Apparently, gone were the days when religious leaders perceive Nigerian politics as a “dirty game”. Today, clergymen seem to be tired of preaching “change” to politicians from the pulpits and want to enforce the change they desire themselves through active political involvement.

This is so because, among many unprecedented developments that the 2023 general elections heralded, the rise of clergymen who temporarily dumped their cassocks on the pulpits to run for different elective offices stands out. Legally, all eligible Nigerians can vote and be voted for, according to Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution.

At least two of the clergymen-turn politicians who took “steps of faith” have been declared governors-elect in the March 18 governorship polls by Nigeria’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

While Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia won in Benue State, Pastor Umo Eno won in Akwa Ibom State.

The entry of clergymen into politics is not entirely new in Nigerian politics. Before Fr Alia and Pastor Eno, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, a law professor and senior advocate, is a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). Also, Senator Remi, the wife of the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu, is an ordained pastor with the same church. There are a few others.

With their inauguration slated for May 29, 2023, all eyes are on Fr Alia and Pastor Eno to fulfil their campaign promises and not conform to the intractable corrupt system that has characterised governance.

Fr Alia’s Long Walk To Victory

In May 2022, Rev Fr Hyacinth Iormem Alia upset the Catholic Church when he announced his decision to get the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Benue State.

Days before the primary which he eventually won, the Catholic Diocese of Gboko in Benue suspended the “miracle-working” priest whose name was already a household identity in Benue for joining “partisan politics”.

Fr Alia had picked up the APC N50m governorship form and had been cleared by the ruling party to participate alongside 11 successful aspirants in the party’s primary.

But the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Gboko, William Avenya, in a letter dated May 20, 2022, suspended Fr Alia from public ministry “after series of admonitions” to him to quit politics.

“The Mother Church does not allow her clerics to get involved in partisan politics on their own,” the bishop sternly warned in the suspension letter.

However, Fr Alia was unfazed. He would later win the APC governorship primary the same month. In a landslide, the priest defeated many political gladiators in the APC in Benue such as a former Minister of State for Niger Delta, Sam Ode; a former Deputy Governor, Steven Lawani; a former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mike Aondoakaa; as well as the immediate past Chief of Staff to Governor Samuel Ortom, Terwase Orbunde.

Court Battle After Clergical Suspension

The priest and his followers thought that the battle was over or deferred till the March governorship election. However, Fr Alia’s opponents, angered by his emergence, won’t relent as they introduced another dimension to the game.

In December 2022, one of Fr Alia’s co-contestants in the APC, Aondoakaa, went to court to challenge the outcome of the primary. He asked the court to declare among other reliefs that Fr Alia was not fit to contest the primary because he was not a member of the APC.

Aondoakaa also asked the court to declare that Fr Alia could not validly contest and be declared as the winner of the APC primary election being an ordained priest of the Catholic Church and fully engaged as a minister in the employment and or service of the Catholic Church.

But Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja struck out the suit and held that although the suit was a pre-election matter, the ex-AGF filed it out of time.

The judge held that since the primary took place on May 26, filing the suit on June 10 made the suit status barred.

He held that the suit was incompetent and the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the suit and struck out the suit.

The case reached the Supreme Court but Justice John Okoro who led a five-man panel of justices in February 2023 dismissed the suit and held that Fr Alia remained the Benue State governorship candidate of the APC for the 2023 general elections.

Victory At Last

Fr Alia later won the March 18 governorship poll in the North Central state.

The Catholic priest won 473,933 votes ahead of his closest rival and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Titus Uba, who scored 223,913.

The Returning Officer, Prof Faruq Kuta and Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna declared Alia the winner.

Alia is expected to take over from Governor Samuel Ortom of the PDP G5. (CHANNELS TV)