Rev. Dacholom Datiri, the President of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), has advised Christians to participate actively in politics to effect change in the society. .
Datiri gave the advice in a sermon entitled, “Christians Must Participate in Politics”, on Sunday in Jos.
According to him, God desires that Christians take up leadership positions in government to ensure sanity in the society.
He said many things had gone wrong in the country, a situation that led to Nigeria’s current difficulties.
He said good Christians could change things for the better if given the opportunity to serve.
“We must participate in politics to bring sanity in the system and ensure things are done the right way.
“If we participate in politics, we will provide restraining influence that will place our nation on the path of growth and development.
“In another four years there will be general elections, we must actively participate to return this country to the old good days,” he said.
The COCIN president, however, warned against dirty politics and urged Christians to be clean and highly principled in politics
He advised that they must be prayerful and never abandon the Church when they got into positions of authority.
“As much as God wants us to participate in politics, we must do it clean.
“We must live a highly principled life and cultivate an intimate devotional life with God; that is what will keep us clean.
“We must also create time to pray and seek God’s direction all of the time,” he advised.
The president attributed the current challenges in the country to the failure of leadership and added that Christians could fix Nigeria.
According to him, the nation is blessed with abundant human and natural resources but poor leadership has made it difficult to harness them.
He said the killings, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and other vices in the country had brought retrogression.
“Nigeria no doubt is endowed in many ways; we are blessed with abundant human and natural resources.
“The best brains in the world today are from Nigeria. Our land is very fertile for agricultural activities.’’
He decried the lack of respect for life, saying: “that is why we kill each other everyday. The rate of armed robbery, kidnapping and banditry is alarming
“Today our people can’t sleep with their eyes closed; we all live in anxiety.” (NAN)