OLUROTIMI AJIBOWO
When it began, it was like an irritating fly; scant
attention was paid to it by everyone. An Islamic cleric in Bornu State of
Nigeria had garnered some disciples which steadily increased. The growth of the
group was perceived as a latent threat, therefore the state and federal
governments moved in, ‘Rambo-style’, on the sect’s leader. The detained leader
eventually died in the state government’s custody and that turned out to be the
beginning of terror.
Reeling from anger at what they perceived as the murder of
their founder, the group rallied and that became the beginning of the Boko
Haram offensive on the society. Within months, from a simple ideology of
condemning Western education, the violence escalated to a point that they
started burning churches and schools. Everyone thought it as a bad dream that
would soon pass away.
That was not to be. Intelligence reports from America later
hinted that the violence was to soon include the phenomenon of suicide bombing.
Nigerians dismissed it, convinced that the average Nigerian, even in suffering,
loves life and living.
At the height of the Boko Haram operations, during the
Goodluck Jonathan administration, they had overrun several local governments in
three states of the North East, hoisting their flag and were making incursions
into others, including Abuja and Kano. As the nation was trying to grapple with
the suicide bombings, another dimension was added: abductions, notable among
which were those of the Chibok girls and lately, Dapchi. The spectre has been
with Nigerians for more than a decade and was one of the major reasons Goodluck
Jonathan was voted out of power.
On taking over, the Buhari administration recovered
significant areas previously occupied by the terrorists but a new phenomenon
was soon to arise in the face of the Fulani herdsmen. These, apparently
emboldened by the fact that one of their own, a Fulani, had become the president,
began a Jihad mission in the Christian populated Middle Belt States.
While the Herdsmen attacks ascribed to conflicts arising
from grazing routes, for discerning people, it has become obvious that the
exercise was a land-grabbing, ethnic cleansing agenda as the traditional
Christian inhabitants of many local governments in the Middle Belt have been
displaced and their homes and farms taken over by Fulani herdsmen while the
real owners languish in Internally Displaced Peoples camps.
What were the responses of the Church to these burnings,
bombings and displacements? Regular condemnatory press releases and visits to
government functionaries to complain. As it became clearer that the Church was
under attack, the more the leaders hoped that, like a bad dream, this evil
phenomenon will go away. Christians in the North, bearing the brunt of this
persecution, stepped up prayers and
individual and congregational defensive actions. Unfazed, they continued to
brave the odds to worship God.
There are two major fallouts of these developments that have
not been resolved: the first is that the Church has become more divided in that
Christians in the North feel abandoned by their Southern counterparts. Faced
with trauma, displacement, dispossession and several other abuses of their
human dignity, Christians in the South, like the government, offered no helping
hand, no relief and no commiserations. They simply left them to their fate,
locked up in their respective denominations. How sad!
However, the most indicting fallout is God’s viewpoint. Not
only did we fail to be our brothers’ keepers, we also abandoned Him. In all
that the Church went through, we failed to turn to the Lord as we ought to in
all the travails.
From about July last year (2018), at the height of the persecution
of Christians in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, the Lord began to give several
words from different sources about a greater impending attack on the Church.
The import of the word at the time had two possible scenarios; the first, based
on the Church continuing the way it was going and seeing the unprecedented
anger of the Lord as He allows the Fulani wearing the face of a Jihad, to
plunder everything and everyone that is a Christian, or we repent and He takes
charge of our oppressors.
While the major denominations have remained a-slumbering and
casual about needed repentance, a remnant company in the Church took the matter
up and even participated wholeheartedly in the 24hour marathon praise to seek
the face of God and His power for the deliverance of Nigeria.
Of important note also, is the stealth Jihad that had been
taking place simultaneously which has seen the greatest marginalisation of
Christians in the history of the nation in direct affront to the 1999
Constitution, Federal character principle and secularity provisions. A National
Christian Elders Forum report cites a 1989 Islam in Africa Conference meeting
that came forth with the following resolutions, now trending online:
·
To ensure the appointment of only Muslims into
strategic national and international posts of member nations
·
To eradicate in all its forms and ramifications
all non-Muslim religions in member nations (such religions shall include
Christianity, Ahmadiyya and other tribal modes of worship unacceptable to
Muslims
·
To ensure the declaration of Nigeria (the 24th
African and 46th World member of the OIC) a Federal Islamic Sultanate at a
convenient date, anytime from 28th March, 1990, with the Sultan of Sokoto
enthroned the Sultan and supreme Sovereign in Nigeria.
·
To ensure the ultimate replacement of all
Western forms of legal and judicial systems with Sharia in all the member
nations before the next Islam in Africa Conference.
The permanent headquarters of the Islam in Africa
Organisation shall be in Abuja, Nigeria, including structures and Constitution.
The conference decided that the steering Committee should work out detailed
plans for transforming a national political party in each member nation into a
National Islamic Party The leading party will produce the leading executive and
legislative officials. (NRC was to serve that purpose at the time). Nigeria at
that time donated $21billion to the Islamic Development Fund of the OIC. (Gen.
