The Christian Legislators Breakfast Fellowship In Abuja

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REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, THE VICE PRESIDENT, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, AT THE CHRISTIAN LEGISLATORS BREAKFAST FELLOWSHIP AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE, ABUJA, ON THURSDAY, 26TH OF OCTOBER, 2017

PROTOCOLS

The theme of our prayer breakfast this morning is “Reconciliation, God’s Power and the New Pathway to National Unity”. Or to make it clearer, the theme is: “The New Pathway to National Unity is by Reconciliation through the Power of God.” So the way to achieve National Unity is by reconciling our nation, the different tribes, ethnicities and even the faiths, through the power of God. I will ask a couple of questions. The first is, what is the power of God?

1 Corinthians 1:24 tells us that to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  Christ Jesus Christ is the power and wisdom of God.

So Christ is the Power of God. So Christ is the “gospel”. When the scripture says that we preach Christ, what it means is that we are preaching the gospel. Christ and the gospel are the same. So the Bible says in Romans 1:16

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.”

So the gospel is the power of God.

Let us remind ourselves of the theme: The New pathway to National Unity is by Reconciliation through the power of God. So now that we know what the power of God means.

Why are we talking about National unity? Our country has, since independence, experienced practically every form of conflict, division, and crisis. But it is important to note that the history of blood and gore from parochial conflicts has spanned every Nigerian government since the seventies. Let me give a short chronology.

 From the events of the 1966 coup, its aftermath, and the civil war, over 2million died. In the Shagari Administration,  1979 to 1983, there was the Maitasine crisis in Kano, Maiduguri, Kaduna, Yola and Gombe in 1980, and the Kalakato crisis in Bulumkutu, Maiduguri, where over 5,000 died and 60,000 were displaced.

The Military administration of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (December 1983 to August 1985) also had the Maitasine Riots in Jimeta-Yola, in February /March 1985, in which 586 died. A recurrence was seen in the Pantami Ward of Gombe in April of the same year, claiming another 105 souls.

The spiral of religious clashes, however, continued into the Babangida administration (August 1985 to August 1993). You might recall, for instance, the Easter procession clashes in Ilorin (March 1986) and the clashes between Christian and Muslim students of the University of Ibadan (May 1986). There was also the ethno-religious violence of 1987 in Jos, and the Kafanchan crisis of the same year, where thousands died in Kafanchan, Kano, Zamfara, and Bauchi.

Religious riots still occurred the following year in Bauchi and Gombe, as well as Zaria and Kaduna, where about 107 students of the Ahmadu Bello University were seriously injured following the election of a Christian to the leadership of the Students Union.

The popular Shiite uprising followed in Katsina (1991) with dozens of lives lost. Another clash of Christians and Muslims in Bauchi (April 1991) claimed 200 lives while 700 places of worship were burnt.

Other notable cases include the  Reinhard Boonke riots of October 1991, in which hundreds died in Kano, and the renewed Kafanchan crisis of 1992, where at least 60 were killed in Zangon Kataf. Several more lives were lost in Funtua, Katsina State, during the Kalakato crisis of February 1992.

The Abacha military administration (November 1993 to June 1998) similarly witnessed two reoccurrences of the Jos crisis in April 1994 and April 1997. At least 200 houses were burnt down, and several people were killed.

During the Obasanjo Administration, the Kafanchan crisis erupted again in 1999, and dozens were reportedly killed. There was also the Borno religious riots, which left several people injured in the same year.

Then we had the Sharia Law crisis in Kaduna (February and May respectively in the year 2000), where many lost their lives. The Jos crisis also erupted again in 2001 and 2004, while similar riots were seen in Kano and Gombe in 2001. We also had the riots provoked by attempts to hold the Miss World Beauty Pageant in Kaduna (2002).

The Yaradua administration also witnessed regular resurgence of the Jos crisis in November 2008, January 2010 and March 2010. By this time, Boko Haram had also made its presence felt in Bauchi and Maiduguri between 2009 and 2010, when hundreds were reportedly killed.

In the last administration of Goodluck Jonathan, the Jos crisis persisted, with violent clashes in December 2010 and January 2011. Boko Haram also hit Abuja with the attack on the UN building on August 26, 2011. But it is perhaps the Fulani/ farmers conflicts that have occurred most frequently through the years.

From 1996 to 2006, about 121 people lost their lives in Bauchi and Gombe states as a result of Fulani/farmers clashes. Between 2002 and 2004, there were clashes in the Yelwa-Shendam area of Plateau State between farmers and Fulani herdsmen, and thousands lost their lives.

On 13 July 2014, 10 persons were killed in clashes between farmers and suspected Fulani herdsmen in Pilgani District of Langtang North Local Government of Plateau State. On 14 July 2014, over 50 people were reported to have been killed in Gidandawa District of Maradun Local Government Area in Zamfara State in a clash with Fulani herdsmen.

In May 2015, over 100 people died in villages and refugee camps located in Ukura, Benue State, from attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen. June 8 2013, Fulani herdsmen/farmers clashed in Plateau State, leading to 3 deaths and the destruction of 12 houses in Plateau State. June 3 2013, villagers fled as Fulani herdsmen invaded their community.

August 1, and August 17 2013, respectively, in Nasarawa State, Fulani Herdsmen and villagers clashed, killing 19 people and on May 23, 2013. Suspected Fulani Herdsmen kill 12 in Benue, and another 20 died in a clash with Herdsmen, in  Soja Patali in Benue.

