Lady Aisha, the cabal and Abati’s villa demons by O'Femi Kolawole

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14.

There’s no question about it. There seems to be no end to controversies in Nigeria. Recent events in the last few days again prove this fact. But more importantly is the fact that our country needs serious divine healing and intervention with the way things are going in the system whether we believe it or it.

However, let me quickly explain that it gladdens my heart immensely, like most Nigerians, to receive the news of the release of 21 of the kidnapped Chibok girls who were freed last week after almost three years in Boko Haram captivity. Watching the video and pictures of the girls and their emotional reunion with their parents, I was almost in tears.

Yet, while I was happy for them, I was also sad and dejected. I was dampened in my spirit seeing pictures of other parents whose daughters are yet to be rescued weeping and wailing not sure what fate has befallen their daughters and if they’ll ever see them again.

But as we trust that the rescued girls will be well taken care of and rehabilitated like Vice President Yemi Osibajo has assured when he received them in Abuja, even as we expectantly look forward to the release of the remaining girls who are still in captivity like the federal government has promised, their return was almost overshadowed by the controversial interview which Aisha Buhari, the first lady, granted the Hausa service of the BBC which has since been generating public debate, details of which I believe you’re already familiar with by now.

In the interview which was conducted by Naziru Mikailu, Aisha said among other things that her husband’s government has been hijacked by some elements who were nowhere to be found during the APC electioneering campaigns and who she didn’t even know despite being married to Buhari for 27 years.

The first lady complained that those who suffered to campaign and actualise Buhari’s Presidency have been marginalised even as she expressed fears that the 15 million people who voted for Buhari could revolt if the whole situation doesn’t change. Aisha went on to add that under the present circumstances, she will not support her husband if he seeks re-election in 2019. Such was the audacious interview Lady Aisha granted the BBC.

Now, when I first heard about the interview, my initial reaction was “could that be true?” “Will the First Lady make such unsparing and no holds barred statements about her husband’s leadership and stewardship without a care in the world about the consequences on their family’s cohesion and the damage such could do to him politically?”

I asked those questions because such type of vituperation from a first lady against her husband, the President, in public, is not one we have seen in our country ever before. It was just unprecedented, shocking and stunning.

Meanwhile, I’ll disclose that as journalists, many of us do our best to sometimes prompt our interviewees and try to get them reveal truths and share things they would not ordinarily want to tell the public.

That was why I also felt the journalist who conducted the interview might have goaded the first lady to speak out and express some of the frustrations being expressed by Nigerians about Buhari’s Presidency to get him to correct some of his lapses. I also believed that the first lady, when confronted with the gravity and likely consequences of her interview, might be forced to refute it completely.

But the airing of the interview, despite reported stories of the Presidency’s attempts at stopping it, and the fact that the first lady evidently granted it, has effectively put paid to such doubts. In essence, what we got was a good piece of Aisha’s true state of mind.

Meanwhile, President Buhari, confronted by journalists in Germany to respond to what the first lady said, replied that his wife belongs in his kitchen and “the other room”, obviously euphemism for the bedroom, in what was clearly an expensive joke and a degrading statement about women and their huge potentials, capacity and impact in today’s world, and for which the President continues to receive harsh bashing, and which I’ll also add he duly deserves.

Now, despite the diverse reactions on the appropriateness or otherwise of the President’s wife speaking out against her husband in public, I believe her outburst is a very good one for our country especially with the history of complicit first ladies we have had who saw no evils and heard no evils about the administrations of their respective husbands.

I think we should thank God for the current First Lady. She is a good woman. She loves her husband. She wants him to succeed. And she wants the betterment of our country and the delivery of the positive change all Nigerians yearn for.

You can quote me. Aisha Buhari’s uncommon courage will be talked about for generations to come long after her husband is out of power.

