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OPINION: The Trinity – Do Christians and Muslims Worship The Same God?

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By Reno Omokri,

This is a recurring question and there is a lot of misinformation and ignorance on this issue and it affects peaceful coexistence, therefore, it is worth treating. With facts. Not emotions.

Yes, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all Abrahamic faiths, but whether or not they lead to the same God should be settled by what the holy scriptures of these religions say, rather than what we think or feel.

Religious conflicts occur when we let our EMOTIONS dominate us. If we want to be stable persons, we must obey these four things before we obey our EMOTIONS.

  • CONSCIENCE
  • PRINCIPLES
  • WISDOM
  • INTELLIGENCE

All four of them are greater than EMOTION when it comes to making religious decisions.

I strongly disagree with those who say we are worshipping the same God with Muslims. I have read The Bible and the Quran. The God of The Bible called Christ His Son with His own Voice (He did not speak through a prophet. He spoke by Himself from heaven to the hearing of those standing with Christ and Yohannan (John the Baptist) by the River Jordan in Matthew 3:17. Meanwhile, the Quran rejects that Christ is the Son of God in Quran 6::101. By this alone, it is indisputable that we do not serve the same God.

Allah is not the name of God. Allah is the Arabic word for God, just as El means God in Hebrew. The word Allah existed even before Islam existed. One of the companions of Prophet Mohammed (SAW) was Waraqah, a Christian priest. He read from an Arabic translation of the Christian Scripture, which used the word Allah and it referred and refers to God. For the Christian, God’s name is not God or El. God has a Name that is Holy and that Name is written in Scripture.

I know His Name, but I do not pronounce it. Jews will never pronounce the Name. Many Pentecostal Christians choose to pronounce the Name. That is up to them.

A famous Bible scholar named Daddy Freeze once said that all those who disagree that Christians and Muslims worship the same God are motivated by money. I give my congregants money, and I do not take from them. I don’t receive tithes. So, this is not about money. I have no other motive for saying this other than loyalty to God.

John 14:6 says “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”. Any route to the God of our Lord and Saviour that does not go through Christ is a route to another deity.

I believe this because Scripture says “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things”-1 Corinthians 8:6.

We may all want to serve the same one God. But we do not all worship the same God

In search of coexistence, those who love peace sometimes overzealously seek to compromise, to syncretise our various faiths and come up with a hybrid faith that pleases everybody.

But guess what, religion is not meant to please man. It is meant to please God. So, no matter how annoying your faith may be to the next man, do not try to seek peace with him by amending your beliefs to suit his. Instead, seek peace by understanding his religion for the purpose that as much as depends on you, you should not do anything to offend his religion.

it is better to be willing to die for your faith than to live to see it watered down or synchronised with another religion. That is why I respect Leah Sharibu and have gone to 36 countries at my own personal expense, begging influential world leaders to help secure her release.

The God and Father of our Lord, the Christ, is not the same God as is worshipped by other religions, with the exception of Judaism. He cannot be. Galatians 1:8 put paid to that. That verse says “even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel OTHER than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!”.

I will never make a judgment on Islam or on any other religion. There is no compulsion in religion. But I am a Christ follower and I make no apologies for that. I do not believe in any other holy book outside Scripture, though I have read the Quran and the holy books of others religions. The difference between Christianity and Islam can never be forgotten. It can only be understood.

I have read the Quran and I believe what Quran 5:116 says. That surah says:

‎وَإِذْ قَالَ ٱللَّهُ يَٰعِيسَى ٱبْنَ مَرْيَمَ ءَأَنتَ قُلْتَ لِلنَّاسِ ٱتَّخِذُونِى وَأُمِّىَ إِلَٰهَيْنِ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ۖ قَالَ سُبْحَٰنَكَ مَا يَكُونُ لِىٓ أَنْ أَقُولَ مَا لَيْسَ لِى بِحَقٍّ ۚ إِن كُنتُ قُلْتُهُۥ فَقَدْ عَلِمْتَهُۥ ۚ تَعْلَمُ مَا فِى نَفْسِى وَلَآ أَعْلَمُ مَا فِى نَفْسِكَ ۚ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ عَلَّٰمُ ٱلْغُيُوبِ

English translation:

And when Allāh will say, “O Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people, ‘Take me and my mother as deities besides Allāh?'” He will say, “Exalted are You! It was not for me to say that to which I have no right. If I had said it, You would have known it. You know what is within myself, and I do not know what is within Yourself. Indeed, it is You who is Knower of the unseen.

