Prime Minister's Visit To Festival of Life:

What Blacks, Africans and Christians Expect.

by Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA
suleaos@gmail.com

Prime Minister David Cameron

10 Downing Street,
London,
SW1A 2AA

Your Excellency,
Prime Minister's Visit To Festival of Life: What Blacks, Africans and Christians Expect.
It was a surprise to see you at the Festival of Life (FOL) event on Friday 17 April 2015. It was
also an honour to have you come to one of the largest gathering of Christians in Britain. Never in
the nineteen-year history of FOL has it welcomed such a high profile dignitary. We are extremely
grateful that you found time out of your very busy schedule (especially with the election round the
corner) to spend a couple of minutes with us. I loved your speech and it was refreshing and
surprising to hear you mention Jesus Christ, a name that you have barely mentioned in public
ever since you became Prime Minister. I also liked the photograph of you addressing the 45,000
audience with the big bright cross at the background. You certainly looked like a Minister of the
Gospel. The photo of you shaking hands with Pastor Adeboye and the image of you in the VIP
lounge overlooking the congregation have been widely viewed in our community. Great photos
indeed. You really felt at home and we were all impressed when you called Pastor Adeboye,
Daddy G.O not once but twice. You also got the congregation into frenzy when you said that
you could see someone in the crowd who could one day become Prime Minister of Britain. It was
a worthy performance and your campaign team has certainly earned its pay.
I must now move on to the reason why I have decided to write this open letter to you. Most of the
45,000 people that you addressed on Friday have four things in common. They are predominately
Christians, they are predominately Black, they are predominately Africans and they predominately
reside in the United Kingdom. They can be described as a proxy for Black African Christians
living in Britain. While you have used the FOL platform to deliver your message to Black Africans
who are Christians, it is equally important for you to hear what some Black Africans who are
Christians have to say.
Pastor Agu rightly pointed out on the night that as Christians, we are obligated to pray for those in
authority and this was demonstrated when the General Overseer prayed for you. But Sir, a
search through the Scripture also reveals that throughout Christian history, ministers of God have
also spoken truth to power especially when leaders stray away from the Word of God. King Saul,
King David and King Herod were not immune from rebuke by men of God. Moreover, church
leaders also have a moral duty to act as shepherds for their sheep. As Martin Luther King once
said, Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than
the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And
whenever injustice is around he tell it. Likewise Martin Luther King said that the church is, Not
the master or the servant of the state but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide
and the critic of the state and never its tool. So the church leadership whom you interacted with
on Friday should have articulated the yearnings of Black African Christians and also highlighted
the injustice inherent in some of your governments policies. Since I was not privy to the private
discussions that you held with the FOL church leadership, I don't know whether or not they
articulated the yearnings of the laity. But in case they did not, in the next couple of paragraphs, I
will discuss some of these yearnings from the perspective of many black people, Africans and
Christians living in Britain.

While delivering your speech, you touched on many things. You spoke about your believe in
aspiration, you spoke about family saying, As Gods children we are all one big family. You
spoke about Big Society and linked the concept with the FOL gathering. You also stated that we
should be proud that Britain is a Christian country that stands for the freedom of people to
practice their faith. You also prayed for our missing Chibok girls and for peace in Nigeria. On the
issue of Big Society, one wonders why this concept (which is a marvellous idea) that you
introduced when you became Prime Minister was crucified early into your premiership, only for it
to be resurrected 20 days to a General Election?
During your speech, you said, I believe in aspiration the only limit to someones potential is
their own ambition and talent. I agree with the first part of your statement. Aspiration is a virtue
and we should all strive to be ambitious, however the second part of your statement is flawed. It
completely ignores the structural barriers, which prevent people from achieving their dreams. You
might have assumed that all those whom you addressed at FOL come from a privileged middle
class background. If that is the case, you have made a wrong assumption as the black church is
a broad church (no pun intended). The black church is not only populated by middle class people
who drive middle class cars, who live in middle class neighbourhoods and hold middle class
positions. The black church is also made up of the unemployed, the poor, the downtrodden and
the marginalised. So one cannot ignore the structural barriers that prevent us from living the
British dream.
From the Black perspective, your government has done little to help the people of colour. With the
emergence of right wing parties, which have strong views on immigration, your government has
joined the bandwagon in demonising immigrants (many of who are represented in the crowd that
you addressed on Friday). Sir, your governments rhetorics against immigrants dehumanises us
and creates an atmosphere of hatred against people of colour. Should anyone be surprised at the
spate of racial abuse hurled at people of colour in the buses, on the trains, at schools, in the
media, on the football pitch and on the streets? Prime Minister, if you are re-elected, we urge you
to call your colleagues to order and tell them to stop demonising and dehumanising us.
People in my community have also been caught up in the institutional racism that prevails in the
land. In the area of employment, we are usually the last to be hired and the first to be fired. Some
of us with funny sounding names have got used to opening the envelope or checking our emails
with the words, "We have received your application and after careful consideration, we regret to
inform you that you have not been selected for this position. We will retain your candidate file in
our database and we also invite you to visit the Career Section on our Web site regularly, staring
at us. Black people are overrepresented in nearly all the tiers of the criminal justice system where
we are eleven times more likely to be stopped and searched by the London police; where black
and brown bodies populate the prisons; where blacks are more prone to be charged for
possessing cocaine and less likely to be cautioned even though Black people use less drugs than
white people.
Regarding Africa, your government has helped to the fund a number of developmental projects
and we are grateful for that. It was under your premiership that Britain attained the UN target of
spending 0.7% of national income on international development. Your government has also
assisted a number of governments to help combat terrorism in parts of Africa. However, your
government has contributed to some of the instability in the continent. Britain along with France
played a crucial role in the ousting Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan ruler. After Gaddafi was
killed, Britain turned its back on the Libyan people who had to pick up the mess. The instability in
Libya has led to groups like Boko Haram and the Tuareg rebels gaining access to arms from
Libya. This has partly contributed to the crisis in Mali, Nigeria, Niger and Chad. Your Defence
Secretary once urged, British companies, even British sales directors, to be packing their
suitcases and looking to get out to Libya and take part in the reconstruction of that country as
soon as they can. It would also be nice if your government could find a way to clear the mess it
created in Libya.

