 Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, our CCG, has created a department to mobilise support for its members, including Vice President Yemi Osimadro, who may be interested in running for office. Now a memo dated February 28 further directed regional, provincial and local heads of the Pentecostal Church to replicate similar desks in their respective domains and appoint officers to man them. Although the Vice President, a senior minister in the church, has yet to openly declare his intention to run for the 2023 presidential elections, analysts are opining that the move is a ploy to mobilise sweeping support for his ambition. Yet the Vice President is believed to be facing stiff contention from his esbwild political leader and benefactor Bola Amedinibu for the ticket of the all-progressive Congress, APC. Well, joining us to discuss this is Ihe Ibeji, Cach Ununuju, both our political analyst and also Chokbe Ilauri, he is a preacher. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you very much. All right. I'm going to start with you Miss Ilauri because you are a preacher and this has to do with a church. It's the first time a church, a very well-known church in Nigeria, is stepping up to the plate to even think of having a political leader. Now, a lot of people are welcoming the idea because, you know, many people have somewhat blurred that line between religion and politics saying that both can coexist. But there are those who think that politics should stay out of church. So I put it to you. When you heard this news, where you are among the people who applauded it and said, well, it's high time that this happened, or are you in a position to the idea? Well, thank you very much for having me. When I actually saw a copy of that memo that was sent from the Redeemed Christian Church of God, I saw that this evening. And I believe it's a very, very welcome development. I believe that it is about time because the church does not exist in a vacuum. And the nation, what goes on in the nation and the things that have to do with leadership also affect the church. So it is about time that we took our destinies in our hands and began to participate. It's all well and good if we begin to criticize and talk about leadership or pray for them. But the Bible does allow us to watch and to pray. So what means to participate? And then to pray means, of course, which is what we do. So we participate. So it is around about time that the church rose up and began to do something about leadership in Nigeria because we have more than enough resources in the church to fill places of leadership. And I believe a much better job that is being done now. The Bible says in Revelation 1 chapter 6 verse 6 that God has made us kings and priests on the earth. Now, each area of priesthood is where you talk about religion. But when you talk about the king, it talks about authority, political authority. So if God has equipped us to be kings and priests, we cannot just focus on one part and leave the other. It will be responsible for the fact that the redeemed Christian God has done this. It's a very welcome development. Why did the redeemed church of God not do this the whole time? We've had governments come and go. Why was this not an idea that was raised? Why now that there are speculations that maybe the vice president might be interested in running for office? And I want to ask you why not because it is when you decide that you want to do it. So maybe we start back and we watch all of these years. And when I say we are in the church, we start back and we watch all of these years. This is the time. I mean, the time here is, there's no time outside now. This is the first time we're having a vice president. And I do not believe that what the redeemed church of God did is the proof of the vice president. The vice president has not even indicated interest in running. He has not. So I know that what they are doing or what has been done is not for the vice president. They cut across all political offices and the believers are now going to be encouraged to go and join political parties and then become functional members of those parties. And then people from church will back them up. Right? So asking me why now because now is the best time. Now is the best time. The best time to do something that you should have done long ago is now. So now is the best time. That's the reason. I'm going to go to you, Miss Anunidhu. Just like he said, well, he's saying that the timing is proper. This is the best next time to get the church involved. But I'm curious, isn't there a danger in letting those lines cross, especially when a church is a place where you have people from different works of life with different political standings and different interests? Will it not look like these people are being pointed in a particular direction? Well, thank you. The first thing I would like to tell you is that the church is simply reacting to what the mosque has done well before now. I'm sure you remember the man, Issa Pantani. Pantani is a frontline member of the Islamic Salafist movement. And here in Notre Dame, Nigeria. Oh my goodness. I think we're having connection issues there with you. Miss Anunidhu, can you hear me? I can hear you well. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead please. Good. The church is simply playing catch up. And this particular thing you're talking about is something that the members of the Salafist movement have been deeply in it. Mr Issa Pantani, today a minister for digital economy and communication in Nigeria is promoted by the Salafist movement. The Salafist movement are Sunnis. So here in Notre Dame, the Sunnis are massively in it. Buwari has had his sustained support by the Sunnis. So I see nothing wrong with the Christians also when you know, because if you had to look at Nigeria, Nigeria by population, it's up to us every second. I think we have another disruption there. But we'll only come to you here while we try to correct that. We're beginning to talk about this across the lines that we're trying to blur, religious lines. We know that Nigeria obviously is divided along religious and ethnic lines. And if we begin to look at our political office holders or push for political holders from those same lines that we're complaining that we need to blur. I'm not in any way shooting this down, so welcome to development. But how do we make sure that it does not become another monster in the room? Okay, so thank you very much for having me. First and foremost, politics and the church has been around for quite a while. I mean, the time of the black movement where you have the Martin Luther King's, the Reverend Jesse Jackson's. They galvanised support, political support when it had to do with extremist issues. The time of the Roman Catholic period, the popes wielding such powers that had to do with authority, but in the Christian way and the political manner. In terms of blurring lines, these are lines that you have to move with wisdom, because at this point in time there's a thin line between religion and the truth, righteousness. So if we say we breed righteousness in the church