By Jude Ndukwe
SOMETIMES, when you hear people who ordinarily should be referred to as elders (with the wisdom widely believed to be associated with that appellation) speak, you shudder and wonder if truly elderliness connotes wisdom.
Babachir Lawal’s recent outburst and rants of half-truths and outright falsehood about President Bola Tinubu’s recent visit to Rome for the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV as the 267th Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church leave much to be desired. His assertions, which smack of denominational jealousy, were products of political mischief taken too far.
To say that “You know that going to see the Pope is just a matter of your lobby. How well you can lobby, how many friends you have out there in the Vatican that can lobby for you… probably with the correct inducement,” is one of the most irresponsible things of anyone to say about the Vatican. This is one of the crassest statements that could be made by anybody in the context of the solemn event in Rome.
How could Babachir Lawal condescend so low as to think that the Vatican could be induced for people to attend the Pope’s inauguration? Does Lawal not know that attending such an inauguration is always open to the public and that any interested individual or group could attend form any part of the world irrespective of religious background or such other narrow considerations?
In the case of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Pope himself was said to have invited the President to his inauguration based on his connections to the country in the past and the fact that he considered the President’s physical presence at the Holy Mass as an important step “at this moment of particular importance for the Catholic Church and the world afflicted by many tensions and conflicts,” stressing that “Your great nation is particularly dear to me as I worked in the Apostolic Nunciature in Lagos during the 1980s.” Even after then, the Pope had visited Nigeria on few occasions as part of his mission as Head of the Augustinian Order of priests of the Catholic Church.
More so, Nigeria has a burgeoning and vibrant Catholic population that has put her at the centre of the Church’s operations. In a “world afflicted by many tensions and conflicts,” of which Nigeria has had her own share of these issues, it was only proper that the Pope used the opportunity provided by his inauguration to engage world leaders in dialogues on how to resolve these tensions and conflicts and how the Church can help reduce the crises that are fast eating up our world. President Tinubu alluded to this fact when he described his dinner meeting with His Eminence, Pietro Cardinal Parolin, the Secretary of State to the Vatican in the following words, “Our dialogue was marked by a spirit of fraternity and a shared vision for the future, focusing on common values such as peace, mutual respect, and global solidarity.
“I expressed Nigeria’s deep appreciation for the Vatican’s longstanding goodwill and reaffirmed our commitment to promoting interfaith dialogue, tolerance, and cooperation in an increasingly polarised world.”
The Vatican’s influence on global matters is widely acknowledged and can only grow stronger. Right now, the Vatican has offered to make available its rooms for dialogue between warring Russia and Ukraine with the USA committing to supporting the move and help ensure its success. This is an addition to the fact that President Trump had also taken advantage of the righteous atmosphere of the Holy See to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the funeral of Late Pope Francis. Pope Leo XIV also met with Zelensky and his wife on the sidelines of his inauguration all in a bid to find lasting peace between the two countries just as he has called for peace in Myanmar, cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas, and the restoration of aids to those in need of them in Gaza.
What people like Babachir Lawal with jaundiced ideas have failed to understand is that Popes are usually blind to religious differences, but open to a shared humanity with strong bonds of love and good neighbourliness. So, when invites are sent out for such occasions as the inauguration of a Pope or the funeral of another one, they are sent out across the world to Catholics, other Christian churches, ecclesial communities, Jews, Muslims etc. It is therefore baffling to right thinking Nigerians, and mischievous of Lawal to have described Tinubu’s presence at such an auspicious occasion of global consequence as a ‘non-issue’, and even went ahead to say it was a result of ‘lobbying’ and ‘inducement’. If anything, President Tinubu must have witnessed firsthand, the harmony people enjoy when they are blind to their differences (as humanity will always have differences in culture, religion, race, etc), and determine in his mind to set things right in our country. That is one of the essences of such a trip. Like he said of the meeting with Cardinal Parolin, “Our dialogue was marked by a spirit of fraternity and a shared vision for the future, focusing on common values such as peace, mutual respect, and global solidarity.
“I expressed Nigeria’s deep appreciation for the Vatican’s longstanding goodwill and reaffirmed our commitment to promoting interfaith dialogue, tolerance, and cooperation in an increasingly polarised world.”
Following on this, the President needs to begin to ensure that those who take advantage of our fault lines to fan the embers of division and violence are reined in no matter who they are or the religion they profess. People of all faiths must be made to feel safe and allow to practice their religions without fear of harassment or violence wherever they find themselves in the country.
As for Lawal, his attempt to politicise the Rome trip by the President is most disingenuous and wicked. A man who was sacked as Secretary to the Government of the Federation by his bosom friend for issues that are uncomplimentary should not be the one volunteering skewed opinions on matters as this. While the Muslim-Muslim ticket remains an aberration in a pluralistic country like ours, Tinubu has demonstrated that he can operate from a higher plane above religious difference. All he needs to do now is ignore pressure from the usual quarters and go harder on those who terrorise our people based on their religious beliefs.
The truth is, contrary to Babachir Lawal’s claims, Christians would have felt slighted if Tinubu had not personally honoured the Pope’s invitation and delegated his Vice (assuming the Vice President were to be a Christian) to the event. Christians would have seen it as being treated with disdain by the President. One does not need to be a Christian or a Catholic to honour the Pope’s invitation. One only needs to be human enough to recognize that “though tongue, tribe (and religion) may differ, in brotherhood we stand.”
While Christians feel undone, and rightly so, by the Muslim-Muslim ticket, President Tinubu has so far made conscious efforts to ensure that it does not erode national interest, which was why he not only attended the event, but was obviously excited to do so despite being a Muslim. However, more efforts need to be made to ensure equality and safety of all citizens in any part of the country and that no citizen should be persecuted based on their religious beliefs. Let the harmony we all witnessed as Islamic Sheikhs stood in solidarity with their Christian counterparts at the Vatican as Pope Leo XIV was being inaugurated. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Let us replicate it here back home in Nigeria.