■ Spiritualists, clerics, politicians, others clash
By ENYERIBE EJIOGU ([email protected]), OMONIYI SALUADEEN, ONYEDIKA AGBEDO and oluseye ojo (Ibadan)
The dust raised by former special adviser on media and public affairs to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Reuben Abati, who said that spiritual forces in control of Aso Rock, the presidential villa have been obstructing Nigerian presidents past and present from performing their functions optimally, is still swirling.
In an article he wrote and published in the print and online media, Abati gave graphic instances of strange things had happened at the presidential villa and which gave credence to his belief that the seat of power was under the influence of demonic and occultic forces that manipulated presidents into taking decisions that made the people wonder.
Abati said: “People tend to be alarmed when the Nigerian presidency takes certain decisions. They don’t think the decision makes sense. Sometimes, they wonder if something has not gone wrong with the thinking process at that highest level of the country. I have heard people insist that there is some form of witchcraft at work in the country’s seat of government. I am ordinarily not a superstitious person, but working in the Villa, I eventually became convinced that there must be something supernatural about power and closeness to it. I’ll start with a personal testimony. I was given an apartment to live in inside the Villa. It was furnished and equipped. But when my son, Michael arrived, one of my brothers came with a pastor who was supposed to stay in the apartment. But the man refused claiming that the Villa was full of evil spirits and that there would soon be a fire accident in the apartment. He complained about too much human sacrifice around the Villa and advised that my family must never sleep overnight inside the Villa.
“I thought the man was talking nonsense and he wanted the luxury of a hotel accommodation. But he turned out to be right. The day I hosted family friends in that apartment and they slept overnight, there was indeed a fire accident. The guests escaped and they were so thankful. Not long after, the president’s physician living two compounds away had a fire accident in his home. He and his children could have died. He escaped with bruises. Around the Villa while I was there, someone always died or their relations died. I can confirm that every principal officer suffered one tragedy or the other; it was as if you needed to sacrifice something to remain on duty inside that environment. Even some of the women became merchants of dildo because they had suffered a special kind of death in their homes (I am sorry to reveal this) and many of the men complained about something that had died below their waists too. The ones who did not have such misfortune had one ailment or the other that they had to nurse. From cancer to brain and prostate surgery and whatever, the Villa was a hospital full of agonizing patients.
He went further: “I recall the example of one particular man, an asset to the Jonathan presidency who practically ran away from the Villa. He said he needed to save his life. He was quite certain that if he continued to hang around, he would die. I can’t talk about colleagues who lost daughters and sons, brothers and uncles, mothers and fathers, and the many obituaries that we issued. Even the president was multiply bereaved. His wife, Mama Peace was in and out of hospital at a point, undergoing many surgeries. You may have forgotten but after her husband lost the election and he conceded victory, all her ailments vanished, all scheduled surgeries were found to be no longer necessary and since then she has been hale and hearty.
“When presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine. Since Buhari government assumed office, it has been one mistake after another. Those mistakes don’t look normal, the same way they didn’t look normal under President Jonathan. I am therefore convinced that there is an evil spell enveloping this country. We need to rescue Nigeria from the forces of darkness.”
When Sunday Sun sought the views of the founder of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Lagos, Primate Elijah Babatunde Ayodele, he concurred with Abati, saying: “Aso Rock needs fortification because there are some things that are there that cause misconduct to the leaders no matter how good they are. That is why I said sometime ago that the name Nigeria has carried a curse since the time of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who was killed in office. It is not just the Presidential Villa only; every seat of power in the country since that time has been cursed. Whether you are a governor, senator, representative, local government chairman or even a councilor, there is always a show of misconduct. It is only when we reverse the curse that we will see change.
