Al-Bashir: Nigeria acted in order -Anyaoku

FEMI OYEWESO

The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Dr. Emeka Anyaoku yesterday absolved Nigeria of any wrong doing for refusing to arrest the Sudanese President, Omar Al-Bashir, when he attended an AU summit in the country.

Anyaoku, who was speaking with newsmen during the funeral services of Madam Maria Taiwo Abati, mother of the Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on media and publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati which held in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital declared that it was unrealistic for Nigeria to have handed over the Sudanese president to the ICC.

It would be recalled that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued a warrant of arrest on Al- Bashir Al-Bashir on what they called charges of genocide in Darfur. Al-Bashir however, recently came to Nigeria to attend the African Union (AU) summit on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

His presence in Nigeria had also generated local and international reactions as Human Rights Watch, an international organisatio, had also condemned Nigeria for not handing the Sudanese president over to ICC.

The organisation recently said in a statement that “Nigeria has the shameful distinction of being the first West African country to welcome ICC fugitive, Sudanese President, Al- Bashir”.

Anyaoku, however, argued that Nigeria’s action and her refusal to handover Al-Bashir was in line with the already taken position of the African Union.

The former Secretary General of Commonwealth also emphasised that AU did not only rejected the warrant, but also accused the ICC of targeting only African offenders.

“The idea of Nigeria handing the Sudanese president over to the AC or the ICCT was unrealistic. He was not Nigeria’ guest but the AU’s guest and Nigeria was only a host to the AU”.

“There is no room for AU or any international body to sanction Nigeria because there is no procedure preventing member state on an issue like that.

Nigeria was hosting AU summit, there is no way that Nigeria should have said a member of the AU should not attend the summit”.

NationalMirror

Al-Mustapha: We’ll prosecute him if necessary, Lagos insists

AYO ESAN AND MURITALA AYINLA

• Says it has just got copy of verdict

• Appeal is waste of resources –Fasehun

The Lagos State government yesterday insisted that it would appeal against the verdict setting Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer to the former Head of State, late General Sani Abacha, free, if it finds it necessary.

The decision, the government said, would be based on the outcome of its study of the judgement. But in opposition to the possible appeal of the judgement, the founder of the pan Yoruba sociocultural group, the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, Dr. Fredrick Fasehun, called on the Lagos State government not to appeal the judgement declaring that it would amount to a waste of resources and time.

Speaking yesterday in an exclusive interivew with Saturday Mirror, the State Solicitor-General , Mr. Lawal Pedro (SAN), who spoke on behalf of the government, disclosed that the government had just got the official reports of the Appeal Court yesterday.

According to him, the verdict would be critically looked at and appropriate action taken. Stressing that an appeal against the Appeal Court verdict would strictly be based on the conviction that the judgement was wrong, he said the state government is not a persecutor but prosecutor with integrity. His words: “I personally just got the copy of the judgement today (Friday).

What Nigerians should know is that Lagos State government, especially the state Ministry of Justice, is not a persecutor, we are prosecutors and we do it with integrity. “If there is any reason for us to appeal, we will. Not only on this judgement alone but also any judgement that is made against us whether in the High Court or Court of Appeal.

The only one we can’t appeal against is the Supreme Court’s final decision. Pedro, who is also the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Justice, added that the state is not only interested in high profile case but any case against any citizens in the state.

He said, “Crime is crime; whether one steals N1 or N1billion, they are all offences. Whether one kills an old man or kills a baby, it is still murder. So, the way I will probe the person who murders a roadside mechanic, is the same way I will prove the case of a billionaire that was murdered. But if we have a good reason, definitely, we are going to appeal the judgement.”

Speaking on the allegation that Al-Mustapha was prosecuted for political reasons , Pedro described the allegation as unfounded.

Meanwhile, speaking with journalists at a press conference in Lagos yesterday, Fasehun said the Lagos State government “must stop wasting taxpayers’ money by pursuing the case further”. He said the government must “immediately dismantle the team it assigned to prosecute the case”.

