APOSTLE Anselm Madubuko is the founder of Revival Assembly in Lagos. Worried about the spate of insecurity in the country, he recently assembled some news correspondents to his church office for a chat on the way forward for the nation.
Some excerpts from the chat
THIS year started on a very negative note for Nigeria. Did you have any premonition of what God had in store for the nation?
I will not say I saw it coming but I’m not totally shocked because apparently, Nigeria is on the verge of a major breakthrough and the devil is not happy, hence he is using everything he has to bring religious wars, tribal wars, all kinds of confusion. The people have not understood that although our president is not the best, he is still our president.
President Goodluck Jonathan has been spiritually programmed to fail and without strong intercession, he will definitely fail. So, the job of the Church is to continuously break the spell over his presidency; the bad spell that the wicked people have cast over his gover-nment. If we just keep talking about him, all of us will go down, the nation will go down, Jonathan will go down and we will all perish.
But if we call upon the name of the Lord, there will be respite. We can’t say we have prayed enough. The things that are happening are expected to provoke us to more prayers. This is not the time to curse our president. It is a time to prophesy continually over his presidency and speak positively.
I hear people say; “men of God did not join in the mass protest. They should lead by example”. To such I say; “People have different callings. I am not called to stand on the road and be cursing the president. That is not my calling.”
Different purposes?
The truth is that we are called for different purposes. You don’t expect Papa Adeboye to come out and lead such protest. No! That is not his calling. They talk about Martin Luther and I say, that was Luther’s calling. So, we cannot be what we are not. You don’t know what he is doing in the secret. For all you know, that may even be more important than what those on the streets did. I believe that if we have suggestions or if we have something against the president, you can look for a way to get to him or to those close to him; not to use the media to rain abuses on him.
Are you then saying that the nationwide protest was uncalled for?
What did we gain from it? The thing that we achieved through it could have been achieved without it; yet the nation lost a lot. Most importantly, we lost lives.
We can’t do things be-cause Egypt did it. Egypt did theirs that way but it does not mean that is the way of our own business with God. Our own business is on our knees; we are to stay on our knees until we see the desired change. So, this is our nation and we have got to salvage it. We can’t just allow things to go wrong. We have to keep talking to God until He hearkens to our cry.
Some people believe that prayer is a docile approach to the fundamental problems of the nation
That is what they say but the truth is that the natural man does not understand the things of the spirit because they are foolishness unto him. I don’t blame them if they think that prayer is an escapist route; but the Bible tells us that the wea-pons of our warfare are not car-nal but mighty through God. So, it is only through God that any change can happen, whe-ther we like it or not.
The Boko Haram menace is a new dimension to Nigeria’s multifaceted problems and it has become a phenomenon; something beyond everybody’s understanding. What is your take on this?
It is beyond everybody but not beyond God. Boko Haram cannot be beyond God. I believe it is only through prayers that we can conquer them. You don’t know who Boko Haram is; your neighbour could be one. I believe the time has come again for the Church to go into serious prayers. We don’t have to announce the prayer meetings
Praying at the National Stadium
We don’t have to go to the National Stadium to pray; we don’t have to go to Abuja to pray. We can do all the praying in quiet groups, lifting our voices in intercession and travail to God to bring judgment because these people are wasting innocent lives.
There are suggestions that the Federal Government should dialogue with the sect. Do you think this will proffer solution?
Who will he dialogue with? Who is Boko Haram? Do you dialogue with the air? You heard the reply they gave to the president. You can’t dialogue with people you don’t know. A group may come out and claim to be Boko Haram and they may not be the authentic sect. The next day, they will still explode the bombs. So, dialogue is not the way out.
Would government be justified therefore to arrest and prosecute them? Would that solve the problem?
Why not? They are enemies of the country. They are terrorists and should be dealt with accordingly. We are praying and expect that God will help us as a nation by making it easier for us to contain. But as for Boko Haram, it is only the hand of God that can overrule them. I believe that at the fullness of time, He will bring their evil works to an end.
What, therefore, is your charge to Christians in Nigeria at this time?
Let us not give up. Let us not complain. Let’s stop talking ne-gative things about our nation. Let’s begin to talk to our nation. Let’s begin to prophesy to our nation that it shall be well with us; that evil will not triumph over good; that the lot of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous. We have to speak the Word of God; we ha-ve to uphold our leaders in prayer; corrupt as they are. Let God judge their sins and injustice but our responsibility is to lift them up in prayer; that they take the right decisions and do things the right way to benefit the common man on the street.
And to the government?
Government should be account-able and tackle corruption. It’s the number one problem in Ni-geria. I am disappointed that the president has not done any-thing concrete about corruption. In fact, there is even more cor-ruption now than before. I thought he was coming to do something definite about it. That is what is expected of him. We are also praying and believing God for a change soon.
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