#BIAFRA : Calamity may Befall Nigeria, But we are Praying – Archbishop Joseph Ojo(see what he said)

                                          
Here is an Excerpt from an interview with the General Overseer of Calvary Kingdom Church, Archbishop Joseph Ojo


Archbishop Joseph Ojo spoke about the Biafra struggle, renewed clamour for self-determination by some groups in the Niger Delta Region, Nigeria’s Economic Challenges among other Issues

EXCERPT:

Looking at our country today, how do you feel about the state of affairs of the nation?

My feeling is that of hopefulness; I have hope that things will get better. It is like a parent who has given birth to a child, you wait for the child grow and develop into a mature individual that would become useful to the parents and the larg­er community. So I have hope and I am optimis­tic that things will get better for Nigeria.

What exactly gives you that feeling of optimism, given the early steps taken so far by the Buhari administration?

The reason is very simple; we are all praying and giving all necessary support. It is only when you are not praying that you give up hope and become pessimistic, that things begin to dete­riorate. Because we are hopeful and praying, we also give good counsel hoping that the govern­ment would listen.

There is this widespread feeling that there is anger in the land because of in­frastructural decay, economic downturn, misused bailout funds and other social deprivations that are fuel interpersonal conflicts.

Do you share this feeling?

Yes I do. Truly, a lot of people have bottled up anger borne out of frustration and dashed hopes. The euphoria that greeted the emergence of Pres­ident Muhammadu Buhari is dying down. The change we anticipated is not forthcoming. But there is still hope, because they may want to do well, so that the doubting Thomases will repent. Actually, the way things are today, I think Nige­rians desperately need to remain prayerful.

The roads are bad. In the first two years of the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration, the roads were so bad that I never travelled to Benin, Edo State, where I come from, by road; during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, I also never went to Benin by road. I always had to travel by air. But two years before Jonathan left office, the roads became so good.

You could travel from Lagos to Benin in four hours. But very recently, I went to Benin by road; it is a miracle that I came back alive. The road has become terrible especially at the Ogun State section of the road, towards Shagamu in­terchange of the Lagos Ibadan expressway.

We had hope that there would be a continuation of the reconstruction exercise so that somebody can have a smooth ride all the way from Lagos to Benin and have joy in the government that is serving the people and not serving the narrow interest of the few privileged individuals.

I must acknowledge that after the Ogun State bound­ary, the section of the road towards Benin is very good. The only hope I have is that the new Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Baba­tunde Raji Fashola, did very well when he was the governor of Lagos State. I believe in him; if he can translate what he did in Lagos to the na­tional assignment, then all will be well. I believe that God will give him grace to fix the roads, power sector and housing.

In summary I would say that the Buhari administration blew the ex­pectation of the people without acting very fast. I do believe that the reason may be that Buhari wanted to avoid making any mistake in choosing members of his cabinet and assigning them to ministries. A number of the people who wanted to be appointed into the cabinet were dishonour­able people.

You could describe them as robbers being sent to catch thieves; many of those who jostled for appointment have skeletons in their cupboards. I also want to say that during Jona­than’s time there was hardly any fuel scarcity. Look at the situation we are facing now.

On the anti-corruption crusade, it appears that President Buhari is being selective. The govern­ment appears to have turned a blind eye to people everyone knows corruptly enriched themselves, just because they belong to the All Progressives Congress and worked for his emergence as the president of the country.

Meanwhile the govern­ment is energetically looking for members of the opposition party to harass and drag them before the courts in well publicized arraignments. That is not how to fight corruption.

An anti-corruption campaign should cut across board, even if the person belongs to the APC. People that have corruptly enriched themselves but belong to APC are now seen to be untouchable; the Bu­hari administration now seems to be making Nigerians think this way.

I expect the President to boldly go after members of his party who are widely believed to have corruptly enriched themselves. Nigerians know these people and I believe the president knows them too.

He must courageously go after them. That is the only way to clothe the anti-corruption campaign with the garment of credibility and also wear it the toga of integrity.

I see the whole anti-corruption crusade as a charade. Right from the top of this administra­tion there is no transparency in the system. For­get it, there is no transparency, no sincerity and no truth.

As long as there is no transparency, and the problems causing people frustration are not addressed, the people will continue to seethe with anger, one day it will explode like a volca­nic eruption.

Again, I remember that they accused the Jona­than administration of impunity. There is noth­ing as bad as what we are seeing now – a blatant sidelining of constitutional provisions in appoint­ments.

