\u2013 By Gbenro Olajuyigbe
\nIf you do not address one trouble at a time in a nation with basketful of troubles and bizarre occurrences, you may lose your sanity. So, in this write up, i will not discuss the striking synonym between the lawless TAN and the now ethically challenged CAN, neither will i discuss the ever resurrecting Shekau, always killed, always re- incarnating! I will not even be tempted to discuss the revelations of Davis, the Negotiator the Federal Government procured from Black Market and the same Government\u2019s blind eyes against his stunting revelations on the sponsors of Boko Haram. Even though i know that the motivations for committing crime and promoting terror differ, i will not discuss the canonisation of Gen. Ihejerika and the Vilification of Alimodu Sheriff, the two indicted \u2018Boko Haram\u2019s Sponsors\u2019 by the hyperactive State Security Service(SSS).
\nI will rather focus on a government that continually breach my privilege as a citizen through addition to black market governance, a Pastor that lay down his Jet to carry arms instead of Bible and Tax Payers\u2019 Dollars illegally flown out but justifiably confiscated by the South African Government. I want to understand the concept of hypocrisy that made a government that is vigorously promoting Cashless Policy at home to criminally convey 49.3 Million \u2018Raw Cash\u2019 out of Nigeria. I want to understand the nexus between this Arms Race and the choice of a Pastor\u2019s Jet as conveyor.
\nThe scandal of the exportation of $9.3 Million \u2018raw cash\u2019 to South Africa for the purpose of procuring arms and ammunition by the Federal Government using a Pastor\u2019s private Jet is not only in the illegality of the act itself. It is also in the unveiling of the outlandish display of diplomatic failure it connotes. If a supposedly legitimate government has no friend in times of need with whom it can carry out legitimate business in globally accepted forms, it is time for the citizens upon whom such leaders rule to accept the fact that they dwell in diplomatic desert that has no oasis. That means all the so called foreign travels of the President and the members of his government for diplomatic reasons were mere tourism, in fact, sheer excursions! It means all the diplomatic missions we have in countries around the world are mere Presidential Liaison Offices.
\nOrdinarily, procuring arms and ammunition through black market is often the pastime of Rebels and pariah Governments undergoing sanctions or countries lightly diplomatically esteemed. Honourable nations follow the protocols of arms acquisition, leveraging on their diplomatic bilateral or multi lateral relationship with other nations. Although these are theories built on admission by the Federal Government that the money belonged to it. At, a second look, if the business had not gone off track and came into the open, could this have not been a case of money laundering? Criminal way of conducting government business?
\nAnyway, in the long run, a people deserve the type of government they get. . For those who are still asking how we ended up with this kind of leadership, the logic is simple. We ended up with this quality of leadership just the same way we have ended up with Boko Haram. The combination of people and citizens that do not bother about the affairs of their country; and rulers that do not care about the welfare of their people handed this country over to reckless rulers, Boko Haram and allied criminal gangs. Like other crime and misfortunes, we laid the foundation of crime and terror the very day we elected incompetent rulers. A nation of passive citizenry can never be saved from the embarrassment of unconstitutional hijack of power and authority by those the citizens have not elected. What you tolerate will end up controlling you; and that is if it does not consume you. Impunity is controlling us. It may end up consuming us.
\nPastors with Jets should also be reminded that God is not a cannon folder for unrepentant criminals in casocks. Sentiments of religion in this case of collaborating with government to break laws, breach principles of morality and swindle tax payers can not replace responsibility and duty. Indeed, in the words of Ursula W. Neibuhr \u2018the final contribution of religious faith to the whole problem of freedom is the freedom to confess our sins; the freedom to admit that we all stand under the ultimate judgement of God.\u2019 This is the time to confess and repent from the glaring failure of leadership, the sin of incompetence and the abomination of abdication of faith and responsibility. As, a Christian myself, i know that is what the true God takes pleasure in.
\nWolves in sheep\u2019s raiment! Gruesome and unrepentant sinners, irredeemable rogues and mindless looters, deceivers and corrupters of \u2018brethren\u2019 and citizens; perverters of gospel and preventers of virtue; people whose \u2018gods\u2019 are their bellies; all abominably calling the name of the true God in vain, just for political reasons. \u2018Even the very elect\u2019 are being deceived. Bishops and Pastors are provocatively and profanely yielding the Altars of the living God to looting rulers for political advertisement and advantage, furthering the vulnerability of the flocks they are expected to shepherd and protect from the fangs of the same wolves they highly esteemed. When the Bible says that the Church is \u2018the Pillar and Ground of truth\u2019, God was not looking for a Church that will be dining and wining with Kings and Queens of power. In fact, God was expectantly looking forward to seeing a Church that will become the conscience of society and state, not the megaphone of those that have been given to probate mind. When God said to His priests, \u2018feed my people\u2019, He (God) was not looking for a Gheazi that runs after silver and gold as Bishops and Shepherds of His people. He was looking up to seeing a Moses as Shepherds who will deliver his people from the tyranny of their \u2018Pharaoh\u2019; and a Elijah, who will uproot \u2018shrines\u2019 of injustices and bring an end to the reign of their ruling Priests in the land.
