OPINION: CBCN, Onaiyekan, And The Way We Are

By Valentine Obienyem

If Mr. Peter Obi speaks, it is understandable that a group of thugs always comes after him. Members of that group are characters like Festus, Daniel Bwala, Reno Omokri, Professor in Practice, Bayo Onanuga, Femi Fani-Kayode, and Kenneth  Okonkwo, who honoured those who taught him by surpassing them. We also have aspiring members, such as the Omasi-born Dr. Chukwuma Joel Kpontus Okafor, who was expelled from the three seminaries he attended. He goes about telling people that, since we started paying attention to him, he is now being recognised. We shall not relent in that attention.

These ethereal, venal mobs are intent on patricide against our great father – the country of Nigeria. Their mode of operation is always the same: they keep infuriating the people with their daily drench of nonsense, even presenting PBAT’s farts as though they carried a sweet aroma, while urging us to forget the evils of the time. Even when PBAT did not have primary and secondary school certificates, they argued that this was what distinguished great men. Yet, even if one obtained a school certificate through correspondence studies, would there not still be certificates that could be produced and referenced?

Yes, one may even say they feel justified in attacking Peter Obi because they see him as a danger to their continued stay in office. They see him as a voice that has remained a source of discomfort to them till today. They see him as the man who almost prevented their emergence in 2023 until one of them invoked a non-existent glitch to truncate the will of the people.

A few days ago, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference met with the President. They simply told him the truth about Nigeria. And you saw how Tinubu reacted. The man who slurs when he speaks, or sometimes speaks unintelligibly, suddenly roared like a lion and almost told the bishops that they were lying. What gave him that new-found energy he has refused to deploy in fighting terrorism or fixing the economy? This shows that his primary concern is how to continue as President, not the problems of the country. He is madly in love with the dark labyrinths of power.

Do you think what he is doing is new? Not at all. When you pry into history, you will discover that there was almost nothing those who governed states had not done, or would not do, to sustain themselves in power. Some even went as far as destroying their own realms.

I read many years ago of a king who, terrified of assassination and constant conspiracies during the later years of his reign, had the walls of the portico (colonnade) where he took his daily walks lined with phengite – a highly polished, translucent stone. The reflective stone acted as a series of mirrors, allowing him to see anything happening behind his back, including would-be assassins,  as he walked. That king was the Roman Emperor Domitian.

I also read about Mithridates VI, the King of Pontus and one of the Roman Republic’s most formidable enemies. He lived in constant fear of being poisoned by political rivals or even family members. To protect himself, he systematically ingested tiny, non-lethal doses of various poisons, combined with antidotes, to build up a biological immunity against a variety of toxins available  in his realm.

From what men of old did to preserve themselves in power, would anyone be surprised at what a President’s minions do when they sense that their positions are threatened by the truth? Their reaction against the Catholic bishops is violent. In the normal way they destroy the country, they immediately sought to pitch the bishops against the people by reducing their intervention to Catholics only. Have you seen how wickedly men seek to destroy religion by pitching adherents against one another? The Catholic bishops evidently spoke as Nigerians who are part of the suffering of Nigerians, and not as representatives of one religious body.

The heat was much greater against Cardinal Onaiyekan for daring to relate their encounter with the potentate at Aso Rock. Despite all this, Cardinal John Onaiyekan spoke to Arise Television with engaging honesty. His words and demeanour bespoke a mind serene, mature, erect, and firm. Nigerians were heartened to hear such a courageous voice in a country where many religious leaders are busy singing the praises of Mr. President according to how well their palms have been lubricated. Henceforth, the treatment meted out to Cardinal Onaiyekan will remain a standard by which to gauge Tinubu’s attitude towards real or imagined opposition.

The Catholic bishops are merely imagined opponents because nobody can reasonably doubt their sincerity or their commitment to remaining the authentic voice of the people.

The Cardinal, being over eighty years old, should have been regarded as being beyond constituting a danger to the state, yet see how they are impugning him. I even read one of our brothers attempting to link him to the Ahiara controversy. Ironically, the man making that allegation was among those who sponsored some of the renegade members of the Ahiara Diocese to openly protest against the Church during that fevered period.

It must be admitted that Nigerians are passing through difficult times. At such a moment, the nation needs men and women with the courage to tell those in authority the truth, however uncomfortable it may be. That is precisely what the Catholic bishops and Cardinal John Onaiyekan did. They neither insulted the President nor sought political advantage. They simply articulated the anxieties and sufferings that millions of Nigerians experience daily. However difficult the country may be, the bishops would be immune to its hardships if they cared only about themselves, but they are there for you and me. The mark of a good shepherd is that he smells like his sheep.

A government that is confident in its record should welcome such frank counsel rather than  leading , and subsequently, unleashing  attack dogs against respected voices. The measure of any democracy is not how it treats those who praise those in power, but how it responds to those who speak uncomfortable truths.

If an octogenarian Cardinal, whose life has been devoted to God, the Church, and the service of humanity, can be subjected to such coordinated vilification and stinking ridicule – to the point of even dragging the Ahiara controversy into the matter – merely for speaking honestly, then every Nigerian should pause and ask: Is this the way we are? More importantly, is this the kind of Nigeria we wish to bequeath to future generations?

Obienyem, a Lawyer, wrote from Awka