and people are coming to worship God in the church, there should be leadership that is enough to take care of the needs and suffering of the people. So would you want to allow the lines not to be blurred and sit back while suffering continues? Or would you want to take the mantle and drive the leadership that people would believe in and say, okay, this is what it's supposed to be? I'm not trying to play the devil's advocate here, I'm just asking the questions that need to be asked. These same people that we were saying that are not necessarily leading us right, are not doing the necessary things that need to bring the people out of the door drums. They're sitting in our churches, they sit in the front rows, the commissioners, the ministers, the politicians, they're part of the church. So when we say that we're trying to push somebody from the body to be in those positions, these same people. So I'm trying to understand how do we differentiate between the guy who is fit for leadership who will deliver compared to just saying, well he's our church member, let's galvanize support for them. Sometimes I ask myself whether it is a question of the devil that you know is better than the edger that you don't. In a huge propensity that is what it seems like a lot of times, because he's in your fold. So he's somebody that you see every time, he's somebody who comes in piety with his family. So all of a sudden you begin to accept that this is somebody who you can hold on to. But a lot of times we forget the fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So when he emerges as a powerful man in the position of power, all of a sudden he surrounds himself with the paraphernalia of power, you cannot reach him. So there's that fear. And guess what? It happens. It is real. So you're correct. There is a need to be careful with this push. I mean, it's not like something that was not well thought out if you ask me. I mean, this is a massive following. Over 5 million. Wow. I mean anybody who you want to push forward would have quite a lot of following. But it's existed over time. And even in the current dispensation, even in the current political manner, structure, it has always played out in that manner. So I think that what it will be eventually will be to exercise a lot of caution to really come down to being that devil that we know is, I'm sorry, but that's just the blunt truth is preferable to the edger that we don't. But to even see Laurie, again, I'm going to pressure you because you're a preacher here. Pasta Paul, a day for us in Pasta Tunde Bacaree. I think we also have in that regard the living faith pastor David Oedipo. These are men of God who have been very vocal in terms of leadership, what our leaders are supposed to be doing. And of course they are also very good at criticising these leaders. So now that we have a lot of leaders, preachers who seem to be standing up for, you know, not just Christianity, but speaking truths to power. Are we going to be seeing more churches saying, well, we want to have a political desk. We want to be able to also galvanize. Should every church, that's my question, the body of Christ, as we call it, be looking in this direction to push for more people within the face. Who will attempt to look at this idea of politics as a dirty game? Should every church begin to toll the line of the answer CG? And again, Miss Anunudu made a statement about the Sudanese who are pushing for their people to also be in power. And I guess they also hold them to some level of responsibility. How does the church do that so that these people do not go rogue? OK. If you think about the greatest issues or the problems we have with political shareholders today, your guest over there was talking about the fact that absolute power corrupts. We need to have people who are grounded, who you can hold accountable and real back in if they begin to drift. But in a situation where you mentioned that, you said that how do we differentiate or delineate between the people who are already in church positions of power and the people who we want to push forward. Now the people who are in positions of power are not really in church. What they do is they use the church when they need to use the church. And they come to church and like you said, they probably sit in the front row and all of that. But if we have a situation where the church has a political arm that holds accountable and lets those people who want to go forward. Now if you are in my church, the fact that you are in my church should not be enough for me to support you. I need to check you out. I need to know your antecedents to know what are you, what are you, what is driving you, what's your motivating force. If a leader cannot tell us why he wants to aspire to leadership then there is no point supporting or backing that leader up. Now, if the church rises up and begins to push people forward, that is the people that are ready to sell and have been vetted by the church, then we are the ones who can hold the people we push forward accountable. The error of Godfatherism is basically the same thing. You put somebody in office and then you become the Godfather over that person and then you dictate everything that he does. Now, I'm not saying that the church is going to become, is going to hold... I was about to take you on that one but you're lucky. Go ahead. Let me land on that. I knew I was going to take you on that. But what would happen is that where we have people, actually the first thing that I would think that the church would check out is what is your history in service in the church and in the community and are you Godfairing. Now, think about the fact that you mentioned some men of God who have been speaking the truth to people in power. What if the person in power is not only somebody who is in power that is far away but is a member of their congregation? They can go to the fellow and say, my dear brother, although you are the governor, although you are the president, you are not going the way that you are supposed to go. In the Bible there are times when the prophets, they used to go to the king directly and speak to them and tell them, no, you have to get away from what God said. So we need to have that part back in our political life. You can speak those in power. Let me come back to Miss Anunudu. I hope we have him back. Miss Anunudu, it's interesting that this is a welcome development for many. But I think that we have not been able to get him back. So I'm going to come back to you. Now that he's telling us that it's safer to have these men and that we can hold them responsible, I want to point to the vice president. He's been a pastor for years before he became the vice president. He's been an attorney general, served excellently. But can we say that this government has really pleased the church? Has this government pleased the people? Should we still be looking for pastors? I mean, I can go back as far back as Pastor Joshua Dairie. We know how it ended. We've had so many of these guys who are pastors who have these appendages, but did not necessarily deliver. So I don't know if it's... I'm still struggling