ABATI AND THE DEMONS IN ASO VILLA

A recent article written by Reuben Abati, former Presidential spokesman, on the spiritual side of Aso Villa, and published on different media platforms under different titles, is too interesting to be ignored especially with some of the statements he made in it and which has generated divergent opinions from members of the public.

Allow me to quote some parts of Dr. Abati’s controversial 1, 535-word opinion piece:  “People tend to be alarmed when the Nigerian Presidency takes certain decisions. They don’t think the decision makes sense. Sometimes, they wonder if something has not gone wrong with the thinking process at that highest level of the country. I have heard people insist that there is some form of witchcraft at work in the country’s seat of government. I am ordinarily not a superstitious person, but working in the Villa, I eventually became convinced that there must be something supernatural about power and closeness to it.”

Abati writes further: “When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine. Every student of Aso Villa politics would readily admit that when people get in there, they actually become something else.  They act like they are under a spell. When you issue a well- crafted statement, the public accepts it wrongly. When the President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is interpreted wrongly by the public. When a policy is introduced, somehow, something just goes wrong.”

“In our days, a lot of people used to complain that the APC people were fighting us spiritually and that there was a witchcraft dimension to the governance process in Nigeria. But the APC folks now in power are dealing with the same demons. Since Buhari government assumed office, it has been one mistake after another. Those mistakes don’t look normal, the same way they didn’t look normal under President Jonathan. I am therefore convinced that there is an evil spell enveloping this country.  We need to rescue Nigeria from the forces of darkness. Aso Villa should be converted into a spiritual museum, and abandoned.”

After Abati’s article was published, other articles have been written to further the discourse on some of the issues he raised. The piece of Femi Fani-Kayode, former aviation minister, who supports Abati’s submissions and goes on to cite many other examples to support his position, was particularly engaging and evidently well-researched.

However, there are commentators and interventionists like Raymond Ijabla, a UK-based Nigerian doctor and Peter Ntephe including many others who believe that it beggars belief that Abati, with all his academic and professional antecedents aside his intellect, experience and exposure, could insinuate that evil spirits and demons could be part of Nigeria’s problems of governance. They argue that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of witches, wizards, evil spirits et al and it is all superstition. This is aside the fact that they would go on to lambast other Nigerians, educated or not, who might share similar viewpoints with Abati.

Now, while I do not believe in all that Abati wrote, however, I know, from experience, that the spiritual realm, on many occasions, controls the physical. I also know that righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people. Unfortunately, as Nigerians, many of us are religious but far from being God-fearing and righteous.

And so, although it is possible for individuals to come under demonic enchantments and satanic manipulations, ordinarily, no government, because of its structure, should be so influenced. No serious political leader worth the position in all its ramifications should be so negatively controlled, influenced and manipulated to work against the interest of the larger good. Unfortunately, this often occurs in our country every time if not every day.

Believe it or not, there are demonic human agents in the corridors of power who don’t love to see progress. They hate peace and detest development. In fact, they don’t want the general populace to enjoy or feel any significant form of comfort. And any leader who is ungodly, weak and deficient in qualities he ought to possess to become a great and successful leader will eventually succumb to their evil antics and manipulations.

However, for those who believe there are no demons or evil spirits and influences in Aso Rock or government generally, I feel they need to be bothered about why otherwise good people who go into public service get there and start to misbehave as if they are bewitched. They need to be concerned about why many political leaders know the right things to do to develop the country but consistently fail to do them. This is a reality we must admit whether we like it or not and one we need to confront and discuss even further.

But on a more serious note, why do we think there wouldn’t be foul spirits around the corridors of power when many of our leaders are fetish and only few can boldly come out among them in public to say their hands are clean? If the head is sick, the whole body will also be sick.

Meanwhile, in My Watch, former President Olusegun Obasanjo shared some of his experiences concerning fetishism, especially while he was in power. In pages 356-357 of his 3-volume book of 1, 533 pages altogether, Obasanjo wrote of how, as head of state, one of his friends introduced him to a powerful prayer warrior who insisted that they must go to the beach at midnight to pray while they also bury some animals alive, suggestions Obasanjo claimed he didn’t buy into.

