The Presiding Bishop, Holy Spirit Mission, Charles Ighele, in celebrating his 66th birthday hosted members of the Association of Christian Correspondents of Nigeria (ACCoN) at his residence in Lagos, where he took time to deliberate on life @66 and some national issues. SEYI JOHN SALAU was there:
May we know your view on the current religious crisis in Nigeria?
After the 2015 election that brought Buhari to power, a week or two later, Vanguard Newspaper in a full page interview with me, I said that the election was the worst in Nigeria’s history in terms of its divisive tendencies, that it is also reflecting the will of Nigerians, I didn’t question that one at all because the little facts I have with me and to my friends as well, it reflected the will of Nigerians, but the divisive tendencies, getting the church involved, getting the mosque involved, everything escalated, and that what Buhari should do was national reconciliation, social re-engineering, that was what I said then. So now, in the case of Nigeria, let’s not just take religious conflict in isolation, because there are conflicts here and there, they are so many. Religious conflict is just one of them.
What about agitations for secession arising from different ethnic nationalities; should every ethnic group go its separate ways?
You see, even if you say to your tent O Israel; in-between the ethnic groups, okay, let’s look at Yoruba land as a nation, the Igbos, the Ijebus; go to the north, the Hausa/Fulani, which I learnt the banditry is due to their rivalry. So, if you say now form a Delta nation, Isoko man will not agree, Ijaw man will not agree, Ishekiri will not agree. Do you get it? So, we now have Isoko nation, with its own president; Nigeria will become one ugly thing.
Do you agree to the argument that what is happening was a script written by our leaders?
You see, that is an aspect of it. But there seems to be collaboration by the elite, it is a class war. And that is to share national resources at the expense of the masses; give me the contract and keep quiet, so that is an aspect of it. Then another part of it has to do with there is always the tendency by an ethnic group, whose people are in power to take charge of everything and like a former president said the other day, he said they mounted pressure for him to do so but he did not do so; to put his ethnic people everywhere, he refused to do so. When you do so you are myopic, when you do so, you divide the nation the more.
You appear to be critical about this administration; as a student of history at what point did we get it wrong as a country?
Now, it will be silly on the part of anybody to think that these problems started today, under this administration. The social decay doesn’t take place in just five years, now the fact remains that Nigeria and Nigerians have become more uncivilised, even some who have PhD are not civilised, talking about civilised behaviour, so the whole system took a dangerous turn when the military started to treat education the way they treated education.
The quality of the life of a people depends on the quality of their education. And education is not all about passing of examination; education equips you on how to face society in an impartial manner, on how to look at issues, on how as a Christian to relate with a Moslem without any bias and vice versa; education equips you to look at what can I do to help, and not what can I do to get what is already there. So now, before the military rule we have the quality of teachers who had this mindset, they love education, so you could see people from Great Britain, India coming all over Nigerian schools to teach.
You see at a stage, when the military now decided to change the educational policy, they now said that after finishing secondary school and you fail your school certificate examination, you can go and do one or two years in Teachers Training College, then you now become a teacher. That thing alone destroyed education in Nigeria, and then all those who failed school cert, all of them now trooped into the teachers training colleges. So, with this people who didn’t pass all over the country now get to educate the children, how would they be?
Looking at the scenario you have painted, insecurity everywhere, would you want to conclude that Nigeria is a failed state?
You see, what is a nation? What is nation state? Thomas Hobbes talked about a time when life was brutish, nasty, and short, that is Nigeria; we call it the state of nature. Let us not mince words about it, it is a totally failed state. You see, Rwanda knew it was a failed state, because they knew, they rose up to rebuild. How can you say you want to patch up? It is a failed state, complete failure. Insecurity, education, poverty, what is there? With agitation here and there, let us be fair, let us be fair and I don’t want to belong to the elite that would not call a spade a spade. And whoever is going to take over from this very government, whether PDP or APC, this should be the person’s main goal, nation building. I just pray, a bold Nigerian, a benevolent strong man will rise up and build powerful institution that will be able to deal with the problem of inequality.
You have interest in marriage and family happiness; have you reached the point of satisfaction where you would say Nigerian families are happy?
How can I be satisfied? Nigerian families are suffering, poverty, ignorance of marriage and family, parents unable to raise their children well, more than half of our youths they have funny hairstyle, if the family is okay, society is okay, so the family is producing children that are a source of problem to society. So, that is what we are fighting; we need the family to be strong and responsible, and where we can, we take some off the streets according to our resources. But I tell you, a typical Nigerian father and mother have little or no knowledge about marriage.
So, how is life at 66?
At 66, more than half of my stay on planet earth is over, the time will come all of us here will not see Lagos again, because we will all do what; die. So, now at 66, what can I do to make Planet earth better than I met it, it is a driving force. And this has always been there, so it’s now go beyond the car we ride; any car you see there is a gift, I didn’t buy any of those cars there. And by the grace of God, I have vowed that from this moment I will not be in a corner. I must play a role which I have started playing step by step in making sure that the quality of Nigerian family is better.
The family is so important to me. So right now, we are on a project of how many families we can get out of poverty every month, whether Christian or Moslem, because if poverty is now the biggest problem, and Nigeria being called the poverty capital of the world. I don’t want to be remembered as only how many jets I have or something, but how many families was I able to raise from where they were to where they supposed to be.
Finally, if you were not a bishop, what else would you have been doing?
If I were not a bishop, well, there are different things, I would have been a journalist, publisher; I was already doing that, editing the largest serving campus newspaper at Ife, known as the King’s Cobra and it was so effective. Secondly, I might have been a lawyer. Then thirdly, a soldier and the aim was to plan a coup, but my aunt was angry, don’t try it. Really, I wanted to join the army and the aim was to plan a coup. So, as a child I had read a lot about education in Nigeria from newspapers; what was going on during the civil war; reading newspaper made me to know more about Nigeria then, things which should be, things which should not be, and I was angry with a lot of things.
