by Afolayan Daniel

With the election approaching, we definitely need to be issue-based in our politicking rather than dangerously sitting on a keg of explosives called religion and ethnicity. An African proverb says “When you see the clouds gathering, prepare to catch in water”.

Unfortunately, we have rather chosen the paths of bigotry in this election period. For clarification, a bigot is a person intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals. Such a person is obstinately blinded and devoted to his own religion, party, belief or opinion.

I have critically wondered and tried to decipher why General Muhammadu Buhari, even with his cult like following, is still painted as a religious bigot. Let the truth be said, the General in his previous attempt at the exalted post of the presidency have made our religious and ethnic differences a conscious part of our national life.

Though he might not be directly responsible, but his battalions of foot soldiers and gang of fanatical disciples have previously highlighted that Muslims should only vote for him and since he is from the north, he should be seen has a northern candidate. He has allegedly quoted sometimes ago, that he’ll make the country ungovernable if he loses the election though he has multiple times denied such allegations.

In trying the disclaim the title of a fundamentalist bestowed to him by his opponents, the General has once again appointed a clergyman turn politician, Pastor Osinbajo of the RCCG as his running mate. To douse the tension of a Muslim-Muslim agenda, he had to leave out savvier political heavyweight like Tinubu and Fashola, to be sellable to Christian faithful.

President Goodluck Jonathan, the first president of Nigeria from the south-south region of Nigeria in his part would be remembered as a commander-in-chief whose tenure re-awakened our thoughts, ideas, words and actions to the thin threads of religion and geographical divide that has held us together since 1960.

The Jonathanians unfortunately, have in most quarters, based their campaign gospel on religion and tribe, thereby giving an impression of Buhari has an ethnic jingoist and religious fundamentalist.

Most Jonathanians, in trying to sell Mr. President’s brand, majorly point to the fact that Buhari is from the north (highlighting the “born to rule” spirit) and that he is a Muslim on a vengeful mission to Islamize Nigeria. The president himself, have made the pulpit, the headquarters of his campaign organization, jumping from church to church in an effort to aggrandize his followership.

President Jonathan also, in his bid to boost his relationship with the north has built almajiri schools and also re-appointed architect Namadi Sambo as his vice presidential candidate.

It is saddening that with all the multisectoral decay and challenges facing our country, ranging from security, power, and corruption to poor educational system etc., we have reduced the issues of this election period to mere trivialities of religion and tribe. We have collectively made mockery of our intellectual and giant status in Africa. We have abused the tenets of democracy and invoked unrest and unhappiness into the grave of our founding fathers.

From the man selling groundnut in Kano, to the woman selling clothes in Onitsha, to the poor teacher in Ado-Ekiti, all share the same pain, the same discomfort and the same agony. Will the Chibok girls ever forgive us, the innocent people who were killed in various places of worship, the young graduates that dies in stampedes across the country while seeking for employment.

This article is not to celebrate the lesser or greater bigot but to bring to our consciousness that we have derailed from the honorable track. Our choice making in the forth-coming polls must be issue-based. All hands must be on deck because if you want me to choose or name-call the real bigots, I’ll just tell you this “if you ask me, na who I go ask”

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Afolayan Daniel tweets from @saxfreak

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.