On another occasion, the former President said a Moslem group arranged to hold regular prayers for him and once visited him to carry out the prayers. He confessed that he got apprehensive when the leader of the group approached him with a request for a substantial sum of money so he could visit the 36 state capitals of the country to collect sand from each state for the peace and progress of the country.

“I turned down his request which was both fetish and extortionist. He lost enthusiasm to continue the prayer sessions and I formally terminated the exercise. The unfortunate situation is that we keep getting rumours and true stories of fetish leaders all over Africa,” Obasanjo would later add.

Aside Obasanjo’s own disclosures in addition to Abati’s, I believe we’ve not forgotten so soon the tales of marabouts taken to Aso Rock to allegedly carry out different forms of prayers and perform all kinds of rituals for General Sani Abacha all through the five years he was in power as revealed by some of the players in his junta back then.

And sincerely, there are many of such stories even in corporate offices and supposedly religious organisations in Nigeria today where demonic operations are at play but hard to detect except they are keenly watched, observed and spiritually discerned.

While we are all free to believe what they want to believe, whether for instance, God exists or not, whether the devil exists or not, whether heaven or hell are real, and whether witches or demons or spiritual powers and principalities exist or don’t, I personally know the stories of many otherwise wonderful people who went into government and became complete opposites of what they used to be.

I am shocked to no end when people you once upon a time describe as genuine patriots and godly folks who loved the country and wanted a better Nigeria, no longer want any such description so long their bank accounts continue to get swollen and they are made for life while the rest of the people can go to blazes.

I equally know of truly outstanding and amazing folks who are successful in their private lives and should be assets to our country but have vowed never to have anything to do with serving in government so their images are not tarnished and their reputations damaged forever.

That is why I can relate to some of the things Abati wrote in his article. I commend him for sharing his thoughts and experience with the public even at the risk of insults from those who cannot engage in decent conversation and disagree with others without name calling.

However, I will also make this point before concluding. A transformational leader that will change his society for the better must be godly, visionary, knowledgeable, and intelligent to put the right team together even as he does his utmost to be above board in character and integrity at all times in order to be successful in his stewardship. He also needs the gift of discernment. Because the buck stops at his table, and it is him posterity will celebrate or upbraid at the end of the day, the leader must know his onions and weigh whatever choices he is making at every particular point in time to avoid being led into the ditch by vampires around the seat of power.

And while it is true that some of the other countries we describe today as civilised and developed in the world are truly so, yet, certain things their people do, and which their leaders also condone, show nothing but societies under some form of negative and unseen evil influences.

For example, a good number of these nations generally believe it is okay for men to sleep with men, for women to sleep with women and for people of the same sex to marry. As if this is not bad enough, they also find all kinds of reasons to justify their positions. To make matters worse, they even shout down those who point out their glaring errors and godlessness.

Many of such ungodly conducts, in some instances, even have the backing of the law in their jurisdictions. This is aside the fact that some of their manufacturing companies produce different types of objects for them to carry out their perverse fantasies and depravities. But their indecent behaviours and attitudes, if we will tell ourselves the honest truth, have satanic influences and undertones and will ultimately bring down such societies in the long run one way or the other if not checked.

Coming back home, in moving forward, the least I think we all can do as citizens is to always pray for our leaders and our country like the Bible advises even as we continuously demand good governance, accountability and transparency in government. It may even be necessary for the Presidency to call for a national day of prayer. Overall, in our intellectual arguments and efforts to defend issues from our limited physical prisms, we shouldn’t assume God does not rule and intervene in the affairs of men. He does. And the good news is that he’s still very much in the business if only people and nations humble themselves to seek His ways and glorify Him in their daily conducts whether as political leaders or every day people.