Politicians are CIPs —Obasanjo

FORMER president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has a new coinage for politicians in the country, calling them CIPs, meaning criminals-in-politics, on Sunday.

He said the coinage was sourced from one of his friends whose name he did not give.

As guest speaker at the opening service of Saviour’s Cathedral centenary celebration at African Church Saviour’s Cathedral, Agege, Obasanjo also tagged the nation, a religious den of thieves and criminals.

He pleaded with political leaders to stop stealing and impunity for the downtrodden to stand a chance of having better lives.

He kicked against the idea of politicising anti-corruption war, saying it was only in Nigeria that someone would condemn a politician for stealing the commonwealth and such patriotic duty would be termed politics.

“When I was in power, I worked with many politicians. Many of them are very good people, but the others are so shameless that devil is better than them.

“One of my friends once told me that Nigerian politicians are nicknamed CIP, meaning Criminals-in-Politics. Most of them say that they are religious, but the truth is that they are not even Christians.”

Obasanjo went down Biblical history to say that in the beginning, God created everything good, but mankind had destroyed everything, adding that we had was evil and total lack of good moral.

He urged the church not to give up, but to go all out to redeem the world and renew Nigeria through evangelism and proper upbringing of the children.

He encouraged Christians to go into politics and stop calling it a dirty game.

“Politics is not dirty, it is the people who play the game that are dirty. Christians should go into politics and make politics in Nigeria clean.”

The host Bishop of the diocese of Agege, African Church, Right Reverend Hezekiah Adetoro, said the church had lined up a lot of activities to mark the centenary celebration of Saviours Cathedral Agege, which began with Sunday’s opening service.

The centenary celebration will climax on August 12, with the closing service that will be graced by the primate of African Church Worldwide, the Most Reverend (Dr) Emmanuel Josiah Udofia and other dignitaries.