”. Each time this man was caught dipping his hands into “the pot of soup” for a piece of Christian meat, he rebuffed it, saying that APC was at work. Even when he was caught on video saying christians should take back their country, Obi denied it. This latest leaked audio is the last script of a religion-motivated campaign to undercut the Tinubu/Shettima influence of same faith ticket. Within the APC, Babachir Lawal exited, Daniel Bwala exited, Yakubu Dogara also found his exit; all three of them displaying bigotry of unprecedented proportions. At the end of the day, they all lost in their polling units and wards; they were unable to make any meaningful impact in the elections. They were poorly advised. Rather than allow the Baals to fend for themselves, they chose to be the armour bearers of impuissant gods that cannot alter the trajectory of providence.
Peter Obi comes across easily, as an innocuous politician; with an uncanny voice that would seem hard pressed to melt ice cream, beneath his subliminal humility, lies a dangerous being of pro-christian pre-occupation. That leaked audio spoke volumes of the tapestry of his religious campaign, morphed into catchy slogans among his prophets of doom, whose prophesies buoyed Obi’s hope of victory at the polls. From one church to another, prophesies were being churned out like tributaries coursing their way to Peter Obi’s rivers of faith. The prophets and their prophesies suddenly became the end product of pollsters, who predicted Obi’s victory. Some of the pastors exposed their dubiety and notoriety, as they unveiled dual personality, and fed their spirituality with the blood of mamons, giving bigoted directives to their hapless congregants on the man they should vote for. Bishop David Oyedepo, has just announced that he has never campaigned for any politician in all his life. What then should we call what we heard him say in the leaked audio about unleashing a message at the eleventh hour to prevent any further response or damage control? A political tragedy of the unclean hands? When a supposed man of God is caught pants down, he resorts to murmurs and stammers and incoherent words that are understood by him alone; but we all know he has told a lie.
When a supposed man of God resorts to lying, he ridicules the temple of God and subjects the whole concept of the Trinity to questionable concept. We all saw Obi’s campaigns using ethnicity and religious bigotry as its foundation. From one church hall to another, Obi became the subject-matter and pre-occupation of the pastors and priests. He feasted on their bigotry, fed their ignorance, deployed his cunning voice, and confused his Christian audience, with poisoned imaginations of a phantom religious war, that existed only in his dream world. The Hallowed Chambers of churches where Holy Communion is fed to their faithfuls, became a nest of bigotry. The priests, the falconers and their congregants, became guinea pigs that were used to test the efficacy of Obi’s amulets, as he prepared for battle in his religious war across the country. The priests, wearing cassocks of deceit, overfed with lies from the pit of hell, made prophesies upon prophesies that had no scriptural backing, just to sell Obi’s candidature. When he travelled to any state, he visited the Christian stronghold. In Kano, he campaigned only in Sabon-gari, in Adamawa, he campaigned in the Christian stronghold, ditto for Bauchi, Borno, Kwara, Kogi, and Niger, to mention a few. He had Igbo coordinators in some states of the North, doing the job of canvassing for votes for him. That singular action was an eloquent testimony of Obi’s tribalism and parochialism.
Obi’s approach and his prediction about the election was a wrong-headed one. He had thought that if he got 90% of the votes from the churches, added to majority votes from his native south-east conclave, the election would then have been won and lost. His prediction soon became his predicament, and his predicament was his prediction; it was faulty from the onset. He didn’t know that it is not so much of the number of people chorusing Halleluya that matters, but the anointing of those shouting hallelujah. As Obi complains of being rigged out, does it mean that his prophets who claimed they were speaking from Godly ranks, didn’t see that the elections would be rigged? I take Father Mbaka’s public apology to his congregants as the desired therapy to heal their wounds. Father Mbaka’s apology resonated much meaning with me; not Bishop Oyedepo’s bogus sanctimony. By Oyedepo saying that he has never campaigned for any politician in his life, he bids us to believe that Peter Obi has worn only one particular wristwatch all his life! These are lies that technological memories have debunked. To think that it is Oyedepo that is making such a claim, is to understand why the society has lost its moral compass and morality. Unfortunate! God have mercy.
Peter Obi, aka Yes Daddy, please take home this golden advice: you need to seek for forgiveness from God for misleading your blind followers and members of your Obi-dients movement. Not only have you broken the spinal chord of religious harmony in Nigeria, your conduct has besmirched it with thorough disdain also. In a secular country like Nigeria, the danger of your political story, told from the binoculars of ethnicity and religion, would be quite injurious to the psyche of the citizenry. Because God sees the hearts of men, he did not allow you win. He, the all seeing, ridiculed and disgraced your fake prophets and priests, who were making fake predictions at the speed of light; those priests and prophets, who desecrated the Hallowed Sanctuary, and delved into the world of politics, just like you, need to seek penitence and God’s forgiveness. They behaved like bad politicians, and played to the gallery. Their insincerity impacted and morality were made bare. They used their right hands to ask for blessings, and then threw the blessings away with their left hands. Only God truly knows those who worship him. But to measure the mightiness of their god by the indecent conduct of those political pastors and priests, is to understand the rationale for fake and empty prophecies. God is awesome and unequivocal. If Peter Obi had won the election, with this mindset that has exposed his bigotry and tribalism, Nigeria would have broken its national vertebrae. Now, I understand why Tinubu’s victory cuts across the country; Christians and Muslims alike, are all too eager to see the dawn of a new era. Peter Obi, yes daddy, there is no religious war anywhere in Nigeria; it exists only in your mind.
Afegbua is a public affairs analyst
