A former National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande, has said there were serious spiritual threats to stop the inauguration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president.
Speaking in Kaduna where he chaired a one-day lecture organised by Arewa Think Tank to celebrate one year of achievements of the administration of President Tinubu, the elder statesman said: “The tension and threats generated in the country by the opposition with the view to deny Tinubu the presidential victory in the Presidential election were not surprising.”
Chief Akande said this was because the opposition had even before independence never wanted a united country, pointing out that, “Since 1953, when a motion for Independence was first moved in parliament by Chief Tony Enahoro, our polity has been moving from tensions of one threat to another that Nigeria must not be allowed to continue as one and united country.”
According to Akande, “Towards the last elections, the prophecy was thick that Bola Ahmed Tinubu would not become the APC candidate, he did become. Religious clerics of one belief and the other became sleepless for him not to win the presidential elections, he won!
“Thereafter, spiritual threats and political maneuvering began that he would not be inaugurated as a Nigerian president, he assumed the presidency! The battle then shifted to the judicial sword-crossing that he should be removed from the presidency, his presidency was upheld! Other predictions were that he would have no health to manage the office, but he remained divinely healthy.
“Then the agitation that Nigeria would not survive his political agenda, Nigeria has been waxing stronger and stronger as one and united country! One Nigeria is a major part of what we are now celebrating.
“I was the pioneer national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) – the great political party that produced the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu whose one-year administrative anniversary was being officially celebrated for over a week up to yesterday.
“I am therefore particularly convinced that Nigeria will forever continue to be sustained as a more peaceful, more developed, more progressive and a more prosperous country under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and beyond.
“I urge all of us to be thinking about how to sustain a united, peaceful and prosperous Nigeria. May our collective and individual aspirations within a better and most respectable Nigeria be divinely realised.
Benue state governor, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia, who was the guest speaker stressed the need for Nigeria’s unity, saying that, “our religions should not be a dividing factor to us.”
He added that Nigeria as a country must not fail as its failure would negatively affect the entire Africa, as a continent.
“We should not take our diversity for granted, our diversity should be our power, strength, and unifying force that holds us together as one people. Diversity should not be a source of conflict and tension, it should rather build a more robust and prosperous Nigeria. If Nigeria fails as a nation, the entire countries in Africa will fail,” he said.
On his part, the Chief Host and governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani, also harped on the unity of Nigerians, saying that with unity of purpose, Nigeria and Nigerians would achieve the desired peace and progress.
Earlier, in his opening remarks, the Chief Convener Arewa Think Tank, Muhammad Alhaji Yakubu informed that: “The objective of the event is aimed at strengthening and encouraging the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ of President Bola Tinubu which has several laudable brilliant layers linked to foreign investment drive, energizing the health sector, making education affordable for the poor and underserved, delivering good governance amidst debt burden, social and economic transformation, driving peace and religious harmony, as well as measures to combat rural banditry and insecurity across the country.”
