President Jonathan in search for divine intervention

by Olalekan Adetayo

Those who are spiritually inclined will tell you that the same way a bad situation requires prayers, so also a good situation deserves prayer. President Goodluck Jonathan may have taken a cue from that. He has since discovered that to shepherd the most populous African nation successfully, he needs the wisdom of the biblical Solomon that can only come through divine intervention.

He has not hidden his belief that the security situation in the country would have been worse but for the prayers of Nigerians. He has repeated this many times whenever he worships in any church outside the Aso Villa Chapel which is his official worship place.

Lately, the President has been appearing in churches outside the Villa, therefore fueling speculations that he is seeking votes from Christians (as if there is anything wrong in that).

Last weekend, Jonathan made surprise appearances in two popular churches in Lagos. He had penultimate Friday joined faithful at the February Holy Ghost Service of the Redeemed Christian Church of God at the church’s Redemption Camp located on the popular Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

The vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, is a pastor in that church and he was on hand to join the General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, to receive the august visitor.

The President told the large congregation that the purpose of his visit was to ask Christians not to relent in praying for peace to reign in the country, especially as the general elections approach. The President who flew into Lagos directly from his home state, Bayelsa, where he had taken part in the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential campaign rally, made it clear that he did not attend the church service for political reasons.

As customary of such visits, Adeboye led the congregation on a special prayer session for the President and by extension, the country.

A few hours after the end of that service, Jonathan again attended the monthly crusade of the Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Revival Ministries which has its headquarters in Ijesha, Lagos. He also thanked the congregation for their prayers.

He went a step further when he said but for the prayers of religious bodies the Boko Haram sect that restricted its activities to a portion of would have spread its activities to all parts of the country. He also did not forget to mention that he was not in the church to campaign.

“I will not say much because this is not a good period for those of us who are contesting for election to talk so much in church. I do not want to be accused of coming to campaign in churches because I believe that we should not campaign in churches. We may discuss with people but not use the platform of the church to campaign,” the President said.

Before last weekend’s church outings, Jonathan had in the last one month visited the Bishop David Oyedepo-led Living Faith Church Worldwide (a.k.a Winners Chapel) in Ota, Ogun State; and he had worshipped at the Dr. Paul Enenche-led Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Garki, Abuja.

The issue of his regular appearances at churches came up during the Wednesday special presidential media chat he hosted inside the Villa. The anchor, Adesuwa Onyenekwe, had demanded to know when the President would start attending functions inside mosques as he is currently doing in churches. Jonathan however explained that Vice President Namadi Sambo, being a Muslim, gets more invitations to mosques’ programmes while he gets those of churches.

Nobody has any reason to doubt the President that his purpose of visiting these churches is not to directly seek for worshippers’ votes, but it will also not be wrong to conclude that his visits are capable of swinging some votes to his advantage.

The churches so far visited by the President cannot by all standards be described as small churches. They are churches with large crowd at every service. So, crowd could have been one of the major factors that attracted Mr. President.

I am waiting for the President to prove me wrong by worshipping in one of the many churches with less than 50 worshippers per service that are not in short supply in all the major towns in the country. I am looking forward to worshiping with him in my local parish to prove this point. After all, members of big churches are not the only ones praying for the nation as the President said. We in small churches pray too.

Of poll shift, Jega’s removal and others

But for the last weekend’s rescheduling of the general elections, Nigerians would have by now started the process of voting for their preferred presidential candidates and National Assembly members. Those elections were initially scheduled for today.

Talks of possible postponement of the elections started with a submission made by the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), at a forum in London to the effect that he had advised the Independent National Electoral Commission to consider shifting the polls for at least six weeks to enable it to distribute more Permanent Voter Cards.

Immediately after the submission became a public knowledge, there were debates for and against the suggestion. Consultations were made at the highest levels of government and the commission. The rest, they say, is history.

Many who were disappointed by the poll shift have since lost confidence in the government, therefore making different postulations. There were reports that Jonathan would capitalise on the war in some parts of the country to seek a two-year tenure extension from the National Assembly. According to another report, the President had concluded plans that he would rather hand over to the military (I don’t know how possible or reasonable this is) than to hand over to his major contender and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari.

Another report that made headlines for the better part of the week was that the President would ask the INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to proceed on a three-month terminal leave to ensure that he does not preside over the elections that have been rescheduled for March 28 and April 11. The strategy, it was widely reported, was to ease out the INEC boss and pave the way for the emergence of a more friendly chairman who will do the President’s bidding during the election.

All these reports were debunked by Jonathan during a special presidential media chat he hosted on Wednesday evening. I guess that chat was organised specifically for that purpose so that Nigerians and concerned friends of the nation could hear directly from him rather than relying on what his aides have been saying on the matter.

I think Nigerians can now relax. The President has spoken. He had assured us that the rescheduled elections would hold; he had said he would not sack Jega irrespective of whatever the Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark and his co-travellers will say; and above all, he had promised he would relinquish power to the winner (not the military) in the event that he loses the elections.

Let us therefore give this our leader the benefit of doubt for once!

- This Piece was written by Olalekan Adetayo/Punch