‘Òjò ò B’ẹ́nìkan Ṣ’Ọ̀tá; Ẹni Ejí Rí L’Ejí Ńpa’, By Folabi Ogunleye

Lost in the miasma of fake sermonizing currently prevalent among Nigerian religious charlatans and their gullible following is the fact that the incumbent order of goverment leadership in Nigeria, which features a Muslo-Christian setting, has not prevented Christians or Moslems from being the recipient of sundry misfortunes or blessings, from security to economic. 

Lost on these folks is the lesson that when the rain falls, as the Yoruba adage quoted above goes, it beats everybody in the open plains.  

But the jaundice of bias will never let these ‘geniuses’ see beyond their noses. Rather, you’d see them pontificating and speechifying about the place, as if a sacred sacrament handed down by their God has been broken by the idea of a Moslem-Moslem ticket for president of Nigeria – as if there are no other political parties from which they can choose their preferred candidacy on the road to 2023. 

Of course it is self-evident that what tortures a majority of these pretend-lamentators is the fact that the jinx of religion in our leadership calculus is about to be broken again through a brilliant political masterstroke, much in the same way that it was last exposed for the claptrap that it was in June 1993, when late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola ran and won on a joint ticket with fellow Muslim, Babagana Kingibe. 

The choice of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu in Senator Kashim Shettima removes almost every fear or discomfort about the percieved weaknesses of a Tinubu Candidacy. This is given Shettima’s youth and vitality, as well as his experience as an executive governor and a federal lawmaker of repute, not to mention his well-acknowledged cerebral prowess. The choice in Shettima came to many of us as great relief! He is ready and able as a Number Two man to a possible ‘President Tinubu.’ 

This is not the case for those with weaker choices – including the main opposition party whose perennial candidate with little to show in terms of administrative successes or intellectual fortitude panicked when he saw that his political calculations had been roundly upstaged by Tinubu’s countermove to pick a Moslem from the same majority-Muslim region, who is far better experienced and mentally agile than the his own running mate.

This, and little else, is behind the ongoing hullaballoo about the choice of a Muslim-Mulslim candidate. The vast majority of Nigerians do not care about these things, especially given the urgencies that need to attend to many of the current challenges in the country. The few elitist yearnings that are loud and rude and obnoxious on social media and elitist circles offline hardly resonate with the more realistic masses in the streets. 

Every practical observer has a good idea of what the future leadership looks like already. The noises we hear are just desperate dramatics by those who have come unprepared to political battle, and are therefore throwing every spoon, fork and ‘ọmọrogùn’ in their disposal to halt the political war marchine of the Tinubu Powerhouse as it rolls ahead on the road to February 2023. 

-Ogunleye writes from New York