Obasanjo, petroleum politics and 'acts of God'
By
At the recent opening of the international conference on the Niger Delta and formal launching of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in Port Harcourt (The Guardian, Tuesday, December 11, 2001), it was reported that President Olusegun Obasanjo waxed theological when he sought to counter Rivers State Governor Peter Odili's subtle remark that "it was not a mistake that the Niger Delta people are located in a richly endowed part of the country."
In a four-sentence riposte in which "God" was mentioned no less than seven times, Obasanjo proclaimed among other doctrines, "But when God also allows was to be together as a country under one umbrella, it is an act of God." This is beer parlour theology, not the teaching of the Bible. It is equivalent to saying that the numerous armed robberies and assassinations that God is allowing to be perpetrated across the country are His acts. The territorial size of a nation is determined by actions of men, not God's. However, if the nation's governance reflects the purpose for which God established the institution for political governance, the nation will enjoy His blessings, prosper and endure. But if the governance system and operation defy His principles, the nation will be mired in discontent and strife, and God will eventually allow it to disintegrate.
In the last 15 years alone He has allowed each of the nations of Somalia, USSR and Yugoslavia to come away from its "one umbrella" and go under a multiplicity of umbrellas. He may yet in the fullness of time allow the "mistake of 1914" to be rectified in this way. Perverting the Word of God to justify or excuse man's evil designs and deeds is an artifice as old as man himself. Indeed, it started way back there in the Garden of Eden. When, following the disobedience of man, God came into the Garden, not with instant damnation as he well might have done, but with questions aimed at making man to be broken in repentance and beseech Him for forgiveness and restoration, Adam instead gave a riposte in which he sought to pin his sin on God; i.e robe it as an "act of God." "The woman you gave me for companion, she gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it." (Genesis 3:12, NEB).
More recently, the Scripture has been perverted to support such evils as the slave trade, colonisation, institutional segregation and racism in the U.S up to the late 1960s and, still fresh in our minds, apartheid in South Africa. President Obasanjo was therefore walking a well-trodden path when he resorted to "acts of God" to defend perpetuation of the injustice against the Niger Delta.
December 2001