Onu J: Where Does Power Come From? 

–Silas Joseph Onu, Esq

This question is one that is easily known to a sincere discerning mind. It is obvious that power comes from God and He gives it to whom He pleases.

However, man in his arrogance, sometimes wants to play god and take power for himself. It always appears to man that he has succeeded when he occupies the place of authority. However, just like most miracles, success is only measured in retrospect.

If you ask many who took power by force and governed with so much authority and brutality, how they feel about such power after losing it, they’ll tell you of their regrets and how they would have stayed away from power if they knew what it meant.

However, when God give power to whom He pleases, such power will not come with regrets.

A clear case of a man’s futile quest for power is Late Abba Kyari. The 2019 Presidential Election was planned and executed by Late Abba Kyari beginning from the day he had a secret meeting with the Chairman of INEC. The rest they say, is history. He election was won by the PDP, but he, with the connivance of INEC and security agencies, rigged the outcome and frustrated other processes. He didn’t stop there, he masterminded the judicial heist of the stolen victory and ensured that his lackey was made the Chief Justice of Nigeria ahead of the Election – a strategy that was obvious to all.

Upon the achievement of these feats, he consolidated power by being the engine room of government as all Ministers were to report to the President only through him. That way, he was effectively more powerful than the Vice President and any other person in government, including the President himself. I say that he was more powerful than the President because he actually exercised Presidential powers and he determines what the President knows or does.

Soon, he began to openly display his control over government by attending important meetings for and on behalf of Nigeria. One of such meetings was the one he attended in Germany on Energy with Siemens. Such a meeting ought to be attended by the Minister of Power or, if it requires a Presidential delegation, the Vice President. But no, God has His plans.

Just after all was set for late Abba Kyari to begin his reign, his time was abruptly cut short while abusing public power.

It is instructive to state here that had Late Abba Kyari allowed the real result of the 2019 Presidential Election to stand just as Nigerians voted, he might still be alive today relaxing in his private residence in peace. This is so, because he wouldn’t have had any need to be in Germany representing Nigeria in an Emergy meeting with Siemens. If he didn’t attend that meeting, he might have been kept safely away from contracting the Coronavirus that eventually took his life.

A lesson to learn from his life and quest for power is that no matter how powerful you think you are, if God hasn’t destined you for such responsibility, you wont enjoy it at all.

Let’s all be circumspect in our dealings with power. Those who we employ to conduct Election and they end up selling it to the highest bidder and their counterparts in the judiciary who later justify the rigging, should now know that God is ultimately incharge of all justice and they’ll answer for their own wrong doings.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.