With a deep sense of appreciation, we earnestly thank the Most High God for preserving our lives to see the last day of this year. He kept us healthy, and safe. He provided for us from January to December. We faced uncountable challenges, in various ways and the spheres of life. As a nation we were confronted with political, economic, and social challenges, the Almighty saw us through them all. In our families, we also faced various challenges but the grace and mercy of God upheld us and gave us the inner strength to endure, survive, overcome, and not crack. With the resounding of joy, I say, Thank you, Abba Father.
It is impossible to recount all the testimonies of God’s marvelous works in our lives, but some just have to be mentioned. I still shudder when I recall what happened at Ojuelegba bus stop, Surulere, Lagos, sometime this year while I was waiting to board a commercial vehicle to Ikeja. The driver of an 18-wheel truck conveying a 40-foot container tried to make a U-turn under the bridge. He misjudged the angle of the manoeuvre and the heavy truck veered off the corner, leading the truck to climb the high concrete barricade and headed to towards the inner roads. What followed was the deafening bang of the container as it fell off the flatbed of the truck and landed on the hard concrete surface of the asphalt road. The split-second sight of the container falling off the truck and the huge bang it made caused an instant stampede as bystanders with loud screaming voices scampered for safety. The good news is that no life was lost though goods and other wares around the corner were seriously damaged. It was a simple testimony that God was much closer to us than the situations that could have consumed us.
In this year, so many people received supernatural healing and other miraculous interventions that filled their hearts with joy. In so many churches, women who had not been able to conceive had their seeming barrenness turned to joy. Most of them were women whom medical professionals had written off for one reason or another, but God intervened and they received the fruits of the womb, and in the fullness of time they gave birth. One such happy new mother was Precious Ogechukwu who testified at her parish of The Redeemed Church of God (RCCG) that medical reports showed that she had no womb and therefore could not conceive. But when God set the time for her, she conceived and gave birth to a set of twins. Today, her joy knows no bounds. She titled her testimony ‘From Zero to Twins.’ And was welcomed into the League of Women who are called mothers.
Emem Jonas (EJ) my friend gave birth to a premature baby that weighed just 1.3kg at birth. It was a situation that rattled the gynaecologists at the health centre. It took the divine help of God that enabled them to manage the precarious case. Expectedly, the extremely small size and very low birth weight of the baby did not, at the material time, give the parents joy. The situation of the baby got to the point where Emem’s husband was counting and marking the time when the baby would give up the ghost. But alas, Baby Chinwendu Jonas survived the trauma and he is now a normal child who recently celebrated his first birthday, which was attended by many children in the neighbourhood. Overwhelmed with joy and full of praises, his father kept singing Ron Kenoly’s popular gospel song, Whose Report Shall You Believe? “When I saw the signs of life around him, I named him Chinwendu (God owns life),” the baby’s father said while testifying about the child’s birth.
The story of Ngozi Stella Emegasim is not different from that of Jonas as she confessed that over seven years, five hospitals confirmed her to be infertile. The string of confirmations almost drove her into depression because her husband threatened to marry another wife. Then the Ever Present Help, the Almighty God, who “speaketh and it cometh to pass” stepped into the situation, and took away her reproach. Through the mouth of a little boy in her neighborhood, God assured her that she would give birth to her child. Barely one year after the little boy’s prophecy, Stella gave birth to triplets, comprising two boys and a girl.
Mrs. Josephine Dirim’s 16-year-old daughter, Peace, was diagnosed with cancer of the lungs, which is the second leading cause of death globally. The family just could not understand how the teenage girl could have developed lung cancer. The diagnosis caused them psychological trauma, watching Peace struggle to breathe. She was in pain all day. The huge cost of the chemotherapy drugs she had taken, to fight the cancer became an enormous burden they were unable to bear. To cope, the family appealed for financial support from all and sundry, including foreign agencies and multinational firms, yet the response was not encouraging. But then, Josephine’s faith in God was strong and it helped her see the result of such faith. Peace who doctors had given a 50-50 chance of survival. She began to recover and passed the 50 percent mark. Peace has continued to make progress in her healing.
What about Mr. Okei’s family which was involved in a fatal accident in Edo State as the members were returning from Ogoja in Cross River State, after the burial of his father? After the family members were rescued from the vehicle, they were all rushed to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), but unfortunately, 24-year-old Vincent, the first child, died after two days while the others survived after resuscitation. In all the consolation messages that followed, one thing that stood out was, ‘Thank God, it could have been worse.’
One would not be in a hurry to forget that Nigerians continue to face many social and economic challenges which include insecurity such as banditry and kidnapping. The recent horrendous mass killings of innocent people in peacetime, which happened in Plateau State during Christmas made the blood of many people curdle. It was purely shocking. Again, economic potential is constrained by many structural issues which include inadequate infrastructure, tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, obstacles to investment, lack of confidence in currency valuation, and limited foreign exchange capacity. The country has also witnessed worsening political, social, economic, and especially security challenges. Yet, Nigerians tried to make the best of a bad situation, because God was closer to us than the big threats to the peace of the nation and the polity. Without a doubt, Nigeria is more divided and polarized than it has ever been. The cleavages and fault lines of ethnocentrism, sectarianism, sectionalism, parochialism, and religious extremism are allegedly pushing the country to the brink. The polarization is evident in conversations around the de-facto rotational presidency and religion, insecurity in the southeast, and the toxic and bigoted ethnocentric rhetoric peddled in the mainstream and social media. Nigeria is battling with slow economic growth. The national currency has been grossly devalued. Inflation and unemployment rates are high and rising. Increases in the cost of living are unprecedented and unbearable. What would one say about endemic corruption among public functionaries? The government of the day is expected to confront the menace head-on, to set a worthy example of transparency and zero tolerance for it. In all that we have passed through as individuals and as a nation. God was much closer to us than the situations, and with the ever-present help of the Almighty, we were able to survive.
• Dear Nigerians, I assure you that even in 2024, God will be closer than all our challenges, but do your best. Congratulations and happy New Year in advance.