Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Dr. Chidi Amuta, distinguished scholar of literature, political economy, sociology and national development, is Executive Editor of USAfrica, since 1993
>> For the presidential choristers, Bishop Onaiyekan ‘sinned’ by delving into the area of the earthly travails of most Nigerians. To them, that is an incursion into the untidy terrain of politics. But for the Catholic bishops, the well-being of God’s people is not the exclusive preserve of kings and their minions. People of God have equal responsibility to people and kings when God’s design is being disfigured through the bad conduct of kings and courtiers. Bad and negligent governance is a sin among kings…. Clerics as ambassadors of God on earth cannot be insulated from the woes that haunt the people. Therefore, it is part of the duty of clerics to speak truth to power so that the will of God be done on earth. Responsible clerics and active citizens cannot wait until God himself descends from the celestial abode to deliver the message when governance is deficient and the people suffer. It is either the people cry out loudly or clerics and journalists amplify their cries.
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On the dichotomy of kingly power and clerical obligations, there is an undisputed demarcation. Unto kings is given the power to guarantee the orderly governance of the State and the welfare of citizens in a republic. But the ultimate preoccupation of the divine is the good of all humanity. It is the duty of clerics to ensure that kingly power is discharged for the good of all humanity to the glory of God.
As ambassadors of God on earth, however, clerics of every faith have a presumed duty to superintend God’s work on earth, to guard and guide the conduct of kings.
When kings rule badly, humanity is in peril and the goodness of God’s work is endangered. Therefore, the exercise of kingly power and its obligations enjoy no immunity from periodic divine rebuke handed down by engaged clerics of every faith. Engaged clerics are a blessing unto every land where they exist. A land where the voices of clerics are muffled becomes a breeding ground for anarchy and tyranny.
Therefore clerics, first as citizens and ultimately as ambassadors of God on earth, cannot turn deaf ears to the cries of the bereaved, the wailing of the hungry and the echoes of empty impoverished lives. Aso Rock may not like to hear the sounds of distress among Nigerians. It may dull the appetite of kings and courtiers. But clerics as ambassadors of God on earth cannot be insulated from the woes that haunt the people. Therefore, it is part of the duty of clerics to speak truth to power so that the will of God be done on earth.
Responsible clerics and active citizens cannot wait until God himself descends from the celestial abode to deliver the message when governance is deficient and the people suffer. It is either the people cry out loudly or clerics and journalists amplify their cries.
A courtesy visit by a collection of Catholic clerics led by Bishop Onaiyekan to Nigeria’s President Tinubu has disturbed the nest of presidential wasps. Verbal stings have been flying from the minions of presidential power in all directions. The guardians of presidential power have been lashing out against the clerics with predictable vitriol laced with familiar garnishes of insult for the holy guests. Presidential spokesmen have been falling over each other in not only condemning the Bishops’ criticisms but also defending the president’s record of service to the nation.
For the presidential choristers, Bishop Onaiyekan ‘sinned’ by delving into the area of the earthly travails of most Nigerians. To them, that is an incursion into the untidy terrain of politics. But for the Catholic bishops, the well-being of God’s people is not the exclusive preserve of kings and their minions. People of God have equal responsibility to people and kings when God’s design is being disfigured through the bad conduct of kings and courtiers. Bad and negligent governance is a sin among kings. That was the main thrust of Onaiyeka’s message to Mr. Tinubu.
How else can we interpret the casual insensitivity of the Villa’s response to the recent message of Catholic Bishops to President Tinubu. That Bishop Onaiyekan undertook to relay the message of the Catholic bishops on public media is no sinful act. Bishop Onaiyekan had a responsibility to share his concerns expressed to the president with the public. Nothing about that exchange is confidential or violates official decorum or presidential decorum. There is nothing in the exchange between the president and the Catholic clerics that is not already viral in the public domain. Tinubu cannot conceal the worsening living conditions in the country.
The respected bishops of the Catholic Church had gone to the Villa to deliver the unanimous message of the Catholic clergy to the president. The message was simple and common knowledge: things are bad. The policies of the Tinubu government, no matter how well intentioned, have produced the opposite of good governance. Good intentions have turned into ashes. The nation is divided and thoroughly frightened. People are suffering. Many are dying avoidable deaths in the hands of agents of darkness. Hope is withering and disappearing from most lives in violation of the government’s mantra of ‘renewed hope’.
