In the face of Nigeria's crisis, Where are the esteemed men of God? by Kenechukwu Onyenucheya
√5 Reasons Why the Big Nigerian Men of God Are Silent About the Evil Hanging Over Nigeria
¶After Enugu, any remaining doubt that you have no hope in your "elected" officials - governors, senators, reps and all the clowns of abuja - has been finally obliterated. Take a deeper look at that photo-op of the Enugu State governor in a handshake with President Buhari, his asymmetric grin and submissive stoop. President offered one hand, he gripped with two, an unforgivable etiquette bomb. In intelligence circles (and among body language experts), that handshake is called the weakling.
South East governors… who among them will save you? Alhaji Okorocha? Others? Forget it. Just photoshop each of them into that Ugwuanyi handshake photo-op.
••• Analyze Fr. Mbaka’s handshake or Tunde Bakare’s more intimate version in those pictures. You can also photoshop any Nigerian big man of God into the Buhari-Mbaka or Bakare picture and you won’t go wrong.
The song in the land now is every man on his own: “Buy your own cutlass and get ready to protect your wife and children.” We’ve come that low and that is scary! This is a failed state, people, a failed state!
Any hope in the Army to defend us is perished. The perception is that the Army is not working for the rest of us. Any hope in the Nigerian Police to deliver us is laughable. The Police that ran away when we showed them a grasshopper, will they now face a hyena?
••• It’s sad but we are in a dark period where each man is his own local government, army, police, lawyer and priest. Talking about priest brings me to the “anointed men of God” of Nigeria. So, the government can’t keep us from being slaughtered, or our daughters from being forcefully defiled by a sex cult masking as a way of life, or our farms and means of livelihood from being destroyed, what about the “men of God?” What are they saying? Nothing.
¶Through out history, God’s ways are consistent and flawless. “The LORD is good and His mercies endure forever.”
He raises a Moses long before a Pharaoh is born. He trains a Joshua long before the shores of Canaan. He raises a Joseph in Egypt to preserve His covenant with Abraham. He makes an Esther a Queen long before a deadly Haman shows up. He installs an Elijah before he installs a King Ahab. He raises a Gideon before the Midianites (the ancient Fulani herdsmen) begin their raids of terror. He quietly trains a little David on catapult technology before a Goliath assembles his MIGs. And on and on…
••• Why then is Nigeria’s case so different? Nigeria has arrived the shores of Canaan but there is no Joshua. Nigeria is in the siege of a Pharaoh but Moses wasn’t born… No Elijah. No Moses. No Jesus. No Paul. No Esther. No Daniel. No Peter. No Paul. Just darkness and silence. Pathological silence.
For decades, the Church of God in Northern Nigeria and Middle Belt has been severely persecuted… their churches burnt, their lands seized … their daughters forcefully married out as war booties … severely sequestered, mercilessly slaughtered. They reached out to their brethren in the South for help until they finally gave up. I am speaking from 100% fact with figures and documented eyewitness stories. Now the masquarade is on our doorsteps. (Didn’t I tell you that the chicken should not have laughed while the turkey was being roasted for Christmas?)
¶Fast forward today. There is no rallying voice, no rallying strategy or collective measured response to the threat to the Church. No understanding like the men of Issachar who “understood the times and know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). No word of wisdom as in the days of Apostles Peter and Paul and John. And the people perish because the Church of Nigeria has no vision, no word from God, no word from the Men of God, and saddest of all, no unity, no leadership! Just cowardly “men of God” and their lame-duck, lifeless, saltless, religion-filled ministries littered on every street in Nigeria.
••• Many of these stomach-affairs pastors of today take it for granted that they can plaster their “revival” posters everywhere anytime they want. But they forget how much they owe the late Benson Idahosa for the freedom they take for granted.
Freedom, by its nature, does not come without a price, without leadership, vision, initiative. The spelling of freedom is “f-i-g-h-t” not “s-i-l-e-n-c-e!” God told Moses, “If you think Pharaoh will let you go without a fight, perish the thought.” Pharaoh still pursued his freed slaves to his own death!
••• Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr (God bless his soul) was an ordained Baptist minister? Did you know that Bishop Desmond Tutu was an Anglican Bishop? What gives these Nigeria mega church pastors the impression that ministry only means assembling millions of people in a large camp to sing and clap hands and raise more offering for larger church buildings!?
Archbishop Idahosa was a man of great courage and boldness. God told Joshua several times: “Be strong and courageous.” Without boldness, you can’t be a minister of Christ. Paul’s constant prayer request was for boldness. The apostles' major prayer point was for boldness to preach the gospel and stand true to their faith, hope and love in Christ.
