John Cardinal Onaiyekan spoke a bit too much, by Rotimi Fasan

The storm that has followed the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria’s to President Bola Tinubu would certainly not have occurred had the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, not taken to the airwaves in the form of a television interview he granted Arise News Prime Time anchor Charles Aniagolu to not only speak about but also give details of their discussion with the president during the .

While Cardinal Onaiyekan and others were eager to castigate him, Tinubu was both clear-eyed and hard-nosed enough to know that there was no way he could win, not to say carry out his programmes at all, if he went with a vice-presidential candidate from the Christian part of the north.

Let us remember that Cardinal Onaiyekan, alongside other Christian leaders, had rejected the same faith ticket that produced President Bola Tinubu, a Muslim, and his deputy, Kashim Shettima, another Muslim.