Preached on 9th October, 2016. At THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD ONITSHA By APOSTLE PETER ODOEMENA THE SON OF MAN “THE SUPREME INTELLIGENCE” “Truth has no substitute” © BRIDE OF CHRIST MINISTRY WORLD-WIDE WEB CONTACTS:
SECTION ONE
STATE OF THE NATION VOLUME 5, PART ONE
1
STATE OF THE NATION:
THE INTRODUCTION
Rejoice in the victory Christ has wrought for us. If you are one of those already saved, rejoice in the victory Christ has wrought for us. Yes! We have moved from death into life; moved from the world into the kingdom of God and we are singing victory song unto the Lord. Our song is song of victory, our praise is praise of victory, and our worship is worship of victory!
Keep on gathering energy; spiritual energy, that you may be counted worthy to be partakers of the oncoming Thanksgiving. There is going to be a collective thanksgiving service.
Yes, a collective thanksgiving service; a spiritual thanksgiving service, thanksgiving of praises, of songs, of worship, of jubilation, of testimonies!
A special day! A day is coming and it is fast approaching. Sons and daughters of God will gather from the East, West, North and South, to do nothing but to assemble and praise God for His goodness and mercy. Not to come and make request. No complaint; nothing, nothing.
Just come with your family, give praise to God who is worthy of our praise all these years. Keep on praying for me as I pray for you. Keep on gathering spiritual strength, looking forward to that day. It is going to be a wonderful day.
As we look up to Him for help, necessity is laid on me to put you in remembrance of these great truths that will help you adjust yourself properly because no other notice shall be given to us; no other warning; no other sign. It is all over.
It is all over-both physically and spiritually. They are all over. I will put you in remembrance of these great truths. You know, every great truth is simple. What makes it great is that God is hidden in simplicity and then rig away all human intellect, instill His own wisdom from above which surpasses human wisdom.
If He never adopted us into this Most Holy Family, I do not think we could be rejoicing the way we are rejoicing today. We have reasons why we are never tired of praising God.
Now, I wish to prepare your minds ahead of time. The roads are becoming fairer every day for the Lord has stepped into human programme, putting things right, that we begin to see things in the right perspective.
Not the old way we were seeing things before, begin to readjust yourselves. Heads are rolling; I told you that I am for judgment for there can never be any great event here without God being behind it.
The Commission said that the Comforter will not depart from the earth until the earth is fully judged in righteousness. The isles will behold His Majesty. The judge of the whole earth is here, stirring up judgment even in the highest places.
Since Nigeria attained her Independence in 1960, in short, in the history of the whole world, there is no record, there is no evidence, there is nothing we can lay hands on—I thank God we have some among us who are highly learned—we have no record to present to the world where a supreme court judge had been arrested, even contrary to the law, in the night; humiliated and assaulted.
Corruption has eaten deep. A Supreme Court judge of the highest court in the whole federation, the last hope of the common man, was arrested! Did I not tell you that heads will roll? God will stand in for judgment. There is no facet of human life that will not be judged in righteousness.
When the time comes, He knows the person He will bring to the throne who will be courageous enough to do as He will command his hand to do. For there is no throne without God. He sets thrones, He pulls down thrones.
I told you, at the point where we have found ourselves, no man is adequate to be in that throne than the one that is there for now but he is not the messiah.
I told you he is going to tow the path that will make him incur more enemies than friends. I equally told you why I stand in his throne, giving him a helping hand, vindicated by the world, as the second African President that was officially invited to the White House.
Apart from Nelson Mandela of South Africa, no other African President has received American invitation to come to White House, Washington DC, except Buhari. And on that day, the world celebrated him.
President Barrack Obama said loudly to the whole world, that our President General Buhari, had one thing to his credit and that was integrity. Integrity earned him the invitation. The same way, integrity earned Nelson Mandela the invitation.
By integrity, men of integrity, women of integrity are solidly behind him. Though he is erring but history will live to exonerate him for making costly mistakes but there is no way history will exculpate him for not taking those decisions, for such unpopular decisions are necessary at a time we have found ourselves.
Anybody that wants to be popular with the people cannot tow the path he is towing. If you want to achieve the best as a leader, please be conscious of your target.
Forget about those people that are by the side heaping up unnecessary sentiment. Ignore all! Whoever that will not give you a helping hand to meet your target, do away with that person.
Today, before I will address you, chipping in my own opinion, ideas and everything you can think of, I wish to give you spiritual food in due season after which you get seated. Amen.
2
STATE OF THE NATION (1)
I want to address the nation this day. Let me chip in my own. Thus, it is going to be my own Independence Message – THE STATE OF THE NATION, VOLUME 5. I have the “STATE OF THE NATION” Vol. 1; Vol. 2; Vol. 3; Vol. 4. Now, I am going to add another volume today.
I am excited. I am forging ahead fine. This morning, immediately I sat down, I received a foreign message, presumably from one of the countries in the Islamic World, drawing my attention to a portion of the Holy Qur’an, words of encouragement, telling me what I should do; what they need from me.
Number One: FORGIVENESS. I thank God that I have a message titled FORGIVENESS. And I have given you another message titled, “THE HEALING POWER OF FORGIVENESS”.
Look at what Qur’an said, “SHOW FORGIVENESS: ENJOY WHAT IS GOOD AND TURN AWAY FROM THE FOOLISH. Qur’an 7 vs 199.
Qur’an 7 vs 199 was directed to me. “Show forgiveness; enjoy that which is good; and turn away from the foolish”.
I should turn away from the foolish, presumably referring to the so-called Christians. But to them, I should forgive them and then enjoy good life, good health, prosperity. Enjoy peace.
You should know Islam is a religion of peace but the protagonists practise “pieces,” violence, death and every kind of thing.
I got the message and invited Apostle Ojiakor and Apostle Kelechi to read with me. And by the time we go through the websites, you will see why the message came.
United Arab Emirates, in thousands, responded in thousands this last week. There must be something!
Bro Okoh, see me after fellowship, for I am coming up with a new uniform.
I am the uniting point between the moon and the star and still remain the sun radiating all over the whole earth. Do you believe that?
I am the Bridge between the moon and the star. The only Messenger that has appeared on earth and by virtue of the truth He upholds, the moon accepted Him and His message; the star equally accepted Him and His message. Then the sun shines brightest. The Bridge, the Mediator between the moon and the star! “Sandastand?”
There is no Christian message a Muslim will embrace. Never, never for they know they are in error and there is no Islamic message a Christian will welcome.
Then who is the Bridge? Who will bring about peace between the two? Who will divide the wall of partition? Only truth can do that. Amen!
We do not hide anything from anybody. To God be the glory. I am coming up with something that can be credited to Me and the Bride of Christ Ministry.
Let it be My little contribution as requested by the President of Nigeria that Church leaders should begin now to talk to their members concerning the programme that has been put in place, all aimed at addressing the recession and at the same time, enjoin them to eschew violence as that will not bring about the needed paradise here in Nigeria.
As I was talking before, if you are conversant with the news in Nigeria, you will see that the arrest of the supreme court judge has never happened in the history of Nigeria.
How many Federal High Court Judges were whisked away? Can you imagine a celebrated Judge in the Supreme Court transforming His bedroom into a bank, sleeping with two million US Dollars ($2,000,000.00) under his bed? Another one, almost all the foreign currencies, all in thousands, including Euros, were recovered.
