BY LINUS CHIBUIKE
SPECIAL Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, on Friday, said those who called the President a religious bigot were condemning a person they did not know and had refused to know.
He told a story of how former President Olusegun Obasanjo had publicly called a former Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Rev Yakubu Pam, a “total idiot” in May 2004, during a stakeholders meeting held to address the killings perpetrated along religious lines at that time, and how his boss, Buhari later honoured the same man.
He added that the CAN Chairman was later told by security agencies to apologise to the former President for the public spat, in a scenario he said depicted a case of “insult upon injury”.
Adesina, who told the story in his piece titled, “The Priest and the President”, however, said Obasanjo did not stop at that, adding that he fumed, ‘CAN my foot!’ while asking Pam what role he had played to bring about peace as CAN Chairman.
“For a President, who laid claim to being a born again Christian, to denigrate the association of his own faith? ‘CAN, my foot!’ It was the height of it,” he declared.
The Presidential spokesperson said Rev. Pam finished his term as CAN Chairman in Plateau State and went on to become Chairman of CAN in all North Central states, from 2008 till 2015, and then, Chairman, CAN in the 19 Northern states and Abuja, till July 4, last year, when he was named Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC), the regulatory body for Christian pilgrimage in the country.
“A tale of the priest and two Presidents. Publicly flagellated by one, a Matthew, and now, honoured by the other, a Muhammadu. What Rev Pam didn’t get from a Christian, he got from a Fulani man from Daura, a Muslim. Is there any lesson we can learn from this? Think about it,” Adesina said.
“A couple of weeks back, precisely on January 14, 2021, Rev Pam was at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, leading an NCPC team on a courtesy visit to the President. An idiot, ‘a total idiot’ was at the seat of power, being treated with the dignity he deserved, by a man of a different faith,” he added.
Adesina said though Obasanjo was President at the time, many things were wrong with his conduct and the cavalier treatment he gave to the priest.
“The Holy Bible makes certain things clear about our spiritual leaders: Obey your leaders and submit to them. For they watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this will be unprofitable for you,” he noted, quoting Hebrews 13:17.
“How many of us would be called an idiot, “a total idiot” publicly, and would not talk back? How many of our modern day preachers, who arrogate all sorts of powers and authorities to themselves, would not have cursed Obasanjo publicly, asking him to apologise or be killed by God within seven days?” He asked.
“I tell you, this Rev Pam, from Gyel, Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State is a reconciliator, a peace advocate, and that is why God has lifted him up today,” the President’s aide said.
