Pastor Enoch Adeboye is not your everyday pastor. In a century headlined by rising criminality, immorality and gross disavowal of tender care as a reminder of our humanity, the clerics, of any faith, often stand as the buckler to the vicious floodgate of evil. Thus, it is the cleric that humanity turns to for the truth, for wisdom and a lashing rebuke to authoritarianism.
Adeboye is the General Overseer of the flourishing Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). He was not the founder of this church. It was founded by a stark illiterate, the late Pa Akindayomi, whom Adeboye, a PhD holder in mathematics humbly submitted to work under donkey’s years ago as an interpreter. The baton to lead the church was later passed to Adeboye and today the rest is history.
Recently, Adeboye, an ultra-conservative preacher, who though wealthy and successful by every definition of those words would prefer the backstage in benign humility than throw himself at the centre-stage for attention, was in the news. Not so for his yearly prophecy which comes coded in simple, easy to read lines but which has very far-reaching implications, but for what he voluntarily said about the Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose.
Pastor Adeboye had during a recent visit to Ekiti State praised Governor Fayose for standing by his people. His very words: “We thank God for your courage, for your boldness, we thank God for your being willing to take risks so that your people can be protected. You have been a Governor who knows when to say enough is enough in defence of his people. And I’m sure you know what I’m talking about and I am sure the world knows. I don’t want to say more than that but be assured that we are praying for you and you will succeed in Jesus’ name”.
This is nothing but an innocuous opinion and prayer of a preacher. It was considered offensive and provocative by the Ekiti State All Progressives Congress (APC). In a reckless rebuttal, the party threw broadsides at Adeboye, calling him names and even vaingloriously tried to pit the globally respected pastor against President Muhammadu Buhari. If the author(s) of that riposte, obviously the handiwork of a perverted mind, had intended to hit back at a man well known for his apolitical piety, then they got it all twisted. Their response gave them away as political pigs in a cesspool of muck and mildew.
Pastor Adeboye does not deserve such denunciation from a band of benighted minds. First, he is a Nigerian protected by the constitution to freely hold and express an opinion. And the opinion he expressed did not in any way impugn the integrity or infringe on the rights of any person or group of persons. He merely stated the obvious. Fayose as governor of Ekiti State may be a gadfly; but he’s a good one. He may be garrulous but such garrulity is needed in this season of national disquiet; in this season when the nation is one huge captive audience, when otherwise outspoken men and women have suddenly lost their voices, lost their lustre and have themselves become artifacts and relics of a conquered state.
The beauty of democracy is the grace it confers on the people to freely hold opinion, band together in association, and freely move from place to place. Adeboye did not violate the law in visiting Ekiti State and expressing himself. Whatever he said about Fayose ought to be respected as his opinion about the governor. What he said of Fayose is what many people have said of the man who shares ‘amala and ewedu’ with his constituents and feels good about it. Is Adeboye getting the stick just because he is a preacher or pastor of the church that produced Vice President Yemi Osinbajo? Or was it because he lauded a PDP politician and not an APC governor? If so, his traducers have run foul of the law. They are clearly in breach of Section 42 of the Constitution which confers on Adeboye the right to freedom from discrimination.
Nigeria’s democracy would be imperiled if people, of all classes and creed, are not allowed to freely express themselves. Is that what the APC politicians in Ekiti State want from Nigerians? Two politicians have continued to define the true meaning of plurality of opinion in a democracy. Fayose and Nyesom Wike, the Governor of Rivers State, have remained defiant and resolute in the defence of their constituents and in speaking against tyranny and all forms of attempts to gag free speech. We may not like their style but we must appreciate their voices against evil. Whether it is the marauding Fulani herdsmen or the primitively desperate efforts of politicians to abort the popular will, both men have raised their voices when it mattered.
Things are going off the cliff; herdsmen are slaughtering farmers in their hundreds in Southern Kaduna, in Enugu, in Benue and in the South West; the economy is taking a battering with the naira no more worth the value of a piece of paper; multinationals are closing shops in Nigeria and moving to safer havens including neighbouring nations and all the politicians want us to do is keep sealed lips?
Pastor Adeboye merely voiced the growing discontent in the land even if it came as a commendation for Fayose. The likes of Fayose and Wike and all other voices that ever rang out against the anomalies in the land deserve commendation. The APC apologists who tried to desecrate the personality of Adeboye just to make a cheap point did more harm than good to their party. It is obvious they may not have spoken on behalf of the party leadership some of whom are as devastated and disappointed as the rest of the people.
To question the audacity of Adeboye to commend Fayose for defending his people is a grave affront on democracy. It is a veiled attempt to gag the public. It is a plot that can never take root in Nigeria. Not even in the darkest days of the late General Sani Abacha was free speech suppressed. And if it could not happen then, nobody should ever contemplate such autocracy now.
Pastor’s Adeboye’s harmless comment should be seen for what it is: a genuine endorsement that democracy is thriving in Nigeria. Commending a governor for defending his people is fair comment. We must not all retreat into the cauldron of loud silence in a moment of national stasis.
We do not have to agree with what people say but we must agree that they have the right to say what they say even if they are wrong. That is the nature of free speech. That is the majesty of democracy. It gives us the ability to live with the views of others even when we disagree with them. The response to Adeboye was in itself an attestation to the fact that the author(s) also reserve the right to free speech but free speech marinated with scathing remarks and unprintable adjectives calculated to bring the opposing party to public odium defeats the essence of liberty to hold opinion.
After 17 years of democracy, time has come for the actors to abhor hate speeches and speak words that edify not demoralize. The APC in Ekiti State should learn from the wisdom of George Orwell when he said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
Some people may not want to hear that Fayose and Wike are doing well and offering good governance to their people, but they must learn to live with it when others say so as an expression of opinion. That’s tolerance; that’s the liberty that democracy guarantees.
SunNews
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