Men And Brethren, Let’s Pray For Nigeria – By C. C. Ekeke

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“Only prayers can sustain a nation. The church too has a responsibility in the transformation agenda of this administration, which is meant to develop the economy and move Nigeria forward.” That was President Goodluck Jonathan talking, earlier this month, at the Alheri Camp of the Living Faith Foundation Church, Kaduna. He was there to commission the church’s Bible Institute.

He isn’t the first president or ruler to ask Nigerians to beckon on God to help “move the nation forward”. Perhaps his is a bit more interesting because of his assertion, the other day, that God himself is the Captain of the Nigerian airplane.

As a citizen who values strong and responsible leadership, I should also be known to be a good follower. I should be known to show obedience to pleas and laws from the government, so long a

s it will ultimately bring peace and prosperity to the country which I so much love and wish well.

It is on the above promise that I buy, wholesale, the admonition of the president on why we need to pray for Nigeria.  But beyond the president’s plea is the obligation placed on me by my faith, Christianity, that I pray for my country.  I am a good Christian and I know the rewards of obedience to the word of God. I will obey. I do equally believe that there must be a place in the Holy Book of Islam where such injunction is written. My belief in this stems from another belief of mine – that there is a remarkable similarity between the teachings of Christianity and those of Islam. So men and brethren, let’s pray for Nigeria.

However, the God we want to pray to is omniscient. He is all knowing. We must go to him with a willingness to be open. A sick man isn’t expected to hide his ailments from the same doctor to whom he went for a cure. When the doctor is asking for your medical history, you must tell him  everything. When he asks you for the symptoms of the infirmities torturing you, you must tell him exactly the way you feel. That is how to help the doctor prescribe the right medication for any ailment.  In that manner, you must tell God exactly what you want him to do for you. Vague prayers don’t work with God. Specific prayer points are what God works with.

So we will proceed straight into our prayers for Nigeria. I will lead with these prayer points. I am not a pastor, bishop, deacon, evangelist, apostle or reverend father. Yet I am a Christian, and Christianity has no rules or restrictions as to whose duty it should be to lead with the prayer points when a nation is involved.  Anybody can lead, according to how he is led by the Spirit. Besides, the ordained members of the clergy had been leading in these prayers for well over two decades without any impressive result. It is logical to conclude that they have been saying the wrong prayers. If they had been praying with understanding, our result would have been different. So brethren, do permit me to lead this prayer session. I assure you, every of our challenge as a nation will be addressed.

Now brethren, we will begin with the Federal Government. Let us pray for them. The government is facing a major challenge at the moment. The President is not a lion. He is also not a Pharaoh. He is just a meek lamb. He wants to “move Nigeria forward”, but he can only do so with money. And there is no money; that is why he needs to source money from fuel subsidy. The subsidy, the government has said, is a waste of money. It funds a few people who have formed a cartel.  These people are so powerful and sophisticated in their modus operandi that they can’t ever be handled by our government. Because the president is a lamb, he can’t go after these lions. The safest thing for the president to do is to just remove the fuel subsidy so money, in trillions, will be available for the development of critical infrastructure. But the people are threatening the government. The youths have vowed to toe the path of the Arab youths. They say the streets of Nigeria will erupt in demonstrations. That will pose a major threat to the survival of Nigeria as a country. And that will be incredible because God himself is the president. Yet if subsidy continues, the government says the economy will collapse. And if the economy collapses, that will spark up the same eruptions. And any mass action in Nigeria will pose a serious security challenge to even our neighbouring countries. There is only one way out: prayer!

Now brethren, may we all go on our knees, all heads bow and all eyes closed. Here’s the prayer point: O God my father, (please do note that we are adopting the Mountain of Fire prayer pattern) you are the all-knowing God. We ask you today to strike dead anybody who has criminally diverted the money meant for fuel subsidy into his/her private account, without allowing Nigerians for whom the subsidy was made to benefit from it. God you are a consuming fire, consume them! Consume them! Consume them! They are the lions who have proven to be stronger than our government and the only way our government can work is when you have brought destruction to them. Father destroy them! Destroy them! Destroy them! Do not let them live to destroy Nigeria, the country where you have the highest number of worship centres in the world. We do not want the wish of our enemies to become a reality. We do not want to see Nigeria disintegrate. We want to see our president realize his transformation agenda, and these cabal members can never allow this transformation come to pass if they keep hijacking funds meant for it in the name of subsidy.  Dear Lord, remember that these people are faceless. Even the government doesn’t know them and can’t prosecute them. But you the all-knowing God know them. Even if the money just grows wings and flies into the bush, you lord will clip its wings and keep the money for our president to make use of. All you cartel members, fall and die! Fall and die!! Fall and die!!!

 

And still on fuel subsidy, brethren. If we had functional refineries, we may not have any need to import fuel. We will just refine the quantity we use and pay for the cost of refining. But faceless people have, over the years, sabotaged our efforts to repair our refineries. They enjoy the evil profit they make from round-ripping and importation. Father we have prayed for them to repent over the years but they have refused. So we complain now, Lord, that these people have made themselves the witches that suck our economy. Your word tells us to “suffer not the witch to live”. So Lord we ask you to remove them out of our way of progress. Uproot them! Let them die! Fall and die! Fall and die! Fall and die!

Brethren let’s move over to power. This is still at the federal level. Part of what will make our transformation work is electricity. Yet people, over the years, have sabotaged all our efforts to give light to our people. They have stolen the money meant for power stations. They have left millions of our people poor. They have sent millions to their early graves. Father Lord, they have constituted themselves as principalities against our growth and progress. O father, uproot them! Uproot them! Uproot them! Let them die by fire! Die by fire! Die by fire!

We will go into roads next. We will need to transform our roads. Father, our roads have become the easiest means of dying young. They are all death traps. Every day, hundreds of Nigerians die on our roads. If those roads had been repaired before now, our president would have a lot less issues to deal with. Oh Lord our Father, we ask you today; anybody who paid a contractor fully for a road contract that wasn’t totally executed, die by fire! Die by fire!             Die by fire! Let the blood of those who died in these roads haunt the generation of the evil ones who diverted the funds for their repairs. Let their pains be multiplied and let peace depart from them!

Who else wants prayers?

 

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