“Although it is the government’s right to pursue the case to the Supreme Court, not only will such cause waste of time and money, it will further fan the embers of hatred between the North and the South and prolong the psychological torture inflicted on an innocent man,” he said.

He said a fresh hunt must be launched to unmask Kudirat Abiola’s real killers saying, “The real killer of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola is still at large, out there.

A fresh hunt must be launched to unmask her real killers, as well as those responsible for killing: Bola Ige, Harry Marshall, Alfred Rewane, Funsho Williams, Odunayo Olagbaju, Ogbonnaya Uche, Theodore Agwatu, Barnabas and Abigail Igwe, Bisoye Tejuosho, Aminasoari Dikibo, Philip Olorunnipa, Ayo Daramola, Olaitan Oyerinde and M.K.O. Abiola”.

Fasehun also called for the sanction of Justice Mojisola Dada of the Lagos High Court who convicted Al- Mustapha to death before the Appeal Court set him free.

His words: “For her own part in this Theatre of the Absurd, Justice Mojisola Dada must be probed and sanctioned by the National Judicial Council, NJC”. Fasehun described last week judgement that set Al-Mustapha free as long expected adding that it had resuscitated people’s confidence in the Judiciary.

NationalMirror

Al-Mustapha’s freedom: Justice or perversion?

KAYODE FALADE

Murder is a crime many people seek justice for. They crave for the day when a tooth will be pulled for a tooth and an eye for an eye. As great their eagerness for justice is, so is their aversion to its miscarriage?

When the duo of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan were convicted for the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola on 20 January, 2012, the judgement was greeted with both knocks and kudos. And so was their discharge and acquittal on 12 July, 2013. What actually is justice?

The crowd at the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal on Friday 12 July, 2013 were ambivalent about where the pendulum would swing in the appeal of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan against the death verdict passed on them by a Lagos High Court on 30 January 2012.

But the voice of Justice Rita Pemu who read the lead judgment soon made it known that a dichotomy existed in the gathering.

The eminent panel of appeal presided over by Justice Amina Augie and which also had Justice Fatima Akinbami and Justice Rita Pemu discharged and acquitted Al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer to the late maximum ruler, General Sani Abacha, and Shofolahan, an aide Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, one of the wives of Chief MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the 12 June, 1993 presidential election whose murder they were being tried for.

One group in the court erupted in wild jubilation, while the other slunk away looking forlorn and bewildered. Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan had suddenly become free after 13 years of gruelling trial and detention of almost 15 years.

Justice Pemu who read the lead judgment held that there was no direct circumstantial evidence that Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan conspired with anyone as claims of prosecution witnesses in that regard were contradictory and that the prosecution in totality failed to establish the charge of conspiracy and murder against the appellants.

She further held that based on facts and evidence before the court, it is certainly neither Al-Mustapha nor Shofolahan who pulled the trigger and murdered Alhaja Abiola.

Justice Augie also concurred with the lead judgement, while the third Judge on the panel, Justice Akinbami also toed the line of the lead judgement thereby making the ruling unanimous.

“In a criminal trial the burden of proof is to proof beyond reasonable doubt and this is a chain that cannot be broken. “The prosecution listed four witnesses PW 9, 10, 11 and 12 as witnesses which it intended to call in the trial, but never called any of them.

“PW 1 (Dr Ore Falomo) testified before the lower court that the bullet extracted from the forehead of the deceased, was white and of a special kind, but the prosecution failed to tender the bullet as exhibit and this is fatal to their case.

“The prosecution also called Pw 4 (Investigating Police officer) who investigated the death of the deceased, but this witness was never produced for cross examination by the defence, as he never showed up in court. “This renders the evidence of the police officer inconclusive as it denied the defendants their right to fair hearing, and no reasonable court can safely make a conviction on such inconclusive testimony.

“PW 2 (Sgt. Rogers) and PW 3( Mohammedd Abdul) in their confessional statements to the police, said they were enjoined by the first appellant, to murder Kudirat, but these statements were later retracted by them in court.

