INTRODUCTION
In Nigeria today, it has become quite pronounced that there is a gradual and progressive plan to marginalize a section of the country along religious lines and the plain sectors to be unfolding steadily especially with the coming to power of the current administration.
COUNTDOWN has over the past 20 years gone around the Northern region of the country to ask for the perception of Northern Christian Elders on this issue and just to refresh our minds in order to brazen up to properly reverse the development, we bring you the responses and action plan as revealed by an elder statesman, Josiah Idowu-Fearon General Secretary at the Anglican Communion Secretariat, Cantebury, Most Reverend Josiah Idowu-Fearon (AKA Mr. Dialogue) as follows:
COUNTDOWN: What is your comment in response to utterances
from certain quarters on the ALLEDGED attempts by some people to Islamise Northern Nigeria, or maybe even the whole of Nigeria, especially by the
Hausa/Fulani Oligarchy? There have been utterances from people, insinuating
that the struggle for the Office of the President is divided along
ethno-religious lines. What is your opinion on that?
BISHOP: About 18 months ago (as of August 2013), I
wrote an article, Daily Trust carried it, New Nigerian carried it, The Guardian
also carried it, where I asked two questions:
1. “The Christians who are spreading a theory which I call ‘Conspiracy Theory,’ that the Muslims want to Islamise the country, where is the evidence? In fact, I was speaking to the situation in the Plateau, where is the evidence that the Hausa/Fulani want to Islamise, in fact, they said Plateau and then the entire country. I said, ‘Where is the evidence? And I asked the Hausa/Fulani, you people who are saying that the Christians want to drive you away from the Plateau, where is the evidence? I am still waiting for the answer. That is number one. My brothers and sisters, I’m a Christian and I live by Kingdom principles, I have the Great Commission. Jesus says, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Word” He says…, “…you are my witnesses”. And everything I do, my speeches, in my writings, in my actions, I keep to this Great Commission. I have a Special Commission to witness to the Muslim world. Nobody can take that away from me. It’s a conviction, and it didn’t just come, it’s a cycle. So, I want as many people as possible in this country, especially in the North, because this is my part of the country.
I want as many as possible to become
Christians. Am I therefore right to say Muslims should not have the same
ambition? This is the way I look at it, you see, we need to be very careful as
Northern Christians and Muslims. The ambition of the three of you here (the
Countdown Team) is to have more Christians which is my own ambition; it is the ambition of Muslims too. So, it is
not in casting aspersion at somebody else’ religion that will make the person
who does not belong to your religion to belong to your religion. So, it’s a
conspiracy theory.
Based on our Scriptures, “Go ye into all the world…” I
always say it to my Muslim friends, ‘my joy is for you to become a Christian,
and they also say “kai, you will be a big catch for us, we too we want you to
become a Muslim.” We joke about it but I
know deep down in my heart, I want all Nigerians to become Christians. But I
cannot convert any of them, it is God who does it. So, when we begin to use what
God has given us, to cause disintegration, disaffection and disunity within our
community, that is why the North is not making any progress.
I’ve been hearing so much about, ‘Kano is not safe’, ‘Jigawa
is not safe’. With a Muslim friend, I went to Kazaure and we visited the Emir,
we had dinner and we chatted. At 10 O’Clock, my friend said we should go to
Daura. I’m telling you, we drove, it’s about 25-30 minutes. We got to Daura at
about 10 past 11 pm. We met his friend, we chatted, and quarter to midnight, we
were on our way back to Kazaure. Nobody, only the Vigilante people stopped us.
“Yaya, ba damuwa ko? Peaceful! But what you hear, especially people from the
south, even when they come to Kaduna, they say, “you mean this place is as
great as this? There is peace, but unfortunately, we are allowing some people to
come between us to say the Christians are planning this, the Muslims are
planning that, and that is our problem. And as you said in your question, I want to
ask you too, why do you want the President to be a Christian? Just as I ask the
Muslims why will you always want the President to be a Muslim? It is because of
what comes in with the office. Yes, that is it, it is our problem.
COUNTDOWN (cuts in) It all boils down to corruption.
BISHOP: Of course, some of us believe, even those of
us who are not ordained, believe that we put the President there, so they can
call the President and say ‘oga sir, the people want to do this in one church,
what is that? Let God fight His battle, because if he’s not there tomorrow,
what will you do? You see, this is the illogical calculation of those people
who like it that way. Today, we say President Goodluck is a Christian, if he
begins to pamper Christians, when he is not there tomorrow and you have a
Muslim, we will not be able to go to him. But Goodluck Jonathan is not a
President for Christians, he is a President of Nigeria, where you have
traditional Worshippers, you have Muslims, you have Christians. He is a President,
that is my take. And until we begin to reason along this line, it means when we
have a Muslim, Islam will grow, when you have a Christian, Christianity will
grow. Haba, you can’t run a country like that, that is why we are not making
any progress. And it is corruption we are building, that is, when we start
building big, big churches, we start buying expensive cars beyond our power to
afford. Most of the church leaders today are riding in jeeps, even some with
aircrafts. If it is because the President is a Christian, It’s not right, we
cannot run our nation like that and that is why, I’m against it, and that is
why I’m not popular.
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