The church blackmail

Peter Obi is still trending. Not only because of his trailblazing ideas but for stirring up a controversy that has refused to die down.

Obi was quoted in a podcast as calling for an end to church vigils to institute night shifts to boost the economy.

Of course, it has become fashionable of late to bash the church. Anyone who desires to be noticed takes church bashing as a pastime, even among self-proclaiming Christians.

The same cannot be said of Obi. Here is a man with no mean stature. In fact, he almost became the occupant of Also Rock if what happened did not happen.

I don’t know if Obi was trying to be politically correct but it is not to his credit to delve into spiritual matters the way he did, especially because he would obviously be misconstrued. That is exactly what has happened.

No doubt, Obi’s desire is to see a robust economy backed by productivity in which case people should become actively engaged instead of spending productive hours in prayer sessions.

However, his analogy is very wrong. He seems to have relegated prayer and created the impression that it is not a productive enterprise. Obi has no business picking on the church or prayer because they are innocent; he left out the guilty ones.

Quite a lot of the people at these vigils, apart from interceding for a moribund country, are also praying for breakthroughs. Many of them are jobless because politicians have run the country aground.

I wish Obi had asked the vultures among his political colleagues to quit the stage instead of heckling the church.

He should not be euphemistic while tackling Nigeria’s problems. If the factories are functional and people have work to do; if there is power supply and enough stimulus, there would have been no need for this call.

Prayer does not disturb work in any way. I have not seen an employee that leaves his desk to go for prayer. I have not seen a businessman that kept his customers waiting because he wanted to pray. Even the Bible says there is time for everything, to work and to pray. The Bible also says the man that does not work should not eat.

It is not in doubt that many hours spent praying could also be valuable in creating income. But you cannot deny someone work and also deny him the right to pray for breakthroughs. Why is it a problem if there are no factories to take up those hours and one decides to devote them to praying?

In my part of Nigeria, it is said ‘nobi better eye person dey take go cherubim’ or what we call white garment churches. People only go there in search of solutions for their problems. This can be likened to Nigeria where people to whom Nigeria has offered hopelessness priotise vigils, praying to God for intervention in their circumstances.

Those complaining that churches have taken over factory spaces are ignorant or untruthful. How many functional factories did churches forcefully take over? How many warehouses stuffed with goods did the churches evacuate to plant their pews? Would it be better for those derelict and abandoned places to be left to the vagaries of criminal elements and reptiles or for kidnappers to quarantine their victims?

Vigils do not hurt the country; politicians do. They are the ones that snatch power and run with it without an inkling of what to do with it. At best, when the people complain, they are given some grains of rice, turning out country into a ‘riceocracy’.

The attack on the church is not unexpected. It was long foretold. It is part of the devil’s scheme to destroy or blackmail the church.

I am yet to see any church that preaches indolence. I am not aware of any church that gathers its members in the bowels of its auditorium, teaching them to wait for money to fall from heaven.

Yet we hear that night shifts are preferred to ‘night’ vigils. Night shifts have nothing to do with the church. They are a product of a thriving economy that works 24 hours. It is the work of the government to create such robust economic activities, not the church, which has no role in deciding whether the economy works night or day shifts.

The scenario is so funny and the discerning actually laugh over the folly of the ignorant.

I asked my pastor last week why the devil enjoys defeat so much. He recruits some minions in the hope that they would halt the advancement of the kingdom of God on earth. That is why even spruced up duplicitous ‘babalawo and mamalawo’ are all over the place, prancing across wonky altars, dishing damning messages to the self-damned souls.

They are self-damned because of the choices they make. God has given man the freedom to choose what to make of their lives. Even though He does not desire any to perish, He is not likely to stop anyone that chooses to. Life is full of choices, to live or to die; it is your life.

The question I asked my pastor arose from the certainty that the devil never succeeds with those who know their God and are doing exploits. It is because of these that enemies of the gospel intensify their negative campaigns. Unfortunately for them, they choose to cast the church in bad light but God knows who are truly His. They keep losing because God’s true worshippers do not give up because the church of God marches ruggedly on and no gate of hell shall prevail against it.

Night shifts are not idle moments; they are for serious business. Usually, working shifts is a creation to keep production on for the 24 hours of the day. I have been canvassing for a 24 hours economy as is done in sane climes with service-orientef politicians. So, some staff are designated to work in the day, others at night in a cyclic manner. During night shifts, people work; people produce.

A person on the night shift did not work during the day. He must have rested during this period to be able to remain alert and dutiful during the night shift. None of the day’s 24 hours is wasted.

Not so in our land mangled by vintage wine guzzling kleptomaniacs, who love to crush everyone with ill-gotten wealth and power. Even those in day shift are hardly at their duty posts, having converted official business to merchandise, taking ‘egunje’ or playing truancy. How productive are they with their Oluwole certificates?

Churches can have their vigil services. It is not a daily occurrence. Most times, it is held on Friday nights leading to weekends when most people don’t go to work. It is never organised for people to waste man-hours. How it becomes a problem for anyone that somebody decides to use his sleeping hours to talk to his God is a problem only the devil instigates.

In the newsroom, we always talk about the meeting of witches. These witches (wizards, mostly) are politicians. Most of their meetings are held at night, a reason many women keep off the political turf. Ironically, Nigerians do not see anything wrong with such unholy gatherings at ungodly hours where politicians do nothing but plot how to steal, loot and kill. Occultic people have held this nation bound; they meet at night. Witches like politicians gather in their covens to wreak havoc at night. Go to Allen Avenue in Lagos and such seedy locations at night; you would be overwhelmed by crowding abhorrence of the wasted daughters of Jezebel, displaying putrid flesh for damned men to buy; night clubs boom at night. Despite the rising insecurity, nightlife still thrives. Yet, it is only vigils, where the saints gather to pray for the healing of our land  that are considered nonproductive.

In all these years of productivity, what has Nigeria produced if not institutional corruption in high and low places?

If we can’t have night shifts, leave us with our vigils. Yes, if we cannot have night shifts, leave us with our vigils. The problem is with the politicians who bleed the country dry; who steal everything and burn the hope of the youths. So, if prayers can rid Nigeria of these wicked politicians, then we need more vigils; stop the blackmail.