by Suraj Oyewale
You see, the issue with the likes of Eghes is that they hate seeing anyone openly associates with Islam.
Over the weekend, in my regular internet surfing, I came across an article written by a former Attorney General of Lagos State, Professor Yemi Osibajo (SAN). It was a well written rejoinder to one Eghes Eyieyen on his blackmail of the just re-elected governor of Osun State, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola. Even before reading Professor Osibajo’s piece, the mere mention of Mr. Aregbesola and Mr. Eyieyen in the first paragraph was enough for me to know the subject: the perennial Islamophobe is at it again!
Let me declare upfront that this is not the first time I am engaging the fellow that goes by the name Eghes Eyieyen on similar subject in the last three years. I first came across his name through Facebook sometime in 2011, shortly after the 2011 elections. A mutual friend had shared an article of his, and I got into the discussion on his wall. In the article, Mr. Eyieyen had called the then governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, all sorts of unprintable names for no other reason that his being a Muslim. To be clear, I have no problem with anyone criticizing Sanusi (I had also passed scathing remarks about him in the past), but resorting to cheap blackmails and unfounded allegations is a demonstration of intellectual dishonesty. It didn’t occur to Eghes that Islamic Banking pre-dated Sanusi’s era in CBN, just as he conveniently ignored Sanusi’s past writings where he defended Christians and non-Fulanis [In Defence of Father Kukah (SLS, 2005); Muslim Leaders and the Myths of Marginalization (SLS, 2004) etc.]. I, and some other fellows, many of whom are actually Christians and from the Southern part of Nigeria, engaged him on his jejune write-up. He went ahead to report one of us, who is from the South-South region, to his (the gentleman’s) boss at work, for engaging him on Facebook. The mutual friend works in an organization Eghes used to work years ago, and he (Eghes), after gleaning that from his Facebook profile, went to the extent of reporting the guy to his boss, who was his (Eghes’) colleague in his days in the corporation. All because the gentleman disagreed with him on Facebook. That is how petty some people can be!
Afraid of the truth, he blocked me from his Facebook page and I went ahead to do a formal article to counter his cheap lies against Mr. Sanusi. The article: Eghes Eyieyen: The Limits of Pseudo-Intellectualism (February 2012).
So the learned SAN probably did not know that this was the kind of person he was engaging in his write-up. Eghes is a perennial rabble-rouser who does not see anything good in any Muslim public officer, especially those that did not hide their Islamic identity. From Sanusi to Aregbesola, in Eghes’ books, it is a crime to affiliate with Islam. Eghes claims to be a pastor on his blog. That is alright. And there is nothing wrong in him wishing every Nigerian is a Christian like him, for I believe if you hold that your faith is the path to salvation, you should not shy away from calling people to it – within legitimate means. But resorting to blackmail of people of other religion, as Eghes habitually does, is nothing but intellectual terrorism.
Make no mistake, Eghes has every right to campaign against Mr. Aregbesola. He also reserves the right to use religion to campaign against the man, as I am not aware of any section of the electoral laws that forbids that – only that twisting facts in order to drive home his campaign will not fly. Just as he needs being reminded that by whipping up religious sentiments against the subjects of his attacks, he is also committing the same offence.
Professor Osibajo has already done a perfect job in bursting, line by line, the lies of Eghes in his latest campaign of calumny and I will only reproduce excerpts:
When Mr. Eyieyien describes him (Aregesola) 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 Late Apostle Babalola, 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, 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 Southeast.
Eghes, as he did in his 2012 diatribe against Sanusi, also conveniently ignored the facts above in achieving his goal of calling the dog a bad name in order to hang it. It did not occur to him that, if anything, the Muslims should be the one that should cry marginalization, with the number of Christian cabinet members almost doubling that of Muslims, in a state that has almost equal population of Christians and Muslims. But that is his forte.
Eghes urged Christians to vote for Aregbesola’s opponent, Mr. Iyiola Omisore, in the elections. The clown is actually running for Senate in 2015 under the platform of All Peoples Congress (If he’s still there, as his fellow Facebook rabble-rouser, Femi Fani-Kayode, had since gone back to the People’s Democratic Party) as he declared to his Facebook fans early this year. The only issue is: if any Muslim ever expressly or figuratively calls for voting on the line of religion, that is probably the end of his political career. Some people are more equal than the other, isn’t it?
Let me state at this point I am also not one of the biggest fans of Mr. Aregbesola. I believe he creates controversies too unnecessarily, just as I was concerned about his being too involved in politics of other states like Ondo (in APC’s bid to displace Mimiko in 2013) and Lagos. I still hold that his renaming the state, State of Osun, even if constitutional and a bold statement of federalism, is needless. But you cannot take away his performance. I am also a direct stakeholder in happenings in Osun State: First, my Mum is from Osun state, and second, the only route I use on my way to my Offa, Kwara state, hometown is through Osun state. The parts I dread most in the 4-hour Lagos-Offa trip are the Gbongan-Osogbo road and the Osogbo-Ikirun-Offa road. I always had my heart practically in my mouth anytime I got to these roads, due to their narrowness. Many lives – including that of prominent Kwara-born footballer, Rashidi Yekini’s sister – have been lost on these roads. I was therefore happy to see the expansion project going on on these two roads, courtesy of Aregbesola, during my last trip to Kwara. With what I saw in the 2-hour drive through Osun State that day, I was forced to make a Facebook post to the effect that the whole Osun State looked like one big construction site, a fact that was corroborated by many.
You see, the issue with the likes of Eghes is that they hate seeing anyone openly associates with Islam. I have also been in such situation many times, as a couple of my co-forumers on Nairaland forum has confronted me with statements like, “Jarus is a brilliant guy. My only issue with him is he is a Muslim!”. They prefer the type of Muslims who hide their Islamic identity while openly flaunting their own religious persuasion. Almost all Eghes’ Facebook and blog posts are on his religion, and, in his manifestoes in his clownish aspiration to Senatorial position, he promises to rule by his faith. I have no problem with anyone identifying with his religion. In fact, he who doesn’t stand for something will fall for anything; but dismissing every other person on the basis of identifying with another faith, like Eghes does, is the hypocrisy that will not stand.
Eghes actively campaigned for President Goodluck Jonathan in the run-up to 2011 elections, hinging his decision, predictably, on faith and religion. That Goodluck Jonathan is a divine candidate and all that. I respect his choice. But isn’t it hypocritical of him to feign ignorance of the use of religion by his presidential candidate and come around to attack another fellow on the basis of religion now? Okay, only he has monopoly of politics of religion. In any case, the people of Osun State have rejected him and the results say it all: The population of Muslims in Osun State, and by deduction the population of Muslim voters, is hardly more than half, and Aregbesola coasted to victory with far from more than 50 percent of the total vote cast, meaning many Christians also voted for him (assuming all Muslims voted for him, which is far from being the case).
If Eghes thinks he has the right to spread concocted propaganda with his writings, then he should know that he can only fool some people. Not everyone.
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Suraj Oyewale is a chartered accountant, blogger and public analyst. He is the Founder of JarusHub Career & Management Portal. He tweets from @mcjarus
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.