by Oche Otorkpa

The religious rumble between Mr. Femi Fani Kayode and Mallam Nasiru Elrufai both former members of the PDP and now chieftains of the All Progressive Congress (APC) is a clear indication that the party intends to use religion as a weapon in the build up to the general Elections.

When the June 12 presidential Elections were held in 1993, I was a student Sultan Bello Secondary School in Sokoto and very much ineligible to vote , But I could vividly remember how the Igbo men and women took the election of Bashorun MKO Abiola Personal , it was an Election in Which the Southerners threw the issue of religion into the gutter, it was a day when the people of Kano rejected their own son in favour of a Yoruba man and according to historians that election remains the ”freest” ”fairest” election in the history of Nigeria.

Fast forward to 2014, Nigeria has metamorphosed into a religiously charged environment, a society where religion now determines if a qualified civil servant will get his next promotion or not, a colony where the Sultan will lead a delegation to a sitting President in protest against the membership of a National conference whose membership was drawn from all spheres of the Nigerian Society.

The Fulani used to be part of virtually every rural and agrarian community in Nigeria. Today CAN sees the establishment of grazing reserves as an attempt to Islamise Nigeria, thanks to their transformation from stick wielding herders to AK 47 wielding killers.

The expectation of Nigerians has been that the political class will continue to de-emphasise the promotion of ethnicity and religion over competence and integrity.

Sadly, this is not the case el-Rufai’s assertion that the “APC will present an integrity-competence ticket not religion” Only holds when his interest is protected on that platform.

About four years ago when he was gunning for the presidential ticket of the defunct CPC, el-Rufai insisted that Buhari was too old to lead this country in his words “people like President Babangida and General Buhari should just disappear. They should give way to a new set of people with new ideas. Young people preferably,the whole world is now being ruled by young people I wonder why old blood should continue to rule Nigeria. “Obama is 48 and Cameron is 43 for God’s sake. So, why are we recycling leaders that ruled this country very well or very badly 25 years ago? I was 25 years old when Buhari and Babangida were Heads of State.”

Times have changed and today el-Rufai now prefers pensioners and octogenarians at the helm of affairs in the country, this has always been the problem of our politicians most of them simply lack principles.

The religious rumble between Mr. Femi Fani Kayode and Mallam Nasir el-Rufai both former members of the PDP and now chieftains of the All Progressive Congress (APC) is a clear indication that the party intends to use religion as a weapon in the build up to the general elections.

Considering the lives that were lost in the 2011 post election violence it is sad that our politicians have not learnt any lesson from the experiences of the past.

Perhaps we need to remind them that the recruitment of religious miscreants to prosecute election is now a war crime.

Nevertheless, as we march towards 2015 we will continue to hope that the political sphere will be dominated by issues and not religion .

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