Another one, because of his friendliness with the Governor of Rivers State, was humiliated with the Governor who wanted to save him from being arrested. A Federal High Court Judge plus some others.
What is more, all of them were placed under house arrest while some are in the custody of the police. Those that have been fired (sacked), they are now waiting for their summons, under house arrest. Passports are withdrawn; accounts frozen; property under strict surveillance.
Hear me very well. It has never been well with the wicked. I gave you the message: the prosperity of the wicked has always been a great temptation to the righteous. They do not consider his present situation but look at the end. For their end has always been disastrous for it shall never be well with the wicked but it shall be well with the righteous.
God has said it that it shall be well with the righteous. My Father has said it that it shall be well with the righteous. Yes Sir!
I have told you that no riffraff is troubling Nigeria. There is no riffraff that is responsible for our recession. It is a systemic conspiracy; systemic corruption that has led to systemic failure of the Nigerian system. A system that is transferred from hand to hand; a generational failure; a wave that was set in motion immediately after independence, which culminated into a military coup few years after independence, to check corruption.
From there, we started witnessing corrective regimes coming in, subsequently to correct subsequent corrective regimes until we arrived where we are; when those that ruled before have come back and are desiring to be coming back.
If it is possible, Tafawa Balewa will like to resurrect and come back; Nnamdi Azikiwe will like to come back; Obafemi BAwolowo will like to come back; Akintola will like to come back, Felix Okotie Eboh will like to come back and the rest of them.
If the Judiciary that is vested with the highest authority on earth; the only organ that is empowered to take away human life; the only organization vested with the authority to set free or to kill, if corruption can be traced to that level, our final port of call in the time of distress, in the time of deprivation, the only place we can look up to here on earth; if this hydra headed evil is now being spear-headed by the judiciary, what is left?
Last Saturday I read a frightening story in the newspaper, of how two judges conspired to collect from their fellow individual Three Hundred and Twenty-Five Million Naira (N325,000,000.00) on a single case – Saturday Sun Newspaper last week.
Remember when I was addressing the nation, the State of the Nation Volume Four (4); I included this judiciary when I said, “If I am asked to reform Nigeria, if I am to check corruption, where I will start: I will start with the judiciary, second, the police; the army; then the civil service for there can never be anything corruption without the civil service aiding and abetting it.”
I said the next will be the organized private sector. Number one is all the banks. There can never be money laundering without the banks. That kidnapping is not stopping is because bank managers are connected. Armed robbery, bank managers are connected. The police are aware but nobody can go to those places.
How can money be transferred without using local banks? All these corrupt monies, where are they being dumped? Banks! A situation where it is read that a little boy under eighteen (18) years of age, stacked Forty Two Million Naira in his account- a boy that is doing SSS 3 (Senior Secondary class 3). The father stacked Forty Two Million Naira into his account. Tell me how the boy can be useful?
But can the bank claim ignorant? If you watch all the kidnappings, most of the money transactions went between the banks and the recipients and they could not do anything. Go and withdraw huge sum of money from the bank, along the way, if you are not careful, people will stop you and collect the money. Who is giving them the information, describing the person; the motor (vehicle), the dress he is putting on?
Corruption everywhere. All our universities, corrupt; secondary schools, corrupt; primary schools, corrupt; private schools, corrupt!
Go to the Medical Sector. The Medical Sector has become the death sector- D.E.A.T.H. – death sector. They are no longer saving lives, they are now destroying lives. Where do we run to at a time like this?
Thus, do not look at economic recession from one single angle. It is a complex problem that must be addressed holistically if we must arrive at something.
And the change begins with you and I. This is not the time “A” should be blaming “B”; “B” blaming “C”. No! Acknowledge your guilt. Let me acknowledge My own. Let us begin to effect changes (in our lives). I will come to that but not now, but I am very much troubled since yesterday.
Can you imagine jobless lawyers, itinerant lawyers, experts in standing in for criminal suspects, ganging up in the name of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) threatening that they would go on strike if the embarrassment does not stop? What do they label embarrassment? Arrest of corrupt High Court Judges!
As far as this case is concerned, the president made it clear that nobody is untouchable. All of us are touchable, including Myself. Nobody is untouchable; nobody should be treated as a sacred cow.
Yesterday, the wife of the former President, Dame Patience Jonathan; was giving flimsy excuse, proclaiming herself guilty, saying she would not come to court because she was sick. This is because she is now facing a very serious scam of One Hundred and Fifteen Million US Dollars ($115,000,000.00) which she cannot even defend. All of them that were accused, not even one has effectively defended his own; rather some are refunding. Some are refunding secretly.
It is now that government has listened to Me. Now I believe that they go to my website. Yes. There is another corrupt area where I am praying and wishing that they will get there and I have been hammering on it since. That is the Church. The Church! The Church!
Churches promote evil. Instead of promoting righteousness, they are promoting evil. Churches are sponsoring wicked politicians. A man was trying to disturb the peace of Edo State, calling himself Pastor Oyegun and I was asking myself a question: “Is this man a politician or a man of God?”
How can you be a man of God, a Church leader and also a politician? Look at the Vice President of Nigeria, Osinbajo; the Deputy General Superintendent, the Redeemed Church of God Mission, who goes on airplane. He is a professor in the university; he is also a Pastor in the Church. Now, he is the Vice President, a politician under APC (All Progressives Congress).
Somebody must say it. Let me hold my peace because I know I am coming to that. If I am afraid, I would not be uploading my messages in the net. All of them are uploaded for the world to hear me, so that whoever that feels aggrieved should come out and tell the world why he cannot believe my message.
I will rip open today the buttocks of many. We are all Nigerians for now. We have no other nation that can be called our own except this Nigeria. We all joined hands to spoil it. We will join hands to correct it. There should be no human being to be exempted in the corruption.
We have what I call domestic corruption. There is corruption in every home. For there is no home without politics in one way or the other. There are too many families that have two opposing parties. Some have three or four political parties, all wielding influence, one trying to dominate the rest; partisan politics in the family. Amen.
3
THE STATE OF THE NATION (2)
I told you that today is another day. Just pray that the Almighty God will supply me with the needed strength and boldness to make my tape.
If, in that My message, I told you that when corruption has entered celebrated places, places of refuge, even in the Church that should be the ground and pillar of the truth, and the Church is now the ground and pillar of all forms of falsehood and criminality.
Even kidnappings are going on in the Churches, armed robbery. Check all that are disturbing the peace of the society, all of them go to Church. There is no pagan among them. It all depends on what they are being taught for no man lives a life higher than the messages he is receiving. You cannot live a life higher than the teachings you receive.
I have told you and I still maintain it. If your ambition is to make money like the people of the world, leave this Faith for this Faith cannot accommodate you and I.
I am the Almighty as far as this Faith is concerned. I am a Son over My Father’s Heritage. I told you this particular Faith, this Bridal Ministry, has zero tolerance for all forms of criminality and sharp practices. Note it, all forms of evil and sharp practices.
There is no way you can hide yourself where the eyes of the Lord cannot fish you out. That is why all that listened to me first of all bowed out of the faith, claiming they were blaspheming when they were hiding their sinister motives behind and with time, they are manifesting.
