2019: Cardinal Okogie raises the alarm over evil plots against Nigeria

Ahead of the 2019 general elections, a former Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, has sounded a warning of sinister plot by some deceitful politicians to throw Nigeria into bloody disintegration.

He stated this in a letter he entitled “Beware the ‘Ides of March’, saying that “no true lover of Nigeria would want to drag this country into bloodshed.”

Okogie likened the current political brouhaha in the country to the scenario that played out in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, where the main character Caesar, was betrayed and murdered by an evil friend, Brutus, who conspired with the Roman politicians against his own friend.

The former archbishop of Lagos, said that Nigeria is like Caesar, and that the average politicians are like the Roman politicians, while those of them pretending to be friends to the citizens represent Brutus, diabolically and evilly plotting for the country to descend into bloody disintegration.

“It will be their Ides of March when the grandstanding and insolence of presidential and gubernatorial media spokespersons will be utterly unhelpful. Approaching another year of elections, this admonition has become frightfully pertinent.

For what is being witnessed looks like a re-enactment of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In this re-enactment, Julius Caesar would represent Nigeria; the Roman politicians who plotted his assassination would represent the average Nigerian politician, with Brutus, the politician pretending to be Caesar’s friend, representing politicians who, in their diabolically deadly intrigues, pretend to love Nigeria, but are actually plotting her descent into bloody disintegration.

“Nigeria, like Caesar, must beware of the Ides of March.  We have been witnessing politically inspired violence by Boko Haram. We have also seen how Nigerians in the states of the middle belt are slaughtered by armed herdsmen.  While the issues of Boko Haram and murderous herdsmen are yet to be given the attention they deserve, making refugees of some Nigerians on their homeland, we continue to read disturbing news of importation of arms to Nigeria.

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“Previous importations have come and gone without any conviction or sanction. We ask, as we have been doing: Who are those importing arms into Nigeria? Are they ghosts? What is government doing about them? Why is it that some Nigerians kill other Nigerians with impunity?  Why is it that those who masterminded the highly treasonable act of armed invasion of the National Assembly are yet to be identified, apprehended and arraigned before the courts? The build-up to the 2019 elections gives the impression that some people are out to destroy Nigeria.

“We must hold every political office holder and contender to an uncompromisingly rigorous standard.  This is not the time to vote on ethnic, religious or regional lines. This is the time to vote on past records of public service.  Let us not cast our votes for those who have ruined, are ruining and will ruin this country.  Nigerians must beware of the Ides of March. We are still watching,” he said.

 

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