From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Kaduna Area Superintendent, Pastor Samuel Adekunle Afolabi of the Apostolic Church Nigeria on Sunday disclosed that the rising cases of banditry and kidnapping in the country are signs of end time when the world is about coming to an end.
Pastor Afolabi said the signs could not be far from the truth because they are being foretold in the Bible long before now advising that Christian faithful should hold unto Bible as their weapons.
Fielding questions from our Correspondent at the church 85th annual convention with the theme; “Uniting Together to Build the Fallen Wall”, Pastor Afolabi said the theme was carefully chosen because it was about the fallen of the wall of Jericho in the Bible.
“We are in Zokoriko area of Kaduna city where we want to build a permanent church, so we came here to this new ground to do this year’s convention to pray to God to help us build a permanent structure”. Pastor Afolabi said.
Two other Pastors, Jethro Agunbiade and Caleb Olanlokun came from Yola and Abuja respectively, just as they said they put their trust in God to travel all the ways to Kaduna without fear of kidnapping.
According to Pastor Afolabi, “The Lord told us through prophetic message that we should pray for Nigeria because the problem of Nigeria is the responsibility of everybody. We should not allow the country to collapse. We should join hands together to carry up the country. We are all born here, we don’t have any other nation to run to. So we are praying for our country so that there will be security in place.
“Unfortunately, money matter have taken over the minds of many people because today people are killing one another because of money, father selling his children because of money, mother selling her children because of money, many more are into kidnapping and banditry because of money. And I really believe that these are signs of end time. These signs are in the Bible and if they are in the Bible, it is the truth.
“We advise the federal government and other government at the state and local levels to put security in place for the good and progress of the citizens.
“As men of God, we don’t have bow and arrows, neither gun to shoot at bandits, but we have our Bibles and hymn books as our weapons. So we urge the federal government to put in place better security measures to safeguard the nation”.
For Pastor Agunbiade, “As men of God we are not afraid of traveling by road despite cases of banditry nowadays. If we the leaders don’t travel to attend our own events, other members who are the followers may not grace the occasion. Lack of parenting and moral decadence are responsible for banditry in the country”.
On his part, Pastor Olanlokun said, “I came to Kaduna from Abuja by road and not by railway as many people do nowadays because of kidnappers. The Lord is my Shepherd. I am under a great Shepherd, Jesus is a great Shepherd. He promises to protect our coming in and our going out. So the Lord is with us as we travel by road. So as He brought us to this event safely, He will return us safely”.