President Bola Tinubu’s former campaign spokesman in the south east, Dr Josef Onoh has taken a swipe onthe former Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF), Babachir Lawal for making uncomplimentary remarks on the President’s attendance of Pope Leo XIV inauguration in Rome, last week.

Lawal had in a television interview, on Wednesday, criticized President Tinubu for attending the Pope’s inauguration as a Muslim, recalling that he (Lawal) was vehemently against Tinubu’s choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket during the 2023 presidential election.

But Onoh picked holes in Lawal’s interview, describing the former SGF as an ignor

t Christian whose lack of knowledge on interfaith ecumenism has exposed him to ridicule.

Educating Babachir Lawal, Onoh recalled to him several times that the heads of Islam in different countries had paid visits to the Pontiff and vise versa, when different Popes had engaged Islamic leaders in inter religious dialogue which in some cases the Pope went into mosques.

Onoh mocked the former SGF, telling Lawal that he cannot be more Catholic than the Pope who was aware that President Tinubu is a Muslim but invited him for the inauguration, highlighting religious diplomacy and showcasing Nigeria’s commitment to pluralism and mutual respect aimed at fostering peace and cooperation across religious divides.

Onoh said that the Vatican inauguration visit aligned with President Tinubu’s domestic policies on inclusivity, which the president advocated during and after his political campaigns.

“Sadly, playing a Holy Roller, Babachir Lawal failed to acknowledge such a historic moment, potentially the first of its kind for a Muslim Nigerian head of state at such an event. Since Tinubu’s visit to Rome is an insult to Christianity, according to Babachir Lawal, why was Babachir Lawal silent on September 13, 2024, when the late Pope Francis stated in Singapore that all religions are paths to reach God and that they are like different languages in order to arrive at God. But God is God for everyone except for Babachir Lawal,” Onoh mocked.

He further recalled that the late Pope Francis in 2019 while in Morocco stated that God allows different religions as part of his ‘permissive will’, encouraging dialogue among faiths, while Pope John Paul II became the first pope to visit a mosque, specifically the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, on May 6, 2001.

Onoh further recalled that Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar visited Pope Francis on a dialogue and peace meeting at the Vatican on May 23, 2016, marking a significant step in Catholic-Muslim relations after tensions that followed Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 Regensburg speech.

“Why was Babachir Lawal silent when Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar invited Pope Francis to the United Arab Emirates, leading to the Pope’s historic visit in February 2019, the first by a Pope to the Arabian Peninsula where they signed the document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together in Abu Dhabi, promoting interfaith harmony and rejecting violence.

“Why was Babachir Lawal silent when Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, met Pope Francis again in 2018 at the Vatican for a private meeting, reinforcing their commitment to interreligious dialogue? Why was Babachir Lawal silent when Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar of Istiqlal Mosque hosted Pope Francis in Jakarta, Indonesia, on September 5, 2024, at the Istiqlal Mosque, the largest in Southeast Asia. They signed the ‘Joint Declaration of Istiqlal 2024,’ advocating religious harmony.”

Going further down in the memory lane, Onoh brought up the peace meeting and Pope’s first visit to Iraq where he met Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, Iraq on March 6, 2021; recalling also the 2001 mutual forgiveness and dialogue visit of Pope John Paul II to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria.

“Why was Babachir Lawal silent when Dr. Yassine Lafram, President of Union of Islamic Communities of Italy (UCOII) met with Pope Leo XIV (Pope Francis’s successor) on May 20, 2025, at the Vatican to discuss the Gaza crisis, calling for a papal visit to address humanitarian concerns. But today, Babachair Lawal is now talking like a religious grass cutter intoxicated by adulterated holy water just because President Tinubu, a Muslim, was invited to the Vatican.

“May we continue to pray to always find ourselves religiously sober than intoxicated in a pious manner, like Babachir Lawal who’s comment on President Tinubu is now an embarrassment not to Christianity but to himself which led him in his grey hair and old age to speak like a sophisticated rhetorician inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity,”