Yes! Nobody abandons the truth without having sinister motive. He has a hidden agenda which this faith, if he will continue with it, can never permit him to accomplish.
For that, he must give way so that his conscience will not be pricked from time to time because nothing pricks the human conscience more than truth.
If you are an armed robber in this Faith, whether you are armed with a gun or not, whether you have robbed or not, you still know you are an armed robber. Once armed robbery is mentioned, your conscience will be pricked.
Yes! Once a gun is shot, the bullet will search out the person that has concocted the medicine against it to know whether the medicine is effective, whether it can work well. Even if you shoot it in an upward direction, it will move downwards, searching for the man.
This is why when we come here; we come just as we are, with broad minds, aiming at bettering our lives. Remember, one that eats the testicles of a ram is a “debtor” to hydrocoele.
If you want to avoid destruction, avoid wicked people, avoid destructive people, avoid corrupt money, and do not ever fan the embers of corruption by supporting the deals because you think the thing can boost you tomorrow. You will reap the whirlwind in the end!
Yes, nobody has ever supported an evil fellow without reaping the whirlwind because any day the evil man is arrested, you must be incriminated. The role you played must be made public, your involvement. You will be an accomplice to the crime for no human being can commit crime.
A man, single-handedly, can never commit crime. You cannot commit crime without having a crime partner. Every criminality goes with partners. That is why while managing security, we are very much conscious of getting the criminal alive so that through him, we can trace the accomplices but if you carry out jungle justice, you make it impossible for the rest to be identified.
Very soon we begin to hear too many names that will be associated with all these judges for the judges never operated in isolation. They have offices, they have secretaries, accountants, and they have even their account holders in the banks. Amen.
If Dasuki was not incriminated, nobody would have heard about Tokpesi, the owner of AIT (African Independent Television); nobody would have heard about the man from Nnewi, Olisa Metuh, who shamelessly ate a piece of paper that was presented to him, to speak.
I told you in my message, the State of the Nation Vol 4, the reason why we are having many, many intractable problems, some of them appear to be unsolvable, is because we have collectively permitted people with very high criminal propensities, unbridled desire to become billionaires.
We have allowed our political terrain to be inundated by people of such characters.
If there is recession, somebody must be responsible. Are we in a civil war? Is Nigeria invaded by another nation? Why the recession? I said, why the recession? Remember, in that message, I used myself as an illustration.
If you are asked to be a manager to resuscitate an ailing company; if you are really worth your salt as a manager, your first duty is to settle down. Find out why that company is not doing well. If you can discover the reason why the company has not beenfaring well, you have solved the problem halfway, because an enemy that is identified is half the victory.
You do not balance in the arm chair with the swiveling chair, you will be rolling up and down, with cigarette in your hand, with agbada: “I am the General Manager, uh uhuh”, only to repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.
All these parastatals, Federal Government parastatals, that were sold, how may have performed? All that were privatized, can we show anything as the fruit of the privatization?
It is contained in State of the Nation Vol 4, where I said, “In no distant time, they will place Nigeria for sale, for the remaining three sources of revenue will be earmarked for sale”.
I mentioned NNPC, Liquified Natural Gas, and Solid Minerals. Am I vindicated today? Yes Sir!
Just like it is no longer a secret what God has done and what God is doing. I mounted this pulpit some years back, addressed you, never to speak evil of anybody.
“Allow those that have left to leave. They have the right to call Me whatever they want to call Me. It is their right. Time and events will vindicate Me but for the man who sponsored it, watch. You will see it happen. You will be here, I will be here”; referring to Bishop Umezulike who left us.
When the tide started gathering, I raised alarm. I even called the wife: “If you have your way, tell him to resign honourably when the ovation is still loud. If you do not do it, surely, he is going to be humiliated out of office”.
Sister Umezulike, Did I not tell you? I called you? (She answered. “Yes”) did I not plead with you; “find a way to get this message across to him”? (She answered in the affirmative that the Son of Man did plead with her to get the message across to her husband).
I loved him. I still love him. I will keep on loving him. You see, the message I received now said “Show forgiveness. Enjoy that which is good”, not “which is not good”.
Unrighteous mammon! I do not want it; corrupt money, I do not want it! My heart is of a purer state than to admit evil. I do not need to rehearse the encounter. That might be singing my glory but God knows the truth.
Those that went back to collect what I rejected, where are they today? What Elisha rejected, Eleazar went after.
Hear me very well. If you do not know what to call Me, call Me the King that is very much self-sufficient and very much satisfied with Himself.
As poor, yet possessing all things! As dying, yet I live. Persecuted but not forsaken; bearing on my body the mark of Christ. The mark of my Apostleship is with Me always and wherever I go. PARADOX! The more you look, the less you see.
You see why God gave you a warning: “Do not place yourself in a place God will make an evil statement concerning you for it is easier to cancel a written statement than to withdraw or cancel a spoken word; that a spoken word with the mouth travels like light: who knows how many millions of miles, light rays travel in a second? Physicists here. I have too many of you.
You cannot be a qualified Engineer without reading Physics. No matter the branch of engineering, you must have read physics, both physical physics, atomic physics, nuclear physics.
Light is the stepping stone. The origin of Physics is light. Another one is heat. Heat and light are partners. Light generates heat; heat generates light: then the end product is water for there can never be cooling effect without water. It is either water is attracted or water is pushed out. Amen!
So what am I saying? Do not ever permit God to make a statement that is not palatable, a statement that will follow you for a very long time adversely; statement that will have adverse effect on you, on your business, on everything! Do not permit that to happen.
That is why He said, “Do not ever provoke the Son of Man to anger, lest you cause him to make a statement that cannot be withdrawn”.
To God be the glory. We are here to sanitize our hearts, purify your hearts by the entrance of the word of God. Learn from what happened to others. Learn from what happened to others.
No matter the position you find yourself; do not be a part of the corrupt system. Say “no” to the corruption there. There is always corruption in every office and the higher you go; the more corrupt that office for every corrupt officer will like to use one as his agent.
Professor Nnadozie, when he was in the Federal College of Education, EhaAmufu, was serving alongside with our late Bishop Moses. One day, the man summoned him to the office, told him clearly, said, “Remigus Odoh, whether you like it or not, there is no way I can withdraw money from this account and do whatever I want to do with the money without using somebody’s name to prepare my voucher”.
Our Brother said “OK… I know that quite alright but it will not be my name”.
In my own office, there was one year like that. We had left over of a reasonable sum and the officer in charge of the state summoned all of us. He said he was going to withdraw the whole money; that he was going to use it to do this, do that for the office. I said, “Rubbish!” For that reason, he ordered a Deeper Life member, our accountant, to prepare a composite voucher, using everybody’s name in one voucher.
The people came and signed. They carried it to Federal Pay Office, brought out the money. And they were calling them; say “if you sign fifty thousand naira (N50,000.00), they will give you ten, the man will take forty.
Then at the end of the day, one of the women in the office came to me and said, “Sir, you and your wife refused. Does it mean you do not need money? You could have told us, I mean, I would have at least used one of the messengers or two of them to withdraw your own share”.
I said, “Madam, if my problem is money, it would have been solved long, long time ago” Any problem bordering on money is no problem.
