It is yet another Christmas Day celebration. Christmas period is a season of love, sacrifice, thanksgiving and sharing. It is also a time to remember the sick, the aged, the needy and the less privileged. As usual, Nigerian Christians will today join their counterparts the world over to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, the founder of the Christian faith. According to Christian scriptures, Jesus Christ came to the world to redeem the damned mankind. It was a show of love and ultimate sacrifice never seen in the world before. Celebrated every December 25 the world over, Christmas is the most popular feast among Christians.

It is an important feast in the Christian calendar. The Christmas season is so powerful that it affects travel, tourism and business all over the world. Christmas is also a period of merriment, refection and an occasion for people to visit their families and loved ones in the countryside. In Nigeria, Christmas is marked with church service, prayers, feasts and masquerade dances.

While Christians in Nigeria look forward to this day of the remembrance of the birth of Jesus Christ with great expectations and excitement, it is sad that Nigeria is under the throes of general insecurity, poverty and hardship. It is also not good that at a time Christians are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ that many Nigerians are still battling with the ravages of COVID-19 pandemic, especially the fast-spreading Omicron variant. Besides COVID-19, Nigerians are still being killed by malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other ailments.

This year’s Christmas is coming at a period of soaring prices of essential commodities, such as rice, wheat, garri, meat and other consumables and when the value of the naira is fast depreciating before other international currencies, especially the US dollar. While the rising prices of commodities may dampen the mood of the occasion, we call on our Christian brethren to persevere and endure the hard times bearing in mind the essence of the season and why they are celebrating.

Despite the prevailing economic hardship in the country and the festering insecurity, we urge our Christian brethren to use the occasion of this year’s Christmas to pray for peace and unity in the country. Let them ask God to intervene in the affairs of the country so that we can overcome our numerous challenges. They should use the period to ask God to bless Nigeria and ensure that peace reigns in our dear nation. We enjoin them to also use the occasion to remember their neighbours, the needy, the elderly, the sick and the less privileged in the society.

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At the same time, our Christian brethren should see Christmas beyond its merriment and festivity and dwell more on its spiritual essence and significance. It is likely that this year’s celebration will be different on account of mounting insecurity and economic hardship. Not many people will travel home as in previous seasons. It is going to be another low-key Christmas celebration.

However, we use the occasion of the great Christian event to call on all Nigerian leaders to improve on governance and offer Nigerians more dividends of democracy. At present, Nigerians are not getting the best from the democratic experiment. Nigerians are suffering and many Nigerians have fallen into the poverty cycle in the last couple of years.

Nigeria, under the present dispensation, has become the poverty capital of the world and the government is engaged in excessive borrowings with little or nothing to show for them, despite mounting opposition from concerned Nigerians.

We appeal to the political class, the political leaders, to show love and mercy on those they lead in keeping with the spirit of the Yuletide season. In their dealings with those they lead, let them emulate the sacrificial service of our Lord Jesus Christ and His servant-leadership style.

We congratulate our Christian brethren on this momentous occasion of the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and wish all our esteemed readers a happy Yuletide season and a prosperous New Year.