Fides Media Living the Faith
By Jude Atupulazi
When I first read what Nasir El-Rufai, immediate former governor of Kaduna State, said about the last presidential election in which the All Progressives Congress (APC) had a double Muslim ticket, I had dismissed it, thinking it was one of those posts on social media. But it was not until I saw the videos and confirmed it from Arise TV that I came to the shocking and sad conclusion that it was true.
El-Rufai, in the video, was telling a Muslim gathering in the Hausa Language how he deceived Christians in the last elections to not see the Muslim -Muslim ticket as bad but based on competence (I’m not sure if many believed him anyway). He went further to say that having successfully experimented with it in Kaduna where the governor and his deputy are again Muslims, it would be replicated in the centre until Muslims gained total dominance of Nigeria.
He even taunted the Southern Kaduna Christians who have been killed in their hundreds that they would continue being killed until they surrendered to the Islamic faith. El-Rufai was saying it as though he owned Nigeria; as though he had nothing to fear (to a large extent he is right). It was so brazenly said that, while it is an affront on Christians, it is a reminder to those Christians who supported APC how foolish they had been.
But this is Nigeria, a country where meal tickets count more than common sense. For a meal ticket, many will sell their souls to the devil without batting an eyelid. Before now, El-Rufai had run his second tenure on a Muslim-Muslim ticket before successfully ensuring that his successor did same. It does not matter to him that people of other religions should be respected. Now, he is talking of replicating same in Nigeria which the APC has just done. He wants Muslims to virtually rule forever till when the entire country would be Islamized.
Now, see why Nigeria doesn’t grow? Until elements like Rufai are expunged from leadership positions we will continue to grovel in the dust like starved and demented souls. I’ve often wondered what the problem is with Nigerian Muslims like Rufai. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is a Muslim country, but it does not fight religious wars or adopt religious policies and it’s growing in leaps and bounds.
Here, some people use religion and ethnicity to fool their people and divide Nigerians to serve their selfish interests and it’s a pity their people are so gullible that they don’t see through the ruse.
Their leaders like El-Rufai eat and grow fat on the ignorance of their people who wallow in penury. And their people have failed to ask why despite their many years in power they’re still the poorest in Nigeria, even as their so-called “enemies” are progressing. Come to the Southeast states and you see booming businesses by individuals; you see quality houses and facilities by individuals; you see people who are self-made.
But hop over to northern villages and you see crippling poverty. While our people go there to grow their economies, what they export to us are all manner of beggars and shoe shiners.
Yet, they are people who have always contrived to remain in power at the centre and call the shots. Indeed, if the common people in the north realize how their politicians have been toying with them and deceiving them, there will be an almighty riot.
But they will not realize this, or rather, they won’t want to realize it. They will prefer to live in blissful ignorance and be content to collect crumbs from the tables of those who subjugate them and are their real enemies, while they continue to believe that their enemies are us.
Honestly I am ashamed to breathe the same air with people like El-Rufai, not to talk about belonging to same country but my prayer is that those who destroy this otherwise beautiful country will reap the ugly fruits they’re sowing in their life time.
Look at the lives being wasted in Southern Kaduna and in the Middle Belt. With what El-Rufai said, is it any wonder that all the blood suckers in Nigeria are going Scot free? Is it any wonder that in the entire eight years of Buhari’s hellish rulership, not one herdsman was prosecuted?
Is it any wonder that while the rest of the world were aiming for the skies Nigeria was aiming to protect cows over human life under Buhari?
I weep for this country and the minions who will always lick the boots of these evil people and defend them even when their own people are at the receiving end.
Nigeria is a huge joke. A country where the worst rule the best and expect miracles to happen. So sad, so shameful!
Our wayo pastors and the gullible followers
There is this saying that when the wind blows, the anus of the fowl is revealed. That was the case in the aftermath of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria. Before the presidential election, many a pastor had mounted the pulpit to proclaim how there would be no handover on May 29; how there would be an interim government to be headed by former Vice President, Osinbajo and how Peter Obi would finally be sworn in as the president of the country.
While it is still possible that Obi will be sworn in by reclaiming his mandate in the court, the other prophecies have fallen flat. We all saw Tinubu being sworn in as the country’s 16th president. We did not see any interim government and life is almost returning to normal.
But the faith of some people in those prophecies was such that even on the day of the swearing in, they kept believing that something would happen that would stop Tinubu from being sworn in. But as they watched the ceremony with the rest of us, the only thing that gave some hope that something would happen was when Tinubu tottered in his steps and nearly fell down. Everything afterwards was smooth sailing.
I fear to contemplate what would have happened if those prophecies had come true. Those pastors would have had serious problems containing and controlling the surge of new members in their churches. They would have become instant heroes in a country where many are now controlled in mind and body by fake prophets.
To say that these prophets have done more harm than good to the country is to be modest. They have led many astray, scattered many homes and turned family members against one another. They are now struggling with native doctors who pose more menace to society.
I’ve seen people who, acting on the instructions of pastors or the prophecies of these pastors, do serious harm to others. One woman cut off the fingers of a child in her care because her pastor told her the child was a witch. One lady recently went into somebody’s house and stabbed a child there to death with a knife because, according to her, her spirit told her the child was evil. Such a woman is obviously among those deceived by pastors into thinking they have powers of hearing from God.
Another woman was caught carrying a child whose parents lived with her in the same compound in a big bag with the child’s mouth gagged. When asked why she did that and where she was taking him to, she said her pastor asked her to bring a child to his church. When the people of that compound stormed that church, they discovered a dead child in the backyard. This was in Lagos.
We also saw what happened in Ihiala last Wednesday.
I make bold, and without equivocation, to say that outside the traditional churches, 90% of modern day churches are fake. They are not what they seem and I think it is time government devised ways of checking up on those churches in order to checkmate their excesses.
Devilish native doctors in our midst
Like their pastor counterparts, many traditional medical practitioners or native doctors are nothing but devils. They are the ones making charms for Yahoo-Yahoo boys, armed robbers and kidnappers. They also brainwash the gullible into doing things that are horrible. Not long ago in Umunze, a young man who cut the parts of an old woman said he was told to do so by a native doctor who wanted to do a money ritual for him.
All over the place, people are doing terrible things because their native doctors asked them to. They do not think twice and place so much faith in those native doctors and their charms. That is why you see many young men tying all manner of charms round their bodies and confronting the security agencies and still getting killed without the charms protecting them.
I really think it is time the government and communities rose up against these people before they do more harm to society. Government should work with communities to verify the authenticity of these native doctors so that all the fake ones will be crushed before they crush us.
Indeed, things have fallen apart and anyi amarozi nke anyi na aya.