Peter Obi’s unholy relationship with the church
For someone who started his presidential ambitions on the message of accountability, Peter Obi supporters, aka Obedients have exalted the man to a messiah who can do no wrong before them. Criticisms of the man, which I have to admit has been mostly unfounded have been hastily concluded by the Obedients to be nothing but lies aimed at staining the white of their saint. This manner of thinking runs contrary to Obi’s message of accountability in governance, and most of all, it is stuff that hinders progress in any society.
Even, if we were to talk about Peter Obi’s followership, I have been a staunch follower of the man long before most Obedients found out about him on social media. As an indigene of Anambra state who stays in Anambra, I can give you a summary of how Obi’s political career took off. The year was 2006, and I was 7 years old when the man came under the obscure political party APGA to offer us an alternative to the bad governance we experienced under years of PDP rule. I even remember singing along to the jingle of his political campaigns on the radio. The man was a sensation around town.
As history goes, Peter Obi was elected and sworn in as governor of Anambra state in 2007 after protracted political and legal battles. The man won the heart and mandate of the people. He would then go on to turn around the fate of the state by building key infrastructure and reforming various sectors like health and education. When compared to the low standards of governance experienced all around Nigeria, Obi’s performance as governor was stellar, and this boosted his political CV when he applied to be president of the country.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t every aspect of his governorship in Anambra that was squeaky clean and exemplary as most would believe. Peter Obi was involved in some shady dealings with the church concerning schools in the state. Obi says that he reformed education in Anambra, and even uses this point as bragging rights of his capability, but the way he went about this endeavour was questionable. In Anambra, it’s an open secret that the church, predominantly the Catholic and Anglican denomination, is actively involved in politics.
Upon assuming office, Peter Obi handed over former mission schools, that’s schools formerly owned and run by churches but seized by the government, back to the churches because “they were improperly managed by the government.” It doesn’t stop there. He also went ahead to give these churches administrative costs for the schools running into millions of naira from the state purse. Anyone who doesn’t know the history shadowing these events may be tempted to applaud Obi for doing what seems like the right thing.
However, during the rebuilding efforts after the Nigerian civil war in 1973, Ukpabi Asika, the then governor of the East-Central state which Anambra was part of realized that there were no state-owned schools which were affordable to the common man. In his wisdom, Asika decided to seize mission schools, that’s church-run and owned schools, and fairly compensate its owners, the churches. This arrangement democratized education in the state and worked perfectly for a while. Fast-forward decades into the future, and his successor Obi handed back the now government-owned and run schools to the churches in what is double compensation.
Asides from the economic scandal of the transaction between Obi and the churches, the social implications are even more dire. It’s a no-brainer that handing over a public utility like education to churches gives them power as the gatekeepers of who gets quality education. The situation gets even more scandalous when you consider that the administrative costs of these mission schools are being funded with taxpayers’ money. Last I checked, Nigeria is still a secular state.
Personally, this is a very touchy topic for me because I was one of the many victims of Obi’s ill-conceived education policy. As of 2010 when I finished my primary school education, I applied for entry into Saint Charles, Onitsha, a Catholic-owned secondary school in Anambra state. First, I wrote the entrance exams which I passed, but on getting to the second stage which was an oral interview, the Priest, a man of God, disqualified me because my denomination was Anglican. Even within the same religion, I was discriminated against for my denomination. This makes you wonder how they’d treat someone of an entirely different religion.
Moreover, Obi’s education policy in Anambra which focused on the mission schools did not solve the underlying issues bedevilling public education in the state. Most of the public schools that are available to the common man in Anambra remain in a state of squalor and neglect while their mission counterparts are miles ahead. These mission schools were primed to be the state’s champions, and they have lived up to this expectation. In 2020, Regina Pacis, a Catholic-owned secondary school in Anambra won the World Technological innovation challenge in the United States. Can their public school counterparts even dream of such feats?
But, Anambra isn’t the only place Peter Obi has been seen fraternizing with churches and clergymen. As the events leading to the 2023 presidential elections in Nigeria hit their crescendo, several clergymen were seen and heard throwing their weight behind Obi in a bid to counter the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima. In essence, these “holy” men supporting Obi gave what should have been a purely political affair a religious angle, and this stirred up religious tensions and further highlighted the religious divides in the country.
In conclusion, I would remind us of the time-tested saying that “he who pays the piper dictates the tune.” If Obi had won or is to still win the presidential election given the ongoing election petition, who knows in what ways these religious backers of Obi would have demanded their pound of flesh for the support they gave his campaign.
