Okonkwo blames clerics for Jonathan’s woes

Mike Okonkwo, presiding bishop, The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), has lashed out at Christian clerics in the country for what he described as their inability to positively influence the immediate past Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan despite his constantly being around them.

The administration of the Bayelsa-born Jonathan who became the first sitting Nigerian president to be unseated by candidate of the then opposition party following his lost to Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the March 2015 presidential election, was bedeviled with widespread corruption and a near-total collapse of the economy.

Okonkwo, who addressed journalists at the TREM Headquarters, Ggagada, Lagos, in commemoration of his 70^th birthday, said from his observation throughout the tenure of the former president, it was obvious that Jonathan contended with forces much powerful than him, hence, as a consequent, he lost focus of what he was elected to do.

“I know many of them would not like what I am about to say, but I will go ahead and say it. I will put the blame of President Jonathan’s failure on ‘men of God’ in the country. The former president is a very nice gentleman that I have a lot of respect for; but he met forces greater than him. Ruling Nigeria is not like ‘guguru and epa’.

He may have had good intentions of what he wanted to achieve while in office but there were several forces that were against him. Unfortunately, all the men of God in the country could not do anything to help him out of the darkness. They should have rally round him and counsel him out of the darkness that was confronting him. Mind you, President Jonathan is not a strong Christian yet.”

He warned that some clerics in the country, who have turned politicians rather than remain apolitical, would soon lose the dignity of their respective ministries as a result of such steps.

“I see them everywhere especially among the young ones. Men of God are not supposed to be politicians; they are to be fathers to all the politicians irrespective of their political affiliation.

I have warned them that should they continue to toe such lines of obviously taking side with certain politicians and their political party, they will soon pay with their ministry,” said Okonkwo, who formerly turns 70 on September 6, 2015.