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entlemen and women of the Legislature, I write you today with a plea to consider my conviction of how Nigeria can progress.
I am a Medical/Health Physicist turned preacher. I trained both in England and the United States. My practice spanned over 30 years in the West, Middle East and Nigeria. I am convinced that God gave me the opportunity to travel a bit across the globe in order to put burden on me to work on how Nigeria can be reckoned with, with other developed and progressive countries of the world. And I thank God that I have not been disobedient to the heavenly vision.
Certainly, I could not have travelled as wide as any of you but you know God has a purpose for the journey of each one of us. Things that I notice, which put burden on me might not to another.
I do not have rest about the backwardness of Nigeria. I feel so much ashamed that we are much behind many counties of the world in very many areas in spite of all the abundance of human and material resources, which God has bestowed on us.
The chief reason for our lack of progress is not farfetched; it is because most citizens have little dedication to the country; only a few do. Most are only concerned about how to live a luxurious life with their family at the expense of the nation. And except we all have a change of mind set, ours shall remain a shameful country.
As enlightened people, it cannot be lost on you that those countries, which have achieved, achieved because the citizens were highly dedicated to their different countries. Prosperity of the country takes preeminence over their personal interest and personal comfort. We also started on this front you will remember. The fathers who took the reign of the government from the Colonial Masters were highly dedicated to the nation. Their interest in the nation was not in words but in deeds. In order to return to that platform is my plea to you today. Yes you can. Yes we can.
I have been writing in the Nigeriaworld.com since 2008 under the column "Preacher's Lenses" I do not know if any of you had come across any of my writings. I have written closely to 400 articles and sermons under the inspiration of God, mostly on how Nigeria can progress. I took my campaign to the Radio in January 2011, preaching to the conscience of both rulers and the ruled to do all things that can make Nigeria to prosper, where every citizen is able to benefit in the God given good of the land, which will reduce temptation to sin, so that all can live with God at the end of this sojourn in the world. Initially I bought air time on 6 six Nigerian State Radio stations. As of today I can broadcast only on 2 due to limit on fund.
I am not naïve as not to know the pressure on you from the electorate. One of you, when he was a governor of a North Central State lamented at a public lecture in Lagos some years ago that the demands from the public, tempt Office holders to steal public fund. Also, very recently, when the Senate was discussing the idea of reducing your remuneration, a Senator threatened that he was going to resign or how was he going to meet the demands of those who sent him to Abuja.
In my writings and sermons, I have described the largesse you dole as 'Selective generosity' because the largesse you dole from time to time does not reach the largest of the populace. Not everyone must hold part cards. Not everyone must be interested in politics but shall we say because they are not interested in joining any party, they must rot away in poverty? You have to resist them from converting you to a money making machine.
As Legislators, the urgent thing for you is to fashion out how every citizen who may be in need gets the needs. This is what is done by the progressive nations of the world.
The decadence in our system is great and embarrassing. The degeneration is best perceived with the story told by the leader of the 7th Senate on the floor of the house not too long ago where a pension clerk could be so audacious to swindle his father, who is a retired judge in the sum of N2m of the N7m due to him. The knowledge that the son of the retired judge was even the senate leader as of the time could not cast any fear in him. You can then imagine what happens to an ordinary person like me when transacting business with government agencies.
My campaign for a great Nigeria is through 'spiritual means' It is far better and far effective than radical cleansing.
I have written and preached it very often that, it is a blunder to think that it is only the leadership that must be upright. I have written and preached severally that in a democratic society, unlike the military rule, both the rulers and the ruled must be upright because if the leader is godly but the citizens are ungodly, the godly leader will achieve nothing because the ungodly populace will pull his government down. In fact within a short time the camp of the ungodly will frustrate him.
However, the leaders can spark the fire of godliness. There is an adage in Yoruba that states that the horse in the front dictates the speed at which the horse at the back runs. You are the horse at the front while we, other citizens are the horse at the back.
Before I relate the message I have for you, I want to tell you of a popular event that occurred in a city called Nineveh.
Nineveh was an old historical big commercial city. It was the capital of the ancient country called, Assyria now known as Iran.
Evidences abound today that confirm that a city called Nineveh once existed. The site of the then Nineveh is not too far from Mosul, a city in today's Iraq. The people of Nineveh turned wicked and God decided He could no longer tolerate their wicked practices and He resolved to wipe them off.
God however decided He was going to give Nineveh the last chance, so He sent a Prophet by the name of Jonah to go and announce to them that destruction awaits them barely in 40days except they repented.
The king and chiefs of Nineveh quickly called a 'Solemn Assembly' A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. They made their animals also to fast.
When Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, the king rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. The people of Nineveh repented of their sin and God spared them.
There was also a man by the name Zacchaeus, whose duty post was in Jericho in the modern's day country of Palestine. He was a tax collector in the employment of the Roman Colonial government. He met Jesus and he paid back four times of what much he had cheated the people
Consider the band wagon and ripple effect it will have on the psyche of the nation, should we wake up one morning to read and hear in the news that former governors, Senators X, Y, & Z had given back to the nation N? billion or whatever. Also Senator or Hon. Z, Y, X had given up their private jets and houses in London and New York or DC and submitted all related documents about the properties to the Attorney General of the Federation.
In fact, you can cap it by deciding that you will take only sitting allowance henceforth.
If this can happen, I bet you, the civil Servants will sit up. The electorates will stop their pressure on you to build houses or buy automobiles for them.
I am absolutely certain that if I write this letter to the Congress in the US or Parliament in the UK, I will get a response. I wait to see what will happen in Abuja. Please lit the fire of spiritual revival, which will result in the citizens, a change of mind set to put the nation before self and to start to treat others as they would like to be treated.