“That is why I believe that what Reuben Abati said is totally correct. Absolutely. Aso Rock needs to be cleansed. The spiritual cleansing will help to reverse the curse on the name Nigeria; that will now help to stop issues. Until we do it, anybody that gets there will misbehave. I have been saying it for a long time that the Villa needs cleansing. We know that the late head of state, General Sani Abacha died there; Umaru Yar’Adua also died there. A lot of things have been buried in the Villa. A lot of things have been wrongly done, spiritually. The cleansing is the step the President should have taken before assuming the office. And even the past presidents; but they will just go ahead and assume office without doing the right thing first. We are talking about serious prayers.
Pressed to explain how the cleansing would be done, whether by a group of clerics or another, he said: “What the Lord has shown me is that the Villa needs cleansing, so anybody that is gifted by God can do it. It is not a case of ‘let’s go and do it’ it is God that will determine how and when it should be done and the necessary steps to be taken. Let me emphasise that the process and the method of the cleansing must be directed by God. But all this depends on whether the government will take it serious and follow up, without ignoring this advice. But if the nonchalant attitude we have been witnessing about people in governance continues, of course they will do nothing. What is in Aso Rock is spiritual. So don’t blame Buhari for what seems like mistakes by the government. What is going on is beyond him.”
Also agreeing with Abati’s belief about the strange powers manipulating things at the Villa, President of African Pharmaceutical Forum of the International Pharmaceutical Federation, Pharm (Sir) Akhimien Anthony, a knight of the Catholic Church and past president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, noted that the bible acknowledged that there are demons, principalities and agents of darkness. “In life, human beings are agents of darkness and so we cannot ignore the statements credited to our learned friend, Dr. Rueben Abati. The only solution, therefore, against agents of demons is the Holy Spirit of God. That is why our President needs prayers from all well meaning Nigerians. With God all things are possible.”
Similarly, Chief Ifayemi Ayinde Elebuibon, Araba of Osogbo and a renowned Ifa scholar, noted that there are lots of good and bad spirits that occupy the earth. On the specific case of Aso Rock, he said: “It could be that the spirits in Aso Rock are angry because the engineers that did the construction failed to consult with Ifa priests to know how they could appease them. If it were the Chinese engineers, they would have done the necessary consultations before the construction. Whenever the Chinese want to establish their quarters or a market, they usually consult because they too have a system of consultation that is akin to Ifa divination. So, they know the actual place where their business venture is going to flourish. But in Nigeria, we have abandoned our culture. We don’t practice our own culture any longer. We have sold everything to foreign culture and religion.
“In Yoruba culture, when you have an open land on which you want to farm or build a house, it is traditional to consult and do the necessary things that will appease the spirits residing there. You can even take the soil on the site for Ifa consultation to know if the land is going to be suitable for your habitation. But with the kind of system of government that we have, they have no respect for all such things because of the effect of modernization. If there is going to be any remedy at all, they need to consult spiritual people to do the cleansing of the place. And this is not about sprinkling water on the ground, it is not a matter of offering prayers. There is a special Ifa to be buried in the ground to terminate all the evil spirits tormenting the people in the villa.
However, National Chairman of State Inauguration of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria and presiding bishop of Calvary Kingdom Church International, Lagos, Archbishop Joseph Ojo, dismissed the claims of demons being in control of Aso Rock with a hearty laughter and then added: “My simple answer on this is that I have been to Aso Rock during the tenure of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as president on two occasions. I did not feel the presence of demons there. I am a spiritually sighted person. The seat of government of Nigeria cannot be said to be under the influence of demons. We must understand that God is in control of this country. I hate demonising everything. The light of God is shining upon this country. A lot of people just talk about demons without understanding what demonology means. I don’t believe that the seat of government is demonized. I don’t believe it at all. Yes, there are problems in governance in Nigeria as there are problems everywhere else. That does not mean that the devil is in control. God is in control of Nigeria and will always be in control of the country.
