Just about this time four years ago, the All Progressives Congress, APC, found itself at the centre of one of the more bizarre spectacles of Nigeria’s 2023 election season.
At the unveiling of Senator Kashim Shettima as Bola Tinubu’s presidential running mate, on July 20, 2022, an assortment of men and women dressed in the unmistakable robes of Christian clerics suddenly appeared. There were bishops, pastors and other supposed church leaders, complete with ecclesiastical garments that ordinarily command reverence.
Instead, their appearance provoked ridicule. Tinubu had announced Shettima as his running mate on July 10, 2022, creating the APC’s controversial Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket. The decision immediately drew opposition from the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, and prominent Christian leaders who argued that, in a country delicately balanced along religious lines, the choice was insensitive.
Then came July 20.
At Shettima’s formal unveiling at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, the unfamiliar clerics appeared. Their presence was particularly striking because organised Christian bodies had been vociferous in their opposition to the ticket.
Shettima himself acknowledged them, referring to the presence of about 30 bishops of the Christian faith.
Questions immediately followed.
Who were these bishops? Which dioceses, denominations or ministries did they represent? And how had such a collection of Christian leaders materialised at an event celebrating the very ticket that Nigeria’s leading Christian organisations were protesting?
CAN swiftly distanced itself from them, saying no official of the association attended the unveiling and challenging those behind the event to identify the clerics and their churches.
Rev. Joseph Hayab, then a leading CAN figure in Northern Nigeria, memorably compared the spectacle to something out of a “Nollywood movie.”
Social media did the rest.
Pictures of the clerics travelled across Nigeria at remarkable speed. They were derided as “fake bishops” and “hired bishops,” amid allegations that some were artisans and ordinary citizens dressed for the occasion. Reports even purported to trace one of the men to a business premises in Abuja’s Dei-Dei area. Not every identification stood scrutiny. Apostle Ekapong Ubi, General Overseer of Worldwide Mantle Assembly, protested that his name had been included on a list of the controversial clerics despite his insistence that he had not participated.
Nevertheless, the damage was done.
The “unknown bishops,” as they came to be known, entered Nigerian political vocabulary and became one of the enduring comic sideshows of the 2023 election campaign.
The PDP naturally seized upon the episode, accusing the APC of recruiting people to impersonate Christian bishops.
The Tinubu campaign strongly rejected that allegation.
Bayo Onanuga, then Director of Media and Communication of the Tinubu Campaign Organisation, maintained that the clerics were genuine Christian leaders, even if they were not among the country’s more recognisable church figures. They were, the campaign insisted, neither mechanics nor yam sellers masquerading as bishops.
Whatever their identities, however, the political significance of their appearance was greater than the individuals beneath the robes.
Tinubu was then fighting perhaps the biggest controversy surrounding his candidacy: why, in religiously sensitive Nigeria, had a Muslim presidential candidate chosen another Muslim as his running mate?
The sudden appearance of dozens of unfamiliar Christian clerics inevitably looked to critics like an attempt to manufacture an image of Christian acceptance of the ticket.
APC said otherwise. But the phrase “unknown bishops” had already been born.
Four years later
Much has changed.
Tinubu won the election and became president. Nearly four years after that spectacle, fears that his administration would pursue an overtly religious agenda have not become its defining controversy. Indeed, some Muslim critics have occasionally complained that the administration has not especially favoured their community.
Perhaps that explains why nobody appears eager to stage a sequel to the Unknown Bishops Movie.
Or perhaps we now have an upgraded edition.
This week came the endorsement of President Tinubu by the Charismatic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, CBCN.
The name requires clarification. The Charismatic Bishops Conference is associated with charismatic and Pentecostal bishops, archbishops, apostles and church founders. It should not be confused with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, which remarkably shares the acronym CBCN.
The similarity largely ends with the letters. The Catholic bishops have demonstrated a markedly different disposition towards the Tinubu administration. Not long ago, they confronted the President with assessments of Nigeria’s economic hardship that were decidedly uncomfortable for the government.
Their observations about hunger and suffering triggered sharp responses from presidential aides, provoking in turn a backlash from Nigerians who accused administration officials of disrespecting senior church leaders for articulating the pains of their congregations.
The Charismatic bishops who have now endorsed Tinubu present a rather different picture. Many of them are simply moved by charisma, to wit, by their feelings and temporal dispositions. Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:18 warns against being moved by such considerations which are indeed, rooted in the flesh. The flesh Peter warns is as grass which is today flourishing and tomorrow is gone. So, given that the body goes by the name Chairsmatic, it is not surprising that they may have seen and beholden some lucre that many of their ordinary members trudging through difficult Nigerian life have not seen.
An endorsement from religious leaders therefore carries a heavier burden than an ordinary partisan declaration. Those who speak from the pulpit claim moral authority different from politicians. When they enter the political arena, Nigerians are entitled to ask whether their pronouncements reflect the lived experiences of those sitting in their pews. Four years ago, Nigeria laughed at the spectacle of “unknown bishops” appearing at the unveiling of a controversial Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Four years later, the bishops are no longer unknown. They have a conference, an acronym and an endorsement.
Whatever else may be said, that represents progress in political production values.
The Unknown Bishops Movie of 2022 may not have been reenacted after all. It may simply have received an upgrade.
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