Indeed, The Quran is right here. Christ never taught about the Trinity or claimed that He is the God that seats on The Throne and to whom prayer should be made.

I have read Scripture cover to cover in multiple translations and in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. You will never see anyone in Scripture praying to Christ.

Everyone in Scripture, including Christ and the Holy Spirit prays to the only true God who sits on The Throne.

We see this in multiple verses, of which the most notable are Matthew 26:39:

“Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”-(NIV)

And in Romans 8:26:

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (NIV)

Here, we read that the Spirit intercedes for us with God when we do not know what to pray.

The Trinity has not always existed. For the first 300 years of Christianity, there was nothing like the Trinity. The word does not exist in the Holy Scriptures. It was introduced by the Holy Roman Catholic Church during the First Council of Nicaea in the year 325 AD.

After the Council of Chalcedon decided to alter the nature of Christ and change Him from the Son of God to God the Son in AD 451, many churches broke away from Christendom and coalesced into what is now known loosely as Orthodox Churches, some of which reject the Trinitarian doctrine.

According to the official creeds of the Catholic, Anglican and the World Evangelical Alliance, the Trinity is a doctrine that projects one God in three Divine Persons, in which the three Persons are co-equal and co-eternal and omniscient.

Now, I am not going to give my opinion about the Trinity. Rather, I will let The Holy Scriptures speak.

Is there co-equality between God, His Son and the Holy Spirit? In John 14:28 The Son said “My Father is greater than I.” Obviously, that verse contradicts the first leg of the Trinity. During my investigations, I confronted a member of the US Southern Baptist Convention about this and I will quote his response verbatim. He said “Jesus was just being modest”.

Almighty God is omniscient. He knows all things. But is His Son omniscient? In Matthew 24:36, The Son said “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, NOR THE SON, but only the Father.”

It is clear from the above Scripture that only The Father is omniscient.

So where does the biblical authority for the Trinity come from? It comes from 1 John 5:7 in the King James Version. That verse says:

“there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

Now here is the problem. When you read the original Greek manuscript, that verse does not exist. This is not even an argument or controversy. It is a FACT. Both the Catholic and Anglican Church admit that those words are not to be found in the original Scriptures.

I know right now your religious spirit is telling you that Reno Omokri is deceiving you. Okay. Open any other version of The Bible other than the King James Version and read 1 John 5:7.

I will now quote it in the NIV, NLT, ESV and the Aramaic Bible in Plain English:

“there are three that testify”-NIV
“we have these three witnesses”-NLT
“there are three that testify”-ESV
“The Spirit testifies because The Spirit is the truth.”-Aramaic Bible in Plain English.

So where does the KJV get the part that justifies the Trinity? From men, not from God. Why did they do it? I do not know. But what I know is that many, if not all, the scholars who translated the Holy Scriptures into the KJV were high level Masons. It is said that King James himself was a Master Mason of the 33rd Degree (the highest level of Freemasonry). I have not been able to verify the one about King James. But that some of the translators of the KJV were freemasons is not arguable or controversial. It is a historical fact that is not even hidden.

Many Christians try to use John 1:1 to justify the Trinity. They quote it as “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

But that is not what it says in the original Greek manuscripts. I have The Original Manuscript. I tweeted and facebooked a picture of it. The first mention of God in the original Manuscript is Theon, while the second word used is Theos. These are Greek words that have significance. For instance, Greeks called Zeus, who is the head of their pantheon of gods, Theon. They call Zeus’ children Theos. For instance, Dionysius, the son of Zeus is referred to as Theos. When you translate John 1:1 to Latin, the first use of the word God is translated Deum. The second use is translated Deus.

People erroneously cite Philippians 2:6 in the KJV as justification for the Trinity. That verse says:

“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be EQUAL with God:”

Actually many scholars believe that is a wrong translation. If you read the original Scriptures, you will see for yourself that translations, such as the ESV, and the NASB are more accurate. They say:

“though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.”

What this means is that Yeshu’a, our Saviour, did not try to be equal with the Most High. satan did it. The Holy Scriptures record satan as saying “I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”-Isaiah ‪14:14‬.

Yeshu’a had an even better opportunity to do what satan attempted, but He did not do it. That is why God promoted Him and said “in The Name of Yeshua, every knee shall bow, which is in Heaven and in The Earth and which is under The Earth.”-Philippians ‪2:10‬ (Aramaic Bible in Plain English),

But then some read the above verse and still use that to justify the Trinity. Before you do that, I urge you to read and understand 1 Corinthians 15:27-28. Those verses say:

“For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to Him who put all things in subjection under Him, that God may be all in all.”

