Responding to an attack on Rauf
Aregbesola, Governor of Osun state, in his re-election , Osinbajo
reserved special praise for Buhari for his handling of religion when he
was military head of state.
He asked that credit should be given “to
Gen Buhari, and his deputy Gen Idiagbon (also a muslim) who refused to
join the OIC despite pressures”.
Nigeria’s membership of the Organisation
of Islamic Conference (OIC) resulted in a controversy, pitching Muslims
and Christians against each other and stoking religious tension in the
country.
He said Buhari “remains the one head of
State who was able to defeat an extremist insurgency, the Maitatsine” ?
referring to the religious uprising in Kano in 1980 when President Shehu
Shagari was in power.
Osinbajo also commented on various
national issues, which were probably a pointer to the fact that he was
preparing to take a plunge into the political terrain.
The full text is reproduced below.
I was greatly saddened to read the
material written by Mr. Eyieyien urging “The Remnants” to vote out the
current Governor of Osun State Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and vote in Chief
Iyiola Omisore. I am also still somewhat puzzled as to how what appeared
to be an opposition to a bond issue and other sundry allegations
degenerated to the running down of the APC as an Islamic party, a
propaganda tool notoriously deployed by the PDP through its various
organs.
Are we as Christians now being urged to
support the PDP or what exactly is the message? Reason is one of the
most important contributions of the Gospel to development. From it
emerged the practical concepts of fairness and justice for all,
especially our enemies. Which is why lynching, even of an intellectual
kind, is unacceptable.
I am not an unbiased intervenor. I had
the good fortune of serving in an AD/ACN government in Lagos State. The
ACN is a major partner in the APC. I will come back to the PDP APC issue
presently.
Also, I have known Ogbeni Rauf
Aregbesola, Governor of the State of Osun, since 1999. We served on the
policy committees of the then newly elected AD governor of Lagos State.
He served in the infrastructure sub-committee and I, in the Justice
sub-committee. I also served with him for 8 years in the government of
Lagos State. He as Commissioner for Works and I as Attorney General. I
developed a close personal relationship with him. His early ideological
belief was shaped by Marxist-Socialist thinking, which probably
influences his left-of-centre worldview in governance. His first son
Kabir went to university in Cuba on a scholarship. In 2005 when he
graduated, only Rauf and I attended his graduation. He is a devout
Muslim but liberal in his approach to other faiths. This is not unusual
amongst the Yorubas largely because most families have both Muslim and
Christian members and have always interacted without rancour. Of his six
siblings only one other is a Muslim. All the others are Christians. His
sister who is of the RCCG is widowed (her husband died a Christian) her
two sons have lived with Rauf for years, he insists that they must
practice their father’s faith faithfully. They both attend the RCCG.
He and I shared and still share a burden
to provide honest, transparent, people-centered governance. He is a
scrupulously honest person, as Commissioner for Works in Lagos State he
left office without a home and no financial comforts. I know, because
aside from my personal and official interaction with him, I coordinated
his legal team for the reclamation of his mandate for over three years. I
know first-hand, his difficulties with sustaining his family, and a
small staff for that period. Not surprisingly no one can accuse him in
Osun State of corruption. He is just not wired that way.
Indeed, in keeping with that commitment
to serve the people with complete fidelity, his major projects have been
solely directed at alleviating the suffering and deprivation of his
people. The hiring of, now 40,000 unemployed graduates, the provision of
free balanced meals for all primary school children, provision of free
uniforms, the provision of tablet computers for senior secondary school
students containing all their textbooks, past jamb questions etc.,
monthly stipends to the elderly – all of these in a State that is the
third poorest in Federal allocations and currently gets N2.6 billion
monthly, a 40 percent reduction from 2013, courtesy of the Federal
government. Mr. Eyieyien perhaps was not aware that even the 10 billion
sukuk bond was purely for the building of 24 model state-of the art
schools, most of which are now completed. The Wole Soyinka-led Osun
education summit recommended the replacement of the completely broken
school infrastructure in Osun State with schools capable of
accommodating 1000 students with modern labs, classrooms, power and
sports facilities. The idea was to use economies of scale to benefit the
largest number of students.
When Mr. Eyieyien describes him as
“Sheikh” it is clearly to give the impression that he is an Islamic
fundamentalist. The facts on the man completely belie this. First, as
Commissioner for Works in Lagos State, he built the chapel at the State
House Marina. Pastor Adeboye at the opening commended him and remarked
that he would be a pastor soon! Within a year of coming into government,
he commissioned in Ilesa the Open Heavens Christian Evangelical Arena, a
purpose-built facility for evangelism which according to him was to
celebrate the icons of the Christian faith who are from Osun namely- the
Late Apostle Babalola , the Late Apostle Obadare, Pastor E.A. Adeboye,
Pastor W.F Kumuyi and Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo . Today, his government
supports the establishment of five Christian universities in Osun,
including The Redeemers University at Ede, the Joseph Babalola
University, Dominion University , and Bowen University.
How about the composition of government
in Osun State? You will notice that his critics are never able to say
that Christians are marginalised in government, why? Because only
Muslims can make that allegation! In the Cabinet of Osun State there are
10 more Christians than Muslims. In addition, the largest Ministries
are headed by Christians – Ministries of Finance, Justice, Education,
Health, Environment , Agriculture, Physical Planning and Youth and
Sports. The Legislature (House of Assembly), which came into office
after he won back his mandate in court in November 2010, has a majority
of Christian members – 18 Christians and 8 Muslims. Everyone knows that
at that level if the Governor does not support your nomination by the
party your ambitions are dead in the water.
