Govt should resolve Boko Haram threat or…. – Anglican Primate

*Says it is both a political and religious crisis; not one of poverty
*’Attacks on Christians now a Sunday, Sunday medicine’

ARCHBISHOP Nicholas Dikeriehi Orogodo Okoh joined the Nigerian Army during the civil war in 1969 and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. On September 15, 2009, he became the Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). Today, he is also the president of Southern Christians Association of Nigerian, SCAN. Last Sunday, the Primate returned to a familiar terrain, the All Saints (AHQ) Cathedral, Abalti Barracks, Surulere where he was the foundation vicar in his army days, this time to preside over the 70th birthday/thanksgiving service/holy communion of a family friend, Mrs. Ibiyemi Olatomi Odeka.  He obliged our SAM EYOBOKA the following interview which centered mostly on the security situation in the country. Excerpts…..

How does it feel coming to a familiar terrain?
This is not my first time here since 2009, but today I’m giving glory to God because of the person concerned, that is Mama Odeka. She’s been instrumental to so many things in our lives. For instance, during my wedding, she was in charge of the reception and made the cake. When I was made a bishop, she actually travelled with me to London to arrange for my roles. Even before I had a family, we have been very close. So, I’m very happy to be with her; and this environment gives me a very wonderful memory of our younger days. We enjoyed being here, building this place and glorifying God. You can see many of the people here; we are very friendly because we had a wonderful ministry together. I was here from 1984 to 1989. I was the first vicar here and later I came back in 1999 to 2001.

 You are the president of Southern Christians Association of Nigeria. Since the inauguration of that body, nothing seems to be happening…..

We just had a meeting in Benin City and we issued a communiqué. There’s going to be another meeting also in Benin shortly. I do not remember the date but it is scheduled for St Matthew Anglican Church in Benin City this July.

 There has been heightened state of insecurity in the North. How do you feel about it?
Of course I don’t feel fine because Christians are being killed and their properties  looted. Some are  burnt. So, I cannot feel fine. What I feel, not withstanding, we believe that it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to protect the people because that’s what they were elected to do. If you check our constitution, the security and welfare of the citizens shall be the primary responsibility of the government. By government, I don’t just mean the executive alone: I mean those who are in power, including the National Assembly, all the people who form the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; including the judiciary. And I mean at every level of governance. So, it’s not something the governors would rise up and say they are not at the center and therefore it’s the responsibility of the central government. In fact the traditional rulers are not left out. If they pay lip service to it, that means the country is in trouble.

 Is this another way of saying that government has not done enough to protect the people?
The government itself has accepted that the efforts it is making have not yielded the desired results; that’s why you can see all the changes taking place. So, it’s an indirect acknowledgement that the efforts of the government have not yielded the desired results.

As a retired military officer and now a spiritual leader, will you say that the latest changes are desirable?
I don’t know. The president should know better. Why I said I don’t know is because I don’t know precisely the definition of the assignment of the National Security Adviser and that of the Minister of Defense. If the president considers that they have not fulfilled the responsibilities of their offices, of course, he has the right to change them. But whether these changes will solve the problem is what I don’t know. I’m not sure that the police have done enough. The Inspector General of Police was changed over this same insecurity matter. Has the new one lived up to expectation? These are issues that we need to properly address as time goes on.

 In making the recent changes, did the president consult your constituency?
I think the constitution does not direct him to consult people like us. The people he consults are members of his cabinet. Any discussion with the president at our level is informal. If he discusses with us, it’s a privilege. You don’t demand such a thing; and it’s not something you can quote; saying I told him so and so and he didn’t do what I said or he did what I said. The point is that he has a group that he should consult before taking decisions—those that are appointed to advise him.

 I asked that question because there are so many Nigerians who believe that we are in a state of war, and, in a state of war, there’s need for the president to reach out to different interest groups….
Yes, he does reach out in the sense that the national CAN gives its opinion, and we are all part of CAN. What I cannot say precisely is whether CAN is being given adequate reflection in the policy of government.

 Do you agree that Nigeria is in a state of war?
Not strictly! Before you get to a state of war, there must be a formal declaration. So, constitutionally, we are not at war. But there’s a serious crisis. The crisis is about insecurity. People in the North are running helter-skelter because people are being killed indiscriminately. You cannot even go to church freely. So we are in a state of crisis, and, if the crisis is not properly managed, it can develop into something bigger which will not be in the interest of anybody.