Babangida’s regime)
Take a look today and what do we have? Do we have any
Christian agenda? On the Jihad Agenda, two things so far led to a minimization
of the killings. First, a lot more people became aware of the agenda, sought
God and assaulted it with prayers and second, it became necessary for those in
power to bring about a decline in the massacres as the elections approach so
that it does not backfire in votes against the ruling party.
Let no one be deceived; while thesew may appear as little
victories, the motives and agenda behind the killings have not changed nor have
they been addressed. What is at the heart of it? The Fulani tribe is probably
the smallest in Nigeria and historically, were the last group of people to come
into the geographical space called Nigeria. Other tribes have long been in
existence in Nigeria. However, by holding on to power, deploying cunning, deft
planning and strategies, after over-running the Hausa States and placing Fulani
Islamic emirates over them well over a century ago, they intend to do the same
for the entire country using the instrument of Islam and turn Nigeria into an
estate of the Fulani.
If anyone is in doubt, they should look at the history of
governance in Nigeria and also look around them today. Across the length and
breadth of Nigeria, their foot soldiers have invaded towns and villages,
waiting for the striking command. This is why Islamic evangelism, as Christians
do to win converts, has been jettisoned, replaced by land grabbing by force and
displacement, killings and slaughter. Unfortunately, southern Muslims think it
is Islamic propagation at work.
These plans have continued for three major reasons: first,
the Church lacks an agenda, second, lack of unity in the Church makes different
denominations sing different songs on any issue and fail to see her enemies as
she ought to and finally, the Church has lacked a true understanding of the
Great Commission and even pay lip service to the little understanding she has.
For those who may not have appropriately discerned Nigeria's
current political landscape, in furtherance of the Fulani plan for holding on
to power, the main contender exited the APC back to the PDP so that once he
clinches the ticket of PDP, it will be a 'Head or Tail?' Fulani scenario:
either way, Fulani agenda for control continues.
Thus, as Nigeria faces the 2019 elections, we have two
Fulani candidates as Presidential aspirants of the two main political parties
in a country of about 400 ethnic nationalities. To further confuse us, they are
pretending as if they are at loggerheads with each other. How are Christians
reacting? Sleeping, slumbering and undiscerning.
While some are supporting the current president who was
brought in by a largely Christian vote and who, together with his alleged
cabal, have re-worked the heads and command structure of the security
architecture of Nigeria to comprise of about 90% Fulani (leaving the two
positions that do not control ground troops in the hands of other tribes), they
have seemed unable to curb the large scale murder of Christians and attacks on
Christian communities by Fulani herdsmen as they grabbed the ancestral lands of
the victims for the Fulanis of the world. As we run up to the elections, the
areas where Middle Belt indigenes have been driven out of their homelands have
today been renamed with Fulanis taking over. Yet the government, with all the
security might it possesses, seems to be unaware.
Others are supporting the main contender as “the lesser of
two evils” – a subtle reference to the trail of corruption allegations that
have dogged him through the years in the foolhardy assumption that he alone has
the clout and financial might to fight and clinch power from the current
president. Invariably, everyone has swallowed the Fulani agenda, hook, line and
sinker and the Fulani are smiling.
Today, many liken the incumbent’s performance in the last
three and half years to the same way he is alleged to have run down a major
government agency during the Abacha years, looking the other way as massive
fraud was perpetrated. As for the challenger, it is said that as Vice President
to a former president, he was in charge of the national privatisation efforts
where he supervised a corrupt programme where the solid prime assets of Nigeria
built by our heroes past, were allegedly sold to benefit cronies at gargantuan
losses to the Nigerian people. Most of those assets are dead or comatose today.
What should also be worrisome is the report that the challenger visited the
grave of Othman Dan Fodio at the start of his campaign; what could be the
implication of this?
A few weeks and days to the elections, most Christians see
no other alternative to these two. Whatever the outcome, it is most pathetic.
The truth is that ‘Head’ or ‘Tail’, we lose: and the reasons are not
far-fetched. Unless God intervenes in a special and mighty way, the prognosis
is that it would be hell on earth for Christians.
If the current president comes in again, you do not need a
prophet to know that immediately he gets a fresh mandate, the herdsmen,
emboldened by the new mandate, will quickly resume the killings and finish what
the Fulani started long before anybody can talk of new elections in four years'
time. By that time, they would have finalized and implemented their Fulani
“empire”. And if the challenger wins, how do you see a Fulani and a Muslim,
fighting his own stock, and his religion, more so now that we are told that the
Miyetti Allah have shifted allegiance to Him? On what basis? Has anyone
considered what he stands to gain? If it all falls through, he becomes a major
oligarch in the resulting Fulani empire and this is very much in line with his
personal interest and ambition. We may recall that he openly admitted that if
he succeeds, his regime will benefit his friends and cronies. For the records,
it must be noted that in spite of his reportedly being more open-minded, he did
not once openly condemn the Fulani herdsmen as they killed and swooped on
Christians, even in his home state of Adamawa.
