FEATURE ARTICLE

Sam AwedaWednesday, March 8, 2017
[email protected]
Lagos, Nigeria

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THE HOPE OF NIGERIA IN THE MIDST OF BAD CONFUSION (2)

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Continued from Part 1

oday, I will continue preaching on the topic "The Hope of Nigeria in the Midst of Bad Confusion or frustration"

This is my second sermon on this topic.

But before we proceed, I am going to request Dr. Deacon Kayode Samuel to commit this hour into the hands of the Lord.

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The Hope of Nigeria in the Midst of Bad Confusion or Frustration (2)

At our last meeting, I was answering the enquiry why I still believe that Buhari is the anointed. After this, I will then start to reveal our hope in spite of all that is happening.

The reason for this discussion is because 20 months after President Mohammadu Buhari came into office, the wellbeing of Nigerians has gotten worse. People therefore are ridiculing those of us who believe that Buhari was our solution in 2015.

In the last meeting, I was explaining why it is very unfair to blame President Buhari for our situation that has gone worse when we all read on daily basis how the past governments, particularly, the one he succeeded looted the treasury so badly.

Anyone who has the love of this country at heart will weep at the list of how the commonwealth was shared by the government officials of the past governments, particularly the immediate past one; money, which ought to be used for our care.

If we complain about the rise in the cost of gasoline and the hardship, which we are going through, how do we explain the stories of how those in charge of our major source of income in the last government, which is sale of petroleum, refused to remit the sales, into the government account but kept it for themselves? How do we explain how the money budgeted to fight Boko Haram was shared among themselves in the last government, resulting in the waste of lives of our soldiers?

Which other government in the past had the courage to dig into how the commonwealth had been looted talk less, prosecute and expose all, which this government has been exposing? Ibrahim Magu, Chairman EFCC, certainly is a bold and courageous man. May God protect him!

President Buhari met an empty treasury. Worse, the price of our major export, which is oil, crashed very badly, soon after he assumed office. Where does anyone expect him to get the money to do all he would have wanted to do? And in spite of all these, our external reserve has increased in his time.

I hear some people say he should stop complaining. The same people who emptied the treasury are now persecuting him. If they do not want him to complain, let them give up the money, which they have stolen for him to run his government!

President Buhari must not be blamed for the situation we are passing through rather be commended.

Mr. President cannot govern as he did when he was in the military uniform. It is now a democracy and I strongly believe that trying to respect the rules that govern democracy has been responsible for his illness.

In 2015, he voiced out his frustration while on a visit to India that Nigeria powerful men, without mentioning who they were, were frustrating his anti graft wars. Later, we were able to guess who some of the powerful men are. At a meeting of lawyers in Kaduna later, he begged them to allow his anti-graft war to succeed. What a nauseating, peculiar mess!

Nigeria Lawyers should be held responsible for not achieving the level he anticipates. Religious fanatics and bigots should be blamed. We all are to blame because we seem not prepared to change our mindset from the habit of cheating, greed, selfishness, lack of consideration for others, ungodliness to godliness and righteousness.

If we shall be truthful, Nigeria is difficult to govern democratically and at the same time, the people, very difficult to please.

If a thief is prosecuted, Nigerians will find faults. Nigerians will say the thief must have offended the President in the past or it is because the thief is in the opposing party.

If the thief is left alone, they will criticize the President wickedly as a weakling.

If a looter is found guilty and asked to go for rest at either Kuje, Gashua, Kirikiri, Ayeso or Oke Kuura etc, there will always be millions of people to plead for him.

If the President sticks to his gun, people will say he is stubborn, he is full of excesses and if he softs pedal, some others will say he is weak. So where does a Nigerian leader stand in all these? Nigeria, we must admit is very difficult to govern.

In all these, President Buhari must be commended and I am grateful to God for giving him to us at this crucial point in time.

Nigeria is very complex. We have allowed tribal as well as religious sentiments to make us stupid in spite of all the sufferings, which we are passing through. It is as if we are cursed with poverty and satisfied to live subhuman so long as our tribesman or someone we share the same religion with, is not touched, irrespective of whatever evil he or she commits.

Consider someone who robbed his people, stripped them naked. He got the court of this land pocketed and he was exonerated but could not pocket the court of a foreign country and he was thrown into jail. No one can pocket the courts of those countries. What a shame! But the thief returned to his country to receive a red carpet reception by his tribesmen. What a greater shame!

What then is our hope?

Change of mind set, godliness, understanding that prosperity of the nation is the answer to our individual enduring and lasting prosperity. That except the nation prosper, individual prosperity is short lived, it won't last. Therefore, we all must start to work for the prosperity of the nation.

Understanding that stealing from the commonwealth or taking more than one's entitlements, leaves the other citizens in hunger and leads to their death. It destroys the future of every of our children and their children as well.

We must repent of our mindset of the notion that there will be no one in the vantage position that will not enrich himself.

Any other thing anyone takes from the common treasury other than his legitimate earning is stealing.

Government treasury was sacred at the beginning and that was the reason why everyone fared well.

What is our hope?

Our hope for a good life rests on important dignitaries in the society refusing gifts from the politicians. Let no one think that the politicians are so generous. No. They only use those gifts in order to quiet those important dignitaries and take their eyes off their loots. Such gifts are the blood of other people.

Dignitaries in the society should not accept their sponsorship to the Holy lands. God does not hear such prayers because they are monies, which are to be used to take care of every citizen and not for the personal enjoyments of a few people.

It is wicked for some people to be stooling as a result of being over stuffed, while others go to bed with their children in hunger.

Receiving such monies has been responsible for the poverty of many citizens, which led to their deaths and many will still die through it except there is urgent change of mind set.

By the grace of God, I will continue this sermon, "The Hope of Nigeria in the Midst of Bad Confusion and Frustration" next week

Let us pray.

Signing Out (English & Yoruba combined)

Continued from Part 1

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