Rev. Okoh

I want you to look at what happened in Kaduna a few weeks back, when churches were attacked and Christians had to react. Why was that?
It was as a result of frustration. I’m not making excuses for people attacking innocent people, who did not attack you; but the point is that the Christian community has been expecting a permanent solution to this problem. They have issued communiqués, they’ve spoken to the authorities of the land, they’ve made appeals times without number, they’ve pleaded with Boko Haram; pleaded with traditional rulers, pleaded with governments at the federal and state levels to bring this thing to an end so that it doesn’t encourage hooliganism, indiscipline, taking laws into your own hands. But these things keep recurring, and unfortunately, lately, have become a Sunday, Sunday medicine.

So I think that is what led to the frustration that we witnessed in Kaduna. Having said that, if we make that a pattern, then the country disappears, we get into a state of anarchy and it is not going to be helpful. So, again, I go back to what I said in the beginning,  government should solve the problem so that private individuals do not take the laws into their own hands.

Northern governors, northern political leaders and so many other opinion leaders in that area are still insisting that what we have on our hand is not a religious crisis….

That may be half true. What we have is both political and religious. If it’s not a religious war or crisis, why are you throwing bombs into the Church? How many Government Houses have been attacked? How many political party offices have been attacked? So, you see, no matter how dispassionate you want to be, it happened before, it is happening again and again. What other interpretation are you going to put on it?

If they don’t want the world to see it as a religious problem, they should stop it. If they want to attack government, they should face the government and leave the Church alone. So, if they leave the Church alone, and relate with the Christians on a friendly basis, then we know that this matter has nothing to do with religion. But as long as Christians are being killed, as long as they taking AK 47, and going around and shooting people in the Church, and throwing bombs into the Church, then, of course, to that extent, it has something to do with religion.

 They are insisting that it has to do with poverty and not religion. 
I don’t agree! How many times have you killed people because you are a poor man? The poverty level in Nigeria is not higher than the one in Chad, it is not higher than the one in Cameroon, it is not higher than the one in Guinea Bissau, it is not higher than the one in Niger Republic. Have you heard that people there carry weapons to kill people? If it’s about poverty, how much does it cost to make a bomb? How much does it cost to buy an AK 47? Is it the poor man who buys AK 47? So they are deceiving us. Somebody is telling us a lie. And if it’s about poverty, who is to be blamed? Goodluck Jonathan has spent only one year in office. Previous governors and presidents, what have they done with the money given to them? So who’s to be blamed for the poverty? So you see there’s a problem not yet clear to everybody.

And what do you think the problem is?
The problem is that there’s a crisis which presents itself in the garb of politics as well as religious. And why that is going on, we don’t know; the government has said over and over again that they know those who are causing the trouble. Why should we be allowed to be held hostage by these people is what we don’t know. Hopefully, the new security adviser will answer that question. If we wait patiently, and he doesn’t answer it, then somebody is telling us what we don’t understand.

 Are you satisfied with the way northern leaders have handled the matter thus far?
They said they are doing something, but what I want to remind them is that in the event of this issue continuing unchecked, it will certainly destroy Nigeria, and if it destroys Nigeria, both the North and the South will lose, including even the Boko Haram. They will also lose. Because all of us are happy to be Nigerians; there is no country in the West African sub-region that can accommodate Nigerians in the event of a major crisis. We will overwhelm them. They will not tolerate us. So it is in the interest of all of us to make sure Nigeria is peaceful and has prospects to our progress.

 But you are aware also that Islamic leaders in the nation are making frantic efforts to prevent America from labeling Boko Haram a terrorist group?
Yes I’m aware that America has done so to three of their leaders, and, after that, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Dr. Lateef Adegbite, reacted in a way that more or less appears as if it was wrong for the Americans to do so. I’m not aware why he said that because if these people who are doing all these things are not terrorists, who are they? What are they? So maybe he has a better approach which is not clear to me, and I respect the man. I know him, but I have not met him since he made that statement; otherwise I would have asked him to explain more to me why he preferred that those people should not be labeled the way the Americans labeled them.

 As a retired military officer who is presiding over one of the biggest denominations in Nigeria, what do you think is the handicap of the government in tackling this menace? 
The government has not said that they have a handicap. The government believes that it’s doing its best by the approach it has adopted. The only thing that is clear to the ordinary people and the government now is that that approach is not yielding the desired result which is why, I think, they are changing gear. Hopefully, the new leadership in the security outfit will do a better job.