“PW 2 and 3 retracting their earlier statement to the police told the court that they were cajoled by the prosecution to indict the appellants, with a promise to give them monetary compensation.

“This is a contradiction in the testimonies of the witness, it raises doubt in the case of the prosecution, and it is unimaginable that the lower court did not expunge this evidence. “For an offence like murder, I wonder why the Nigeria Police did not do a proper investigation.

“Jabila who was initially arrested as a co-defendant, was later called prosecution witness, witnesses who ought to be called were never called, the bullet extracted was never tendered before the court.

“Once there is doubt in the case of the prosecution, as in the instant case, it must be resolved in favour of the accused, and this doubt is accordingly resolved in favour of the appellants.

“One thing is clear, Kudirat was shot, but the big question is who pulled the trigger? “I find nothing in this case which sufficiently links the appellants with the commission of the offence.

“It is preposterous that in a 326 page judgment, the lower court was only concerned with securing a conviction at all cost. “Just as God is, He is no respecter of person, so also is this court.

I hereby order that the appellants be discharged and acquitted while the conviction and sentence of the lower court, is hereby discharged.

“For someone who has been incarcerated since 1999 on a baseless indictment, it is so unfortunate” Pemu held. The ruling has since drawn both attacks and commendations from Nigerians nay the international community.

While many praised the ruling to high heavens, others have concluded that it smacks of deceit, hence, a demonstration of perversion of justice in its basest form.

Kudirat Abiola, the heroine of democratic struggle, was killed in Lagos on June 4, 1996. The trial of Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan began in October, 1999 before a Lagos State Chief Magistrate Court sitting in Ikeja, presided over by Magistrate Gbogodo.

They were later re-arraigned before former Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Christopher Segun in 2000 while the judge later withdrew from the case due to allegation of bias raised against him by the counsel of Al-Mustapha, Joseph Dawodu then.

Again, the matter was reassigned to Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun now of Supreme Court, after the elevation of Justice Kekere-Ekun to the Court of Appeal, it was re-assigned to another judge before it got to the court of Justice Mojisola Dada who finally found them guilty of the offence, and accordingly convicted and sentenced them to death by hanging on January 30, 2012.

NationalMirror

Deadly school lunch: More Indian children treated for poison

In less than a week’s time at two separate India schools, police said yesterday, they believe that children have been poisoned by their school lunches. At least 23 students in the southwestern coastal state of Goa were treated at a hospital after they got sick at lunch, authorities said.

The students, in the third to fifth grades at St. Joseph School, have been released from treatment, Vishram Borkar, a police superintendent in Goa, told CNN. St. Joseph School is a government-aided private institution, he said. “We have registered a case of food poisoning,” he told CNN, “and our investigation is on.”

Earlier this week, 23 students died and 25 people were hospitalized from food poisoning after a school lunch in northern India’s Bihar state.

There were two cooks at the Bihar school, an official told CNN. Two children of one of them — Panna Devi — ate the toxic food and have died, medical superintendent Amarkant Jha Amar told CNN. Panna Devi is not receiving treatment because she didn’t eat the toxic food, Amar said. She has a third child who ate the food and is improving at a hospital, the medical chief said.

The other cook, Manju Devi, is also hospitalized, along with her three children, Amar added. Earlier, CNN-IBN had reported that two of Manju Devi’s children had died.

Bihar state is one of India’s poorest. Experts have said the deaths shine a light on food safety in the country and have prompted discussion on how to improve national school food programs amid news that authorities warned of safety problems with Bihar’s school meal program months ago.

Yesterday, authorities in Bihar announced that a new committee would be formed to strengthen food preparation in rural schools.

The state’s mid-day meal director, R. Lakshmanan, said village communities will also help monitor standards of meals for schoolchildren. The Bihar students, who authorities said were between the ages of 5 and 12, started vomiting soon after their first bite of lunch.