In spite of all these, are Christians awake yet?
Unfortunately, No. Going into the elections, we behaved like the underdogs in
spite of our superior numbers. As we speak, there is no articulated Christian
agenda for reversing our losses. Either we see it or not, either we know it or
not, Christianity is in dire straits and there is grave danger ahead. And where
are our leaders at all levels and in the denominations? Why are they not
speaking out? Why have they abandoned leading? Do these actions not suggest
that the allegations that they have sold out are true?
So what do we do? Christians are urged to take the only
course of action that remains for us: to call on God as we also prepare and get
ready for the kind of change that God alone can bring. In this wise, let us
remember the experience of the Israelites as they went into captivity, the sort
as we are in today. By the time they got to the rivers of Babylon, their
captors began to taunt them to begin to sing for them the songs of Zion that
they sing unto God. It was then that the depths to which they had fallen hit
them. What happened thereafter? They sat down and wept, when they remembered
Zion. They thereafter hung their harps upon the willows and began to ask
themselves, “How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange (or foreign) land?”
(Ps 137:3 NKJV) The Church has been taken hostage. They thereafter
challenged God to remember how their enemies plundered Jerusalem and razed it
to its very foundations so that He would remember to take vengeance (Ps.
137:7). Today, we ought to be weeping that we are alive, yet we got to this
sorry pass. Like David said, “We do not see our signs; There is no
longer any prophet; Nor is there any among us who knows how long” Ps 74:9
NKJV
Our decisions, as Christians, ought to be based on Biblical
precepts, not our experience or wisdom at interpreting events. We must arise
again as the light of Nigeria. The Bible asks: “Or what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath
Christ with Belial? or what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? And
what agreement hath a temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor 6:14-16 ASV).
Again, the Bible says, “And when they
say to you, "Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and
mutter," should not a people seek their God?” (Is. 8:19 NKJV). In
seeking God, let us look at two examples and close.
The first is that the children of Israel had been four
hundred years in a strange land and though they were the majority in the land
(Ex. 1:9), they were oppressed by the minority Egyptians – similar to what we
have in Nigeria today. (We have witnessed different kinds of impunity.) After
four hundred years of slavery, from generation to generation, it would have
seemed there could be no change. But what did they do? The Bible says,
“Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried
out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So God heard their
groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with
Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them”.
(Ex 2:23-25 NKJV). In acknowledging them, He sent Moses as deliverer.
In another scenario, God’s people were at the bank of the
Red Sea, hemmed in by mountain ranges yet pursued by Pharaoh, the king and his
well equipped army, fuming with vengeance and fury. It looked like a complete
dead end with nowhere to escape. Even in that hopelessness, Moses dared to look
up to God. What happened? God made a way, the unprecedented happened; the sea
opened up into a highway of escape as blindness covered the pursuing army until
they passed. When they were safely ashore on the other side, God made the same
sea the Waterloo of their enemies.
Why should we look up? Looking up and crying to God is the
demonstration of our faith and God ALWAYS responds to faith and trust in Him.
Secondly, He has given us the power to judge wickedness. It is written: “Let
the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two-edged sword in their hand,
To execute vengeance on the nations, And punishments on the peoples; To bind
their kings with chains, And their nobles with fetters of iron; To execute on
them the written judgment — This honor have all His saints. (Ps 149:6-9
NKJV). The Bible says that this honour has been given to all the saints of
God. Let us exercise it. Finally, He has given us the mandate of the Great
Commission, His commandment to go into the world not just to make disciples of
all nations but to bring the world in subjection to His will on earth.
Thus when the nations have finished with hatching their
plans against God and against His anointed, we have a direct assurance from the
words of prophecy: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel
together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, "Let us break
their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us." (Ps 2:2-3 NKJV). But it is written: “He
who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision (Ps 2:4 NKJV). It is for this purpose
that it is written further: “Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations
for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall
break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's
vessel.'" (Ps 2:8-9 NKJV).
The weapons of our warfare are not knives and cutlasses, bows and arrows,
AK-47s and all, but are “mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the
knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is
fulfilled”. 2 Cor 10:4-6 NKJV.
To help our faith, major
interventions have been coming upon the political atmosphere of Nigeria every
twenty years since 1939. The year 2019 is the cyclical year and though God is
not limited by years and dates, INEC and human programmes, it is good to know
that He is more than able.
Who then is on the Lord's side? We are at no dead end; we
have a way out. Standing together, side by side, hand in hand, with God on our
side, we can bring the greatest deliverance the world has known in recent times
to bear on our nation. What happens to the traitors and fifth columnists among
us? The Sanbalats thought the wall could not be rebuilt. It will be a sight to
behold as they go down with the evil collaborators. And when God finally does
it, our nation and the nations of the world will again rejoice at the refrain of
Daniel that, “the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He
will, and sets over it the lowest of men” (Dan 4:17 NKJV) There is indeed such a God. Let's arise and prove
it! May God arise and let His enemies be scattered.
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