JONATHAN’S PENCHANT FOR MAKING POLICY STATEMENTS IN CHURCH, WORRISOME

President Goodluck Jonathan has formed a questionable and perhaps ‘dangerous’ habit of announcing major policy decisions or accomplishments of his administration right on the pulpit of the church. When he is not in the church announcing how successful his administration had been in addressing the Boko Haram menace, he would be trumpeting one achievement or the other of his government. These days it is no longer uncommon for editors to dispatch reporters to church ceremonies attended by the president in order to get a ‘scope’ and the president has not disappointed the editors. In fact on this score, the president is the gift that keeps giving.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the president should not go to church or seek the face of God in all his dealings, including the administration of the country. I am a strong believer that it is the spiritual that determines the physical. And I am a strong believer in the Biblical saying that: ONLY A FOOL SAYS THERE IS NO GOD.  Since there is God, He must be worshipped by the faithful, especially the leaders that need His guidance to lead the people. It is therefore the spiritual and constitutional right of Jonathan to worship God. But his penchant for making policy statements while in the church is another matter all together in a religious sensitive country like Nigeria. President Jonathan was not elected president based on his church going credential. He was elected president by all Nigerians: Muslims, Christians, Animists and others. Despite what the critics are saying, Jonathan had a pan Nigerian mandate to preside over this country in 2011. The man won the election fair and square.But all that goodwill has been thrown to the dogs through poor governance and corruption in high and low places in his administration and now he is about killing his political career by inadvertently alienating Muslims and others who supported him. It is a very big mistake to buy into the garbage that because Boko Haram is giving his administration its worst nightmare,  most Northern Muslims are against him and thus he wants to solidify his ‘base’ by going to church every Sunday and making policy statements to bout.Most Northern Muslims want to see the end of the Boko Haram insurgency as much as the president. Muslims and Christians are suffering together in blood and economic hardship because of the activities of Boko Haram. So let our leaders, including Jonathan quit playing politics with religion. If the president has any policy statement, he should do it through his Special Adviser on Media, Dr. Reuben Abati or the loquacious Doyin Okupe or even Minister of Information, Labaran Maku or any of his legions of ministers. Better still, he can make the presidential media chat a weekly affair. No American president will find the church, the most convenient platform to reveal government successes or failures. Can you imagine President Barack Obama standing in the pulpit of his church announcing the position of his government on the ‘fiscal cliff’ conundrum in United States? The answer is obvious. This is in a country where there is overwhelming Judeo-Christian tradition and their currency proudly proclaims: “In God We Trust”.

From the clueless actions of the president that are undermining his presidency and alienating his support bases, one has no choice but to believe that his political strategists are patiently lazy, given their inability to guide him aright.  For the information of the president and his political strategists, no Christian can be elected president without the support of Muslims, likewise no Muslim can be elected president without the support of Christians. And if Jonathan and his team have no other marketing strategy to sale him, but his church attendance record, then they better start early to pack their baggage for Aso Rock exit on May 29, 2015.

And as a concerned citizen, I advice the president to henceforth stop making policy statements in the church and restrict himself to the reading of the portions of the Bible assigned to him to read before the congregation, perhaps by so doing, he will stop generating Monday morning newspapers’ headlines that are undermining his reelection prospects.