RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - AKUME ON CAN PRESIDENT

The politicization of CAN by the predecessors of Ayo Oritsejafor in office as Presidents is not the central issue in George Akume's article. Choosing to list unpunished past thieves as a response- defence strategy by a person accused of stealing, to me, is absurd and wrong. The central issue in George Akume's article is that Pastor Oritsejafor claimed in 2012 that his congregation donated a Bombardier Challenger 600 jet aircraft to him for the purpose of attending to his flock and preaching God's message. Hence, he registered the plane privately as his own and to be supposedly used for pastoral duties. Recently, South African authorities arrested three passengers in the said pastoral plane belonging to Oritsejafor, with a sum of $9.3 million (US dollars) raw cash. The money was not declared to the South African authorities who impounded it for being a smuggled good. The arrested passengers in Pastor Oritsejafor's pastoral plane were not on pastoral visit to South Africa to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ or distribute money to the poor in Soweto. Rather they confessed that the smuggled $9.3 million was meant to buy weapons on behalf of the Federal government of Nigeria. Oritsejafor has admitted the ownership of the plane ferrying money smugglers and arms merchants. He however explained that he had leased the aircraft commercially to a company, called Eagle Air, a company in which he owns an interest. Eagle Air leased the Pastor's jet further to another company with the full knowledge and approval of Pastor Oritsejafor. Therefore Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor is not only an accomplice to the crime in South Africa but also a criminal before God because he broke one of the ten Commandments in the Bible (EXodus Chapter 20 and Deuteronomium Chapter 5). He has converted a Pastoral plane meant for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to commercial aircraft.

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Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 07:36:34 -0500
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - AKUME ON CAN PRESIDENT
From: meochonu@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Akume is absolutely right about the politicization of CAN under Oritsejafor's leadership, but let's not pretend that CAN's entry into politics began with Jonathan and Oritsejafor. When it comes to CAN's dalliance with presidents, Obasanjo and former CAN president Sunday Mbang set the tone. So politicized was CAN during the Obasanjo presidency that when Mbang retired, his retirement party in Uyo attracted everyone that mattered in government.

It should also be noted that the decision to become an appendage of the presidency was not CAN's or Oritsejafor's alone. Like Obasanjo before him, Jonathan is cuddling CAN and other Christian religious leaders to pander to a religious constituency and to counterbalance the influence of another powerful religious constituency.

Muslim presidents and heads of state also cultivated Muslim religious leadership--only they never did it to this vulgar extent. 

Oritsejafor has simply taken the practice to another stratosphere. Even Sunday Mbang would be appalled at Oritsejafor's infractions.

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Abdullahi Azare <barauab@gmail.com> wrote:

"[Oritsejafor's] arguments are unsustainable because he has vicarious liability at several levels," Akume said. "One, the vessel used for criminal activity belongs to him. Secondly, he commercially leased the vessel to Eagle Air, which is a company he holds an interest in and which in turn further leased same to the company that converted it to commercial use with his full knowledge and approval. The chain of ethical liability is unbroken," the senator stated.

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ABDULLAHI BARAU

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