••• Those military monsters and politicians who ruled Nigeria in his time knew better than to mess with Benson Idahosa. I don't recall but wasn’t it Babangida (or this same Buhari and Idiagbon?) who after smoking whatever he did on that day, rose up and banned preaching in the open in Nigeria? I was in the University of Port Harcourt then. The soldiers were everywhere to implement his bidding. I recall the terror that reigned on the streets but the unity of purpose of the Church.
When Archbishop Idahosa heard about that ban from where he was outside the country, he immediately mobilized what became the largest crusade ever held in Africa as at then right next door to the Dodan Barracks, Babangida’s seat of power. Did the crusade hold? Yes, the crusade held. Did the fox Babangida do anything? Yes, he swallowed his saliva and slid his tail between his legs. He was reminded that he was an ordinary man, a future breakfast for worms and maggots. Like the rest of us.
¶Anyway, so, why are our men of God so cowardly and silent just when the world needed them most to speak out about the mass slaughter and injustices going on in their country?
I know we love him, we respect him for what he has been used of God to do but can somebody explain to me why Pastor Adeboye, one of the most influential figures of the century, has not publicly uttered a word about the persecutions in the North, the murders at Agata, Enugu, the kidnappings in Yorubaland and elsewhere, the Fulani herdsmen… ? One word from a man like that is worth 100,000 Facebook posts by each of us. I am not critical; I am confounded by his silence! There is no world leader alive that Adeboye cannot demand an audience with if he wishes to change what is going on in Nigeria. That is an awesome responsibility!
••• Esther was mute in a similar existential circumstance. Until Mordecai jolted her with two realities. One, don’t you think, Esther, that you were placed in your position of power for such a time as this? Two, Esther, don’t you in your crudest wakings, think that when the slaughter begins, you will be spared because you are in the palace. The rest is history.
I wonder if the Adeboyes, Oyedepos, Uma Ukpais, Adelajas, Ogbuelis, Kumuyis, Ibiyomis, Okonkwos, Bakares, Mbakas, Bishop Chukwumas, Oyakhilomes, etc were given the grace they have for such a time as this. I wonder if they know — if they even correctly discern the times we are in.
•• The great Ukrainian man of God, Sunday Adelaja, poured all his huge resources into foisting the current government upon us. But he is in a very safe place, faraway from Agatu, Enugu and Beromland. He is not even here, and when he visits we receive no update on his installed messiah.
So is the loud mouthed Fr. Mbaka, who mass recruited his fervent Adoration Grounders to vote the current government. He hasn’t uttered a word about the killings in his backyard at Enugu. No word either from Tunde Bakare, who stood on a holy pulpit and announced to the whole world that Nigeria's troubles would be over if we installed the "Change" President.
These are possible reasons why the big Nigerian men of God are scared to talk about the ethnic cleansing happening in Nigeria and the unfolding agenda against the church.
(1) They don't know the counsel of God for Nigeria. Forget their high sounding spiritonomics and empty "prophetic utterances." They lie to you that all is well when all is NOT well.
(2) They are scared stiff! Tell your big man of God (if you can even reach him) that I said he's scared shitless! (Actually, remove “God” from the “Men of God” and replace it with “Chicken.”)
(3) Your Man of God may have been destined as a “Useful Idiot.” (Research the meaning and origin of that term on the Internet. Hint: Judas was regarded as a useful idiot, not by Jesus, but by the Establishment that used and dumped him.) Many of Nigeria’s Men of God and their followers are moles and useful idiots. I was jolted into this outrageous reality by my encounter with one of them not quite a month ago!
(4) They have received the gifts of Naaman and eaten the porridge of Jacob in exchange for their birthright. They are brown envelope prophets of the government houses - always cavorting with one politician or the other and secretly boasting about their connections with power. Do you dare speak against Amadioha during a thunderstorm when his protective charm is in your pocket?
(5) They have expensive assets scattered all over Nigeria - large camp buildings, magnificent cathedrals, lands and all imaginable niceties of life. They have labored for decades to arrive where they are now. Why rustle the boat? Why touch the tail of the tiger now and risk losing these things of the world? There's too much to lose.
••• If your man of God is free from these 5 allegations, let him or her speak out now!
Nevertheless, God will save His people. If the great “men of God” cannot cry hosanna, God, being God, will raise stones to do it.
(But let these men know that we know that it was in their power to do good like Martin Luther King Jr but that they were silent while Nigeria slid into Rwanda. Tell them that History will remember them that way!)