I know this is a lot to take in. It is possible I have upset a lifetime of religious programming. However, you will agree with me that I have backed everything I have said from Scripture. I have said what I studied, researched, investigated and prayed over. I went physically to these places mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. I went to Israel, Rome, The Vatican, Corinth and Athens in Greece, Ethiopia and Palestine. I never wanted to do this. But I believe God will not be happy with me if I act the coward like Jonah.

A popular and well respected Pentecostal pastor, who agrees with these things, appealed to me not to reveal them. But I have achieved everything I want to achieve on earth. If I die without saying this, I will not be fulfilled.

Bear in mind that the Trinity did not exist for the first 300 years of Christianity. The doctrine was invented in 325 AD. What did Paul say about this?

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.”-1 Timothy 4:1

Others will ask how this builds faith. My response to them is this-is faith built on a lie still faith or is it delusion?

However, I do not agree with Quran 6:101, which in Arabic says:

‎بَدِيۡعُ السَّمٰوٰتِ وَالۡاَرۡضِ ؕ اَنّٰى يَكُوۡنُ لَهٗ وَلَدٌ وَّلَمۡ تَكُنۡ لَّهٗ صَاحِبَةٌ ؕ وَخَلَقَ كُلَّ شَىۡءٍ ۚ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَىۡءٍ عَلِيۡمٌ‏

And when translated to English, says:

“He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth. How can He have a son when He has had no mate? And He has created everything and He has full knowledge of all things.”

What the Quran says in Quran 6:101 about Christ not being the Son of God, is a direct contradiction of what the God of Scriptures said directly from His throne in Heaven in Matthew 3:17 (“This is my beloved SON, in whom I am well pleased”).

It is the same thing as saying that that Voice which Spoke from heaven lied and I do not believe that our God is a liar. So, the best thing is that we agree to disagree without fighting each other.

The first person who actually made the statement to my hearing that we, Christians, worship the same God as Muslims, was not my friend, Daddy Freeze, but an Archbishop and former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, whose name a present leader of CAN has appealed to me to keep out of this article. I will only say that this fellow recently retired from his office as an Archbishop.

The fellow said that to my hearing on November 7, 2013. He said and I quote “we (Christians and Muslims) worship the same God. When we get to heaven we will know who is right”. Nowhere is that statement by Archbishop * supported in Scripture.

Two months ago, I saw Archbishop * at the Business Class lounge of Ethiopian Airlines at Addis Ababa, and he looked perhaps surprised when I walked past him and totally ignored him. I have nothing but contempt for Archbishop *. On the day he made the statement, I felt like giving him a piece of my mind. I was fuming!! I had to restrain myself because I was representing then President Goodluck Jonathan at the Interfaith Activities and Partnership for Peace and it was being aired on television.

You may say, it is unChristlike for me to have shunned Archbishop * as I did this past September. I direct your attention to Romans 16:17 “MARK them who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the DOCTRINE which you have learned; and AVOID them.”

I have to say that that statement by Archbishop * undermined the faith of many believers. By saying (and it is caught on camera in case he tries to deny it), that “we worship the same God. When we get to heaven we will know who is right”, Archbishop * exposes the fact that he does not know his God and as Scripture says “the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.”-Daniel 11:32.

Beyond that, it also betrays the fact that Archbishop *’s faith is not certain because he says it is “when we get to heaven that we will know”. That is not faith. That is speculation.

Job 19:25 says, “I KNOW that my Redeemer lives”. (NIV). That is certainty! It does not say that I GUESS that my Redeemer lives and when I get to heaven I will be sure! I pray that Archbishop * gets an encounter with God.

Any faith that is built on ‘when we get to heaven we will know who is right” cannot rightly be said to be a faith. It is best described as gambling. John 3:16 is the cornerstone of Christianity. That verse says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever BELIEVES in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Salvation is only for those who BELIEVE. That is why Romans 10:9 says “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and BELIEVE in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be SAVED.”. There is no room for UNCERTAINTY. You must BELIEVE 100% or your salvation is questionable.

I appeal to you, if you are a Christian and you are reading this, do not force your faith on anyone. But much more importantly, do not compromise on your faith just to promote peaceful coexistence. Remember what Christ said.

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”-Matthew 10:28.

