By BASHIR ADEFAKA
“I am not in support of APC but anything that will make Atiku enter as President, it will rather be better that President Buhari sits on, in that office. Talking personally I will never support Atiku. In Ekiti, I supported Fayemi. I prayed and fasted that Fayose must not have his hands on continuity of Ekiti State government and it became so. Fayose destroyed Ekiti so much that the number of area boys that are there now in Ekiti is much more than of those in Lagos. It is sad! As for Atiku, he was there for eight years as Vice President, he should tell us what he did. If he becomes President, Nigeria will sink. It is not as if APC does not have its own shortcomings but one is better than the other. I mean APC is more preferable than PDP.” – Primate Ayodele said.
Sometimes I marvel at the way Allah has made and shaped my life. My name is Muhammadu “Bashir” Olorunkemi Adefaka and I will explain.
Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (peace of Allah be upon him) was al-Bashir that is ‘giver of glad tiding’ and by interpretation we can say ‘information giver’ or ‘journalist’. To me, therefore, named after the Prophet of Islam ‘Bashir’, journalism came with me from heaven and so I thank Allah I am trying all the times to make my impact to the fullest.
How do I mean? When in few months back I read in some of the Nigerian print media that Primate Ayodele said “Saraki would be next Nigeria’s President”, I laughed. This is because, there was never any time the INRI Spiritual and Evangelical Church, Oke Afa, Isolo, Lagos Founder and Spiritual Leader said anything near what was so read. And I am a living witness because I was always on seat the two times he did the press conference on the matter.
The first time he addressed journalists along with that Ibadan bishop (names withheld) who said he had not had his bath for 17 years.
While the bishop claimed that God had told him that he was angry with President Buhari “for having blood of many Nigerians on his hands” and so that he would not be President in 2019, Primate Elijah Babatunde Ayodele kept his cool but had to tell later what he believed was the truth that was revealed to him.
Any other journalist on seat that day would recall the Ibadan bishop was asked by a print editor “Who then has God told you would be next President in 2019?” And he replied and I quote him, “Waziri Adamawa”.
That statement generated murmuring among sitting journalists who asked themselves, “Does the same God pass conflicting messages to two different prophets?” And the answer was given by one of them: “God is Lord of wonder who does his own things as he pleases and so, nobody can fault any of the prophets.”
Although others in the small group I belonged to on that seat agreed with him, I disagreed but kept my disagreement to myself. I allowed myself to be pleased by the fact that whereas the Ibadan bishop spoke more like somebody being politically compromised, Primate Ayodele’s position had always been justified. Apart from the fact that he predicted Jonathan’s political demise, he had never said Buhari would not win 2019 presidential election.
He however said there were a lot of mistakes that the President should correct “else, Nigeria will sink if he comes to office for second term”.
Ayodele had also vividly said it that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had become accursed party and that except its politicians changed its name, it would never do anything successfully nor win any election again in Nigeria.
On whom he saw the next President would be, the Ikere-Ekiti, Ekiti State-born Servant of the Most High God said, “Bukola Saraki should come out and try his best to contest for presidency”.
On the second press conference he said, “If PDP wants to win 2019 election it should hand its presidential ticket to Saraki.” That was exactly what he said. He did not say explicitly that Saraki will win to become Nigeria’s President in 2019. No. He didn’t say so.
It therefore did not surprise me to read the following day that Primate Ayodele says Saraki is next President or that he would win 2019 presidency.
My surprise premised on the fact that the INRI spiritual leader had once told me that he would never make rejoinder to whatever way journalists interpret his message as, according to him, the Lord will always put his word right in his own time.
It is therefore not surprising that his reported message of “Saraki is next Nigeria’s President” was allowed to go on unchecked and, since it was media own way of doing it just like the way many of the killings in the North Central were misrepresented as “Fulani herdsmen killings” and in most cases tagged against the name of President Buhari, which the Nigerian Leader just kept quiet to watch until, after many people had begun to buy the fake news, he now started telling why it would be irresponsible for an elected President to kill the same people who voted him.
So, on a final note, Primate Ayodele did not predict Saraki as next Nigeria’s President. Rather, and maybe because of his dismay with the way he said the APC politicians were doing, he said Saraki should come out and contest and later said that if PDP wanted to win, they should give their ticket to him. But PDP appears to have been destined to lose forever as he said because that same ticket was let into Atiku Abubakar’s hands at the cost of N47 billion.
Re-iterating his earlier position, he had just told me again, Thursday before I left Lagos for a tour of Kwara, Osun, Oyo and Ekiti states, that:
“I am not in support of APC but anything that will make Atiku enter as President, it will rather be better that President Buhari sits on, in that office.”
He said: “Talking personally I will never support Atiku. In Ekiti, I supported Fayemi. I prayed and fasted that Fayose must not have his hands on continuity of Ekiti State government and it became so.
“Fayose destroyed Ekiti so much that the number of area boys that are there now in Ekiti is much more than of those in Lagos. It is sad!
“As for Atiku, he was there for eight years as Vice President, he should tell us what he did. If he becomes President, Nigeria will sink.
“It is not as if APC does not have its own shortcomings but one is better than the other. I mean APC is more preferable than PDP.
What we were saying about Buhari was that there were mistakes that he should correct particularly the service chiefs that we said he should change because they appeared to be tired as they were not getting the bearing of the job.
Apart from that, talking about integrity, President Muhammadu Buhari has integrity more than any of those politicians you see parading themselves out there.
Just look at Atiku, his institution is how many millions naira now? It is not for the poor.
Now they say Buhari is Jubril Sudan. Can you imagine that? They should bring their evidence for us to see if they can.
Let me tell you, Buhari has won in the North; he has six states in South West and in Igbo Land he will break the jinx there. And don’t forget that the entire votes in Igbo Land are not up to the votes for Yoruba Land.
He already has his settled 12 million votes in the North and I want you to know that Hausa people know what they are doing.