The highest problem that poses the greatest danger and resists almost every move is poor character. If your character is poor, money cannot help it out. There is no amount of medicine you will take that will correct your character and you know that the most difficult thing to effect in a man’s life is change- very simple with the mouth but difficult to effect, to implement.
Anybody who says that money is his problem, that man has no problem. We can run around, scout money, solve the problem but when character is poor, hateful, distasteful, unprogressive, it is as disturbing as cancer; much more disturbing than cancer.
You pass through sleepless nights; you pray; you may even hate the money you have for money cannot contribute to solving this problem, and until that is corrected, the individual can never stand erect. He will remain bending down.
I do not want to continue in this my exhortation. Let me bring somebody who will come and help me here.
For some time now, our Brother David Mbah has not been coming. Let me believe that he is fellowshipping at Umuahia until I hear from them.
Apostle Kelechi, can you please come and assist me? I placed two messages there for you to read. Amen.
SECTION TWO
STATE OF THE NATION VOLUME 5, PART TWO
1
THE STATE OF THE NATION (3)
Christ has appeared to take us to that Promised Land. I am making a worldwide tape and I am inviting all that are working at the Public Address (PA) System to rally round, give me the sharpest voice.
We read in the Book of St Luke in the Holy Scriptures, Chapter 1. I want somebody to read, using Amplified Version of the Holy Scripture: St Luke’s Gospel Chapter 1, from verse 1.
As long as many have taken it upon themselves to write a thorough narration of events that transpired in the Ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, even writing things they knew not, St Luke took it upon himself as on that was bodily present; that followed from the very official beginning, to put a documentation of his own personal experiences as a guide against error to Theophilus and to all that will follow after. He made his own contribution.
Hence, we quote his writing as authentic. Luke 1:1. After waiting for a brother to read and it seemed nobody was forthcoming, the voice went thus: “Nobody is willing to read again?” Luke1:1-3 (AMP).
Since (as it is well known)many have undertaken to put in order and draw up a thorough narrative of the surely established deeds which have been accomplished and fulfilled in and among us,
Exactly as they were handed down to us by those who from the (official) beginning (of Jesus ministry) were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word (that is, of the doctrine concerning the attainment through Christ of salvation in the kingdom of God),
It seemed good and desirable to me, (and so I have determined)also after having searched out diligently and followed all things closely and traced accurately to the course from the highest to the minutest detail from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, (Acts 1:1.)
Any student that cannot read and speak fluently, by my own assessment, never attended any school. You can be a freelancer.
That’s right but as long as you cannot stand and read boldly; speak boldly, to me, you have no experience in passing through the four walls of that institution. If you happen to be a bright student, nobody should even tell you to read.
We have produced students in our midst so much that I now want to see people scrambling. Whenever I say read, I want to see not less than twenty (20) rushing, grabbing the scriptures but you do not do it because there is no enthusiasm; there is no zeal. You now have traditional Bible readers.
Once I say, “read”, your eyes will be flickering left and right, trying to behold an ancient man who will stand up. Where is the strength of your youth? Shame on you! Even those that attempt to read cannot dictate fluently words as documented. Could it be you do not see the letter or you are afraid?
You can talk, chat and even rant from morning till night without getting tired but collect yourself, open your mouth, and then read to the hearing of your audience is very difficult.
If you want to be a good presenter of your documents/facts, learn to read on your own. Read out to your own hearing so that you begin to hear your diction. Invite your friends around, get a newspaper, and take a column, read it out.
Begin to practice it, your tongue must be free, your eyes must be sharp.
The essence of going to school is to study how to read and write. Any other thing is secondary. So if you do not know how to read and write, what are you? A illiterate. Not “an”. There is nothing like “an illiterate”. It goes with the article “a”. Yes.
You see why I have always been hammering on one thing. To the students in the Secondary Schools, buckle up immediately. As long as you have not chosen English language as your course, the much you know at the Secondary level is what you will use all your life.
Thus, if you do not have a good command of English Language at the Secondary level, you have forfeited it. You may know everything but your presentation may mar your works. Your horrible writing can make matters worse.
If you are not a good writer at the Secondary level, you will be the worst at the University level because the higher you go, the worse your writing becomes for you will be writing faster than ever so as to grasp facts which you will develop after. You will not be mindful of your writing. You will only be mindful of the shorthand. I call it shorthand.
Anyway, this is part of the corrupt system. Corruption has eaten deep in every facet of our economic life, our social life, our domestic life; even in our religious life. Corruption can be traced to every aspect of human life.
It is corruption that eroded away completely the quality of our educational system. Operators of our educational system now lay great emphasis on money acquisition: what we see there, if it is not checked, will be the end of education in our own generation- recycling of antiquated, mundane information; relics of the colonial era! That’s what we are seeing there.
No lecturer has any time to come up with new ideas, facts. Instead, they overburden the students by giving them assignments meant for their own research.
They now use the students to do the research for them by giving those assignments to the students which will now take them to the internet. Students will now be dying while browsing to get the information. You think it is to enable them pass. It is to enable the lecturer write his or her own project. They now use students.
Without students, no lecturer updates his information again. We know all these truths; that is why some of the topics they give students for their projects are topics that are not meant for their levels, not meant for their levels at all and they are sure and certain: they know what they want to use the information for. Anyone that is writing his or her PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) Thesis must use students to do the research. Whatever might be the assignment will be assigned to the student who will now die while browsing.
Well, corruption is corruption. I want to narrow my own down to something.
As long as many have taken it upon themselves, to write, to speak, to proffer opinion about the economic recession that has bedeviled Nigeria, for which cause Nigeria has been earmarked for public auction and it must go to the highest bidder. Debates are on and counter debates.
Some are of the opinion that Nigeria should not be sold to a private investor- one man possessing the nation.
Remember many years ago, I spoke to you concerning the state of the nation; why it will be almost impossible to check crime in Nigeria, that crime will continue to increase with every passing year. I made it clear that the gap between the rich and the poor in Nigeria had become so wide, that there is nothing that had been put in place to bridge the gap.
I equally made it clear that we are living in a society where it is believed that the end justifies the means. Hence, people are no longer interested in how people amass wealth.
You see people of great opulence with money meant for the nation, coming out to buy national, not national, buying Nigeria. I cited it again that Nigeria has become another Haiti where an individual is richer than his country.
In any community, society or nation where it is strongly believed that the end justifies the means, nobody is mindful of how people get to the top. Corruption must be in its peak.
As I speak, I encourage you to go back to my messages if you want to know how far I have addressed these issues. Even the issue of insurgence, I have addressed.
The issue of kidnapping, I was the one that announced it. Suicide bombing, I announced it ahead of time when there was no such thing, no sign that it could be possible. Before your eyes, they have come to stay. Amen.
The Chibok girls issue is an unending issue. While we are talking about Chibok, Lagos has started dancing. The second time students have been whisked away in the schools in Lagos. Second time. And ransom is being demanded to release innocent children who are suffering like us.
Well, I will not speak much there because each time a notable figure is kidnapped; you will see security agents coming fully out for the rescue of the person.
Notable women were arrested within a fortnight now, carried away to unknown places. Prominent among them was the CBN Governor’s wife- Emefele. The Police went all out with the helicopter in the air and secured her release.
Another one, the former minister of environment, who was kidnapped alongside the husband en route Abuja-Kaduna road. The Police went all out. Now, we are still watching. Amen.
