REVEALED: Jonathan’s friends aiding Buhari -By Suleiman Gaya

Nigeria’s presidential election is 46 days away. But one of the major tragedies facing the PDP candidate, incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan is that by their actions and overzealousness, many of his aides, friends and associates are doing a great disservice to him. Many of them still delude themselves that divisive utterances and manipulation of religion are going to serve as effective tools in 2015, as it did in 2011.

They do not seem to realise that Nigerians are now wiser, knowing very well that both Christians and Muslims bear the brunt of their leaders’ failings or incompetence. Muslims and Christians drive on the same bad Nigerian roads, buy from the same market, spend the same currency. There is no strong naira for Christians or weak one for Muslims.

Instead of presidential aides and associates of President Jonathan to market him as the leader that has made unprecedented strides in agriculture, or one that has enriched enrolment into basic schools from 23 million in 2010 to 29 million two years later, they are busy offending millions of northerners and Muslims and making them turn their backs on the President.

There are so many positives to market Jonathan with: In the first ever meeting I was privileged to have with the President in 2012, he felt offended when I told him, in response to a question he asked me, that I was an indigene of Kano State. He remarked that young men of my generation represent the best hope for this country, and that we should always look at ourselves first and foremost as Nigerians.

By invoking religion, trying desperately to paint General Muhammadu Buhari as a Muslim fundamentalist who is going to introduce Shari’a in all nooks and crannies of Nigeria, with a view to getting Christians to hate the man and vote against him, these supposed friends are making it look as if the President hasn’t achieved anything positive to market him with.

Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is a leader I hold in deep esteem. But I am getting more and more disappointed in him these days, owing to the way he goes about disparaging Islam in the way he hurls insults on Buhari, as well as abusing the Hausa-Fulani for the same reason. No Muslim worth the name, for example, will be happy with Fani-Kayode’s description of Buhari’s behaviour as belonging to the “6th century Saudi Arabia,” as he did in his article entitled: Questions Buhari Must Answer, published in his column in this newspaper on December 15th, instant.

Perhaps even worse is his quoting a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Bosun Emmanuel, whose sermon, as quoted by Fani-Kayode in his article entitled A word for Yemi Osinbajo, published on December 22nd, instant in this newspaper, as telling Christians not to have anything to do with Muslims. He quoted the pastor as saying, in his ‘famous sermon’ titled ‘The Nigerian Church’, that “woe be unto any believer who joins hands with the enemies of God in an attempt to bury the Church and destroy the gospel.”

He was, in that article, trying hard to paint the vice-presidential candidate of the APC, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, in dark light for accepting to play “second fiddle” to a man who is a “notorious troubler of the (Christian) faith.” He added an unfortunate clincher: “woe unto the children of light that secretly delight in darkness and that seek to thwart the counsel of God for their nation by joining hands with the sons of Boko and the daughters of Haram.”

I know the man is going to try to deny this or colour it in some other way, but the fact remains he has succeeded through these write-ups, among several others before then, to alienate Muslims and make them a subject of mockery by Christians. What the Fani-Kayode’s of this world don’t seem to know is that there are millions of Muslims out there that want to vote for Jonathan in the forthcoming presidential election, as they did in 2011.

Showing contempt for their religion could only make many of them change their minds. My senior colleague, Mr. Azubuike Ishiekwene, writing in his column, Conversation With Azu, published in Leadership newspaper of last Friday, quoted the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, a collection of the main conservative Christian churches, as planning a “52 weeks of all-round prayers for Nigeria,” which, very unfortunately, specifically includes praying to God “to upturn all plots by the All Progressives Congress if their hidden agenda is to Islamise Nigeria.”

The same group also wants God to “to purge corruption in the opposition,” conveniently ignoring the corrupt in government, whose actions are badly affecting tens of millions of downtrodden Christians, not just Muslims. But what do these people take their fellow Christian brethren for, people who cannot read between the lines and see this as a cheap, sad way of campaigning for President Jonathan? Do they think attacking Islam (though they hardly do so directly) is going to appeal to Muslims and make them re-elect the President? Can anyone between Jonathan and Buhari win the presidency with only the votes of members of his faith? We all know it isn’t possible for anyone, however powerful, to Islamise Nigeria, as falsely being peddled by some religious leaders.

But the consolation is that even among their flock, these leaders are fast losing respect, and it is the reason this time around, religion will not be manipulated to play such a significant factor in determining who wins next year’s presidential election. For me, a Hausa-Fulani Muslim, I feel very, very bad to see this going on as a campaign for any presidential candidate because many of us of my generation don’t even care whether the next president is a Christian or Muslim.

All we care about is the Nigerian leader that would deliver the goods – make this country a better place for all, irrespective of our diversity. And, I bet you, this belief is shared by the 75 percent of the Nigerian population that are under the age of 35, who are being denied legitimate opportunities just because they were not born with silver spoons in their mouths.

Similarly, it was totally uncouth for the PDP National Secretary to call General Buhari an illiterate jackboot, as he did lately, just because the man doesn’t hold a Ph.D, as Jonathan does. Does this man know that 80 percent of the over 67 million unemployed Nigerians (rated by the National Bureau of Statistics) do not have university degrees, and that he could incur their wraths by this reckless statement? And for those making the mistake of lumping all Muslim as Boko Haram, let them know that majority of us are guided by the Holy Qur’an and teachings of the great Prophet of universal peace and harmony, who freely told all Muslims, in a charter of privileges and rights he granted all Christians at Mount Sinai in 628 C.E., to fight for Christians.

He said, “the Christians are my citizens, and by Allah I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslim’s houses.

The Muslims are to fight for Christians. Their churches must be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants.” The Holy Prophet of Islam concluded the charter by directing all Muslims the worlds over to abide by this covenant till the Last Day (of judgement). A vast majority of those causing all sorts of trouble and drawbacks for this country are less than 3.5 percent of the population, those aged 65 and above, and many of them can be found around both Jonathan and Buhari, among Christians and Muslims.

The voices of Chief Tony Anenih (a Christian) and Alhaji Tanko Yakasai (a Muslim) were among the most hilarious in the effort to stop Jonathan from assuming the presidency in acting capacity in 2010 when President Yar’adua was terminally ill and the nation was tottering. Today, they are shockingly among the biggest beneficiaries and enforcers of the Jonathan Administration. In the same vein, one should not be surprised if Chief Edwin Clark or Asari Dakubo become kitchen cabinet members of a Buhari Administration.

It may sound impossible, but it is the way of our politicians. It is, therefore, up to such leaders of the young generation as Femi Fani- Kayode to lead in the crusade for peaceful, united Nigeria where Muslims and Christians have equal rights to prosper. In achieving that, they don’t have to lump up all Hausa-Fulanis and insult us as having the tendency of ‘born to rule’ or any such nomenclature. Personally, I don’t believe in it. It isn’t a workable idea. They should therefore tone down their divisive campaign. It is an evil wind that will blow no one no good, especially as Nigeria is bigger than both Jonathan and Buhari.