By Femi Fani-Kayode
Continued from yesterday
It is God’s way of saying that they were never meant to rule and be there in the first place and that He has rejected them. It is the work of the Ancient of Days and the Lord God of Hosts. They believe that they were “born to rule” but in actual fact they have been rejected by the Living God. Those that employ mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide as a tool of conquest and a legitimate weapon of war, that consider their fellow Nigerians to be sub-human and that believe that those fellow Nigerians are nothing but chattel and serfs that are destined to be ruled over by some distant caliph are in grave error: they have not fully understood God’s plan and purpose for this country. They cannot comprehend or understand what is slowly unfolding. They do not appreciate the fact that no matter how much evil they visit on the rest of us that God is at work and His counsel alone will stand over our people and in the affairs of our nation.
The truth is that the Lord regards them as nothing more than unbelieving slaves and they are far below us. They are of the darkness and we are of the light. The Bible describes it is a “great evil under the sun” when “the children of slaves ride on horseback” whilst “the sons of Kings walk around barefoot.” That is what has been happening in Nigeria since 1960. The children of the “bonded woman” have been riding on horseback while the children “of promise” have been walking around barefoot.
This is indeed “a great evil under the sun.” It is a spiritual affliction. It is witchcraft. It is an abomination. It is unacceptable. It is a total reversal of the way things ought to be. It is a rejection, usurpation and total corruption of God’s original plan. It is ungodly and it is anti-Christ. I blame no-one but the leadership of the body of Christ in Nigeria for this mess. There are a few good ones among them who stood firm and spoke out when it mattered the most but sadly there are others who are more interested in collecting tiny crumbs from the President’s table and buying fine clothes, expensive jewelry, fast cars and private jets than they are in standing up for their flock and effecting God’s purpose and plan for Nigeria.
Worst still, there is also a small handful, like that short and vocal Rev. Father from Enugu, who see nothing wrong in the actions of enemies of Christ and serve as the principal cheerleaders to the tyrant. If our men and women of God were bold and courageous and if they were doing their job properly the radical Muslims could not have turned Christians in Nigeria into second class citizens and toilet paper and a sharia-loving, Muslim-fundamentalist, closet- jihadist and Fulani supremacist like Buhari would never have been in power today.
The bottom line is this: if you are not ready to die for Christ or to lose your life or liberty for defending and protecting the gospel, God’s children or the faith then you are not worthy of being called a Christian.
We must help the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to stand firm and strengthen their collective resolve but we must not leave it at that. We must also organise ourselves as well, not only in the political arena, but also by setting up strong Christian militias and defence squads to protect our churches and our people from the terrorists and butchers. We must aspire to emulate the Christian Phalange militia in Lebanon, which was formed just before the Lebanese civil war broke out in the ‘70s and ‘80s. They were disciplined, well-organised, gallant and courageous and they defended the lives of their people and the honor of their faith. The truth is that had it not been for the Phalange the Christians of Lebanon would have been wiped out by the Muslims in that war.
I abhor violence and neither do I advocate its use. However, we must accept the fact that, whether we like it or not, ultimately this matter will be settled not just by prayers, politics, long essays and press statements but also with guns and bullets. This is because violence is the only language that the butchers from the North appreciate and can comprehend. If the state is either incapable or refuses to protect the Christian community in Nigeria we will be left with no choice but to defend ourselves and protect our own.
Permit me to conclude this contribution with the following. I would urge all those that still love and support this government to take a long hard look at the pictures that are strewn all over the Internet of their fellow Nigerians that have been mutilated and carved up like Christmas turkeys and sallah goats. This is the work of Buhari’s kinsmen, the Fulani militias and herdsmen. He has refused to arrest any of them, let alone bring them to justice. Instead he has ruined our economy, impoverished and destroyed the lives of our people and aborted their God-given destiny, divided our nation on religious and ethnic lines, demonised us before the international community and labelled every Nigerian, apart from himself, as being incompetent and corrupt.
This is a man that spends his time pontificating about corruption with long and boring speeches and pointing fingers at others. This is a man that told Mr. Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan at the Tokyo summit in Nairobi a few days ago, that Nigeria’s “business environment is not friendly to investors” and that consistently tells other world leaders how supposedly “corrupt” his own people are. He has conveniently refused to tell those same world leaders how his presidential campaign was funded, how much money those that ran his campaign paid Mr. David Axelrod, President Obama’s campaign advisor and publicist, and how many cars and how much “allowance” he collected from Col. Sambo Dasuki, President Goodluck Jonathan’s National Security Advisor, before being “elected” President.
The Bible says, “let he who is free of sin cast the first stone.” Nigerians may not know the truth today but God does and He cannot be mocked. Let Him judge between us. Yet the truth is that President Buhari’s administration is not only essentially hypocritical but they also have no shame. All those that continue to support them and cheer them on are equally shameless. Worst still, their supporters are cowards because they cannot find the courage to admit that they were wrong in supporting a government that is manifestly divisive, insensitive, incompetent, corrupt and intolerant of criticism and dissent. They are the ones that we must hold responsible and accountable for what has happened to those unfortunate people in all those pictures. They are the ones that we must blame for what has been happening to thousands of others at the hands of the Fulani militants and herdsmen all over the country for the last one year and three months.
Permit me to conclude this contribution with a startling revelation that is historically factual. The Muslims of Turkey, after islamising what was once a Christian nation, slaughtered one million Turkish and Armenian Christians just to ensure that Turkey would never be Christian again. Those that they did not kill, they herded into nazi-like concentration camps or deported to neighbouring Armenia. This must NEVER be allowed to happen in Nigeria.
May the souls of all the saints, believers and Christian martyrs that were cut short by the butchers and barbarians from the North rest in peace and may the Lord God of Hosts avenge them speedily. Shalom.
• Fani-Kayode former Minister of Aviation.
• Concluded