The last may not have been heard about Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s scandalous plane, seized in far away South Africa for violating its laws governing financial transactions. The plane which flew into Lansaria International Airport in Pretoria on September 5 was found to have ferried 9.3 million dollars which have not been declared, but intended for the purchase of arms and ammunition from a black market. Nigerians marveled at that audacity especially as the plane belongs to the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN the controversial Pastor Oritsejafor, said to be a bosom friend of President Goodluck Jonathan. Although the pastor was quick to admit that the apprehended plane belongs to him, yet he added that it was leased to a third party and he had no prior knowledge of what use it was put to afterwards.
The cordial, blossoming relationship between the CAN Chair and Nigeria’s President was a subject of public debate with discussants expressing their disgust and contempt for that unholy association. It was said President Jonathan is under a very strong spell of CAN which compels him to move his government closer to the church and to use it as a launching pad for his policies and mission statements. In fact there is nothing more disheartening and disconcerting than how the presidency reaches out to the CAN and how it clearly manipulates it toward the realization of contemptible and discreditable political objectives. Clearly, the association between the Presidency and the Church defy all religious precepts and is simply portraying the two institutions in a very poor light. The CAN is now more or less like the appendage of the Presidency, a situation that allows it to indulge fully in partisan political activity.
Now, as if that was not really a very difficult or harrowing experience for many Christians and Muslims alike, Primate Nicholas Okoh, the Primate of the Aglican Communion in Nigeria, where Jonathan is a most visible and influential member, recently decorated him with an innovative Primatial award which was by any measure controversial and unfortunate because everything about it was patently wrong. There was no record which showed that anything like a Primatial award was ever given anyone before now. That has obviously revealed how Nigeria’s religious leaders conduct themselves in a manner quite incompatible with their status. They, therefore, ought to have acted above worldly standards. Besides, the Anglican Church failed to tell Nigerians the criteria for the award.
Nigerians are now left with no alternative but to wildly imagine that the Anglican Church has purposely or otherwise been dragged into President Jonathan’s re-election bid. Nevertheless, the co-incidence is too unusual to be disregarded – Primate Nicholas Okoh is Oritsejafor’s deputy in CAN and he is also from Delta State. It is imperative that religious leaders across the country must realize that they are ambassadors of their respective faiths and should therefore return to the standards of piousness and godliness and speak the bitter truth to those in power. They should also not be wheedled by the grandeur of the office of flamboyant and deceptive politicians.
While tongues were wagging over the money confiscated by South African authorities which President Jonathan confirmed belonged to his government and were for the purchase of arms, the CAN President was unequivocal in averring that the angry and indignant public reaction over the whole affair was a subtle attempt to besmear the Church and drag his name into public disrepute. Spurred by that spurious allegation the CAN was quick to make a repulsive statement which did not only ridicule its leadership but offensive to Nigerians. It deposed that the plane saga was a mere fabrication of the opposition All Progressive Congress, APC which had wanted to bring shame or disgrace to it. In that uncharitable charge, the CAN also maintained that the APC was an exclusive preserve for Muslims.
Well, now If Pastor Oritsejafor contends that the APC is for Muslims only, what then can he say about his unofficial role as the presidential adviser on matters that border on religious intolerance and absolute narrow-mindedness? Badbelle.Are the PDP and its leader, Goodluck Jonathan, exclusively reserved for the Christians and anti-Islam elements? It has now been established beyond any iota of doubt that Pastor Oritsejafor and President Jonathan are hand-in-globe, working furtively for the disadvantage of other religious adherents. And for that reason the controversial pastor has come under unprecedented barrage of criticisms from his own ilk who described him as unsuitable for his calling due to his antics that tend to disgrace the Church.
Must President Jonathan continue to partner with this questionable character whose antecedents are not exemplary? It is fervently hoped that the followers of Pastor Oritsejafor would realize his folly in mixing religion with politics and then attempt to make a distinction between the two for peace and stability to reign in the country.
Nigerians have had enough of religious crises without reaping any corresponding benefit there from. It is important for everyone now to think twice about religious prejudice and to begin to play politics without bitterness engendered by religious differences.