Shalom!
RESHARE.
¶After Enugu, any remaining doubt that you have no hope in your "elected" officials - governors, senators, reps and all the clowns of abuja - has been finally obliterated. Take a deeper look at that photo-op of the Enugu State governor in a handshake with President Buhari, his asymmetric grin and submissive stoop. President offered one hand, he gripped with two, an unforgivable etiquette bomb. In intelligence circles (and among body language experts), that handshake is called the weakling.
South East governors… who among them will save you? Alhaji Okorocha? Others? Forget it. Just photoshop each of them into that Ugwuanyi handshake photo-op.
••• Analyze Fr. Mbaka’s handshake or Tunde Bakare’s more intimate version in those pictures. You can also photoshop any Nigerian big man of God into the Buhari-Mbaka or Bakare picture and you won’t go wrong.
The song in the land now is every man on his own: “Buy your own cutlass and get ready to protect your wife and children.” We’ve come that low and that is scary! This is a failed state, people, a failed state!
Any hope in the Army to defend us is perished. The perception is that the Army is not working for the rest of us. Any hope in the Nigerian Police to deliver us is laughable. The Police that ran away when we showed them a grasshopper, will they now face a hyena?
••• It’s sad but we are in a dark period where each man is his own local government, army, police, lawyer and priest. Talking about priest brings me to the “anointed men of God” of Nigeria. So, the government can’t keep us from being slaughtered, or our daughters from being forcefully defiled by a sex cult masking as a way of life, or our farms and means of livelihood from being destroyed, what about the “men of God?” What are they saying? Nothing.
¶Through out history, God’s ways are consistent and flawless. “The LORD is good and His mercies endure forever.”
He raises a Moses long before a Pharaoh is born. He trains a Joshua long before the shores of Canaan. He raises a Joseph in Egypt to preserve His covenant with Abraham. He makes an Esther a Queen long before a deadly Haman shows up. He installs an Elijah before he installs a King Ahab. He raises a Gideon before the Midianites (the ancient Fulani herdsmen) begin their raids of terror. He quietly trains a little David on catapult technology before a Goliath assembles his MIGs. And on and on…
••• Why then is Nigeria’s case so different? Nigeria has arrived the shores of Canaan but there is no Joshua. Nigeria is in the siege of a Pharaoh but Moses wasn’t born… No Elijah. No Moses. No Jesus. No Paul. No Esther. No Daniel. No Peter. No Paul. Just darkness and silence. Pathological silence.
For decades, the Church of God in Northern Nigeria and Middle Belt has been severely persecuted… their churches burnt, their lands seized … their daughters forcefully married out as war booties … severely sequestered, mercilessly slaughtered. They reached out to their brethren in the South for help until they finally gave up. I am speaking from 100% fact with figures and documented eyewitness stories. Now the masquarade is on our doorsteps. (Didn’t I tell you that the chicken should not have laughed while the turkey was being roasted for Christmas?)
¶Fast forward today. There is no rallying voice, no rallying strategy or collective measured response to the threat to the Church. No understanding like the men of Issachar who “understood the times and know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). No word of wisdom as in the days of Apostles Peter and Paul and John. And the people perish because the Church of Nigeria has no vision, no word from God, no word from the Men of God, and saddest of all, no unity, no leadership! Just cowardly “men of God” and their lame-duck, lifeless, saltless, religion-filled ministries littered on every street in Nigeria.
••• Many of these stomach-affairs pastors of today take it for granted that they can plaster their “revival” posters everywhere anytime they want. But they forget how much they owe the late Benson Idahosa for the freedom they take for granted.
Freedom, by its nature, does not come without a price, without leadership, vision, initiative. The spelling of freedom is “f-i-g-h-t” not “s-i-l-e-n-c-e!” God told Moses, “If you think Pharaoh will let you go without a fight, perish the thought.” Pharaoh still pursued his freed slaves to his own death!
••• Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr (God bless his soul) was an ordained Baptist minister? Did you know that Bishop Desmond Tutu was an Anglican Bishop? What gives these Nigeria mega church pastors the impression that ministry only means assembling millions of people in a large camp to sing and clap hands and raise more offering for larger church buildings!?
Archbishop Idahosa was a man of great courage and boldness. God told Joshua several times: “Be strong and courageous.” Without boldness, you can’t be a minister of Christ. Paul’s constant prayer request was for boldness. The apostles' major prayer point was for boldness to preach the gospel and stand true to their faith, hope and love in Christ.