It is of course part of the duty of King Tinubu to point the searchlight on areas where he has done the greatest good to the greatest majority in the last nearly four years at the helm. Tinubu did just that in his immediate response to the reservations and entreaties of the Catholic clerics. He pointed to the statistical improvements in our economic indices. Foreign reserves have grown from about $30 billion to about $50 bn. Naira exchange rate to the pound has lowered. Same with the dollar Naira rate which has somehow stabilized around N1,380. The security people have freed kids held hostage for months in Oyo state even if more people have been abducted randomly all over the country. Killings and dehumanization continue nonetheless. Between the president and the Catholic clerics , there was a lively exchange of competing claims and charges. The clash of contending ideas is the essence of democratic dialogue. That kind of reciprocal exchange is what keeps a polity alive. For government spokesmen and serfs of presidential power to arrogate to themselves the task of restricting clerical pronouncements to matters of spirituality and morality is to trivialize public discourse and show patent ignorance of an ancient reality. If anything, clerical attention and concern ought to span all areas of public life because the divine call of duty is all encompassing. God is the ultimate totality in our earthly existence. Those called to speak and act for God on earth should observe no boundaries when they speak of the condition of God’s creatures on earth.
It is, therefore, wrong-headed and intellectually dishonest for the presidency to accuse Bishop Onaiyekan of bad faith because he granted a television interview after the privileged audience with the President. The content of the interview and the content of the Bishops’ conversation with the president are matters in the public square. Both the president and the Bishops are accountable to the same public on these issues.
Hardship, hunger, insecurity are all matters of excruciating public concern and urgency. Nigerians want to and are entitled to hear both the president and the clerics on these matters. And, on matters of faith, there are no Christians and Muslims, no Catholics and Pentecostals or Anglicans. There are Nigerians in collective affliction.
Enough of the apostolic enunciations. In recent times, the frequency of presidential intolerance to criticism has increased. It may be a symptom of presidential nervousness as the 2027 elections approach. More dangerously, it may be a sign of growing authoritarian appetites. Autocrats and apprentice dictators start with repression of dissent. They proceed to repressive mechanisms- arrests, phantom prosecutions, detentions, disappearance of dissenters and opponents.
Worse still, opposition political platforms are destabilized and harassed. The ruling party degenerates into a an all-conquering monolithic behemoth. The one- party dictatorship is on the way. The mirror of power domination acquires four sides. Wherever you look, it is the king you see!
Tinubu spoke the truth of dark power in response to the clerics’ criticisms and outbursts. For the president, all is fair in politics as in war. This medieval political dictum reflects the worldview of the ruling APC. In this view, a ruling party with clear political advantages has no obligation to guarantee the survival of its opponents. Its primary obligation is to defeat, crush and overrun the opposition. Of course, opposition parties have a singular commitment- to democratically topple the incumbent ruling party. But opposition parties are by no means adversaries to the national cause. They are the counterbalance in the lever of power. In a balanced, enlightened polity, multi -party democracy requires the coexistence of all manner of parties. Once in power, an incumbent party becomes the guardian of the political architecture of the nation.
A multi-party democratic architecture is a national heritage to be protected at all costs, not one to be demolished with the jackboots of power. Parties are the pillars of the architecture of a multi -party democracy. To destabilize the equilibrium of parties’ existence is an act of political subversion, in a sense. The delicate challenge of incumbent power is the ability to stay unarguably in power while leaving contending parties to be.
Tragically, Tinubu’s APC is behaving more like a political battering ram and conquistador than a responsible political party. It is perpetuating division in opposition parties. It is planting dissidents all over the place to destabilize the opposition from within. It is weaponizing the judiciary against the opposition through all manner of silly law suits. It has bought up most state governors while tacitly granting them immunity from accountability.
For a political party without ideological moorings or a defining policy thrust to be so wholesomely powerful is dangerous for our democracy. Worse still, it has literally gobbled the NASS and swindled the possibility of legislative oversight and checks. It is building houses for judges and reportedly drowning some of them in bad cash.
The excesses of overwhelming power incumbency are excusable in the contemporary African context. Elected Kings can toy with power absolutism when the opposition is weak and unserious as in today’s Nigeria. Even then, an elected president cannot forget that democracy survives on open dialogue. The dialogue that enervates a thriving democracy is multi directional- between government and civil society, among civil society organizations and between the King and the major units of the polity.
Clerics constitute a very strategic constituency. Their partisanship is rooted in faith and therefore immutable. They speak for God and therefore all of humanity. When clerics assume a partisanship based on present realities, Kings fret and shake.
