From comments and swipes at him for the recent remarks on the insinuations of “Buhari’s double”, it is clear that the presiding bishop of Living Faith Church Worldwide (Winners’ Chapel International), Bishop David Oyedepo was misunderstood. And rather than exercise restraint and do more inflections and retrospection on the bishop’s submissions, Nigerians, in our characteristic quick-to-judge approach, took to social and mainstream media pages to throw punches, take advantage of the situation to vent age-long anger and show deep-seated resentment towards God’s servant.
For the avoidance of doubt, let me make some things clear about this episode:
1 Bishop Oyedepo knew the piece was a satire, but he had privately expressed surprise at the weakness of such a satirical piece.
2 The bishop felt the noise about the “double” should have been laid to rest long before it became cancerous and embarrassing. The bishop felt the noise was avoidable by even a comical response to the allegation by Buhari before it became an issue of satirical fun.
3 The bishop did not at any point admit belief in the “Buhari double” story. He made measured submissions on this and chose his words intelligibly and without ambiguity to be misunderstood. He declared that it was wise for the president to have come out and debunked the claims if they were not true. Thankfully, it was immediately after the bishop’s open challenge that President Buhari broke his silence on the matter and debunked the allegation.
4 Maintaining silence on matters that have caused unnecessary national embarrassment is not a thing to encourage or perpetuate as a responsible nation. Buhari has the right as a human being to keep quiet if he so desires, but the Nigerian president cannot afford to keep quiet when our national image is at stake. President Buhari, therefore, owed us the obligation to have come out long before now and calmed frayed nerves, put doubts to rest and make us move forward and put such mundane thoughts as “double” behind us.
These were the premises upon which the bishop challenged the president. He wanted him to speak out and put an end to many years of one national disgrace after another. The other time, Yar’Adua’s illness became a source of opprobrium. Years ago, Jonathan watched helplessly as over 200 girls were taken into captivity by hoodlums under his watch, which caused national disgrace. Recently, over soldiers were killed with such impunity by non-soldiers. And now, the world is laughing yet again at us for another nonsensical controversy that should have been taken care of by a smart presidency.
We must note that Bishop Oyedepo is an elder statesman and a stakeholder in the Nigerian project. He cannot afford to keep quiet in the face of the odious turn of tide for the country. He and other well-meaning Nigerians cannot be working so hard to build a great image for the country and others, including the government are destroying what such people labour hard to build. If he has chosen not to fold his arms like others choose to do, he has the right to do so as a Nigerian and indeed he has done right by speaking out against matters of national emergency. Professor Wole Soyinka once warned “the man dies in him who keeps silent in the face of tyranny”. This “tyranny” means different things, including insensitivity to issues of national concern.
How could the leader of Africa’s biggest nation be called “cloned” and replaced with a Sudanese and the leadership will maintain a demonic silence? Donald Trump, leader of the world’s greatest nation would have explained and cleared the mist in a series of tweets and through White House press briefings. The British government would have done same under Theresa May. Emmanuel Macron of France would have done same. But it is only in Nigeria that all sorts of insults are hurled at us and we go about our businesses as long as there’s food on the table. This has to stop. We should, therefore, encourage the respected voices and our other (alternative) leaders, such as Soyinka, Rev Fr Matthew Kukah, Olusegun Obasanjo, Tunde Bakare, Emeka Anyaoku, Oyedepo, etc., to speak out for us whenever we are challenged as a people.
As for Professor Olatunji Dare’s “satire”, it may have failed as a satire if it could not achieve its purpose and could be understood so literally. If the likes of Animal Farm’s George Orwell and Voltaire had written such flat satires and had later done postscripts explaining their works were satires, the way Dare has done, how could the satirical genre of writing have been popular?
Professor Sheriff Folarin
Chairman, Media and Editorial Board
Living Faith Church Worldwide