Finally, let me state categorically that to me, there is only one God, and He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. Samuel, David, Daniel and Christ is the only Way to Him. I do not care who is offended by that. I will say that at pain of death. I do not have to go to heaven to know that this is true. A faith that you can only be sure of when you get to heaven is not blessed. For as Christ said “because you have seen me, you have believed: BLESSED are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”-John 20:29.

I might have been representing then President Jonathan that day on November 7, 2013, but I represent God every single day of my life. And that is of greater importance to me.

Reno Omokri

Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Avid traveller. Table Shaker. Hollywood Magazine Film Festival Humanitarian of the Year, 2019.

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Cybersecurity in 2024: Towards Ever Greater Sophistication of Tactics

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Chester Wisniewski, Director Global Field CTO

Writer: CHESTER WISNIEWSKI, Director Global Field CTO, Sophos

With 2024 fast approaching, what are the results for 2023 and what are the developments in the threat landscape for this new year?

The year 2023 was marked by persistence in the tactics of cybercriminals, with the predominance of ransomware, the exploitation of vulnerabilities, theft of credentials and even attacks targeting the supply chain. The common point in all his attacks is their formidable effectiveness.

It is therefore essential to ask what trends will persist in 2024 and what strategies businesses should adopt to deal with these future cyber threats.

Between persistent trends and evolving cybercrime tactics

In 2024, the threat landscape is not expected to change radically, particularly with regard to attack typologies and criminal tactics and procedures.

Criminal groups still primarily focus their attention on financial gains and ransomware remains their weapon of choice. These cybercriminals tend to take the easy way out by opportunistically attacking unpatched security vulnerabilities.

The recent Citrix Bleed attack demonstrated the agility of cybercriminals when it comes to quickly and effectively exploiting these new vulnerabilities.
However, once patches are applied to these vulnerabilities, cyberattackers tend to revert to more common strategies of stealing credentials or, failing that, cookies or session cookies, which, while slightly slower, constitute always a proven means that allows them to penetrate within a system.

In 2024, however, we should expect increased sophistication in defense evasion tactics, particularly due to the generalization of certain technologies such as multi-factor authentication. These attacks will combine malicious proxy servers, social engineering techniques and repeated authentication request attacks or “fatigue attacks”.

AI and regulations will continue to shape cybersecurity

In 2024, the development of AI will have a positive impact on the efficiency of IT teams and security teams by enabling them to strengthen defenses and work more efficiently, including through the processing of vast volumes of data in the aim of detecting anomalies. It should make it possible to respond more quickly in the event of an incident.

Indeed, analysis of attacks in 2023 showed a shortening of the time between network penetration and the triggering of a final attack – using malware or ransomware. The need for rapid detection and response tools to prevent costly incidents is therefore essential.

Finally, regulatory developments could have a major influence on measures taken against ransomware. The need to take more substantial measures could push some states to penalize the payment of ransoms, which would represent a brake on malicious actors and change the perspective of companies in the event of an attack.

Other stricter legislation, such as the implementation of the European NIS2 Directive, is also expected to force companies to take additional measures, particularly regarding their abilities to collect data sets.

To protect themselves against increasingly rapid, effective and costly attacks, companies will need to strengthen their defenses by equipping themselves with tools that allow them to detect and respond to incidents more quickly.

The worsening cybersecurity talent shortage does not appear to be as serious as some studies claim. On the contrary, companies have implemented more lax hiring criteria and more open-mindedness in the recruitment process.

From this perspective, to guarantee their survival in a constantly evolving threat landscape, companies have every interest in establishing partnerships with cybersecurity experts whose main mission is to make the hyperconnected world safer, to advise and assist them. in setting up effective defenses.

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The Internal Threat: The Hidden Face of Corporate Threats

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CHESTER WISNIEWSKI on Insider threat
By: CHESTER WISNIEWSKI, Field CTO – Applied research

Businesses today face many threats; but if those coming from outside are their main source of concern with a priority focus on ransomware, they too often forget to consider internal threats which can be just as devastating.

In fact, they take less time to assess the adaptability of their internal security measures in case a cyberattacker manages to break through their defenses from the inside and recover sensitive data that is easily accessible to him. So, what are the means to put in place to detect these threats and respond to them effectively?

The sources of these insider threats are diverse and very often undetected or detectable. They can thus be the result of negligence or even malice.

They can, for example, come from an implementation of relaxed security controls that do not apply to certain systems, or from a lack of logging and identification of these malicious activities.

