The APC Muslim-Muslim Ticket Proposition

” I believe you would have learned a lot after going to the whole hog of this Article. Eight (8) Minutes is the maximum reading duration.

Over the last eight days, since the conclusion of the APC Presidential Primary which saw Asiwaju Tinubu’s emergence as his party’s Presidential Flag Bearer, I have, as an observer and pragmatic student of politics, read and watched with keen interest, (in the media both the print and the electronic), the insidious trend of Muslim-Muslim ticket syndrome circulating the political space.

Though, it is not yet official, coterie of egghead political scientists have conjectured the inevitability of the MM Ticket presentation to Nigerians by the ruling party and it can be deduced as true despite its damaging inappropriateness, extreme hyperspamic tremors and crying unpopularity.

The proposition is unpatriotic, reckless and self-seeking and an awful spectacle, to put it mildly. It is perhaps the country’s cruelest politically authorized ticket since the return to civil rule.

That having been said, it is incumbent on us to abreast our readers, the summary of our finding in our deep and extensive study of our nation’s political history.

It is a common knowledge that the Nigerian constitution is silent on the question of whether or not we can have two persons of the same Faith as President and Vice President.

However, throughout our history since 1999, the Giant of Africa has never had a situation in her history whereby a President and his Vice will be Muslims and Vice_ Versa for Christians. From Olusegun Obasanjo to Umaru Musa Yar’adua (now of blessed memory), to Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.

So why ringing the Muslim-Muslim Ticket’s bell as we are inevitably heading towards 2023?

We have a message for the bell ringers and the one flat political party that they represent.

Let us start with Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the chief champion of the Muslim-Muslim Ticket.

Ever since Nasir El-Rufai has been earmarked as Tinubu’s likely running mate, what have shown in his diminishing remarks and the remarks of other ambitious Northern Muslim politicians are heretical in their mouths because they are using them as watchwords to advance their political career.

In El-Rufai’s incongruous words;

” I don’t think we should be looking at religion. We want to develop this country. When I get to the plane I don’t ask the religion of the pilot. I just want to get to my destination when in an aircraft.

The way the media and the irresponsible ones try to inject religion into religious and governance is sad and pathetic. It will take us nowhere.

In my state, I picked a very qualified and competent woman Muslim as running-mate in the 2019 elections, people were calling it Muslim-Muslim Ticket, and they said we were going to lose but we didn’t. We won.”

The above assertion is not only incongruously disingenuous but it’s ominously segregative and religiously unproductive.

NASIR must be told that Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian Ticket is rarely an issue in politics of the various States.

While the MM Ticket is a common practice in Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto and some parts of the North, the Christian-Christian Ticket is also practicable in Delta and Bayelsa States and elsewhere in the South-South but that is not so with the larger country, for Nigeria is bigger than Kano or Bayelsa.

Fullest information reaching us is that the Kaduna-born politician is  trying to evade political retirement for the sake of survival or relevancy factor.

Also, his “I can say it all” disposition can heighten the risk of post-election violence between the two religious classes in an already volatile political hemisphere.

The accidental public servant,  is, of course,  eyeing the vice-presidential seat by concealing his personal ambition behind the rhetoric of ” religion should not be a deciding factor in electoneering” and ideological conviction.

His political interest is all that matters and he has been mesmerized by the lust of vice presidential powers and the perks that come with.

At this we need not wonder, as General Olusegun Obasanjo has portrayed ” arrogance and ” lack of consideration for others” as his character. No question on patriotism. Pity!

There is factual evidence that the political conditions of the APC have produced amount of discontent from Nigerians, for which the redress can only come with the emergence of a Christian running mate.

May the Noble Lord cure the Kaduna State Governor and his likes of their illnesses for the betterment of our country.

We also have it on a reliable authority that  some uncharitable political support groups who are enemies of Nigeria have said it that Muslim-Muslim Ticket does not matter as far as Tinubu is the APC Presidential Nominee.

Hearing this unsavoury remark, my teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose flesh and I almost jumped out of my skin. That statement is unwarranted and it is a threat to national security as it may advertently or inadvertently set the stage for subversion.

 Tinubu himself whom they are working for had also been confirmed to have said that the Christian community matters little and that votes from the South-South and South-East of the country are not necessarily needed. All he needs is the votes from  the North_Central, Northeast Northwest and the Southwest which would be comfortable to win the presidency.

Does it not sound imprudent, illogical, preposterous, unwise and ridiculous to the extreme that with Nigeria’s present conflagrating situation with chaotic mistrust betweten the two major dominating religions, the ruling party will still be pushing for a Muslim-Muslim ticket?

The APC needs to move away from leading us on a perishable journey and dividing the country along weak seams of religionization of politics and politicization of religion.

