Former President Olusegun Obasanjo really put a big spanner in the works for President Muhammadu Buahri’s do-gooders on Tuesday. It was a day like never before for the unguided and unguarded praise-singers and bootlickers alike.
It was a repeat performance of what Obasanjo did to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in the hot build-up to the 2015 general election. His letter to Jonathan then was “Before It is Too Late.” The rest is now a painful history for Jonathan.
That is why our leaders, particularly Buhari, critically need our fervent prayers in these their perilous times. And we are willingly ready to offer the prayers not even for a fee! We did it before.
We will demonstrate our large hearts, and generously pray for them without ceasing. That gesture we promise and guarantee them.
It is scriptural in every sense. It is a divine command from the throne of God. As far as I know, it is unquestionable and beyond any human debate:
“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our savior,” 1 Timothy 2: 1-3 (NIV).
That is what the Holy Book says. Unfortunately, this particular scripture has been violently abused by our leaders. The more we prayed for them in the past, the more they violated our collective conscience and innocence. They have taken us for a rough ride in times past.
Now, we have bought into their strange change mantra. And we are right away going into serious intercession and “interference” for them. We will pour our hearts out for them this precarious time around.
We are going to be strictly guided and guarded by the biblical injunctions. The Bible did not specify the type(s) of prayers. But we should pray so “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives.” That we vow to adhere to.
We agree we have been praying amiss. That has been our greatest undoing, but that will be no more. We are resolute we will not miss it the way we have done before. We will do it differently.
We are in a better position now to pray appropriately. We will certainly pray all manner of weird and eerie prayers. We will be uncanny in our attitude. No foe, no friend.
Earnestly, we will pray off many of our idle, lazy and grossly incompetent leaders. We can easily identify them by their actions and inactions. They cut across board. They abound in all the parties, tribes and religions.
We have our prayer points and criteria close to our bony chest. We will fast, pray, cast down and lift up. We will pray vehemently, with greater intensity. We will Pray Until Something Happens (PUSH). We have devised different prayer points for different categories of leaders in Nigeria. We are genuinely going to pray for some, while we will really pray some out of our lives.
We are aware we are fighting against the principalities and powers of darkness. Imagine, these callous, wicked and heartless leaders. They found it convenient and audacious enough to talk about second term; while innocent lives are being lost to Fulani herdsmen’s carnage all over the country, particularly in Benue State.
These very shameful governors of little or no value. Let us hear Obasanjo out again in his “satanic” letter to Buhari:
“And it is a sad symptom of insensitivity and callousness that some governors, a day after 73 victims were being buried in a mass grave in Benue State without condolence, were jubilantly endorsing President Buhari for a second term! The timing was most unfortunate.”
Yes, such leaders we will definitely pray for them. We will prayerfully tell it to God to get them out of our lives. They are a huge burden on our fragile neck.
So, we are more than convinced that the battle is not ours, it is the Lord’s. And the victory is divinely assured.
It is a “fall-down-and-die” prayer time. On your knees, let’s pray…
…Just before you condemn Obasanjo
This is not playing the devil’s advocate, not even Obasanjo’s. It is not worth it. But consider this post. It was received a day before “Oracle” OBJ spoke, almost unedited:
“By the time OBJ came into power in 1999 Nigeria was a pariah state with most countries of the world having nothing to do with her. Most of the financial regulatory institutions had collapsed being plundered and looted at will over the past 16 years by successive military regimes.
Indeed, no one who lived in Nigeria could feign not to appreciate the weight of decay and rot that occurred in those 16 years. No one can also fault the argument that the liabilities inherent in the 16 years of military dictatorship were bound to outweigh those inherited from a civilian government, which is exactly what the APC government has been feeding the country since it assumed power in 2015 by repeatedly citing ‘what PDP did and did not do in the last 16 years.’
“But a dispassionate examination reveals the contrary. Within his first two years, to his credit, OBJ silently went about reengineering those dead and non-functional institutions like the Security Printing and Minting Company, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Finance by hiring the best hands, irrespective of their states of origin.
He established the following financial regulatory institutions to halt the culture of graft of the many years of military rule: The ICPC and EFCC, which the Buhari government is proudly utilising today, and the Due Process Office in the Presidency to check frauduelnt contract awards, etc.
“In the health sector, he established NAFDAC to halt the menace of fake drugs and to regulate the food and beverage industry. He established the NCC for the telecoms sector, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission for the power sector, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency for the environment and aviation sector, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) for the downstream petroleum industry.
“These are institutions OBJ never met on the ground but which he worked hard to float in order to resuscitate the economy that had been crippled during the 16 years of military era.
“Also to his credit is the strengthening of the following agencies with the hiring of the best brains to manage them: The National Privatization Council, Bureau of Public Enterprise, the Department of Petroleum Resources, Nigerian Stock Exchange, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigerian Universities Commission.
“Ask any APC faithful or Buhari aide why he is not functioning effectively and his first response will be, ‘what PDP did and did not do.’ They will reel out stories of mismanagement under the past 16 years of PDP rule.
“But throughout his first four years – and even the entire eight years of OBJ government, Nigerians were never made to understand that his ability to function and deliver good governance were severely hampered by what IBB did, what Abacha did not do, ND what Abdulsalam failed to do. OBJ and his ministers and aides never pre-occupied themselves with this sort of narratives as we have witnessed the APC do in the past two years plus.
“And even talking about debt (loot) recovery, OBJ went about it quietly. The recovery of the various sums looted by Abacha was a task he undertook with passion, just as he worked round the clock to get debt relief from global creditor institutions like the World Bank and IMF for Nigeria – debts which were incurred by his predecessors.”