By Muyiwa Adetiba
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, last week slammed the very idea that APC was considering a Muslim/Muslim ticket for its Presidential campaign describing it as insensitive and naïve.

It is easy to say ‘wetin concern am sef.’ After all it is to the advantage of PDP Obasanjo’s party if APC decides to self-destruct. It is just that this Muslim/Muslim ticket issue will not go away. It has been in the air for at least two years now. And last week, General Buhari, the APC front runner, lent credence to this speculation when he said he had nothing against a Muslim/Muslim ticket.

It was probably this that made Obasanjo speak out. It is also likely that Obasanjo has more than a passing interest in who gets the APC ticket. In fact, it will not be out of character if he has a candidate in mind either as President or running mate. But what do we make, shorn of self- interest, of Obasanjo’s outcry?

On the face of it, I think the problems of Nigeria transcend religion and tribe. We run a non-inclusive economy which caters for the interest of only the elite. And this is irrespective of whoever is at the helm of affairs. We have had Northern Muslim and Southern Christian Presidents and nothing has changed for the common man. The only scenario we have not had yet is to have a Southern Muslim as President. There is no guarantee that it will make a difference for as long as the ‘elite system’ which promotes corruption and a culture of entitlement persists.

The 14 years of almost continuous Christian leadership in Aso Rock have not conferred any undue advantage on the Christian community. I am not aware that the Christian community is richer or that more souls have been won to Christianity than would otherwise have been. If anything, the reverse seems to have been the case. Just as I don’t think Muslims have particularly benefitted from the almost 20 years of continuous Muslim leadership before Obasanjo broke the circle. The fact that nothing really has changed in governance means we have to look beyond religion in choosing our leaders. We have to look at the character and antecedents of whoever aspires to the highest office. We also have to work out a system that will not allow bigots have a place in governance. As it is, too many incompetent people hide under religion and ethnicity just as too many ignorant people give credence to them.

At every stage of its development, every company, community or country must identify its challenges and then look for the kind of leadership that will get it out of the wood. Right now, our dear country is loosening at the seams because of insecurity and corruption and things are falling apart. That sense of oneness that puts all hands on deck is disintegrating. That belief in the rule of law and justice that reinforces one’s belief in the country is fast eroding. The notion that if you do your work conscientiously and with loyalty, the country will look after you is getting weaker by the day.

We therefore need urgently—as at yesterday in fact—that person who can give us a sense of direction; who can give us hope; who can tighten up the loose seams. Above all, we need a man who can put Nigeria ahead of religion and tribe.

It really should not matter to those who believe in Nigeria and the Nigerian project if this person is a Muslim or a Christian; if he is Yoruba or Kanuri as long as he does not wear his religion on his sleeve or his tribe on his head. We want a man who will look at every child born in Nigeria as a potential Nobel Prize winner and give them every opportunity to succeed in life. A man who will put food on our table in the day and provide a place to lay our heads in the night.

I do not expect religion to be a barrier if a truly outstanding person was to come forward, especially if that person was openly sponsored by respected and respectable Nigerians from across the country. A man who has not used religion to win favours in the past or who, like MKO Abiola, has helped people irrespective of religion, should not have to bear a religious stigma in stepping forward to serve his country.

Another place where religion is likely to heat up the polity is in Lagos State where Muslims have been at the helm of affairs for the past 20 years—if you count the Marwa administration. I dare say Lagos has not been worse off for it. Maybe I am uninformed, but I also do not think anybody has been discriminated against on the basis of his Christian religion. If anything, it is the Muslim youths that have recently gone to court to challenge a ruling on what they call religious discrimination.

Having said all these however, I believe judging from statistics, that Christians have an edge educationally and professionally over Muslims in Nigeria.   So more leadership materials should be found in the Christian fold on the basis of this. Yet I do not hear anybody talk of a Christian/ Christian ticket. And why should it be hard to get a good material who happens to be a Christian to take over after 20 years of Muslim leadership in Lagos State. Impressions must not be created that only Christians are tolerant of other religions because such impressions can only heighten religious tensions to the detriment of good governance.

If Christians do not see anything wrong with Muslim/Muslim ticket and in fact endorsed it in the past then equity and reciprocity suggest that Muslims should also be comfortable with Christian/Christian ticket If the people Nigeria is looking for happen to be of that religious persuasion.

We need to make religion a non-issue and one way of doing this is to look at what an aspirant is bringing to the dinner table or else we will continue to go to bed hungry.

Please find me two people who can wipe out corruption, remove the dubious petrol subsidy scam, build more refineries and ensure an efficient use of our human and material resources and it does not matter in the least if they are both from Kano or Calabar or if they are both Muslims or Christians.