It is just a coincidence that this is coming eight days after the imbroglio caused by former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 – 2007) and Goodluck Jonathan (2010 – 2015) over the 2011 presidential election were carried in the press and broadcast by the electronic media last week Wednesday, April 26, 2017. As can be attested to by Mr. Sunday Caleb (080-2111-5416), who phoned me the day before on the series on Pastor Lazarus Muoka, founder and General Overseer of his church, I had told him that I would write about Obasanjo and Jonathan and the 2011 presidential poll within the next two weeks. I also informed him the article would be my present to Obasanjo for his 80th birthday celebrated in March.
As I told Caleb, I would write it because there was a need to let Obasanjo and Jonathan know they committed a grievous sin when the latter contested the 2011 election and was backed by the former to do so, and that it was, therefore, incumbent on them to pray and ask God for forgiveness over the issue before they die to face the Lord on the inevitable Day of Judgment. As I disclosed to him, my article would be titled: Hereafter advice for Obasanjo and Jonathan. But I have had to change it for the one used above for topicality.
As a result, I take it as an act of God that Obasanjo and Jonathan quarrelled in public last week over the 2011 presidential election. So that they can appreciate the importance of my counseling them today in the interest of their time in the world beyond. According to Apostle Peter, in 2 Peter 2:4-10, there is a Day of Judgment, and that the angels who sinned were thrown into hell and chained in darkness. While the other offenders who despised God’s authority were were also punished, with the two of them waiting for the final trial on the Day of Judgment.
I know that Chief Obasanjo and Dr. Jonathan during their tenures in the Presidential Villa in Aso Rock used to read my column and I hope they still do. It was a three-part article I wrote in Daily Sun in 2006 on his ill-fated third term agenda that Obasanjo reacted to during a church service in Uyo on his last visit to Akwa Ibom State as Head of State, when he said, contrary to what someone wrote in a newspaper, he was not interested in seeking re-election in 2007. The adults who were present in the House of God that day would remember his comment. I had submitted in that piece that, if he was not interested in a third term, he should have told the world that he would leave in 2007, as Vice President Al Gore did in America when he said he would not contest the election after the administration of President Bill Clinton.
It was an article I wrote in September 2011 that Boko Haram terrorists were waxing strong because President Jonathan has portrayed himself to them as a weakling that he was reacting to about two weeks later when he said he was not a Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar or an Army General, and so not given to ruthlessness. It was also my piece titled “I Fear for Nigeria’s Future,” published in August or so in 2014 that he was reacting to when he said: “Nigeria cannot break up as some prophets of doom are predicting.”
Coming to their statements of last week, Obasanjo said when Jonathan came to his residence in Abeokuta with Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye and Bishop David Oyedepo on January 12, 2014, he told them that he could not change his stand that he should not seek re-election in 2015, because of the agreement Jonathan through him reached with northern leaders (in 2010) that he would do only one term. But Jonathan denied he ever made such a promise to anyone. Of course, only Adeboye and Oyedepo can let the world know which of the two ex-presidents is lying.
But I don’t think they would come out in public to say something. Because if their comments favour Obasanjo, non-Yorubas may see it as tribalism, since the three of them belong to the same ethnic group. While if it is Jonathan that is wrong, as clergymen, they would not want to embarrass him, as someone who came to them for help, a former Head of State. But whoever did not tell the truth has committed a sin because Almighty God, in Leviticus 19:11, warned people not to steal, cheat or lie.
To be continued next week, with the sin the two former Heads of State committed over the 2011 presidential poll when Jonathan sought and won re-election with Obasanjo’s encouragement. And which I make bold to say was responsible for the relatives he and his wife lost during his presidency (May 6, 2010 – May 28, 2015) and not because Aso Villa is bedeviled as Reuben Abati, his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, spuriously claimed in an article in The Guardian of Friday, October 14, 2016.
Professor Anele’s faux pas on Bible authors (7)
Today I am dealing with the writer of the Epistle of James, one of the authors of the three New Testament books left for treatment. The others are the writers of the books of Jude and Hebrews. Three James are mentioned in the New Testament. Two of them, James the son of Zebedee and James the son of Alphaeus, were disciples of Jesus Christ (Matthew 10: 1 – 4). While the other James was his half-brother along with Joseph, Simon and Judas, the sons Virgin Mary had for Joseph, her husband (Matthew 13:53 – 56).
But unlike the Epistles of Matthew, John and Peter, which were written by the disciples of Christ who bore those names, the Book of James was not authored by any of the two Apostles called James. According to the information in the biographies of the authors of the Books in the New Testament, it was penned by James, the half-sibling of Jesus, who was also called James the Just and who became the head and pillar of the Church in Jerusalem. The book of James was not authored by any of the two Apostles called James.
His not being a disciple going about with Jesus to preach in different parts of Israel might have been responsible for him having the time to produce the first of the 27 Books in the New Testament in 45AD. The others were written between 48 and 95AD. James was the first of the disciples of the New Testament to the executed. This happened in 62AD while those of Apostles Peter and Paul followed five years later.
(To be continued next week)