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NASIRU EL’ RUFAI: AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN
By Osondu Ahirika
Kaduna State, Nigeria’s hotbed of religious riots, extremism and fundamentalism is boiling after 8 years of absolute amity under former Governor Ahmed Markarafi. A succession of Governors beginning with his successor former Vice President Namadi Sambo, who was succeeded by Patrick Yakowa, who died in office to pave way for Mukthar Yero collectively, bequeathed relative stability to the State.
All that is spinning on a reverse under the current Governor, Mallam Nasiru El’Rufai. After starting on a bright note by restoring Local Government autonomy and repealing joint accounts with the state, Rufai has since headed the wrong way. Under his watch, the Nigerian Army massacred over 1000 shite muslims(Rufai is Sunni Muslim) and he did not raise a voice against it.
Apparently riding on the alleged impunity with which the Shites conducted themselves in Kaduna State with their detained leader Sheik Ibrahim Yaqoub El Zakzaky as a caliph, Rufai moved to clampdown on religious freedom in the state. But history and empirical analysis of his proposed edict reveals that, the ultimate target is to undermine the practice of the christian faith in the State. The bill which seeks to regulate evangelism and licence preachers before they can preach in the State is being resisted by the Christian Association of Nigeria and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, while the Jama’atu Nasril Islam, JNI, is maintaining studied silence. Of course, CAN and PFN know that the Bill in the works, proposing to ban crusades and outdoor preaching, or use of public address systems, licence churches or preachers before they can operate, is targeted at them.
Kaduna has a long dozzier of religious violence. Maitatsine riots in 1983; the riots after the Kafanchan incidence of 1987, the 2000 riots against the introduction of Sharia, and the 2002 riots among others like Zangon Kataf which also had religious undertones. Methink, the wise way forward is for Rufai to steer clear of stirring religious disaffection under any guise. But his well known obstinacy, defiance and pride, will nudge him on, to ignore overwhelming public opinion, that he rescind his commitment to having the bill passed.
Rufai’s popularity rating has gone so low that, Nigerians were celebrating the trending news alleging that, his deputy governor, Architect Bala Bantex slapped him. Some have dubbed it, ‘The slap of God, even when Bantex has come out to describe it as ‘totally untrue.’ In a press statement issued on Sunday, March 28, the Deputy Governor denied ever doing any such thing. In part the statement reads:
“We should reject shrill cries that often betray prejudice and be firm that we must be guided by logic and history. For all that Kaduna State has suffered from religious violence, the many lives lost and the divided neighborhoods that have sprung up as a result, it seems that some people have forgotten.” If you ask me, although he denied any face-off with his boss, and reaffirmed the vitality and strength of their relationship, Bantex, in those lines afforestated, has made the point for who has ears to hear, including his boss, the Kaduna State House of Assembly and the people of all faiths in the state. Guided as he pleads, by ‘history and logic’, Rufai should let sleeping dogs lie. This outrageous bill contravenes the constitutionally guaranteed rights of all citizens to practice their faith without molestation.
Meanwhile, a popular prophet, Dr Chris Okafor has asked him to withdraw the bill or face the wrath of God. Okafor, known for his predictions in the country, said the governor had an ultimatum to revert the bill and failure to do same may yet fetch him serious consequences. Another fiery Christian leader, Apostle Johnson Suleiman, The Senior Pastor of Omega Fire Ministries (OFM), has passed a decree of death on the Kaduna state Governor if he fails to revoke the anti preaching bill.
Preaching in his church on March 27th, Suleiman said,”I am not just running my mouth. In the 1999 constitution, Chapter 4, under the fundamental human rights, section 38 says that everyone has a freedom of thought, conscience and opinion and it says they are very free to exercise their religion either in a community, in public or or in private. Public means put your speakers anywhere. So the man is not just going against the scripture. He is going against the nation. He is going against the constitution and he says because he did it in Abuja, nothing happened. He entered a christian community in Kaduna and he says he will destroy life. He will die!”he said
Interestingly he described El Rufai as, “The Herod of Kaduna.” Herod you will remember, gave an edict that all new born babes be put to the sword so he may have the new born king and baby Jesus killed. He also had John the baptist, jailed and put to death for preaching against his takeover of his brothers wife. In my view, Herod is an understating of Rufai’s activity. This act of his is not unprecedented.
In scriptures, we had in Acts 5:28, where Peter and the other Apostles were paraded before the authourities, the query was, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”
(See Acts 5:28). To that edict,( Acts 5:29) – Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!”
In countries like Myanmar, Burma, North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Laos, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Maldives, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, among others, Governments have enacted decrees to outlaw and criminalize profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Every effort and force is applied to legislate christian religious knowledge out of the school curriculum in so many nation states. Billions are spent to distort the story off his birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection through itinerant literature and sponsored movies. The question the world has failed to ask or answer is: why so much fear of the gospel of Jesus christ? Why is so much might poured into the fight to keep Jesus out of the hearts of men and shut their mouth. The bitter truth they have to swallow is, even when reggae eventually gets stopped, nobody can stop the Goodnews of love, Peace, righteousness, social justice, equity, fairness and salvation as espoused by Jesus Christ.
El’ Rufai must be told in clear unmistaken terms, that his bill is dead on arrival. The Church will reserve for him the same answer Peter gave the Council which reverberates through all ages against very dangerous odds. He has led a provocative history of controversies since he happened in Public office. With a vociferous appetite for bravado and muscle flexing, he has earned the sobriquet, Mr Bulldozer for his demolition of structures in AbuJa as the FCT Minister, and Hell Rufai for his radicalism and attacks on Presidents Yar’adua and Goodluck Jonathan. But this is a different ball game and I concur with Apostle Suleiman that, it is time to test power.
The irony is, Rufai is an accident waiting to happen to Kaduna State in particular and Nigeria in general. Reminds me of the fact that he wrote a memoir tilted, The Accidental Public Servant. A story of Nigeria, and its power game as told by him. In it,Nasir El-Rufai admits he rose
to the top ranks of Nigeria’s political
hierarchy by accident, serving first as the privatization czar at the Bureau for
Public Enterprises and then as
Minister of the Federal Capital
Territory of Abuja under former
President Olesegun Obasanjo.
Reflecting on how to save Nigeria from destruction in that book, its shocking that El Rufai is now activating a time bom that could actually spell doom for the beleaguered nation. I join the college of those warning him to beware, lest he crashes out of Nigeria’s power organogram by Accident just the way he came in. I also urge President Muhammadu Buhari to wade in and protect the Constitution of the Federal Republic from the breach El Raufai is stoking with his experimental bill. Keeping quiet is complicity and bodes evil or nigeria.