2
THE STATE OF THE NATION (4)
I want to say few words concerning this hydra headed problem confronting everybody. We are not running away but before I say anything, let me first of all remind you of what God earlier said on this matter.
Far back 1993 in the message SIGNS OF OUR TIME, God came fully all out to announce to us what we must surely expect. Things that were happening that time and things that will happen thereafter so that when they will begin to happen, we will not complain like the others.
We will not be feeling amazed, we are in a better position to understand the handwriting on the wall for we had earlier been told. Is it not true?
Nevertheless, to those that want to achieve the impossible, I will also proffer my own opinion, my own idea which I believe if they will hear Me and do a little out of the much I will say, they may postpone the evil day a little.
Remember, whatever remedial measures that are being put in place now are aimed at postponing the evil day, not deleting it. Is that right?
How many will like to stay here a day longer? Who is shaking his head? You want to stay. You still have your laudable programmes, projects you will like to execute even in the next hundred (100) years.
Better face facts. When you are tired of staying here, I will know. Not when your landlord gives you quit notice, you will remember translation and immortal body. Any day your money falls short of your needs, you will now remember immortality.
We are not going to be transformed or taken away because of anything. These things will happen because God had already decided on that and has fixed the day it will happen, the hour. Not because you are suffering or you are dying, or not dying.
It is a day that is known unto the Lord and it can never overstay by a single second. Your duty is to be in the right mind as we wait for that day. Will it come to pass? Yes!
As we are living witnesses and partakers of this latter day visitation, in diverse forms which were prophesied, predicted by the prophets of old, waited for by our fathers, but it could not happen in their day. But in our own day, these things are coming to pass. So, we believe the remaining will also come to pass in our own day.
I am sure and convinced that we are going to round off the record, we are going to close the record. There is no other generation that will wind up this programme. We that are still talking today, that are still alive; we are going to wind it. Amen.
Now, many have taken it upon themselves to organize seminars, symposia, all aiming at addressing our problems the much they know about it and I have always been emphasizing on the need for diagnosis before therapy. Diagnosis before therapy.
This very afternoon, I wish you give Me a little audience. Let me trace few things back. Many of you may not know what I am going to say until I come to your levels.
I am not going to rehearse the history of Nigeria again. That, I had already done long, long time ago.
I have made a documentation on that. Thus, in your best interest, I will start from where you know to where you do not know. Let me believe that I am talking to people that are here seated within the age bracket of 25 years and above. The young shall grow. When the rest shall come to this age bracket, if we are still in this flesh, they will remember.
Another reason, let me put down something for posterity. If the world is not enriched by our website, there will not be this type of marvelous response. I believe that Christ has become the riches of the world. Amen.
This country called Nigeria existed before the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates. You know, when we say north and south, some people may have their eyes on the Eastern Region extraction.
Because the first arrangement, do not fail to understand that the North and South I am going to refer to is to enable us have a comprehensive purview of where the problem started. Before the amalgamation, three nations existed. Three distinct nations existed. The Northern Protectorate, the Southern protectorate and the Lagos Colony.
Please, bear with Me, I am not an historian and of all the subjects I have ever read, I have never for one day thought it wise to open any history book, the author notwithstanding. Even at the elementary level, I hate story telling.
At secondary level, I had two options. Of the two options, I said “No”. Let them continue to write zero, zero, absent. That is their business because I never knew they could help me in life.
If I want history, I look at Zodiac. Three distinct nations were fused together in 1914 by the man who was sent here with his wife to administer the affairs of the lower Niger Basin.
Remember, there was that struggle for colonization of people and the struggle was between Britain, France, Spain in particular. The Spanish, the French and the British.
The great continent we refer to as America today; remember America is not a country; America is a continent like Africa. So, when you want to compare- like I used to hear some stupid legislators trying to compare Nigeria to America- that America is made up of 50 states and yet they are governable. Shut up your mouth!
What do you know about America? Every state in America is a country. Every state in America, I mean whether you call it Florida, every state is a country. They have country status and they are treated as such.
Remember that Britain colonized America for many years. The struggle for liberation caused America to enter into civil war with Britain. So Britain allowed America to go as a result of civil war.
Too many countries fought wars to liberate themselves from the old colonial imperialism. Prominent among them were the countries in the West African Coast. The West African Coast, the Lower Niger.
France rushed, Britain rushed, struggled to colonize as many as they could. Britain struggled to colonize this lower Niger but it was very difficult for them to convince the Northerners.
For the Northerners suspected them very badly and that was where the mistake started. If they had allowed the Northerners to stay on their own, colonize us and give us a name, Nigeria with the Northern Muslims and Southern Christians, we would have been like North Korea and South Korea.
But they were thinking that that will not help them get exactly what they were thinking. More so, when France rushed and colonized Dahomey which is now Benin Republic, colonized Togo. Rushed across and colonized Ivory Coast which is Cote D’Ivoire. So, Britain was struggling with Kwameh Nkruma and the rest of them, Osei Tutu and Osei Kwambe, to colonize Ghana- Gold Coast- because of the gold.
Immediately they finished with Ghana, they gripped Nigeria. Hence, Ghana had their independence before Nigeria. And if you watch all Francophone countries, they are very small in size.
There are some of them that are not qualified to even be a state-like Benin Republic. It is smaller than Lagos which is considered to be the smallest state in Nigeria; that is Lagos State.
Yet, Lagos State is larger, much greater in population than Benin Republic. A country with only three hundred and fifty policemen, one hundred and eighty soldiers with a population of less than five million people when I know that Imo State alone is more than fifteen million.
Sene-Gambia, that is how we put it. Yes now. Two nations, two countries that cannot even sustain themselves economically and otherwise- Senegal with the capital in Dakar and then Gambia with the capital in Banjul (Barthust).
Because they cannot exist, they now tried to have a union. They now fused and still holding on to their capitals and then, they now go by the name Sene-Gambia, which is a merger. But look at this big nation called Nigeria- Kano is by far greater, much more populous than Sene-gambia. Now, in Nigeria in particular, it is believed that we have an estimated number of 720 different languages with over 1000 and more different cultures in this same nation.
Hence they said they must surely achieve “UNITY IN DIVERSITY” –a useless slogan that does not hold any water. How can there be “unity in diversity” in a multilingual, multi-religious, multicultural, everything is multi, multi, multi. Who understands who? Who is prepared to shift for whom?
Now, look at the background of the place where we are. What is more, this is the largest amalgam of many countries with one name Nigeria, with the highest number of illiterates in Africa. It then means Nigeria is fraught with primitive inhabitants.
Who can believe that up till today, in spite of our enlightenment in the south-east extraction, some states, some local governments are still being designated as educationally disadvantaged areas?
Begin now to think about the less privileged extreme north like Nguru, Kaura Namoda,Iyawuri, Birnin Kebbi and the rest of them- even Kriwa.
How many have ever been to Mubi? The only educational institution there is Federal Advanced Teachers college Mubi.
How many people are there? Siting higher institutions in areas where people are being paid for them to go to school. Up till today, we still have nomadic education and you must go them with alms, gifts of all sorts, with money if you must compel them to come to school.
Here in the South, you see, the majority that are of the opinion that what matters is money, that whether you read and do this and that, that at the end of the day, what counts is money.
