Media Scholar, Prof. Farooq Kperogi, on Tuesday waded into the debate on whether Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) committed a gaffe with his response to a question on climate change.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that the APC presidential flag-bearer said in Kaduna on Monday that if elected, his government will not adhere to global preventive measures against climate change except the West was ready to fund the cost.
Tinubu disclosed this while fielding questions at the Arewa Interactive Committee.
Specifically, as one of the panellists, he was asked what he would do about climate change which has triggered flooding across Nigeria.
“We are a poor nation. They say firewood is not for fetch. They say we need to plant more trees and they are not giving us money,” Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor, said.
The APC candidate added: “We need to tell the West, if you don’t guarantee our finances and work with us to stop this, we are not going to comply with your climate change.”
Speaking further, Tinubu described climate change as “a question of how do you prevent a church rat from eating poisoned holy communion. That’s the way.”
His response had elicited disparagement from critics on social media, but Prof. Kperogi said Tinubu is correct.
“I frankly don’t get what people are mocking in Bola Tinubu’s characterization of climate-change policies for poor countries as “a question of how do you prevent a church rat from eating poisoned Holy Communion.”
“Tinubu merely deployed familiar ecclesiastical metaphors to capture the dilemma that developing countries face over the dire existential adjustments that climate change policies require of them,” Kperogi said in a Facebook post.
“He used “church rat” to symbolize a poor nation (Nigerian English speakers often say “as poor as a church rat” where native English speakers say “as poor as a church mouse” to indicate extreme poverty) and “Holy Communion” to acknowledge the desirability of climate-change policies.
“But he qualified the “Holy Communion” as “poisoned” to suggest that it’s a bitter pill to swallow.
“In other words, climate-change policies are good (i.e., they’re Holy Communion), but they’re injurious (thus, “poisoned”) to a “church rat” (i.e., poor nations like Nigeria) in the short term because they require the kinds of self-denying sacrifices (such as stopping the use of firewood to cook, cutting down on manufacturing, etc.) that will hurt poor nations.
“If a church rat eats poisoned Holy Communion it will die, or be seriously sick, in spite of the holiness of the communion.
“Tinubu was basically saying he acknowledged that climate-change policies are great but that implementing them will come at a great cost to Nigeria because Nigeria is poor and ill-prepared.
“He was expressing a cruder, less direct, more literary version of the sentiments that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed in November 2015 when he said rich Western nations “with luxury of choices should sharply reduce emissions” and not burden poor nations like India that didn’t create the problem.
“But [climate change] is not of our making,” Modi said. “It is the result of global warming that came from prosperity and progress of an industrial age powered by fossil fuel.”
WE NOW KNOW AND SOME HAVE KNOWN OVER A PERIOD OF TIME THE REASON WHY WITH THE SUPERFLUITY OF NUMBERS OF BLACK PROFESSORS AFRICA REMIAN WITHOUT ANY SIGNIFICANT INNOVATION INITIATIVE AND ACADEMIC INGENUITY. THEY ARE FUNDAMENTALLY FOLLOW-FOLLOW ACADEMIA WHO ARE NOT WORTH THE PAPER OF HONOUR UPON WHICH THEIR NAMES ARE WRITTEN. Prof. Kperogi IS A CLASSIC EAMPLE OF A BLACK MAN PROFESSOR.
Tinubu is right ABSOLUTELY. The climate has always changed with the weather. With humanity. It is a natural phenomenon which no man can either changed or make. The climate change mantra is another ruse by the west and especially the businessmen of the west to cart away our fortunes yet again by another design.
The planet earth and Its climate has evolved in different ways and fashions and has always changed over the Millenia, and Ages and all the bamboozling nomenclatures would make no difference irrespective of how commercial scientists with whatever manner of sermons and venturing they adopted to ram their evil devices into our psyche and down our throats for fear mongering by FALSEHOOD.
Ogun river in Abeokuta would always DEMINISH and CREST at different times in its season. If you read the biography of the late sage, chief Obafemi Awolowo in AWO. His autobiography where he mentioned a river Uren somewhere in Ikenne, his hometown and how it changes with the different seasons and the weather. It is same for every NATURAL dispensation from the CREATOR, our God who created everything with a life span and Dare Babarinsa captured it very well with his caption from “Chief Fabunmi, the Odole Atobase of Ife, use to tell us a lot of stories about old Ife. One of his favourite was how Oduduwa descended to earth from heaven through a celestial chain………Baba Fabunmi to come and talk to us. Baba Fabunmi said all things God created are living things. He said they have their date of birth and death.”.
I AM NOT TOO SURE THAT THE AUTHOR REALISES THE IMPORT OF THE QUOTE ABOVE, FORM HIS CONFUSSING RENDITION ON THE CLIMATE MESS THEY WANT US TO TAKE HOOK LINE AND SINKER.
THEY WILL MAKE THE MONEY THEY WORSHIPED SO MUCH BY OVERTASKING US TO THEIR OWN BENEFITS AND ADVANTAGE TO OUR OWN DISADVANTAGE DETREMENTS AND MISERIES WHILST THEY FEED FACTS ON OUR VIGORS LABOUR SWEATS AND WELLBEINGS.
The millionaires and billionaires amongst us would once again take us for a very long ride by this diabolical innovation to further perpetuate us in miseries.
THE CLIMATE CHANGE TALK AND SERMON IS ANOTHER COMMERCIAL FARCE FALLACY BORNE IN FALSEHOOD TO BROWBEAT US INTO GIVING UNTILL THERE ARE NO MORE BLLOD RUNNING IN OUR VEINS.