As Africans, we scratch our heads when we see your governments attitude towards our brothers
and sisters drowning in the Mediterranean. We are appalled that Britain withdrew its support from
any future search and rescue operations to prevent migrants and refugees drowning in the
Mediterranean. Ever since Britain and other countries stopped funding Mare Nostrum, thousands
of immigrants have perished in the sea (as at the time of writing this letter, I have just learnt that
another 700 people have drowned). It is morally wrong and evil for a government official to say,
The government believes the most effective way to prevent refugees and migrants attempting
this dangerous crossing is to focus our attention on countries of origin and transit. These people
may not attend our church, they may not be Christian, they may not be British, but they are Gods
creation and it is time for your government and any future British government to view them first as
human beings before tagging them as migrants.
Besides being Black and Africans, we are also Christians and we have to say something about
your governments attitude towards Christians. Your government has done little to protect the
rights of Christians in Britain. We are seeing our religious freedom taken away from us. We have
seen a Christian doctor sacked for emailing a prayer to hospital colleagues; we have seen our
Christian sister suspended for wearing a silver cross on her neck and refusing to conceal it; we
have seen another Christian doctor given an official warning by a medical body because he
shared his faith with a patient; we have once been prevented by a City Council from distributing
Christian literature. We have been put under pressure from obeying the Great Commission, which
tells us to preach the Gospel and make disciples. We are also concerned about the silence of
your government as our Christian brothers and sisters around the world are getting killed for
practicing their faith. We therefore urge you to protect our religious freedom should you be reelected.
We are called Christians because we are followers of Jesus Christ. Since Christ was concerned
about the least of these, we also have to be concerned about the least of these and be vocal
about social justice. In your speech, you hardly mentioned social justice except when you linked it
to the Big Society. Sir, it is not only Big Society or the church that has to address social justice;
the government should play a key role promoting social justice. Aspiration might be important, but
social justice is equally as important.
Unfortunately, if your government was to be assessed on the area of social justice, it will get an
F score. Your government has turned its back on the millions of white, black, yellow and brown
Britons who live below the breadline. Despite the fact that the poor, the lame and the
downtrodden didnt cause the Great Recession, they have borne the brunt of the government's
austerity measures that were introduced in response to the crisis. In modern day Britain, there is
a kind of socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. It is a tragedy that while financial
institutions are too big to fail, the downtrodden are too small to save. In the battle for social
justice, your government has sided with the classes to the detriment of the masses.
In your speech, you talked about Jesus feeding the multitude. From Scripture we learn that when
Jesus saw the multitude, he had compassion on them and he did not want to send them home
hungry. So just as Jesus fed 5,000 people out of almost nothing; just as the Bank of England
creates money out of nothing through its quantitative easing programme, which satisfies the
appetite of hungry investors and financial institutions, your government should do something to
feed the nearly one million of Gods children who queue in front of the various food banks around
the country. In the event that you are re-elected, we hope that you will turn your gaze to the least
of these and stand up for social justice.
Sir, without beating around the bush, we all know what your visit to FOL was all about. It was
about courting votes from ethnic minority voters who have historically voted for the Labour Party.
There is nothing wrong with you visiting a Christian gathering to solicit for votes just as there is
nothing wrong when you visited a Sikh Temple twenty four hours after you visited us (probably for
the same reason). However, if you have expectations from us, you need to realise that we also

have expectations. We expect the next government to treat ethnic minorities with respect; we
expect the next government to take the issue of racism seriously; we expect the next government
to stop the demonisation of the less privileged; we expect the next government to provide us with
an enabling environment to practice our faith without fear and we expect the next government to
champion social justice.
Selah.
Yours faithfully,

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA

suleaos@gmail.com
19 April 2015

Cc
Pastor E.A. Adeboye
Pastor Agu Irukwu
Redeemed Christian Church of God
Jesus House