On the lower frequencies, we speak for them. Of course, those who want to chop the Lagos State Patriarch’s money must say what he wants to hear for their personal orgies, and selfish reverie at the detriment of the country’s interest.

NIGERIA is a secularly- heterogeneous State with well over Seventy-three (73) Million Christians as her Citizens.

For those advocating competency as the only essential litmus test for the Vice Presidential consideration, we have in bulk Christians who have in their various capacities as State Governors, Ministers and Heads of Institutions proven their mettles scintillatingly.

So what else is the APC still looking for? The nation is already trapped and troubled owing to the chaotic mistrust between the Muslims and the Christians and the tension must be doused.

Filling Muslims as  Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates by any political party at this fragile time of our nation’s history will only fuel the belief that Nigeria is officially an Islamic State. It will furtherly reinforce the belief that the Muslims are born to be permanent occupants of the two highest offices in the Land while the Christians are ordinary spectators!

LESSON FROM THE LEBANESE CONSTITUTION

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 Lebanon is a country in the Middle East known for its well-developed system of power sharing between the Muslims and the Christians which is evident in the mode of electing the number one and two man in the country’s political hierarchy as eshrined in the Lebanese National Pact.

So why can’t Nigeria enshrine in its constitution, the principle of Presidential zoning between the two major faith, so as to tackle religious schism, sustain unity and optimize the non-vicious flow of religion for prosperous growth and development ?

THE PATH OUT OF THIS PERISHABLE JOURNEY.

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We call on conscientious leaders who still have an iota of enviable character, patriotism and leadership in them to come out in critical mass to challenge this invidious  hypothesis.

We are equally calling on the Northern Elders Forum for there is a role for them to play too as they must proactively defenestrate the explosive situations and the political and religious damage the MM Ticket can cause which is already lurking in the corner.

Asiwaju Tinubu, his supporters and other Muslim politicians championing the intensification of the MM Ticket maybe familiar with the striking Qur’anic counselling that:

Fear against tumult or oppression which affects not in particular (only those of you who do wrong but it may afflict all the good and the bad people):

God’s revelation having been described as Light, Guidance, and Mercy, ought to be strictly adhered to. If we treat God’s counselling in the wrong spirit, we are told that such tactics will avail us nothing: we cannot escape the consequences of our iniquities.

The above Godly religious warning against instigating internal discord or tumult was very necessary in the civil wars of early Islam, and can never be more instructive than it is now for a country at the Crossroads for if it comes, affects the young and old, innocent and guilty alike.

God please save our beloved Nigeria from the evil machinations of politicians which can degenerate into a sporadic uncontrollable crises.

RELIGIOUS CHAOS/CRISES when on in full gear do not know a billionaire from a poor man, a Christian from a Muslim, not even Asiwaju, his political cohorts, party members, Oluremi, poor son Seyi and other kith and kin will escape it and its devastating consequences.

The ruling APC if to be seen as a serious political party should not take for granted the God-given interest of our Christian folks and not ride roughshod on their rights.

Our appeal to Asiwaju Tinubu and the APC is for them to abrogate the MM Ticket by looking for a competent Christian running mate preferably from the North-Central Geopolitical Zone to run with Asiwaju and, if not in that Zone, from the  other two (2) Geopolitical Zones in the North.

By that token, a decision of this nature will foster the growth of peaceful coexistence, give the Christians a stentorian voice and social visibility at the national level, and encourage good governance. In that process, unity is sustained and everyone becomes a winner. All this can only contribute to our national security and development.

Before the pen is dropped, it must be stressed that Asiwaju Tinubu is himself sitting on the fence as he is no longer himself. He was elected the Presidential Candidate on the condition that he becomes subservient to the whims and caprices of the Northern Agenda.

He is not quite sure whether following the autocratic dictation of the Northern Governors who, are insisting on a Muslim running mate and whose unalloyed support made him the Party’s Presidential Nominee, will be the winning formula to the realization of his age-long presidential ambition.

 Also, the avalanche of virulent threat by his country’s Christian peoples ” we shall not vote you”, should he fail to pick one from amongst them as running mate also puts Asiwaju in a tight position to choose between two alternatives that seem equally undesirable.

Engulfed in such a difficult position in his running mate selection perhaps Asiwaju Bola Tinubu ought to be pitied by Nigerians rather than condemned.

Let us beseech the Lord Almighty that Asiwaju Tinubu and his party men be guided, through their cultural, political and religious channels, to opt a Christian running mate if only for the sake of our religious coexistence and social cohesion that matter than anything else.

I think much of my reader’s time has been taken on this topic. I  have tried as much as possible to limit the words I say to the eight minutes reading duration we have promised otherwise the reader will say that this writer has no respect for time.

BASHĪR ALAAYA is the National President of the Young Democrats of Nigeria.

Email : bashirmufti5@gmail.com

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