Some fainted. The parents of at least three children have buried their lost ones near the school — one right in front of the building, according to CNN journalists who saw the burial mounds. An official told CNN that the parents did so out of protest.

NationalMirror

PDP Convention: Tukur, Gana in test of might

OBIORA IFOH

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has in the last month been at a great risk of witnessing a major implosion over the proposed Special National Convention and the South-West Special Congress. OBIORA IFOH takes a look at the development.

The fear in some quarters that the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, may not be in a hurry to conduct the South-West congress and the Special National Convention is fast gaining ground as recent events have clearly shown that there is more to it than for the reason of the Ramadan which was earlier used to masquerade the postponement.

The PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and the chairman of the Special Convention Committee, Prof. Jerry Gana are both engaged in supremacy battle that transcends the present assignment. Both men are very close to President Goodluck Jonathan.

Gana is reputed to have served Nigerian governments, present and past; military and civilian, more than any other Nigerian, dead or alive; right from his days as the Director General of the MAMSER in the military era. He has served in uncountless other committees with the recent appointment which was made possible by a presidential fiat.

He is a founding member of the PDP. But Tukur too is also a founding member of the PDP and has being on the field for too long as father, puritan and successful businessman and politician, having also served as a governor and a minister. His role as the chairman of the African Round Table gave him deserving edge at the international scene.

He ran his PDP chairmanship campaign on the ground that PDP needs him and not the other way. His mission is to attempt to return the party to the original goals it was set out to achieve; a party owned by the people and not by individuals.

To achieve this he needs the support of every party member but most importantly the President. He indeed has the tacit support of the President but his attempt to earn the support of other stakeholders have been proving daunting task, as most politicians appear to be more comfortable with the hatchet-manner politics being played before now.

Tukur, a core conservative and hugely rigid personality refused to be bent over as he refused to run the party the way all his predecessors did. To him, the party must be superior to everyone.

This position was what led to the face-off between him and the Gana-led committee which also has the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremmadu, as the Secretary and quite a number of personalities including Governor Godswill Akpabio, who is the deputy chairman.

There are also 27 other members including the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, as well as governors of Delta, Abia, Katsina, Bauchi and Benue states as well as two representatives from the 36 states of the federation.

National Mirror gathered that hell was let loose after Gana usurped the duties of the National Chairman by personally inaugurating the convention committee without carrying Tukur along. Gana also created sub-committees and personally allocated membership to the committees without recourse to the National Working Committee, NWC, in spite of the fact that the NWC was meant to play a supervisory role.

A source that spoke to National Mirror said that the national chairman and members of the interim NWC were not happy with Gana’s committee because the committee is operating as a parallel NWC, whereas, the committee is expected to take directives from the Tukur-led NWC.

According to the source, “the Gana committee has against the norms relocated the special convention committee from the offices of the party to a private office in Wuse 2 by Parakou Crescent.

“The committee had awarded contracts for the convention, yet the date of the convention is not insight. The contractors have awarded and produced the wrappers for the convention without any directive from NWC. Even, the six members of the NWC that are expected to be members of the convention committee are yet to be given or made members of the special committee.

“To make matters worse, the Gana committee had gone to the Chief of Staff to the President, Mike Ogiadhome to request for money to conduct the convention, but they were turned down and asked that they should channel their request for money through the national chairman,” the source.

The cold war came to a head last week when the duo of Gana and Ekweremadu came to the residence of the PDP national chairman to inform him the progress so far made by the special convention committee and also to inform him of the new date for the proposed convention, but aides of Tukur  refused them entry into his residence on his instruction.

Angered by the slap on their face, Gana quickly called for a press conference where he announced August 31 as the date for the convention without clearing from the National Chairman. He also admitted that the locking out drama at the residence of Tukur was an incident that will be resolved within the party and not in the public. He said: “We don’t want to speak on the speculated lock-out at the chairman’s residence.

We don’t want to speak on such an issue concerning a man we have great respect for. Whatever it is, shall be resolved but not on the pages of newspapers.”