Although, difficult to measure – since they are rarely the subject of dedicated reports – these internal attacks have already affected many companies.

What are the reasons for the appearance of these threats?

Intentionally or not, insider threats are legion. For example, when an employee carelessly forgets a USB key containing copies of critical information on the train, he then neglects to comply with all the rules in force.

This type of situation can be tragic for the company since there is therefore a risk of theft or public exposure of information that could lead to a violation of official regulations imposed by a governing body (usually GDPR, PCI and HIPPA) or by several regulatory bodies’ premises.

The company must then be extremely transparent by disclosing to its employees – and more broadly to the general public – that it has been the victim of a data breach within the organization, and it must also be held accountable. of all actions associated with this data breach.

But it can also be actions triggered intentionally for a wide variety of reasons. An employee may, for example, realize that he has the possibility of carrying out a malicious action in his workplace because of relaxed controls or because he has high visibility.

This type of situation can lead to the theft of confidential information belonging to the company. The employee then seizes this opportunity to harm the company with impunity.

Various flaws and patterns

Cybersecurity experts have identified three distinct insider threat motives which are revenge, greed, and inattention.

The first two reasons include, for example, intentional and accidental acts, and are more likely to occur following a dismissal or a resignation. However, these reasons vary according to the type of activity of the company.

In the case of the defense sector, it can be corruption or espionage, unlike the ICT sector, where commercial data theft is more widespread.

Employees in charge of selling products and solutions can thus save their customers’ contact details in files and programmers can steal the source code. Despite their media coverage, on the whole, cases of espionage or sabotage remain, fortunately, exceptions.

More generally, data leaks are often caused by insider threats, when sensitive information belonging to the company becomes “uncontained”, when it should be classified confidential according to the operational context.

This information then becomes “public” and people whose position has nothing to do with it can consult it. Very often, when businesses are faced with such accidental data loss or leakage, it is the result of carelessness, inadvertence or clumsiness – such as the loss of mobile devices, USB storage media or public exposure of repositories stored in the cloud.

The classic example of accidental data release comes from the use of the “To” and “CC” fields when sending an email to multiple external recipients, where personally identifiable information is exposed to all of these recipients; a situation that could have been avoided by using the “CCI” (blind copy) mode.

Finally, data destruction is also a typical action where the integrity and availability of data is taken away from the business.

This has the effect of preventing him from accessing critical information, which can directly impact the operational capacity of the company. While this activity is mostly associated with ransomware operators, it can also be attributed to insider threats.

It should be borne in mind that there are many reasons that could lead to such acts, but the main reason remains that the data is generally stored in a weak way, which allows too many people to access information that has nothing to do with the tasks entrusted to them.

These people can steal sensitive data for revenge, but also destroy it or remove it from the company or even try to extort its return.

How can we best respond to these threats?

The implementation of a strategy to prevent these internal threats remains difficult to implement, since once the attack has been launched, anticipation and control are already outdated. It is therefore extremely important to set up preparation sessions aimed at determining the impact of these attacks.

Thus, training employees in the correct use and understanding of internal company systems and processes can go a long way towards avoiding errors associated with accidental data leaks.

In addition, it can be useful to turn to several solutions and tools such as file and document management systems to better manage the critical data that the organization has in its possession. ZTNA limits access to only required tools/services/apps rather than everything on a company’s LAN.

It is also possible to employ Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) tools, capable of preventing accidental data leaks – except in the case of intentional theft. XDR systems and firewalls can also be very useful as part of the disaster prevention and recovery plan because they allow DLP to be implemented and log access and data movement at the same time.  Their actions facilitate forensic work, particularly in understanding failures and their consequences.

Finally, the implementation of technical controls capable of regulating access to data and systems that contain sensitive information, as well as the monitoring of the results of these controls and the responses to violations of the security policy contribute to the detection of ‘a malicious attack in progress.

To protect their company and their employees from these internal threats, managers must imperatively limit access to the data to the persons concerned and ensure the implementation of strict controls on the most sensitive data, while providing them with the support they need.

In essence, therefore, the right balance must be struck between people, process and technology, since any imbalance can favor the introduction of instability, as well as an easier increase and spread of risks – whether they either external or internal to the company.

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[OPINION] Kperogi’s Veiled Campaign for Tinubu

Article by Hashim Suleiman

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Professor Farooq Kperogi and Tinubu
Professor Farooq Kperogi and Tinubu

I’ll start on this by referring you an earlier piece I had written on 17 April, 2021 about Professor Farooq Kperogi when he attempted to hoodwink his readers and Professor Pantami that he was the latter’s friend but still went ahead to disparage him by spewing lies and supposed private matters on the Professor, the piece can be read here.

