Muslim/Muslim Presidential Race Ticket: Fragrance To Some And A Nauseating Odium To Others – Okei-Odumakin
The Muslim/Muslim presidential race ticket before, but while it had not manifested right now, has become a fragrance to some and a nauseating odium to others.
This was disclosed on Thursday 7th July 2022 by the President of the Centre for Change, Dr. Joe Okei Odumakin in a release titled “The MKO Phenomenon @24”
She said that “Nothing speaks to us about the Nigerian project better than this. Why it was not a question 27 years ago and it passed freely. Why it is the question today and it looks like a waiting trap”.
The excerpt is the full text of the press release:
There are enduring questions and eluding answers. Such is the nature of an enigma that happened to Nigeria 24 years ago. The greater worry is how we capture our kids and articulate for them.
Babies who came to birth as MKO Abiola departed twenty-four years ago are becoming parents themselves now.
Such is the energy of transiting generations in defining societies.
This year’s memorial of MKO brings a familiar yet imposing challenge. Imposing, not because of its familiarity but by its position on our political timeline. It is called a Muslim/Muslim ticket. Steeped in Emilokan and Eleyi political jest vents, which do have their uses.
We had seen the Muslim/Muslim presidential race ticket before, but while it had not manifested right now, (at the point of writing this essay) it has become a fragrance to some and a nauseating odium to others. Nothing speaks to us about the Nigerian project better than this. Why it was not a question 27 years ago and it passed freely. Why it is the question today and it looks like a waiting trap.
1. MKO Abiola was a proud Muslim, a deep Yoruba son and leading light, a committed Nigerian and a visionary African . Very few recall his REPARATION call. But you could not forget his Nefertiti cap. Abiola was all these virtues with true energy. Not without his flaws as with all.
2. The Muslim vs Christian political conflict was visible but kept under (a) grand national pretense (b) rigged constitutional stipulations (c) incredulity of the cheated (d) North-West/Southwest religion/political clouded narratives (e) The plague of representation .(f) The long military interregnum as preparatory scheme (g) others.
Nigeria has in truth dislocated but not fortuitously. So, the greater conflict today is not the Muslim/Muslim ticket, but between the forces. 1) The force which engineered the dislocation and is moving at a cruise rate to consolidate. 2) The force which seeks to fix the dislocation. 3) The force which seeks relocation. 4) The force in oblivion.
Forces 2 and 3 are constantly losing, finding and mixing their identities, while force 4 misplaces the analysis, there becoming the companion of force 1 and the nightmare of 2 and 3. The further complication is that all are represented at the table dominated by force 1…and they love being at the table more than their constituents.
Now, the representatives are Christians and Muslims who often share Dibias, Babalawos and Shaman…How could they be that much friends in the closet and this much enemies in the open?
The southwest where such manufactured, unnatural battleground is seen has its own explanations not so hidden. All through the travails of Chief Awolowo , southwest Muslims stood and were counted. Islam in the west is not the same as the North but there are forces which want it to be so. While it is not yet so, it is being presented as such. This is probably one factor worth watching. Christianity in southeast, south-south is different from southwest. At the risk of courting controversy, southwest is 50-50 at least. Other south is about 100% take some single digits.
Yet, MKO did not come at a time of mindless murders of Christians, abduction of the Reverend and torching of churches.
This is stoking the quest for apex political power to douse or solve the carnage. At which point a reflection must come. That OBJ and GEJ were Christians. As presidents, how much did they solve? How much black problem did Obama solve?
Never mind that the position, region or religion of the Vice President in office is NOTHING. That is the joke. But people, out of pain must make a statement…but contestants must win election. This conversation will continue in this plural society and MKO/Kingibe occurrence would be evoked.
These and many other points come with the MKO memorial. How he stunned the world which thought he was too rich to fight.
Alhaja Kudirat Abiola who stood by her vows, her conscience and her humanity.
Those who fought then and had since joined them.
The evolution of a struggle for nation building from Colonization to Restructuring.
These are the factors which make Abiola’s relevance unyielding. We have not answered the questions which Hope ’93 was going to answer. Until then, all the forces above will be in a perpetual state of conflict. On this timeline, restructuring would then force itself on us, if we fail to implement it. That might not be pleasant.
Finally, we owe our children the undiluted narrative of June 12 and the martyr called MKO as a steady study in their curriculum. That is how a nation is built. The reverse is when such knowledge is kept in the burial ground. A Chicanery which destroys a nation.
