AN EPISTLE TO THE RELIGIOUS BIGOTS ON 2015 GENERAL ELECTIONS
I greet you all in the name of LORD.
Let me also use this medium to welcome you into year
2015, a very essential year where the nation will decide on the leadership that
will take charge of the treasury and policy for the next 4 years. The eligible
voters will decide the kind of leaders that will be in charge of the affairs of
the country's wealth.
Nigeria - A country we can truly call our own, the
country of good people great Nation, but unfortunately the “great people” still
base their judgement and preference of candidate on religion sentiment. Using the word of Pastor Gabriel Olalekan
Popoola of Living Faith Church, “Politicians’ desperate appeals to religion are
as sort of last line of hope when confronted with firm failure is at once
ubiquitous in nature and repetitive historically. Ordinarily politicians ought
not to be thugs and rogues; they ought to be leaders chosen by the larger
society to administer the land on behalf of all members of the given society.
The constitution and other extant laws of the land make that otherwise
difficult administrative job a very easy one. Unfortunately, as event have
revealed over the years, particular in our nation Nigeria, politicians, because
of their materialism and acquisitiveness, are more of problem-creators than
problem-solvers. They fail again and again where they should have succeeded;
they steal where they should have not stolen; they lie where simple truth
should have been told; and they deceive where acting in a straightforward
manner would have sufficed. This is the tragic situation of our shameless and
dishonourable politicians in Nigeria. Then when it becomes certain that the
failed leader is about to be thrown out of office, having incurred the
justifiable anger of the electorate, he suddenly begins to appeal to religion.
He claim that he is a Christian or Muslim; he openly identifies with some
religious leaders of his proclaim faith, and in turn, expects all adherents of
the faith he bogusly lays claim to, to support him. And this is just for
political benefit.”
This is the
kind of politics we practice in Nigeria, politics base on religion sentiment.
No wonder why Karl Marx explains religion as an expression of material
realities and economic injustice. The problems in religion are ultimately
problems in society like that of Nigeria. Religion is not really the disease,
but merely a symptom. It is used by oppressor to make people feel better about
distress they experience due to the economic hardship and being exploited by
some selfish people. This is the Origin of Karl’s comment that religion is the
“Opium of the masses”.
Although religion and politics cannot be separated
from the society as they are both from the products of the society, however our
choice of candidates shouldn’t be based on the kind of religion the aspirants
or candidates practice. Nobody ever asks the religion of the Pilot in the
aircraft, what the passenger is interested in knowing is “if the Pilot is good
or not.” Our selection should be based on the credibility and antecedent of the
candidates. Religion, as one of the systems of Social Institution has
contributed many developments to the social structure of Nigeria at large, but
should our moral judgement be based on religious sentiment? Should we be
brainwashed by religion sentiment in voting the right candidate into power!
I am not trying to use this platform to support and
canvass for vote for a particular candidate. Political candidates could be
compared to product brands that a marketer tries to market to prospective buyer
to purchase, it is now left for the prospective buyer to reject or accept the
brand. He or She accepting the brand should accept it by choice and not by
force. It should be based on the attitude you have or inferred from the
product. The products the politicians try to market to the electorate now is
their various candidates. Politics is all about ideology, one man’s food is
another man’s poison. The candidate I like might be the one you don’t want to
see or hear his/her name talk less of casting your vote for the person. It is just
like the two side of a drum, while one side faces your front, the other faces
back. We shouldn’t cast our vote base on religious bias. In this coming
election, our focuses should be on what the aspirants aspiring for that
position has done before for the society and what they plan to offer when given
the mandate. They should be voted to power base on the programmes promised to
do to the citizenry. We should have grown and matured beyond politics of “he is
from my faith”. Some are of the opinion that there is a gulf distinction
between the “Religion and Spiritual,” but
can religion be separated from spirituality?
I could remember when a prestigious Federal University
in Nigeria had a Students’ Union election, the aftermath of the election would
have been very credible but an influencer in one of the Religious Organisation
sent a bulk sent messages to all his members of the organisation to vote for a
particular candidate because he is from their faith. Something of such also
happened in a hall of residence in the same school when the leader of a
religious body during a morning prayer attacked the personality of other
candidates in other to favours his. Is that even how the religions we use to
“cover” our face teach us to practise politics? Enough of politics base of
calumny let the aspirant win on a clean ground. The society evolve from the
simple to the complex, I wonder the kind of rotten politics we still practice
in this 21st century. Well, am not surprised because it is what the
parents do that the children will imbibe from.
I will urge all eligible voters to register and get
their Permanent Voters Card (PVC) from INEC. This PVC is the power they can use
to cast their vote for the candidate of their choice. Your vote is your civic right and a way of contributing your own quota to the society by chosen the
right candidate to govern you. Vote with your moral sense of right and wrong,
do not sell your vote because of immediate gratification. Selling your vote is
synonymous to selling your future. Your PVC is a powerful weapon, use it
rightly.
Let me end on this note, 1 Timothy 2 verse 1-4 says
“I exhort therefore,
that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of
thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for
all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all
godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our
Saviour; who will have all men to be saved,
and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Amen.
I
wish you a Successful 2015.
You
are blessed!!!
Ayokunmi-Solomon Jimoh
President/Initiator, The
Immaculate Team
07034586467
@apostleayoks
BBM: 55865408
