…Says credible delegates, not election-day voters alone, will determine Nigeria’s political future
*Photo:Pastor Femi Emmanuel*
The National Director of the Directorate of Politics and Governance(DPG) of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria(PFN), Pastor Femi Emmanuel, has dismissed as fundamentally misguided the growing belief that Christians can secure meaningful political relevance merely by participating in politics in the hope of receiving appointments from governors or the President.
Rather than celebrate political appointments as the ultimate reward for Christian political participation, Pastor Emmanuel has called on the Church to move beyond what he described as passive, election-season politics.
Rather, he charged the Christian folks to immediately begin a deliberate, organised and sustained mobilisation of brethren from the grassroots and ward levels, where, according to him, the real machinery of political power is built.
The cleric’s intervention followed the circulation of a statement credited to Niger State Governor, Mohammed Umar Bago, in which Christians were reportedly encouraged to participate actively in politics so that they could become eligible for political appointments.
But in a strongly worded press statement circulated to Christians across the country, Pastor Emmanuel, who heads the PFN’s Directorate of Politics and Governance, warned that the Church must not misunderstand political participation as a mere route to becoming aides, commissioners, advisers or other appointees of those already in power.
According to him, Christians must aspire to become active participants in the process that produces political leaders rather than remaining on the sidelines until the winners emerge and begin distributing appointments.
“Christians should not wait or be looking for appointments from governors or even from Mr President,” the PFN political Director argued.
He maintained that political appointees, irrespective of the prestige of their offices, often operate within limits imposed by the political authorities who appointed them and may therefore lack the independent political base required to influence the direction of governance.
For Pastor Emmanuel, the fundamental question is not how many Christians are appointed into government after elections, but whether Christians are sufficiently organised within the political system to influence who emerges as party leaders, delegates, candidates and ultimately, elected public office holders.
His prescription is a grassroots political awakening through the existing structure of the DPG within the PFN.
The fiery Pentecostal leader argued that many calls urging Christians to “get involved in politics” have remained superficial because they fail to explain where genuine political power begins.
That power, he insisted, does not begin at the Presidential Villa, the Governor’s Office or even at the polling booth on election day.
“Politics is local,” he declared, stressing that Christians who restrict their political participation to obtaining Permanent Voter Cards and casting ballots every four years may continue to reproduce the same political order they complain about.
According to him, the real battle for political influence takes place long before election day—within party structures, ward meetings, local government political formations and the processes through which delegates and candidates emerge.
Pastor Emmanuel argued that a voter may exercise his or her franchise on election day, yet remain powerless over the internal processes that produced the candidates on the ballot in the first place.
This, he said, is why the Church must move from mere electoral participation to strategic political organisation.
“The grassroots is where power lies in politics,” he insisted.
He warned that without a deliberate effort by Christians to join and participate actively in political party structures at the ward level, the electorate could continue to vote in candidates handpicked by entrenched political interests.
A major plank of Pastor Emmanuel’s argument is the crucial role played by party delegates.
According to him, there can be no consistent emergence of credible candidates without credible delegates who are prepared to participate in party primaries and resist the imposition of unpopular or unsuitable aspirants.
Since delegates and party officials emerge largely through structures rooted in the grassroots, he argued, Christians who desire a greater voice in governance must not abandon the political field until the period of general elections.
“If Christians are absent where delegates are produced, where party officials emerge and where candidates are selected, they should not be surprised when they repeatedly find themselves choosing from a list of candidates produced entirely by political forces they had no role in shaping,” he maintained in the thrust of his argument.
He said the DPG structure established within the PFN was designed to provide a platform for political education, mobilisation and participation by Christians across the country.
Pastor Emmanuel therefore called on Church leaders and Christian leaders at all levels to mobilise their members towards lawful and democratic participation in politics, beginning from their respective wards and communities.
The objective, according to him, should not be the creation of a religious political monopoly or the replacement of one form of domination with another, but the development of an informed, organised and responsible Christian constituency capable of participating effectively in Nigeria’s democratic process.
The DPG National Director also expressed deep concern over what he described as the danger of political apathy among Christians.
He warned that a religious community that distances itself completely from governance risks surrendering decisions about its future to others.
For him, political neutrality in the face of decisions affecting security, the economy, education, religious freedom and the general direction of the country could come at a heavy cost.
Pastor Emmanuel also raised concerns about extremist tendencies and religious intolerance, warning that Nigerians must remain vigilant against every ideology or movement that seeks to undermine the country’s constitutional democracy, religious freedom and plural character.
While alleging that certain forces were working towards the Islamisation of Nigeria, he urged Christians not to respond to perceived threats with violence or religious hostility, but with democratic organisation, political enlightenment and legitimate participation in governance.
Nigeria, he argued, must remain a country where no religion, ethnic group or ideological movement is allowed to impose itself on the rest of the population outside the provisions of the Constitution.
The answer to intolerance, domination or extremist tendencies, he suggested, is not another form of extremism.
To the Cleric, what matters is the strengthening of democracy, participation, organisation and the mobilisation of citizens—Christians, Muslims and adherents of other faiths alike—who believe in a Nigeria governed by constitutional principles rather than religious coercion or political godfatherism.