On Christmas Day 2011, a coordinated bombing of churches resulted in 41 fatalities. In January 2012, another three churches were attacked on the same day in Kaduna State. 2015 was probably BH’s year of most brazen infamy. The group using female suicide bombers, many of whom were mere children, attacked 28 different religious events, mostly mosques and Islamic gatherings.

There has been no shortage of brutal, mindless killings of the brethren across the land.

In 2005, along with Rev Ladi Thompson, who founded the Macedonian Initiative, an NGO to bring relief to persecuted Christians, I pursued the killing of a Christian teacher in Gombe State, whose students cut her to pieces ostensibly because she had seized a copy of the Koran from a female student.

The ferocity and mindlessness of the killings are sometimes simply too horrifying to recall. Aside from parochial conflicts and killings, there have been mistrust and hostility between ethnic groups, sometimes resulting in conflicts but mostly suppressed and manifesting in agitation for ethnic autonomy or outright secession, such as we have seen with MASSOB and more recently IPOB.

Leaders and brethren, why is it that no administration has succeeded in stopping these religious and ethnic conflicts and killings and bringing about national reconciliation?

There are 2 reasons: the first reason is that unity is God’s idea. God’s plan is to give strength and power to all people. And the devil’s role is to oppose God’s plan.

 Genesis 1:27 God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Gen 2:7: breath of life

Gen 11, after the fall, there was disunity.  With Christ, the redemption and reconciliation. God recreated in the image of God.

Acts 2: In one accord,  people from every country heard their own language. After Peter preached the gospel all united and came together in unity.  all things in common

Acts 2:44, 46.  Christ had said that if any two agree on anything, Father in heaven will do it. But what happened in Acts 6:1:

Chapter 6

“Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.  Hellenistic Jews who spoke Greek, Hebrews Jews who spoke Aramaic. Hellenistic said we are being marginalized in the daily distribution.”

Acts 6:3

Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.”

And so, when you look at what Paul said in Galatians 3:26-28, he says, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither Igbo, nor Yoruba or Fulani, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

The second reason why no administration has yet been able to solve the problem of ethnic division is because and this reason flows from the first, is because the answer to disunity, hate, the response to gross wickedness lies in the church and can only be found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But the problem with the gospel of Jesus Christ is that it is a Contrarian gospel. In other words, it is completely contrary to everything that our flesh or our reasoning accepts. It disagrees with the carnal nature of man. Scripture says that the carnal nature of man is enmity against God.

1 Corinthians 1:21

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”

So, we must remember that in  1st Corinthians, 1:25  the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men; he way up is down, humble yourself so you can be exalted, and to live and multiply you must die.

But for me, the most challenging of this contrarian gospel is found in Matthew 5:38-43, where Jesus repudiated the law of Moses on the issue of how to treat our enemies

Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks from you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”

Love Your Enemies

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” Verse 44 also says: “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. And to those who have urged revenge, the answer of our faith is vengeance is mine, says the Lord.”

How can a man pray for those who, in his presence, killed his children and ripped out the baby with which his wife was pregnant from her womb? How do you love someone who comes into your community annually to kill as many as he can find?

How do I turn the other cheek when the bones of the right side of my face have been cracked by the first slap?  Is it not wiser to defend ourselves and indeed kill our assailants?

We must note that despite the severe persecution of the early Christians, they never once fought back. All through the Acts of the Apostles, all we ever heard was how they were beaten, robbed and stoned to death. Stephen, a deacon, was an example given in scripture in Acts 7:59-60:

“And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

The power of redemption came from perhaps the most contrarian of all scripture. It is that God Almighty came to be shamed, punished and killed to save the most wretched and wicked of us. As if to rub it in, God chose as His leading disciple, Paul, a persecutor of Christians, who seized Christians from their homes and brought them to face one of the most horrible forms of death, death by stoning! This Boko Haram leader wrote about half of the New Testament of the Bible, counting by the books!

Jesus, in laying down our agenda, said in Matthew 28:18-20 that we must preach the gospel of love and grace to all, and we must disciple the nations.

How do we disciple the nations if we hate those who need salvation? How can we ever bring the love of Jesus Christ to those whom some have urged that we must take revenge against?

Our nation has Christians, Muslims and those who say there is no God. Among the number are Boko Haram terrorists who throw bombs in the marketplace and motor parks, they kill children in their beds in Buni Yadi, and they abducted 200 Chibok girls.

When their bombs go off in the markets and motor parks, it does not ask whether you are Muslim or Christian before it kills. So who does God hold responsible for the unity and destiny of the nation?

Matt 28:18-20 says, “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

In Romans 8:19, the word of God tells us that God Himself and the earth are waiting for the manifestation of the Children of God, that the whole earth groans waiting for the manifestation of the children of God.

This land, this country, Nigeria, also groans waiting for the manifestation of the children of God, why because it is the children of God who will redeem this land; it is the children of God who have the mandate to redeem this land.

You and I do not have to be many; scripture tells us that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Salt does not come in large quantities, very small quantities, and it makes the difference. We don’t need the consensus of everybody to change the narrative, only a few of us.

Every time a person is entrusted with a leadership position, it is because God has a plan to use that person to do his will. The question is, are you willing to do His will or not?

Thank you for listening.