For that reason, it is useless to go and waste their time in the classroom, all in the name of getting certificate. This is our own philosophy here.
Hence, about 65% are either not educated or semi-educated. And you know that half baked bread appears to be more dangerous than ordinary flour.
Now, tell me the miracle that will blend together these categories of people that cannot understand and cannot even understand the feelings of one another. What has it resulted to? The few elite, the few educated ones want to dominate the majority because they feel they are enlightened.
Education has given then the privilege of playing dominating roles. Hence, the wealth of the nation is now in the hands of few individuals, while the greater population of people is living in abject penury without any hope of survival.
Check the population of Nigeria and then pause a little, and I will check the number of habitable houses. I said ‘habitable’. Some of the things we regard as houses are not houses. They are shanties, huts.
Do you know that in many parts of Nigeria today, many are still using straw as corrugated iron roofing sheet? You call it zinc. They use ordinary mud to make their blocks,use straw to cover the roof.
Even often times, they use dried grass, straw knit together as their window blinds. Some use it to make door. I remember my experience in Dadinkowa, Lantang South in Plateau State. Brother Ben you were there with me, with Brother Ojiakor, where we saw hell. When you see these brethren that come here from Zonkwua, Godogodo or Kafanchan, they are refined. They are the best we fished from that area.
I cannot forget My experience at Yeruwa and the boundary between Yeruwa and Shendan, all in My missionary assignments. If you have not traveled out, you will not know what we are saying. Have you ever watched the people that have been displaced from their homes due to insurgence? Watch where they were living before the insurgence. Horrible sights that are not meant for human beings. Yet, this is a civilized nation that has clocked 56 years. I call it 56 “wasted years”.
56 years of public deceit. You want to talk about recession, you must know the beginning before you begin to notice when you started dwindling. What was the beginning? What was your population in the beginning?
How many mouths were you taking care of? How many human beings were you taking care of their health? How many hospitals were there in the beginning? Who and who were running those hospitals? How many schools? How many universities?
Why proliferation of all these higher institutions? Is it not to meet the needs of the teeming population that is exploding every day? Remember we are talking about the blend called Nigeria which they said it is unity in diversity. Now, remember the law of stimulus.
Remember the law of stimulus; plant your tree inside your house, allow it to sprout, leave it there. Watch, the direction of the beam of the sun determines where the tree will tilt.
Since the type of governance we got from the colonial masters was purely intellectual and we had few intellectuals drawn from a particular geographical area, where do you think governance will be tilting towards? And where it was to have settled, had not the academic intellectual wherewithal to sustain it, if it must rest there, it must be wrestled out.
The law of nature, the law of natural justice must be defied. If you stick to the law, it will never tilt there. I will not go to the history about the handover and the handover document and what was read and how it was nullified few hours after by a nationwide broadcast by late Tafawa Balewa. I am not going there anymore for I believe I have tutored you.
Now remember, as a result of our blindness for we were all fixed on having our own political independence. We wanted to get out of the colonial tutelage, that colonial imperialism that was biting harder and harder. We were struggling to get rid of it at all cost.
Now, the people blinded us because of our low esteem, because of our poor vision. They blinded us from noticing where their interest was. They were of the opinion that whatever might be the result of our sweat, if we must live by those things we must also sell those things to them. So, they gave us agriculture. Nigeria became an agro based nation. Not oil based nation. Oil was there, oil was tapped, mined, siphoned away.
Nigeria never knew the fact. Let me tell you what it is like. I remember when we were still too small- at the primary level of education, my mother even practised it. They would do that their little farming around the house, their gardens and things like that. You know, they were farming for subsistence, no more; no less.
Whatever they said farming was, was at subsistence level. Good. So, they would cultivate their vegetable, harvest it and take it to the market. Then, they would invite the wife of the school teacher to buy the very best of the lot, because to them, the best produce should be reserved for the educated, enlightened teachers and those serving the reverend fathers.
Teachers were everything in the society. Highly esteemed, highly regarded. They were the richest so their wives were living sumptuous lives. So, do not ridicule teachers today, they enjoyed their days that time.
That was exactly what happened there- agro based economy. Here in the south where we have luxuriant trees because of heavy rainfall, we took to production of palm oil, palm kernel. Then, the Northern states took to production of cotton seeds and groundnut.
The western region took that their single product –cocoa and it yielded dividends. Because of that, Nigeria agreed in the mess enshrined in the constitution without having their eyes on the oil: That the natural resources of every geographical area, that the natural resources of every geographical area; that time, regional arrangement, should be allowed to be controlled by that region.
They did not see the oil, they did not see the coal, they did not see the tin that was mined in Jos, the columbite, and the iron ore. They were having their eyes basically on agricultural products. So, these ones were unknown.
These things continued. Now, watch the funniest thing, as Nigerians were producing these agricultural products, the same colonial masters that set us free were our major buyers. We were exporting them to them. And they were running it as a cartel.
They were dictating the price they would buy- the buyer himself fixing the price at which he will buy and if you refuse to sell to him, the thing will get rotten for we do not have any system of preservation here. Even till today, we cannot preserve our agricultural products.
Production of rice was Abakiliki that time, though others might be producing but Abakiliki was much more pronounced. Now, we continued. That agriculture could only nourish and feed few individuals for the population as at that time was very scanty.
As we journeyed along, precisely in the year 1976 and that as the time Obasanjo took over, Nigeria discovered the value of oil. The little they accumulated within that period they decided to exhibit, I mean an unnecessary air of affluence, to the whole world.
Obasanjo summoned the whole world for FESTAC- First African Cultural Exhibition, invited the whole world to come and chop oil money, built a village overnight in Lagos along Lagos-Badagary expressway called it FESTAC Village; imported luxury buses that vanished from the streets immediately after the exhibition.
The whole world came to Nigeria and ate our wealth up like grasshoppers. To God be the Glory. Amen.
3
THE STATE OF THE NATION (5)
I want you to know what recession is all about, why the noise, the noise about recession.
Ask me when the recession started; I say it was when emphasis shifted from agriculture to a mono-based economy, instead of diversifying. When agriculture was booming, oil was discovered, Nigeria would have combined the two.
But immediately they saw that there was money in oil and more so, oil was discovered in an area that is highly enlightened, nearest to the coast, agriculture was suppressed. All eyes were on the oil to get the best from that area.
Are you surprised why from one military regime to another, all of them were from one geographical area? Operation capture natural resources from that area! We were watching the drama. Whoever that held the barrel of the gun dictated the state of the economy. Economy tilted to one side, hence, one side claimed dominance over oil wells. Begin to see the imbalance.
Now, those that could have continued in the agriculture that had already been abandoned went into merchandise. Nobody ever remembered there could be anything manufacturing.
Emphasis was laid on merchandise, importing finished goods. The Southern extraction that is known for their industry and high sense of criminality now took the way of merchandise to the neglect of agriculture.
Because of mass illiteracy, they began to think that what it takes to develop an area or nation is nothing but erection of mansions. They started erecting mansions instead of erecting human beings. Having infrastructure without the personnel to man the infrastructure amounts to having nothing.
I am tracing recession, this was a country that was supposed to take off from that day it received the mantle of freedom. Instead of taking off, look at how they started mismanaging themselves, their natural resources, even the small amount of manpower they could boast of. Remember that as at that time, almost all productive ventures owned by Federal or State Government were manned by expatriates for there was no Nigerian that was qualified to manage any of them.
