In his twilight, this old man, one of those that set Nigeria backward, should be engaged in acts of redemption that perchance, he may still be able to salvage is mortal soul but he has instead engaged in heresy with assurance that he would forever damn himself while bequeathing a legacy of disdain for anyone remotely connected to him.
In the days that public funds were finding their ways into the private accounts of members of the several military juntas that held the country hostage, Danjuma was without religion and oblivious to whatever faith his comrades in arms professed at that time. What mattered was that he got his shares without a thought to whether there is a God that abhors theft, especially from the poor. During his infamous years as Defence Minister to Obasanjo and in the days that oil blocs landed in his laps, it never occurred to Apostle Danjuma that he was cornering the God-given resources of the predominantly Christian Niger-Delta.
Had Deacon Danjuma as much as given a thought to God’s view on primitive acquisition of mammon, he would perhaps have exercised restraint and left for the people, the rightful owners, the resources that today qualify him to be named among Africa’s richest. Assuming it was after the acquisition he found Christ the saviour, he could have at least returned whatever the spirit leads him to acknowledge as not belonging to him – not the fraction he dispenses as charity of course.
The foregoing is premised on the knowledge that, most of the problems presently plaguing the country are rooted in poverty, poverty that was born of the pillaging by the military juntas and the successor political caucus that was only recently booted out of power by popular vote. This poverty and the resulting scramble for scarce resources has been, to some extent, rightly blamed for Boko Haram insurgency, kidnap for ransom, ritual killings, banditry and more recently the so-called herdsmen related killings.
For Father Danjuma to now engage in revisionism, that absolves him of any complicity in what is currently happening in the country, borders on irresponsibility, especially when consideration is made for his age. Not only is the kind of perverted structure he and his colleagues left behind plaguing the country, his proteges have become Nigerians’ new nemesis. Confronted with a generation of Nigerians that are more aware and not willing to allow easy theft of public resources, Danjuma’s godsons have found the satanic ploy of instigating crises- not minding the human cost, so that they can keep the populace distracted by their horror shows while stuffing their bank accounts with tax payers’ money. This macabre theatre is what has been christened farmers-herders’ crisis, in which communities that once lived in peace are provoked to decimate each other to provide bases for participating governors to weep and lament about ethnic and religious cleansing.
It appears Nigerians opted to ignore Danjuma when he came up with all manner of conspiracy theories that he, further used to instigate the people in his home state of Taraba, to take up arms and kill off each other.
Coming from a man who has till date been unable to satisfactorily absolve himself of arming Junkun militias to wipe out their Tiv brethren, was hardly a surprise. What is surprising, actually nauseating, is the shamelessness that propelled the retired General to take his falsehood to the United States with his protégé, Taraba governor Darius Ishaku in tow.
Saint Danjuma wants the world to know that Christians are being massacred in Taraba, citing US President Donald Trump as his source. There is no point trying to find out why Danjuma did not use the platform of his visit to educate Trump, who had serially demonstrated and confirmed his lack of grip with basic dynamics. Philanthropist, Bill Gates had to explain the difference between HIV and HPV to him several times before he got a fuzzy sense of what both acronyms stand for. The assertion of the controversial US president that his country will not tolerate the killing of Nigerians, became Danjuma’s new testament, one that he is using in his ongoing campaign to continue obscuring the true scale of atrocities he committed against Nigerians.
This version of what is happening in Nigeria suits Danjuma’s interest. It diverts attention elsewhere, while guaranteeing that he would provoke enough anger in some quarters to further heat up the polity. The right -thinking population in Nigeria is however not unaware that Darius Ishaku, who delivered the other half of Danjuma’s prophecy at an event by the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON) in the US, provoked the crisis in Taraba state by setting, arming and financing the Mambila militia that began an ethnic cleansing on the Mambila Plateau. The resulting reprisal made international headlines but few bothered to get to the root cause of the killings there.
Another of his godsons, Samuel Ortom of Benue state, was touted as a big part of the problem in the killings desecrating the state. Ortom recruited a Boko Haram terrorist, Aliyu Teshaku, as Commander of the Livestock Guards, paid him and his lieutenants with the state’s money to keep killing the electorates to whom he is accountable. Yet, like Danjuma, Ortom too cries that Christians are being targeted even when he was the one that hired the terrorists that are killing them.
Danjuma is entitled to free speech but where the subject of discourse is Nigeria, he owes the rest of us the duty of being factual, including being sincere about his role in the current state of the country. It is an insult to Nigerians that he is now inviting the US to help clean up the mess he contributed in creating – corruption and mindless killings. In his total lack of patriotism, he could not even comprehend that he was asking for the country to be recolonized by making such a dim request, backed up with lies.
As for the lies, those are between Apostle Danjuma and God. For the wrath that befell Ananias and Sapphira for lying, is still very much potent and visiting modern day liars. One only prays that Danjuma realizes the error of plying lies, repents and finds redemption.
Fomson, a Christian Clergyman writes from Jos, Plateau State.