Tukur, ready for the fight, went on the offensive and technically scrapped the committee. In a statement by the acting National Publicity Secretary, Tony Caeser Okeke, PDP said: “In view of the anomalies and breaches of the constitution of the PDP observed in the actions so far taken by the Special National Convention Planning Committee, the NWC has directed the Committee to put on hold all activities relating to the Special South West Zonal Congresses and the Special National Convention pending the regularisation of the anomalies and breaches so as to forestall a repeat of the events that affected the party’s convention in 2012.”

Leader of the party, President Jonathan on his return from China summoned the combatants to seek for a peaceful resolution of the face-off.

A Presidency source told National Mirror that though the President overruled the National Chairman over the cancellation of the dates earlier proposed by the Planning Committee for the South-West convention and Special National Convention, he never waivered in his support for Tukur’s passion for instilling discipline in the party.

“President Jonathan called for a truce between Tukur and Gana as the matter could degenerate to a full crisis situation. It is certain the August date for the convention will stand but the President is insisting that discipline must be maintained in the party and the party leadership must be supported to instil discipline in PDP,” says the source.

A PDP source told National Mirror that Tukur “had to be brutal because he sensed that his office is being undermined. How can the committee change a date of the conventions, sells forms, solicit funds from the Villa and draw lists of the membership of the subcommittees without consulting the NWC?

“NWC noted that the lists of membership of the sub-committees were filled with persons that have no business in the party, where people are now using the subcommittees to settle relatives. One of them listed two of his immediate brother.

While NWC members who are committee members were just ordinary sub-committee members while their cronies were awarded with juicy sub-committee chairmanship.” As it stands, peace is not in sight as the Gana-led committee has vowed to continue with the convention.

They had even gone ahead to publish the full list of the subcommittees membership insisting that they will only discontinue if there was a directive from the Presidency. Tukur only a few days ago ordered that the offices allocated to the committee at the Legacy House be sealed permanently and also left an instruction that no member of the committee should be permitted beyond the gates of the party secretariat.

NationalMirror

We’ll register APC despite acronym litigation –INEC

EMMANUEL ONANI

The Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC, has indicated its readiness to register the All Progressives Congress, APC, as a political party,once the conditions precedent to the registration of political parties, were fulfilled.

This is despite the pending suit at a Federal High Court, Abuja, instituted by another registrationseeking association with similar acronym, the All Peoples Congress, APC. The position of INEC was made known to Saturday Mirror by Mr. Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to the chairman of the commission,Prof. Attahiru Jega.

Asked to react to feelers that the commission may stay action on the registration process of APC, which is a marriage of three political parties -Action Congress of Nigeria,Congress for Progressive Change as well as the All Nigeria Peoples Party – Idowu said “INEC does not work on speculation”.

“The Independent National Electoral Commission conducts its operatons based strictly on its existing guidelines and rules. “Every application that meets the prescribed rules and conditions set by the constitution,gets registered, and any that does not meet the prescribed rules, does not get registered,” Idowu said.

When our correpondent drew his attention to the pendency of a suit and the need to stay action pending hearing and determination, he said: “There are no exceptions to the rules; once the conditions are met, the applicant gets registered.”

On the consequence that may arise,in the event that APC’s prayers are answered in the a f f i r mat iv e , I d owu said,”when we get to the bridge,we will cross it.” A few days ago, Jega had disclosed that the commission had commenced a scrutiny of relevant documents submitted by the APC, for purposes of registration.

The chief electoral officer further stated that as soon as that was concluded, the electoral body would make its position known to the public.

Jega’s position was made known at a workshop jointly organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Democratic Governance for Development Project (DGDP) and Inter- Party Advisory Council (IPAC), on the “revalidation” of code of conduct for political parties in Minna, the Niger State capital.

He had said that “the commission is assiduously working on all documents submitted by the APC and as soon as we finished scrutinising all the relevant information and documents submitted, we will let Nigerians know of the outcome.”