Immediately Nigeria noticed what was happening, they came up with indigenization policy. Indigenization policy was aimed at disarming expatriates, dispossessing them of those key positions, replace those positions with Nigerians.
When Nigeria entered there, they saw something that beat their imaginations hollow. “Eh?! Is this how it is? So, while taking my bath in the stream, I have allowed soap lather to enter my eyes.” It then became “operation grab it all”.
Hence, the introduction of the most expensive system of government. They changed from parliamentary that used fewer hands to achieve the best to democratic arrangement where every Tom, Dick and Harry will now be free to play politics in their own way, according to their own perceptions.
Remember, we have too many perceptions about playing politics. Today, politics has become a cancer in Nigeria, not meant for the academia but for the sycophants, nonentities, never-do-wells, an ignorant man in the main market who cannot read and write.
I remember, was one time speaker in Anambra State House of Assembly. The man that fought, the man that used to sell chieftaincy, Mike Akigbe in the days of Chimaroke, and Mbadinuju… I remember there was one other illiterate, a native doctor, Nkwonnabuchi who became a member and also commissioner for works.
I want you to begin to see the type of politics, the type of perceptions. People started seeing politics as a lucrative business. What is more, when it is purely tailored along the lines of “winner takes all” – Who will like to be the loser then?
Politics that was tailored along this line became very flowery, very attractive, and more attractive than the civil service job. Everybody started gunning for political positions from the base level. Base, I mean, from ward level. A ward chairman is richer than the permanent secretary in any ministry because of the level of money that is being pumped there.
What is more? You are talking about recession. Government started sponsoring politics. People form political parties; government fund political parties. I think political parties should be funded by the owners of the parties. Government started doling out billions to sponsor political parties.
It came to the days of Babangida, he said he will run Nigeria with his own two parties- NRC and SDP. He placed the two giants and commanded Nigerians to enroll, make your choice from the two. Government built the secretariat using Federal money.
Government even funded political campaign. Hence, no campaigner ever lost a dime; for the money he was spending was not his personal money. Money that could have been diverted to meaningful purposes; money that could have been used to provide infrastructure, amenities for the nation. Money meant for the masses was diverted to individuals. Is there something you keep eating and it will not get finished?
As we journeyed along, Nigeria started noticing that the expenditure was greater than their income. Hence, deficit financing – borrowing money to entertain the public. Whoever that indulges in that is a mad fellow.
When your expenditure is greater than your income, automatically you have become a debtor. You have become a debtor. Nigeria started dwindling, receding until Nigeria became a debtor nation. Hence, IMF came to our rescue by giving us conditionalities which compelled Nigeria to devalue her highly valued currency. Devaluation wave set in; devalue your currency and devalue your economy, devalue your standard of living.
The value of economy of any nation determines the value and standard of living of the inhabitants of that nation. It goes along to determine the quality of products they will enjoy, the quality of health they will enjoy, the quality of education they will enjoy, the quality of roads, the quality of transportation, the quality of everything!
Begin to see where it started receding. Then, devaluation move set in; because Agriculture was set aside, all eyes were on one product. Nigeria started running a mono propelled economy; Single product-propelled economy.
Now, Nigeria tied our oil to the super cartel called OPEC. OPEC that has the ability to regulate oil prices and also to regulate production and supply. Then, we began to hear about quota. Nigeria cannot supply more than her quota- quota allotted to Nigeria.
Even if we have oil that will fill the world, we cannot exceed the quota that is allotted to us. We have products that could give us money if we should liberalize the sale. But there was no way we could liberalize it for we were tied and our problems were increasing daily while income was dwindling daily.
You must know the root cause of your problem before you begin to proffer solution. As we continued to devalue our currency, inflation now set in, for there is no way you can devalue your currency without increasing your rate of inflation. Because by right, currency should not be devalued. It will take the forces of demand and supply to determine the price of everything.
Nigeria started using policy instead of allowing market forces to determine what should be the real value of money. In order to obtain loan, they met all the conditionalities that were given to them by IMF and World Bank and made a horrible mistake of employing agents of the organizations; made them their financial advisers, starting from Kalu Idika Kalu up to Ngozi Okonjo Iweala.
Even the present Kemi Adeosu is equally a staff of World Bank. Hence, all of them are dancing to the tune of their mother employers. For whatever they will achieve in the third world in African States will determine the position they will occupy at the world level.
They started giving the advice that will impoverish our economy. As we continued to devalue, so we continued to get impoverished. Why? To enable us obtain loan with huge interests. Then, Nigeria started running a puppet economy, economy that is being dictated by foreigners. Foreign organizations are now dictating.
Whenever they say Nigeria is overvalued, Nigeria will devalue. To crown it all, the stupid first doctorate degree holder – Jonathan, came, a zoologist, to handle the economy like a beast.
And then, because of his inferiority based on the area from where he was from and his poor background; he succumbed to pressure at the center and allowed his cohorts to vandalize what was left by the palmerworms, the caterpillars, the cankerworms vandalized. Operation carry it- if you want. While he was carrying, they were also carrying. He had wonderful collaborators.
Now look at the economy that is ailing, economy that has become epileptic. Do not crucify our current president. He is the most realistic president that has ever mounted this throne starting from the days of ShehuShagari till today.
I stand here, I make bold to say it and I can defend it wherever I go. After all, am I seeking any government appointment? Never! Am I a government megaphone? No! I want to make a recording that can be credited to Me and this Faith, that we know the origin, we know the problem. Now listen, because of our nature of politics, our Independent National Electoral Commission was given a free ticket to register even a kitchen as a political party.
What have we produced in the end? Remember, I am just trying to summarize a millennial problem, using two hours. I am trying to attempt it to see whether I can give you a bird’s eye view of what this all elaborate problem is all about. Let me see whether I can compress it into a unit and give it a name.
The solution is not yet in sight. I am coming to something. Because of the nature of our own politics here – winner takes all, politics became a very big investment which has now attracted the attention of the banks.
Banks now sponsor politics by doling out huge loans to politicians to enable them carry out their campaign. How can an investor borrow money from the bank with huge interest without paying back? Think about it.
Does the kite go to a market where he will not make profit? Can one get loan from the bank for campaign, buying clothes for the masses, distributing bags of rice, giving cash, bribing and making court cases without the hope of getting the money back from somewhere?
Is there any other product he is going to display from where he will realize the money he expended? Have you seen why they are ready to kill, they are ready to abduct; they are ready to do everything to make sure they win. Because they know that if they do not win, all the collaterals they used are gone.
Where are they expecting the money to come which they will use to pay back the money they borrowed from bank with the accrued compound interest and still make their own profit? Why would Nigeria not crumble? Why can Nigeria not crumble? Nigeria has lasted long. A nation that has been sick for over 56 years. If the sickness kills her today, did it kill her early? No Sir!
When squanderers, destroyers, vandalizers fill our political terrain and you want Nigeria to stand up in the comity of nations? Impossible!
Watch what I am saying. In their attempt to grab the nation’s cake, there is always a struggle that can never allow the proposed unity in diversity to be taken serious. How can I take you serious preaching unity in diversity when I know that every ethnic group, every state in Nigeria wants to be on its side? Why? We do not like ourselves, we do not love ourselves.