The State Judiciary is headed by a
Christian who he appointed although he had preferred and proposed a
judge from Lagos Justice Olubunmi Oyewole also a non-Muslim. Of over 30
new Permanent Secretaries appointed by him 22 are Christians. If the
majority of your cabinet (including your Attorney-General), your
Legislature, Judiciary and top echelon of your civil service are
Christians how can we in truth say that such a person has an
Islamisation agenda? Surely the least a “Sheikh” with an Islamisation
agenda should do to achieve his objective is to populate the structure
that can achieve that objective with Muslims! It is also entirely false
that he patronizes or uses “TAAWUN” guards for his security. It is
common knowledge that he hardly even uses any security at all, except
for a couple of SSS men, his monthly LIFE WALKS , where he walks
alongside his people for kilometres without any significant security
cordon was commended recently by a former Governor in the South East. It
is incredible what prejudice can do to us. Everyone in Osun knows that
the State was nicknamed “State of the Living Spring” in reference to the
Osun River after which the State is named. Renaming the State “the
Omoluabi State ” – meaning “the State of children born of God” or “the
State of men and women of virtue” certainly gives greater glory to God.
To suggest that benefiting from a Sukuk
bond to better the lives of his people of all faiths, is enough to
justify the grave allegation of an Islamisation agenda, is with all due
respect , calling a dog a bad name simply to hang it. I agree that it
may have served the politics of religion better not to take the bond,
but it is a fairer judgment of his motives, knowing him, that this was
borne out of his desire to serve his people well. The 24 mega schools
with state-of -the art facilities is a quantum leap in education for the
majority of children of the poor who before now schooled in what the
Soyinka committee saw as scandalous. The alternative was not to build
the schools. When a man who is doing right by the poor and deprived
people he governs, is being condemned by those of us who are called to
serve the poor, the sick, , the naked, and the hungry then it is fair to
ask what the values in governance we really intend to promote are? In
any event the alternative is Chief Iyiola Omisore whose antecedents we
ought, to put it delicately, be cautious to associate with.
A problem with uncritically accepting as
useful advice this viciously anti-APC propaganda, is that it throws the
baby out with the bath water. So we are now expected to reject the
landmark achievements in Lagos, in Ogun ( the huge infrastructural
developments), Oyo (which for the first time most admit is making real
progress) , Edo, and Ekiti (where almost everyone agrees the governor
did a good job but Fayose understood stomach infrastructure better!) Or
now Kano or Rivers (where a REAL rail service is about to begin; Lagos
is also about to complete a rail service amongst other exemplary
achievements)!
It is also false that the APC’s new
executive reserved its top positions for Muslims! The Chairman of the
party Chief John Odigie-Oyegun is a Christian, the Deputy National
Chairman (South) Engr. Segun Oni is a Christian, so are the National
Organizing Secretary Senator Osita Izunaso, Deputy National Secretary
Hon. Orji Ugofa and Chief Pius Akinyelure , theVice Chairman of the
South West. For what it is worth, there are 22 Muslims and 21 Christians
in the APC National Executive Committee.
Regarding the rather thinly veiled
‘support the PDP/ JONATHAN’ message, it is incredible that we are
invited to ignore the cynical manner that our President Goodluck
Jonathan uses Christianity and the church to further his political
ambitions. Why are we being urged to support a PDP/Jonathan bid again?
The platform has largely on account of its tragic failure to perform,
decided to exploit Nigeria’s religious fault lines in the most cynical
manner to win support, in the process he continues to divide Nigeria in
by the far most extreme manner in our history.
I have worked with many brethren since
2002 on issues around Islamization in Nigeria, in particular with Revd.
Ladi Thompson of the Macedonian Initiative and the Omoluabi network. It
is clear that Al Qaeda, ISIS , and more recently Boko Haram and their
splinters are committed to an Islamization agenda. Their symphathisers
certainly cut across all boundaries. The Late General Azazi, then NSA,
pointedly accused the PDP of being behind the escalation of Boko Haram, I
have that statement on DVD. The President, also openly lamented the
infiltration of his cabinet by the Boko Haram. Recently a Nigerian
pastor in a widely circulated CD, speaking on the Jihadist agenda
accused General Babangida of funding the Islamization agenda from his
days as President. Today President Jonathan’s most influential Northern
supporter is General Babangida. His narrative unfortunately gives no
credit to Gen Buhari, and his deputy Gen Idiagbon (also a muslim) who
refused to join the OIC despite pressures. Or that Gen Buhari remains
the one head of State who was able to defeat an extremist insurgency,
the Maitatsine
How can we fail to see that the
incredible corruption, incompetence, poverty of 2/3 of our people after
almost seven years of the present government is unsupportable? How is it
that Diezani’s use of 10 billion Naira to run her private jet (the same
amount of money for the building of 24 mega schools in Osun!) and the
complete silence of the President on this travesty does not lead to
calling for him to be voted out in 2015? So the allegation of the
missing or unaccounted for 20.8 billion USD with 110 million desperately
poor, should be dismissed as pure propaganda? So it doesn’t make a
difference to us that under the PDP Nigeria has fallen behind in every
human development indicator? 55,000 women dying yearly of maternal
related ailments, only recently Stanford’s Professor Larry Diamond
compared the yearly deaths of over 300,000 children yearly in Nigeria to
the killing of 800, 000 mainly Tutsis in Rwanda. The latter was
described as genocide, what is the description to give to mass deaths of
infants caused by grand corruption?
We discredit our treasured platforms
such as this when we mask our political preferences with a religious
veil. The vast majority of our people need to be delivered from terrible
want and deprivation, what is required now are capable, honest men and
women of all faiths, who know that this country may not long survive the
daily punishment of its own people.
Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN)
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