Tinubu and the Catholic Bishops

A delegation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) paid a courtesy visit to President Bola Tinubu last week. The outcome was not pleasant. The bishops got a raw deal. Their presence did not make the President happy. He was short of being hostile. The Catholic bishops, led by the president of CBCN, Archbishop Matthew Ndagoso, must have imagined otherwise. They probably thought that telling the President the truth those around him never told him would help matters. Thus, they made a simple request. They want the President to allow the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct free and fair elections. They also want him to guarantee Christians an equal place by ensuring that constitutional rights are protected. As religious leaders who are concerned about the peace and stability of the country, the bishops felt that there is an overriding need to tell the President the whole truth about the state of affairs in the country. That was their mission.

But the bishops were impolitic. How could you tell a President who knows that he would fail in his second term bid in a free and fair contest to subject himself to such self-annihilation? The undertone of that request was not lost on the President. It was quite suggestive. A free and faire election, under our present circumstance, could lead to a possible regime change. The President was clearly ill at ease with that suggestion. And so, when he set out to respond, he was as raw as he could. There were no niceties. He threw the reverence usually accorded the clerics to the dogs and went on the offensive. He defended INEC as if he was its spokesman. He declared that the electoral commission was neutral, and that those who do not see that are crying wolf. He talked to the bishops as if he was on a campaign podium. He said he was aware of those who want to take his job. Then he declared in a belligerent tone that he would wrestle with them to the finish line. The bishops must have been stunned at that point. What they had before them was no longer a courtesy visit. The atmosphere had turned adversarial. The President had ferreted the bishops to the Machiavellian turf where the end justifies the means. He practically told them to expect a battle royale between him and those who want his job.

The President’s raw anger may have been fuelled by the presence of some bishops who are known to be virulent critics of bad governance. John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Emeritus Archbishop of Abuja, was one of them. The President must have felt that his presence at the Villa was like shooting the ball into his net from the 18-yard box. The President was determined not to allow the Onaiyekans of that assembly to score a cheap goal. Cardinal Onaiyekan has since reviewed the visit and has come to the conclusion that the President was not properly disposed to their visit. He pointed out that the President and his aides looked angry. But Onaiyekan said he was not disappointed. He did not expect Tinubu to do better. His submission was that Tinubu rejected the bishops’ concerns because they told him the truth that he did not want to hear. Relying on the benefit of hindsight, I feel that the bishops should not have visited the President. They should have known that the move was bound to fail, considering the President’s past records.

It should be recalled that, in August 2024, The Patriots, an independent association of prominent Nigerian leaders led by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, visited the President at the Presidential Villa. They went with a familiar request. They asked the President to support a new democratic Constitution that would give Nigeria a structure that would work for all its component units. They also requested him to engage leaders of restive youth groups in a dialogue so as to ease tensions and reduce the spectre of insecurity in the land. But the President was not persuaded by their request. He told them that his concern was on how to fix the economy. Since the President made the economy the focus of his administration, it will surprise no one that two years after the visit of The Patriots the President was quick to tell the bishops that the economy is doing well. But is it? Nigerians who are groaning under hardship know better.

I do not know how the idea of a CBCN visit to Tinubu came about. But I am constrained to believe that the likes of Cardinal Onaiyekan and Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah could not have been excited by the idea. Apart from Onaiyekan who has constantly beamed the searchlight on bad leadership, including Tinubu’s, Kukah as a radical cleric has always taken our governments to task. The duo could, therefore, not have expected an instantaneous shift in Tinubu’s disposition to the national question. But the same thing cannot be said of Ndagoso, the leader of the delegation. Though a notable archbishop, Ndagoso has not engaged so much in the national arena. I also do not know how much of Tinubu that he knows. If he knew Tinubu as much as Onaiyekan and Kukah, there probably would have been no need for the visit. For the likes of Ndagoso who may not know, Tinubu understands Nigeria and its peoples to the fullest. He understands our strengths and weaknesses. He knows what the people are capable of doing in any given situation. He is, therefore, not someone you can preach to. This explains why he has never been persuaded by whatever anybody says about his administration. He knew the way he wanted to handle Nigeria before he became President. He knew he was coming to give his ethnic group a strong place in the country’s affairs. That is why, the more you criticize him for appointing only his kinsmen to the positions that matter, the more he carries out more appointments that will entrench that culture of nepotism. He does not care a hoot about what you think or do not think.

Before now, Nigerians were saying that Tinubu has committed too many infractions that will make his second term ambition dead on arrival. But with some six months to the next presidential election in which Tinubu is a candidate, Nigerians are no longer talking about his many wrongs. Instead, they are blaming the opposition for not working together. Many Nigerians have already resigned themselves to a possible Tinubu return. For such Nigerians, Tinubu will return not because he will win in a free and fair election, but simply because he controls the electoral commission, the police, the army and other instruments of coercion and suppression. Nigerians who sound this way do not even understand that they have the right to insist on free, fair and credible elections. Tinubu understands this basic weak point of Nigerians. That is why he is pushing hard. That is why he will look the Catholic Bishops in the face and tell them that he will wrestle those who have their eyes on his seat to finishing point. He did not talk to the bishops about a free electoral atmosphere that will make votes count and be counted. He merely alluded to the the tough battle he is out to engage in. If only the Ndagosos of the religious community in Nigeria know this much, there would have been no need for the visit that generated the optics that will ultimately lead to nowhere.