with being a church member, checking their track record. If I want something from you, I could do everything to get your attention. And once I get that thing, all you see is my back. So is it about just being in church or is there supposed to be some form of boot camp for the want of a better way to describe it? Make sure that we can get good leaders. I mean, they don't fall from trees, but how do we do that? Thank you very much for echoing my exact thoughts. Quite frankly, the excitement about this whole thing is general to a certain level, but there needs to be some level of planning and structure around it. You hit the nail spot on the head. Now the churchgoers, the people who go to church, they are common men like you and I, and they've gone through the ills and the sufferings that have been faced over the years across every administration. So even though themselves must be circumspect, because they have one of theirs who has been in government, or who has been in government several, a lot of them. And in terms of changing things the way they want it to, it hasn't come out that way. A lot of them may not be so satisfied with what they're getting. Maybe this is them saying, okay, you know what, you have been there as a support. Can we have you at the top? But aside that, I'd like to see what the structure is going to be like. For instance, every bank loan, do we get to see a guarantor? So if he gets into power, will he come back for Holy Ghost Congress? Or the experience. Yeah, the experience. Will he come back to church for that? Out of time, so Miss Anil, I'm going to let you have the last day, unfortunately the internet caught you off. How do we see this playing out in the future? And how do we also make sure that because it's a church thing, it doesn't also make the man who goes to the mosque feel left out? No, the man who goes to the mosque is already in this game. All the church is trying to do is also to equalize. Don't forget, as I was trying to say before the little point of, Esa Pantami is a loyalist of the Salafist movement. And even Buhari is also a Salafist. So if I walked, Sheikh Gumi started over 10 years ago, has now forced a lot of the Salafist people right now on government. If you liked it, this particular government of President Buhari is something has had a strong nepotics land after the February member of the Salafist movement. And if you look at the country, as I said in numerical sense, it's actually a Christian country in terms of domination. So there is nothing wrong if the Christians also come out the same way the Muslims have come out to actually embrace politics. At the end of the day, it's going to be good going forward. So I don't really see a problem. Let's all say how we play out. I see nothing wrong in this. Well, I want to say thank you to the guests tonight. I want to say thank you to Shopeilori. He's a preacher. Cachon and Adru is a political analyst and Ihe Ibeidi also is a political analyst. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being part of the conversation. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you all for staying with us. As we round off today's show, we will bring you highlights of this week's conversations. And of course, don't forget plus TV, plus politics, I beg your pardon, returns on Monday at 7 p.m. And we're here every single weeknight. I'm Mary Anacorn. Have a good night and enjoy your weekend. Now, the problem is not as much with the constitution or with the framework as it is with the way we practice it. I don't think the real challenge is the constitution or the legal framework under which we operate. It is part of the problem, but I don't think it's the main challenge. Part of the challenge we face is the leadership recruitment process. How are these guys elected? Are they through representatives of the people? If you notice, you may have observed that in the political process, and don't think very often it is governors or some very powerful political elites that will literally handpick those who will run on the platform of various political parties. So these guys come with a mentality that they're not representing the people that are representing whatever interests I've forced them on the ticket of the political party. Now, of course, they provide resources, they get elected, and they know that primarily they're not representing the people. Zoning is one of the political strategies of the lazy political class who have nothing to offer to just reduce the geographical sphere of people who consider them to be competent. I said I don't believe that you need to zone offices to people who just belong to political parties but don't want to have the required competence and experience. As I have, I'm using the word experience clearly not the way they are using or the way they've abused it. To run a country, I don't believe in zoning and I've said that several times because we have zoned the office of the president and other political offices into different hands and they have left Nigeria a broken place. There is also a role for the family and society and celebrity culture. But you know, with TikTok and social media and celebrity culture, these things happen in two, three minutes, if that. Whereas nation building is a serious issue, the wind needs to be discussed from different perspectives and dealt into. So it's not something a celebrity on TikTok can transmit in a four second video. These are serious issues that need to be talked about seriously within proper structure and context. It's multi-layered and everyone has a role to play. Religion has a role to play. Traditional rulers and traditional institutions have a very important role to play. For me, as a woman of Hensia Town, I have a role as a traditional ruler to provide an example to young girls and women in my society. And even having that position says to those women, here is somebody who has claimed this position and I can do so within a traditional context. I think the APC is trying to resolve their crisis the best way possible. If you look at what they're doing currently, rather than align with me to score through the next election and the next convention, they decided to move, you know, get them out of the place and put in somebody down below with the mandate to organize the convention. Otherwise, there'd be a crisis if the shit keeps again on March 26. And that is not what they want. Yes, the president will certainly have a deal on who should be particularly the chairman of the party. But we should not forget what they've done in the APC currently. What they've tried to do now is to resolve all the problems also. They've done what we call lateral zoning. The lateral zoning is about dividing the country into two constituencies. That is the north and the south. And all the offices currently occupied by the north will now be moved to the south. All the offices in the south will be moved to the north. And then from there, you now have the micro zoning, you know, within each constituency. So now zone those posts to different areas. So they are trying to resolve it in a representative way and in a way that would be to let conflict.