How can there be unity in the midst of dislike and hatred? We do not feel free with one another more especially when we are separated by language, culture or one thing or the other. And you want me to believe in this your so-called unity in diversity without mutual trust, mutual understanding, mutual tolerance?
If you watch our politics, they are all politics of disunity. Our politicians preach unity but fan the embers of disunity in all their political campaigns. Even in their administration, in their governance; there is apartheid in every government house. There is no government house in Nigeria without apartheid. If a person gets up there, he gets his own people.
You now discover that even, people can now engage in more than seven (7) employments at the same time. He is a trader, he is a civil servant, he is a politician, he is this and that, he is company chairman, he is heading tribunal, and he is heading one panel or the other.
Then, we began to see ghost workers. Names will be appearing in the payroll of every salaried department. Ghost workers will outweigh the real workers, earning fantastic salaries without anybody checking them.
Some will stay at home with the introduction of e-payment, only to be receiving alert, receiving promotion without anybody seeing those that were promoted, those that were being paid.
Whatever you continue eating without replenishing will finish one day. Recession means that Nigeria cannot generate enough revenue to meet her daily needs. The needs of the inhabitants can no longer be met. Electricity is epileptic.
But remember, there is something I cannot say here now. When I will speak on the brain behind privatization of public enterprise, I will rip open the buttocks of many, put it in the air. Let me die if I do not defend it. Of course they know I will defend it.
Begin to see a heterogeneous system of government that attracts the attention of Dick and Harry. Everybody wants to be employed whether the person is qualified or not.
Before you know it, we see another great problem that we can no longer solve- misplacement of values. Misplacement of values. We begin to see a lawyer clamouring to be minister of agriculture. You begin to see a medical doctor striving to be minister of energy, metallurgical and meteorological this and that.
We begin to see people that did not go to school becoming directors extraordinaire. We begin to see flood of personal assistants and by the creation of that personal assistant department, Oh no! the number of personal assistants are by far greater than the number of the members of the National Assembly put together. And these personal assistants, we do not know who they are assisting and in what capacity.
It now boils down to over bloated cost of governance. Cost of governance became over bloated. For every government house, there is a department, a ministry, a section carved out for the office of the first lady, a lady that was doing basically nothing.
Some that were classroom lecturers will ask for leave of absence. They will still be receiving salaries from their schools and at the same time, serving as politicians with their numerous workers in their own departments as first lady office.
Offices that will be created with huge sum of 2.6 billion every month earmarked for the maintenance of the offices of the first lady throughout the 36 states of the federation.
Now watch, there is no state government that does not run or have in Abuja, Presidential liaison office, where the president can never step in until he comes down from his office. Workers are there, vehicles are there. Who is maintaining? Government! Check the way they shuttle abroad. They are at will to shuttle abroad and they do not travel without entourage, a minimum of 30 people.
Remember, these things are weighing on the little we have so far borrowed from the outside world for our sustenance. Borrowing money to run your family rubbishes your family. A family that is depending on borrowed money can never go far.
What am I saying? When we can no longer meet our domestic needs, the foreign reserve is completely exhausted, no help in sight. Corruption has siphoned the whole money away.
Corruption, I do not need to talk about that one again because everybody is now corrupt. Even students in our midst are corrupt. All of them are corrupt. Yes! They know they are corrupt if you know the meaning of corruption. Go back to your dictionary; look for the meaning – corrupt and corruption.
Government now uses money they could have used to better the lot of the nation, in things that are not even worthy to be mentioned. They began to organize useless gatherings.
Can you imagine how much that was spent in the national confab in 2014, organized by Goodluck Jonathan only for the current president to say that the outcome was a useless paper?
A useless paper came out of three months confab where they were spending almost one trillion naira for the exercise, to produce a useless paper.
Those that are clamouring for restructuring of Nigeria, they should come out and tell us how they want Nigeria to be restructured. How can you restructure a nation that is made up of thirty-six states and is being sustained by wealth coming from only nine states?
Maybe you do not know that the wealth sustaining Nigeria is derived from only nine states. The rest are depending on the nine states. How do you want to restructure Nigeria?
Even the creation of states, because they were trying to avoid civil war; they do not want any geographical area to gather enough strength to begin to clamour for a change of government.
They now split Nigeria into thirty-six pieces. Some you call states do not worth to be states. It is not a state until it has revenue generating ability to take care of its internal problems, domestic expenditure.
Federal allocation is not for domestic expenditure, it is for capital expenditure. But you now discover that states now use federal allocation to now finance domestic expenditure including salaries. Why? They are not stable. Let Me use My own state for example, what makes Imo State a state? Tell me whether there is any main market that generates revenue in Imo State.
The highest market Imo State can boast of is Orlu Market; look at Orlu Market along the main road, there is no good structure there. Nothing, nothing. No road. That is the biggest market in Imo State.
Okigwe has no market. The whole of Mbaise made up of three local governments, you can see Eke Uvuru Main Market behind my house. That is our main market. No industry, no manufacturing venture. Imo State has only educational institutions and education does not generate money. Education is a taker, not a giver. How can Imo State exist as a state?
Cast your mind back. It is better we revert to the old arrangement. East Central State arrangement so that the South-East extraction will form one state. If they can revert to that old system –twelve states, to run Nigeria will become very easy. Then, states will begin to harness their natural resources and begin to tailor their needs to meet their revenue generating abilities.
Immediately Abia State was removed from Imo State, what was left of Imo State became a name. Amen. So what am I trying to say? The cost of governance was over bloated. When you reduce the number of states to twelve, automatically you have reduced the number of constituencies.
You have reduced the number of governors, you have reduced the number of those that will flood the government to the barest minimum. If we must succeed, as we want to diversify; I do not want to call it “diversify”, let us go back to Agriculture.
Let us revert to status quo anthe – as it was in the beginning. Twelve states, twelve governors, twelve senatorial districts where we will be having few senators, few members of the houses of representatives.
Do you know how much a senator earns every month? The salary of a senator in one year is more than the budget of a ministry for that year with its attendant allowances.
At the end of the four year tenure, he will go home with retirement benefits including repatriation allowance. But a civil servant that served for thirty-five years can hardly collect one-tenth of a senator’s repatriation. Where are you repatriating him to?
Hence, you see lawyers abandoning their chambers, lecturers abandoning classroom, business men abandoning their businesses. Everybody, even students are now in politics. Truck pushers, barrow pushers – everybody, market women, all of them are now in politics.
You see unbridled tendency to grab public money. What is more? The Church joined in the rat race, I say “the Church joined in the rat race and made matters even worse”.
Then other organs started feeling inferior to people that did not go to school, they never learnt any craft. Only that they are privileged to have their man as the governor, as commissioner; then what will stop somebody from staying on the main road to say “hold it there, open your boot. Oh, you want to pass like that? You think I dey here for nothing”. Yes! One will eat from where one is working.
Because of their poor politics, poor governance, inflation has risen to run-away heights, unacceptable heights! When salary earners are not getting a corresponding increase in their salaries, what do you expect them to do? They will do unimaginable things to survive. “After all, all of us own Nigeria. When God will judge, let him judge”.
Brethren, it is like I want to say “good morning” because I have not opened, I am still bubbling. I am laying a background. Amen