A Season of Political Sentiments

Notes for File

In this season, Nigeria is neck-deep in all manner of lies to hoodwink the electorate, and sentiments overriding common sense. This is the signal that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council gave last week when its spokesperson, Festus Keyamo, warned pastors to stop dabbling into politics.

The Deputy National Secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), David Bakare, in an interview, had said the group has no affiliation with members of the Pentecostal Bishops Forum of Northern Nigeria who recently met with Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate. The PFN also declared that its opposition to the Muslim-Muslim ticket peddled by the APC remains unchanged.

But speaking during an interview on national television, Keyamo said the PFN has no right to criticise the decisions of the ruling party. He questioned the right of the PFN to question the decision of APC publicly. The minister said the purpose of pastors or their duty is to lead people to heaven not to lead people to the presidential villa.

 While many feel that Keyamo may have a point, others argue that he needs to properly interrogate why the church is showing interest in who becomes the President of Nigeria. The reason is purely based on poor governance. Hence, many people are turning to the church for succour. Upon carrying the burden of filling the gap, this is inadvertently telling on it.

Keyamo cannot be oblivious of the fact that the church is not only focusing on its duty of leading people to heaven, but putting food on their tables, providing jobs, paying for school fees, and house rents for millions of Nigerians, a burden the people are supposed to carry themselves if there was good government. In short, the church has metamorphosed into the citizens’ welfare entity. These provisions are burdensome to the church, to the extent that they want good leadership for them to concentrate on their core mandate.

So, why should the church not be interested in who governs the people? Is it not because governments have failed that people turn to church for survival?