There is hope for Nigeria

Sitting in Church on Wednesday night (27-07-11), and hearing Pastor Paul Adefarasin enunciate his heartfelt thoughts on the Nigerian condition brought back memories of that wise saying that it takes good men not standing up to be counted on the side of righteousness for evil to thrive in a country. How apt!

Let me attempt a summary of the message here.

Beginning with the new testament text from the Book of Matthew where Jesus teaches that the Church is expected to be the foundation of truth and positive influence in the earth as 'salt' that brings in the much needed flavour,' the man of God went on to state at the heart of the continuing failure of the Nigerian nation was the inability of very many Christians in the nation to properly appreciate the full text of 'the gospel of the kingdom' that Christ had preached and lived and bring that to bear on the different components of the country.

Not leaving his congregation hanging as to what exactly he meant, he equally drew upon two other Bible extracts to strongly cement his thesis. The first was the 1 Kings account of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Israel's King Solomon where after seeing the joy, peace, development and calm within Solomon's Kingdom, she was to affirm that indeed all of these had only come about only because righteousness and justice were the governing values in the kingdom. The second text, from Psalm 89, corroborated the 1 Kings reference as it was one in which Solomon's father, King David was very significamtly, extolling the throne of God as having justice and righteousness for its foundations!

Bringing it down to the affairs of nations, Pastor Paul underscored that there was indeed a firm connection between the dominant values of a nation and how it consequently scored in regards to the critical issues of growth, prosperity, peace and development. Taking the congregation through the examples of nations as diverse as the Bahamas, France, England, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Germany and Israel, he showed that nations which had strong and redolent values, ultimately met their objectives and shone on the world stage.  

For Nigeria unfortunately, he explained that at the heart of the crisis of the Nigerian federation was the anachronistic setting of its emergence as a nation, coupled with a continuing inability to replace the aberrant values that have now become the hallmark of the nation with more ennobling ones. To paraphrase him, this was all because there were a few people who got back power on behalf of the entire nation from the British at Independence and were intent on succeeding themselves with a few other people who also were intent on succeeding themselves also with a few other people to continue to milk the fat of the nation for themselves and the British and going on like that continually!

Adding meat to his narrative, he recalled that the initial process of the formation of Nigeria was not really done out of any altruistic design to weld together a nation in the best interests of its constituent peoples. Rather, it was done to provide a channel for the exploitation and transfer of the resources of the country to Great Britain.

Even when the campaigners for Independence fought for the nation to be freed, he averred that the only freedom that the colonizing British finally permitted and granted was a neo-colonial arrangement which saw the more feudal segments of the political elite in a dominating position to the detriment of more enlightened political functionaries that were canvassing a far more beneficial and wholesome liberty.

Affirming that there was indeed nothing patently wrong with leaders like the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello who he stated was indeed a good leader, he averred that what was rather problematic was the very complex and diverse pan-Nigerian canvas which they were now expected to operate but which they were ill-equipped to deliver upon.

'The Sardauna of Sokoto was a wonderful leader but his vision was for Northern Nigeria.'

Continuing, he stated that this scenario has continued in Nigeria today where there were good Hausas, good Igbos, good Yorubas, etc in the country but there were indeed very few good Nigerians imbued with a sense of mission and purpose to indeed build a great and strong nation on the firm foundations of righteousness, development, truth and justice.

He then concluded that the very strong challenge that the nation was faced with today lay in the need to fully appreciate this problem and thereon devise values that would correct this anomaly and help take the country further on the path of destiny, transformation and purpose. He listed some of these values that the nation and its leaders must cultivate and live by today as justice, honesty and development, saying that this, not anything violence, was going to be the definitive Nigerian revolution.