For instance, the law that established the Independent National Electoral Commission, as I learnt has provision for 13 members (12 national commissioners and the chairman), but president appointed only six members (the new chairman and five others.) That is a direct breach of the law. But nobody is talking about it.



We are seeing an upsurge in agitation in parts of the country, mainly the South East and South South. In response to these agitations the govern­ment is clamping people into detention without arraignment in court for trial. In a democracy, this is not good at all! These are acts of impunity.

Let us also look at the issue of the report of the national conference convened by former Presi­dent Jonathan, which was done in the best inter­est of the country as a whole, to address the ques­tion of federalism.

Now we hear that the Buhari administration will not implement the recom­mendations contained in the confab report. I want to advise the government not to do this. If the government dumps or throws away report, it will only be postponing the doomsday, because every section of the country wants self-determi­nation.

Even though you find that the people in the governing political party are opposed to the implementation of the confab report, they should look at it. People from every ethnic background participated in the deliberations and made far-reaching recommendations on how to structure the country into a true federation.

The governing party should not throw away the confab report because it was done under Joanthan’s adminis­tration. Before now, people like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had been in the forefront of agitation for national conference and true federalism. Then suddenly they have all become dumb and silent. Like I said earlier, we are still hopeful because we are prayerful.

Beyond praying, what should be done to ensure that the hope you talked about materializes?

We have to rally round and support those that have been appointed to serve as ministers. But then again, that is if they will listen. Many of these appointees know who they listen to and from whom they seek counsel. If they will listen, they need all of us to rally round them; all hands must be on deck to give them our fullest support, to ensure that things work out for the good of the country.

For instance, we should be able to confide in the law enforcement agents without any fear that they would turnaround to inform the suspect that so-and-so person gave informa­tion about him. The life of the informant will be in danger. If divulging information to the police would put the life of the person at risk, then no­body would give information to the police.

The government needs to put in place a holis­tic programme that will engage our youths in gainful employment. My daughter has Masters degree in Civil Engineering, but out of frustra­tion caused by unemployment in her field, she is now working at Jumia, an online store, selling television.

What kind of country is this? What kind of peo­ple are we – allowing our young people to waste away? She served in NNPC (Nigweria National Petroleum Corporation) for the mandatory na­tional youth service and yet the country is letting her brain go to waste. Meanwhile there are thou­sands of rural and feeder roads to be constructed.

I expect the government to establish road con­struction agencies just like the Lagos State has done by setting up the Public Eorks Corporation, which handles construction of local government roads by direct labour.

Rather the federal and state governments award fictitious contracts to briefcase contractors, which never get executed because such contracts were only meant to serve as conduits for embezzling public funds. What kind of country are we?

Therefore, on this issue of employment, the government must do whatever that is neces­sary to harness the energies of our youths and channel this into developmental activities of the country.

Honestly, I had expected that by now the government would have put in place a well thought out policy on youth engagement and employment.

Rather, it appears that government appears to be groping in the dark. All we hear is that Mr. A is a rogue, Mr. B is a thief and Mr. C is a treasury looter. The people in government talk as if the people they are leading are fools.

It needs to be said that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has a lot of work to do in liaising with the other minis­tries; he must look at their operations with the mindset of an investigator, to see how jobs can be created for our youths, by critically evaluat­ing their operations. Why should Chinese and other foreign construction firms import artisans and technicians to boss our own engineers, who are even better educated than them?

What is the best way for the govern­ment to handle the agitations for self-determination going on in the country?

The Buhari administration and the National Assembly should work together to achieve full federalism in the country. They should look at the national confab report and fashion the rec­ommendations into appropriate amendments of the constitution.

We should not say the country is a federation when we do not truly have a fed­eral system of government. That is why every month the states gather in Abuja to share money from the Federation Account.

Today there is an obtuse display of wealth in the country. Our young people see this and they want to do anything to get wealth. This has even crept into the church. Materialism is now active­ly promoted in the church. You can hardly hear sermons on sound Christian doctrine from many pulpits.

It is all about prosperity. You mostly hear motivational messages, for instance, ‘Sev­en Steps to Becoming Wealthy.’ You find that people are being led to Christ instead of being led to church.

People no longer preach Christ, but church: ‘my pastor is more powerful than …’ That is why people are migrating from one church to another in search of miracles rather the God of the bible. Meanwhile the unbelievers who should be saved with the gospel of salvation are finding their way to hell. God will save the church in Nigeria.

Does the country still have men of God who speak with prophetic authority like the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa?

I believe very strongly that God will once again raise outspoken men of God like Archbishop Benson Idahosa.