NationalMirror

Kumuyi’s son faces judgement

It’s a tough time to face trial. Less than a month after his wedding, John, the second son of Pastor W. F. Kumuyi of the Deeper Life Bible Church is appearing before the judgment seat. Not before the Great White Throne, mind you, nor is it before any judge in a court of law. Rather, he is appearing, along with his new bride, Love, before a court of the people.
Those who read this page last week, which centred on the dust raised by the couple who had broken all the rules laid down on marriage by Deeper Life Church, have responded.
And the response came in torrents, nay, deluge. For allowing his wife to dress in a fitted, flowing wedding gown, wearing make-up, carrying a bouquet of flowers, cutting a cake, all opposed to the standards of the church, some people have asked for John Kumuyi’s head. He should even be expelled from the church, they say. But some others have risen in stout defence. Neither John nor Love Kumuyi did any wrong, and they have not committed any sin
. Therefore, their suspension by the church was unfair, unjust, unwarranted, hypocritical, hostile, they claim. Bellow is just a small fraction of the responses: John embarrassed his dad Reading your lovely piece on Kumuyi’s son, I agreed almost 100%.
As long as the couple profess membership of Deeper Life, they must remain bound by the rules of the ministry. John, I believe, has an obligation to save his highly respected dad the embarrassment that is in publicly flouting rules that have guided generations of people his own father shepherds. Betty Abah, journalist, Lagos God’s word is settled Honour is showing merited respect to one’s parents. Please tell Mr and Mrs John Kumuyi what God said in Deuteronomy 5:16.
You and I belong to old time religion, no doubt. God’s word is settled. Elder Ben Ogbomo, Lagos They’ll carry the cross One sin through careless neglect can affect one’s spiritual destiny, just like it happened to Demas and Esau. The latter sold his birthright for porridge, while Demas loved the present world more than God. John and his wife seem to love this present world too.
God will forgive their wilful sin, but they will carry this cross for a long time. The things regarded as non-essentials have sent many believers to hell. Emmanuel Adeniyi, Lagos Sin of rebellion Kudos for the great piece, more especially for creating a balance backed with relevant quotes from the Holy Bible.
In the context of the preaching and tenets of the church, which they were born into, the couple have committed the sin of rebellion, as you stated. Why should children of highly placed members of the church be the ones to break ranks? The wife should have appeared with six months pregnancy, and insist they have been staying abroad, hence cultural influence.
I commend Pastor Kumuyi and his wife for not walking away from the wedding. They would have been justified if they did. Mike Nzeagwu, Lagos Act of God To me, God’s hand might be in the whole saga to streamline the Deeper Life Church along modern trends, without taking holiness and sanctity of Christianity from the hearts of believers. It should be seen as a general corrective measure.
The law itself looks discriminatory against female believers who are known to be inclined towards adorning themselves.
And since the couple’s parents attended the wedding, the best option is to take the issue as an act of God. Lai Ashadele, Lagos Not intellectually equipped It takes intelligence, real intelligence, to appreciate the depth of Pastor Kumuyi’s character, his teachings, and lifestyle.
It takes real intelligence to understand the meaning of being a son of this unique man of God. John Kumuyi is not intellectually equipped to appreciate holiness, so he should be forgiven. But he should not be involved in any serious matter of the church. Obunikem Okonkwo To Pastor Kumuyi Fred not thyself sir, the Almighty knows that you have laid a solid foundation for God, ministry and humanity. It can be painful if our foundations are being opposed by those with us, but do not bother.
When the young couple grow older, they will understand the harm they did. Be undeterred sir, and be more determined in maintaining the integrity of your ministry. Pastor Livy Onyenegecha, 08036174573 Please, show mercy In the Bible, a self-confessed righteous man, and a sinner went to pray.
The former told God how good he was, while the latter pleaded for mercy. God heard the prayer of the sinner. Let the Deeper Life Church show mercy to the young couple, since they have so requested. Chief J. J. Ibeka, Lagos What Kumuyi taught us John Kumuyi cannot destroy his father’s testimony.