••• Those military monsters and politicians who ruled Nigeria in his time knew better than to mess with Benson Idahosa. I don't recall but wasn’t it Babangida (or this same Buhari and Idiagbon?) who after smoking whatever he did on that day, rose up and banned preaching in the open in Nigeria? I was in the University of Port Harcourt then. The soldiers were everywhere to implement his bidding. I recall the terror that reigned on the streets but the unity of purpose of the Church.
When Archbishop Idahosa heard about that ban from where he was outside the country, he immediately mobilized what became the largest crusade ever held in Africa as at then right next door to the Dodan Barracks, Babangida’s seat of power. Did the crusade hold? Yes, the crusade held. Did the fox Babangida do anything? Yes, he swallowed his saliva and slid his tail between his legs. He was reminded that he was an ordinary man, a future breakfast for worms and maggots. Like the rest of us.
¶Anyway, so, why are our men of God so cowardly and silent just when the world needed them most to speak out about the mass slaughter and injustices going on in their country?
I know we love him, we respect him for what he has been used of God to do but can somebody explain to me why Pastor Adeboye, one of the most influential figures of the century, has not publicly uttered a word about the persecutions in the North, the murders at Agata, Enugu, the kidnappings in Yorubaland and elsewhere, the Fulani herdsmen… ? One word from a man like that is worth 100,000 Facebook posts by each of us. I am not critical; I am confounded by his silence! There is no world leader alive that Adeboye cannot demand an audience with if he wishes to change what is going on in Nigeria. That is an awesome responsibility!
••• Esther was mute in a similar existential circumstance. Until Mordecai jolted her with two realities. One, don’t you think, Esther, that you were placed in your position of power for such a time as this? Two, Esther, don’t you in your crudest wakings, think that when the slaughter begins, you will be spared because you are in the palace. The rest is history.
I wonder if the Adeboyes, Oyedepos, Uma Ukpais, Adelajas, Ogbuelis, Kumuyis, Ibiyomis, Okonkwos, Bakares, Mbakas, Bishop Chukwumas, Oyakhilomes, etc were given the grace they have for such a time as this. I wonder if they know — if they even correctly discern the times we are in.
•• The great Ukrainian man of God, Sunday Adelaja, poured all his huge resources into foisting the current government upon us. But he is in a very safe place, faraway from Agatu, Enugu and Beromland. He is not even here, and when he visits we receive no update on his installed messiah.
So is the loud mouthed Fr. Mbaka, who mass recruited his fervent Adoration Grounders to vote the current government. He hasn’t uttered a word about the killings in his backyard at Enugu. No word either from Tunde Bakare, who stood on a holy pulpit and announced to the whole world that Nigeria's troubles would be over if we installed the "Change" President.
These are possible reasons why the big Nigerian men of God are scared to talk about the ethnic cleansing happening in Nigeria and the unfolding agenda against the church.
(1) They don't know the counsel of God for Nigeria. Forget their high sounding spiritonomics and empty "prophetic utterances." They lie to you that all is well when all is NOT well.
(2) They are scared stiff! Tell your big man of God (if you can even reach him) that I said he's scared shitless! (Actually, remove “God” from the “Men of God” and replace it with “Chicken.”)
(3) Your Man of God may have been destined as a “Useful Idiot.” (Research the meaning and origin of that term on the Internet. Hint: Judas was regarded as a useful idiot, not by Jesus, but by the Establishment that used and dumped him.) Many of Nigeria’s Men of God and their followers are moles and useful idiots. I was jolted into this outrageous reality by my encounter with one of them not quite a month ago!
(4) They have received the gifts of Naaman and eaten the porridge of Jacob in exchange for their birthright. They are brown envelope prophets of the government houses - always cavorting with one politician or the other and secretly boasting about their connections with power. Do you dare speak against Amadioha during a thunderstorm when his protective charm is in your pocket?
(5) They have expensive assets scattered all over Nigeria - large camp buildings, magnificent cathedrals, lands and all imaginable niceties of life. They have labored for decades to arrive where they are now. Why rustle the boat? Why touch the tail of the tiger now and risk losing these things of the world? There's too much to lose.
••• If your man of God is free from these 5 allegations, let him or her speak out now!
Nevertheless, God will save His people. If the great “men of God” cannot cry hosanna, God, being God, will raise stones to do it.
(But let these men know that we know that it was in their power to do good like Martin Luther King Jr but that they were silent while Nigeria slid into Rwanda. Tell them that History will remember them that way!)
Shalom!
RESHARE.
Comments