\nIn the Biblical genealogical expeditions and interactions between God\u2019s Prophets and the ancient Kings, Prophets were strictly going to kings on God\u2019s instructions to warn them of their misdeeds, miscarriage of justice and disobedience. They were going to kings to spelt out consequences of evils they did; and in some cases, with judgements attached. Today, they are \u2018prayer contractors\u2019, oracles between \u2018gods\u2019 and their prey in power, who have pleasure in serving \u2018gods\u2019 that do not bother about sins and abomination. Even, with the desecrations that are going on God is not mocked. The gospel can not be broken. Let those on the Altar learned from Paul the Apostle how to \u2018abase and abound\u2019, working on their own to provide for their own necessities, without licking from the pots of loot that take away truth from their mouths and justice from their hearts. Let them follow the advice of Benjamin Franklin that \u2018if you would relish food, labour for it before you take it; if you enjoy clothing, pay for it before you wear it; if you would sleep soundly, take a clear conscience to bed with you.\u2019
\nThe first work Jesus performed in Synagogue\/Church was to drive out robbers\/thieves who turned the House of God to \u2018den of robbers\u2019. Jesus passionately, fearlessly and aggressively did this with iron hand, chasing them out with frightening anger. The last miracle was to save a thief who turned away from his wicked way on the cross, while allowing the unrepentant second thief to rot in hell, the place of his choice.
\nToday, aided and abetted by wolves in \u2018shepherd\u2019s\u2019 robes, the same robbers that Jesus drove out of church have found their way back. Unlike the repentant thief on the cross, they are not willing to surrender their passion for sin. They are dancing and rejoicing in their iniquities , even as their pastors continue to beat the drums of \u2018God Understands\u2019 for them. Yet, they have become the Bishops of the destiny of the Nigeria nation; apostles of her transformation. They have taken Nigerians to the pinnacle of Mountain of temptation; showing and promising Nigerians arrays of tantalising \u2018silver\u2019 and \u2018gold\u2019 if only we bow down for them! Unlike Jesus in the wilderness of temptation, Nigerians are falling over one another to worship the stealers of their silver and gold, replacing the true God with gold; and His true Son with Silver.
\nTo fellow Nigerians who have ignorantly turned God to puppet who will put the food He has provided in their mouth, waiting for God to purify a country they are doing nothing about, be informed that God expects us to exercise faith; not to be frozen by it. When God enjoined us to exercise faith, His intension was not to destroy common sense. True faith is a bilateral agreement to work with God to destroy everything that \u2018exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. In our country today, these include: corruption, greed, religious and ethnic bigotry, hatred, looting and all forms of injustices. If we continue in any of these or seat in the midst of those rejoice in doing them, it does matter who you are, you do not know the true God. You are only frozen by \u2018faith\u2019! For all God cares, before Him, there is no difference between Peter, a Christian who is a thief and Monsrat, a moslem who is a looter. Nigerians are not looking for them in the garments of Moslem\/Christian ticket. Nigerians are looking for men and women with character, those that can rule over their own desires. Leaders that will not loot; leaders whose words are legal tender in the market of decent and honest people. That is the gospel of liberty to enjoined us to take to the uttermost part of the world.
\nThe Gospel of God is the Gospel that leads to salvation, freedom and eternal life of unspeakable joy. It is not the \u2018Gospel\u2019 of Politics; and not of Power without Purpose; that has created destitute out of diligent workers. It is not the gospel that rewards rogues at the expense of honest hard working compatriots! In Plato\u2019s words, \u2018all men are by nature equal, made, all, of the same earth by the same creator, and however we deceive ourselves, as dear to God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince\u2019. Now, that we have pastor in discretionally taking place in arm race, we must remind him that \u2018the sword of the spirit\u2019 effective to waging war as prescribed by God is the Word of God. It is essential that this lesson is bitterly learned; that even though rulers without morality are turning Niria int \u2018crimino- cultural\u2019 state of anything goes, God\u2019s Paradise does not come with Black Market Price Tag!
\nGbenro Olajuyigbe is an Abuja based Human Security Expert and a Human Rights Activist.
\nE:Mail: gbenroolajuyigbe@yahoo.com<\/p>\n
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