“If people in government make mistakes or take wrong decisions, they should just recognize that it is their own inability to perform that should be blamed, and should not be ascribed to demons. I think that when people experience some difficulties and fail to do something well they tend to ascribe such failure to demons. People may have difficulties in going about their duties, and if they are inefficient, they blame demons.”
Renowned Professor of Virology and former minister of petroleum agreed with the position of Archbishop of Ojo, saying that leaders should bear responsibility for their mistakes and refrain from blaming demons. Moreover, he dismissed the talk that demons are manipulating things at Aso Roack as hogwash,
His words: “I have known Reuben Abati for a long time in The Guardian. I respect him as a person. But my reaction is not because I am a scientist, but as a Christian. Abati is a very intelligent man. I hope he considered the weight and implication of what he has said. First, I do not believe that the mistakes made by presidents staying in Aso Rock are because of demonic influence. The mistakes are human either by commission or omission. The danger of what Abati said is that, instead of looking at ourselves that we are responsible for the mistakes, we would attribute the mistakes to somebody else that we did not see. Is it demons that made Jonathan to send letter to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to get billions of naira for election rigging? Human beings spent the money, not demons. Some years ago, I told a person that one day, I would write in defence of the devil. I said anytime human beings made mistakes, they would say they were tempted by the devil.
“Another question that Abati must answer is: when did the evil spirit start to be in Aso Rock? Former Military President, Gen Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) was the first to go there after the failed Orka coup, when he decided to transfer Dodan Barracks in Lagos to Aso Rock. After IBB, former Head of Interim National Government, Chief Ernest Shonekan, was there for 82 days and the late military head of state, Gen Sani Abacha, came. After them, we have had Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Alhaji Musa Yar’Adua, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, and now President Muhammadu Buhari.
“If what Abati said is true, why can’t he call prayer warriors or Imams to pray and cleanse the place? He lived there comfortably with them until they left power. The misdeeds they committed were their own misdeeds, not of the demons. We should stop blaming anybody for our mistakes in the country. If we continue to look elsewhere for the causes of our errors, we cannot correct them.
“As to the suggestion by Abati that the Presidential Villa should be relocated to another place, while the present villa should be turned to a spiritual museum, I want say with due respect to Reuben, that the suggestion is absolute rubbish. The logic is rubbish. The concept is rubbish. If you relocate Presidential Villa to another place, won’t the spirits follow you? When the demons are coming, will you see them? Do the demons need visa to go there? If you are relocating, they are also relocating. So, that is another part of the rubbish. If you say the villa should be turned to a spiritual museum, what is the meaning of spiritual museum? If the demons in the villa could do harm and you want the villa relocated because of that, what about visitors to the museum, won’t the demons harm them?
“My people say in Kalabari, ‘somebody who has bad sleeping habit on his bed, will have bad sleeping habit in any other bed.’ So, if you are relocating, you are relocating yourself. All the mistakes made as well as all the pluses and minuses, as human beings relocate, they will carry them.”
In his reaction to the raging debate, former Minister of Transport and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Ebenezer Babatope, said: “I have not lived in Aso Rock before; I’m just a member of the party that controlled power at the centre. My father died as a Methodist clergyman. I believe in my God; I don’t believe in demons.”
A renowned Nigerian science, nature and God researcher and writer, who craved anonymity before lending his voice to the debate, concurred with the Chaplain of Aso Villa Chapel, Seyi Malomo, who had reacted to the issue by saying that the devil is everywhere, but added that the devil has preference for people in authority and people who have prospects to be great.
The source said: “Let me say upfront that although I have been to Aso Rock a couple of times, I do not have any specialised knowledge of the spirituality of the seat of power or its occupants. However, I believe, as the Chaplain of Aso Villa Chapel, Seyi Malomo, has said on the subject that there is evil everywhere. I also believe what the Bible says in 1st Peter 5: 8 that “…Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
He added: “The devil is in homes, in offices and places of worship, and if rituals have been performed in any location, it has its fair share of the agents of the devil.”