He will give account of his own life to God. What Kumuyi taught us is the undiluted word of God, and no action of any son will take anything away from that. Kumuyi’s teaching will populate heaven, with or without his children. God give us more Kumuyis.
Pastor Frank Oputa, Lagos They’ve shown remorse Being children of pastors in Deeper Life, John and Love Kumuyi would have been assumed guilty because much is expected of them. But since they’ve shown remorse, they should be forgiven.
As for making heaven, that is not for man to decide. It is entirely God’s prerogative. Revd S. A. Adetayo, St John’s Anglican Church, Ikotun, Lagos They simply broke the rules The behaviour of the younger Kumuyi and his wife is akin to the tale of Adam and Eve in the scripture, where God gave them a set of rules in the Garden of Eden and they made themselves weak and vulnerable to the whims and caprices of Satan.
There should be no sentiment or the after-thought alibi about their misbehavior that they have lived for donkey years outside Nigeria and were influenced by their present environment.
They simply broke the golden rules of the church governing weddings and they cannot honestly claim they were oblivious of the rules. As the Roman Catholic Church doctrine teaches us, it is wrong for anyone to deliberately commit the sin that carries death penalty, and once anyone does, the person knows that the wages of such sin is death.
So it is with the young Kumuyi and his wife who went of their own volition to violate the set rules of their church and brought shame to their revered parents.
Whatever action the Deeper Life church takes to redress their action is to me justified because there shouldn’t be any sacred cows in compliance to the law or otherwise, and doing so implies the rules were meant for the low people and not for the high.
But if the law is respecter of no one, then there should be no sentiment or hue and cry against the sanctions accruing to them for breaking the rules. However, what I disagree with is that parents should be punished for the misbehavior or misdemeanor of their adult children. It is wrong because as the scripture tells us, everyone must answer to his own deeds or account before God on the judgment day.
So, Deeper Life sanctioning their parents is unjust and wrong, even though their parents attended the wedding, unless they (the parents) incontrovertibly had a pre-knowledge that their children’s wedding was going to be that gorgeous and flamboyant, against the rules of the church.
Otherwise, their children should be answerable for their own deeds, right or wrong, before the church and not the parents. Abuchi Anueyiagu, a Public Affairs Analyst/Veteran Journalist, 08080242128, buchisbuchis@yahoo.com Quit, if you can’t keep rules I enjoyed every bit of your article. While I agree that there should be no difference in enforcing biblical laws in every part of the world, it is a known fact that certain words such as moderation are subjective, and cannot have universal measurement.
Different people and cultures will have their own interpretation. In a culture where people go naked, moderation may mean not to wear too much. In a poor village, moderation may mean not to display opulence and wealth. I live in the UK and the dress in question is quite moderate compared to some wedding dresses that I have seen recently, but that is not the issue.
The issue is moderation as it is practiced by the Deeper Life Church. What is very important is that once you are a member of an organization, all their laws (doctrine in church language) are binding and breaking them is an act of disobedience, which is a sin.
Once a man or woman can no longer abide by the set rules of the organization, he or she must quit the organization or seek to change the laws while still obeying it until such a time that the law is changed. This is the proper and orderly way to do things and I think you will agree with me that our God is a God of order.
In concluding, I would say that Kumuyi’s son has done a grave injury to the lifelong work of his dad and has committed a sin. Mobolaji Akinola, akinolabolaji@yahoo.co.uk Judge not According to the Holy Book, those who worship God should worship in spirit and in truth. John 4:24.Let the hearts of the couple pass judgment, and not the church, not even the fathers. Romans 2:17-29.
A man is judged by what comes out of his mouth (heart). Matt. 15: 19-20.   We are too much of appearance type Christians than spiritual type. Rules and regulations were what turned the Jews away from Christ instead of faith. Austeen  O. C.  Lagos, Alstineventures@yahoo.co.uk

TheSun