Many people criticized the president for traveling to Brazil recently while Nigeria was in tumoil What’s your reaction?
The president said, in his explanation, that he did it to avoid giving the impression that Nigeria has broken down under the threats of terrorists. That if he didn’t go, it means the hostages have held Nigerians completely in its hands. That he did it to tell the people of the world that Nigeria is still functioning. I’m not in his position. Some Nigerians think otherwise, others think that the president is right. I’m not in the position to know.

The president said if it were a matter of the plane crash, he would prefer to stay at home and sympathize with the deceased. But for this issue of Boko Haram, the government is actually getting on top of the situation, and so it was not going to play a good role by staying at home. I have no choice than to believe him. He’s our president; he’s our leader. At the moment, we pray for him, we want to encourage him to do more so that this terrorism will be put behind us.

Will you say that the Jonathan administration has tackled corruption sufficiently enough as it promised the nation?
Every administration has its own style. The president is tackling corruption in his own method.

Whether this method is yielding the right dividends is another matter. Some sections of the society say it’s not yielding results. In the interview he gave, you heard what he said. So maybe you should make allowance for time. His one year in office as president elected by Nigerians; may be in the next one year….If he completes two years in office and we are unable to see the results of some of these things that are being done, particularly the probes and so on, then you can come to a different conclusion. Otherwise, at the moment, we have no choice than to believe him. I say that corruption is in the land, and that the government should take action to make sure that they regain the confidence of the people, because if the matter is left unattended to, people will lose hope.

There are some people who are accusing the Church of not doing enough to tackle corruption….
The Church does not receive allocation from the Federal Government. Have you ever heard that at the end of a particular month, bishops gathered to share money? There’s nothing like that. So if they are talking about the Church not preaching hard enough to those who come to church, nobody is praying for stealing.

The Church is doing what it considers to be its responsibility—trying to maintain the conscience of the people and trying to raise the level of morality in the society. But whether the people who are being spoken to want to obey or not is another matter. The Church has no police to enforce what it decides to do.

The Church has no soldier. The Church is only a persuasive organ to persuade people. If the Church persuades you not to steal and you go ahead to steal, you cannot blame the Church. But when they talk about the Church having a share in corruption, clearly the Church does not have a share. People don’t  gather at the end of the month and say N50 billion has been allocated to the Church to share for so so so project.

The Church does not receive money for any project, from any government. Individuals, who make offerings in the Church, give money for what they believe in to run the Church. But if it’s all about proclamation and encouraging its members to live above  board, the Church is doing that, which is believed to be the responsibility of the Church, but anything outside that, the Church cannot do it. If you come to us in the Church and you bring donation, and we preach and say make sure you don’t steal, help Nigeria to be a better place.

That is the best that the Church can do. If you obey, it is because God has spoken to you. If you refuse to obey, you can’t blame the Church because it has no policeman, it has no soldier, it has no civil defense to enforce what it preaches. Even the government has handicap that it was unable to verify the source of money people have, let alone the Church. Like now, we have just had a service, then somebody drops money in the offering plate, then I call a CID to go and investigate the man because the money he dropped is big. What kind of attitude is that? Do you think that will succeed? It’s not going to succeed.

What the Church can do is not to sing the praise of people who are manifestly known to be evil people or corrupt people, not to ask people to go and steal government money.

Not to praise them. But you will agree with me that those who are contributing to these things are many.

At the traditional level, people who are known to be corrupt and have done evil are given chieftaincy titles. Then the universities have also taken a cue from there, they are giving honorary doctorate degrees for money. So you have a greater job to do than looking at the Church. Look at all these places.

Will Nigeria succeed?
I’m an optimist. Having come a long way, we have fought a civil war, we’ve had the problems of military rule, we have had problems of civil rule that was difficult and we survived. I think we will overcome. And all of us must work to overcome. The traditional rulers, religious leaders: Islamic, Christian leaders, politicians at the local government level, state level and federal level. It is in our common interest to make sure Nigeria does not die. We must make sure Nigeria succeed.

 Even in the face of an American prophecy that Nigeria will die by 2015?
That is an evil mind of the Americans. It’s an evil wish. And nobody in Nigeria should say amen to that kind of prophecy. Gaddaffi also said something very near that, but Gaddaffi is no more. So we will overcome the Americans.

 But is Boko Haram not helping the American prophecy?
Boko Haram is a challenge. In a family, there must be a challenge. In the Church, we do have challenges. In the country, we have challenges. We will overcome Boko Haram.