At that point, I had just switched from being his ardent fan to seeing him for who he really is, a propaganda merchant who thrives on the docility of Nigerians to cash out.

Kperogi had to acknowledge that article as it bursted his little games on 24 April, 2021 in his column tagged ‘On my friendship with Pantami’ and which can be read here.

I read Kperogi piece of today 11th February, 2023 where he attempted to as usual disparage Buhari’s naira policy and linked it as a ploy to stop a BAT and I found the analogy in it very ludicrous to say the least. I wonder why Kperogi has developed a permanent feeling and understanding that Nigerians are extremely daft and so he could spew anything at them albeit hypocritically after cashing out his little coins behind the scene.

Kperogi is a supporter of Tinubu but just like so many Nigerians who share his type of double character, he is  finding it difficult to come clean about it, so he is using mind games this time around to blame Buhari and his policy as the reason why Tinubu would fail even though according to him, he doesn’t want it but he would prefer that the failure of Tinubu occurs through ballots and not through sabotage.

However, what Kperogi and the likes who don’t have the audacity and criticality to formulate critical campaign strategies to market Tinubu don’t understand is that the suffering of Nigerians which had largely made them to make up a mind did not start with the naira scarcity and it’s attendant suffering which in my opinion is over bloated by the likes of Kperogi and other propaganda merchants to unfairly blackmail Buhari into succumbing to perhaps use state resources to install Asiwaju as president and that won’t happen because in reality Nigeria has long moved away from such. You have to have some level of popularity to rig elections in any society and rather than campaign enough to get the masses support for Asiwaju, Kperogi and the likes believe the victory must only be gotten through blackmail.

While on my way back from office yesterday, I critically examined the menial marketers like ‘suya’ sellers and the rest, and I saw a normal activity going on as I used to know it and I wondered in my mind where the excessive suffering that was been hyped was? It has also been established and I know that those people in the remote villages that Kperogi attempted to refer to do not need more than one to five thousand Naira to transact and while in the beginning things got a little rough, POS merchants have since gotten cash for them and things are normalizing, so I’m sure that the whole propaganda about suffering is being spewed by some political elements who perhaps see free and fair contest as a threat to their victory and such narrative has to stop quickly because in recent past it was same kind of narrative that made Jonathan loose elections, Nigerians desist such fearful narrative.

Furthermore, Kperogi alluded to the fact that Asiwaju always used billion vans to win his way through elections, assuming without conceding that was true as coming from him, is Kperogi then telling us that he supports a corruption of the electoral system? If anything, is ensuring a free and fair contest by Buhari not worthy of commendation? I can bet you Nigerians especially those from

Northern Nigeria have accepted this policy not because there are not minor and temporary discomfort about it but because they see it from the prism of Buhari doing what he ought to have done a long time ago which was to annihilate corruption and its practices, so it appears the people were ready to bear this brunt in as much as it guarantees free and fair contest.

Speaking about a payback by Buhari after Tinubu had supported him, I have maintained in different fora that the agreement for the reciprocation was a party matter and that had been settled at the primary elections because indeed all stakeholders allowed Tinubu to emerge even though they had other preferences which is normal with every human. However, general elections are a totally different games because there are other contestants and it is a democratic regime we are in where numbers of votes garnered matters most, so Kperogi and co should rather concentrate on fetching votes for Tinubu rather than blackmailing Buhari to hand over powder to Tinubu already baked.

Kperogi supports Tinubu,I knew this penultimate the primary elections, when he kept dropping hammers on Osinbajo, a contract he collected to disparage Osinbajo in the eyes of the northerners so as to pave way for Asiwaju and that worked but the current one won’t work because the ordinary people from the north have bought into it to a large extent maybe not so much from the beginning of it but much more now. Rather than all these intellectual shortcuts, I have advised the APC and it’s campaign to make appropriate recruitments to formulate strategies and such recruitments can be out of the ‘big names’ and the usuals, there are millions of smart boys and girls out there who can beat Kperogi and the likes to their cheap and opportunistic games, Daniel Bwala is one of such examples!

May the best man win for Nigeria’s increased progress, Amen!

Hashim Suleiman, PDP, APC and Consensus candidates
Hashim Suleiman can be reached via [email protected]

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