Be careful of narratives you propagate in the name of politicking or Supporting your party.
Every politician in Nigeria basically is practicing one faith or another, Faith they have been professing even before they became politicians.
Practicing one’s faith even during elections and campaigns by candidates have never been a problem, infact it has been a norm to show how Pious they are since we claim to be a religious country; Buhari did it, Jonathan did it, Obasanjo and Yaradua did same, Kwankwaso and Alh. Tinibu is doing it currently why then do you have a problem with a Christian practicing his faith because he is contesting?
About last week Tinibu was in National Mosque with his Deputy Shettima (who is also a Muslim), to the cheer of worshippers who were seen in photos cheering him and jostling to touch them, there was no uproar, there was no political insinuations attached to it, there was no condescending statements like “you are politicizing religion (christians now attending churches is no longer worshiping but politicking), there was no accusation of heating the polity.
Today, Peter Obi was in Church alongside other politicians and they were all introduced, when it was Peter Obi’s turn of introduction the crowd went wild with a palpable joy which resonated through out the building and would literally infect you as you watch from your screen, instead of asking ourselves why the crowd didn’t react energetically and spontaneously when your fave or principal was called, instead of asking yourself why the common masses in the Mosque didn’t celebrate a BAT this much, you are foaming and propagating a dangerously false narrative you will suffer from tomorrow.
When has being a practicing Christian, being proud of your faith and unapologetically worshipping your God become a negative trait, something shameful and something mutually exclusive to politics that you should not do it openly in a secular state?
Why should there be a different standard for a Muslim Candidate and a Christian candidate so that a Muslim Candidate can openly go to Mosque and worship while being recorded to the adulation of many while a Christian who does same in a Church should be reproached?
Why would you think that openly practicing your faith as a Christian will naturally make some people not vote for you but a Muslim can openly practice his faith and get your Christian vote?
How come a sitting president still piously worships his God in his own way, other presidential aspirants doing same but the only Christian aspirant should hide his faith, is anything wrong with Christianity that the adherers of it who are politicians should hide it while their counterparts should be proud of theirs?
How does a candidate just worshipping in a church over heat the polity but a candidate worshipping in a Mosque brings calm?
I don’t care about the Muslims propagating and pushing for a Christian inferior outlook, though wrong, I can excuse it away as just politics, since whatever becomes of Christianity does not affect them but I am astonished at the Christians upholding this narrative and propagating it.
Indirectly you are preaching and accepting that Christianity should become an inferior faith that should not be practiced openly, that being a Christian will make you lose election (this will happen only if people of other faith are intolerant of a non Muslim leading them and not because of any other reason which I don’t want to believe), and that to maintain peace all practicing christians should tone down their worship a bit as not to be seen as SO CHRISTIAN while same standard should never be held for other religions.
Everything should not be politics, think beyond 2023!!!
©️ Orji Onyinyechi Lilian – Adadioranma
