By Adeyinka Adeniran
Senior Pastor, HarvestHouse Christian Centre, Gbeminiyi Eboda has assured Nigerians that despite the current challenges facing the country, the nation will work again.
While urging leaders to see their positions as opportunity for service, he said citizens must see themselves as stakeholders in building the nation by taking ownership and making positive impact in their spaces, no matter how small.
The cleric gave the charge while addressing journalists at a press conference to announce a forthcoming evening of prayer and praise for the nation and the citizens.
The event tagged “Night of Mercy” is slated for Wednesday, January 22, at the Alpha Cathedral, Akobo, Ibadan, Oyo State.
Gospel artists including sensational Bidemi Olaoba is expected to minister in songs alongside others while Reverend Eboda is expected to minister in words.
Speaking, the cleric said Nigeria leaders must be ready to address the twin evil of Western conspirators and those he described as fifth columnists who are bent on sabotaging the efforts of the government for things to change for the better.
He said leaders must learn to be more sacrificial in the approach so that the citizens can take a cue from their exemplary leadership approach.
He lamented that certain people have weaponised ethnicity, ignorance and poverty to keep causing disunity and destabilising the nation, but assures that God will soon expose those behind such antics.
Reverend Eboda said, “In our nation, our leaders have been eating first, and they’ve been eating all, and that is sad. What we need is for leaders to truly begin to become more sacrificial and lead. Whatever you’re asking the people to do, people are making sacrifices. Nigerians must be commended.
“We see the kind of pressure that Nigerians have to grapple with on a daily basis, and Nigerians continue to go on. We are resilient people. Nigerians are amazing people. If there is division in this country, the division is being instigated by those who are deriving some benefit from weaponizing in their propaganda of division in our country. Nigerians are united people. Nigerians love themselves.
“People have weaponized so many things. Ethnicity and so many things to create division in our nation, and I’m praying that those people who have been doing that, they will soon be stuck in their tracks.
“Our nation is going to work. Nigeria is dealing with a double-sided challenge. We have a challenge of Western conspirators, and we can never take that off from the table. There are countries that are profiting from how things go on in this country.
“For example, do you think the nations, the countries that we import some things from, will ever want our local manufacturing industry to develop? Never. They will do everything to kill it. Unfortunately, the only reason why that can continue to succeed is because we also have within our system those we call fifth columnists, people who have chosen to sell us, you know, to these people.
“I believe that if we are going to win, we must first of all deal with our fifth columnists. And you see, this challenge also predates colonial days, because what led to colonialism in the very first place was because of the sellout from our so-called leaders. Our leaders just felt that the value of a soul was not worth more than a gunpowder, not worth more than a glass, not worth more than this.
“So they were selling their people for impotence. How do you explain that a country that is the sixth largest producer of oil in the world would be this impoverished? It’s irreconcilable. But you see, there are people who have weaponized poverty. Ignorance is being weaponized, and the poverty is being weaponized.
“People can queue for anything, because of the level of poverty in our nation. You know, I was trusting that the narrative would change. Whether the Western conspirators like it or not, whether our fifth columnists like it or not, Nigeria will walk.
“It’s not the first time that we’ve seen nations grab on with things like this, and then they emerge out of it, and they come out of it. And I’ve chosen to be a prisoner of hope. I’ve chosen to believe that it won’t always be like this, that our country will get better in my lifetime.”
He said further, “Those who have been elected into offices to serve the nation should not forget that the position they occupy, somebody used to occupy it before them. And when they have left that office, somebody else is going to take that office from them.
“It is an opportunity to have their names etched in gold if they do right. I want to encourage those who have been elected into office to see leadership as a call to stewardship, not a call to just privileges, but a call to true servanthood. So there are different models of leadership and I believe that transformational leaders are leaders who are servant leaders.
“The people you owe your greatest loyalty are not those who perhaps sponsored you into office, but the electorate, the constituents that you are meant to be representing. Whether you are a governor, whether you are an honorable, a member of the House of Rep, or you are a senator in the country, whatever the role, you owe the people an obligation to represent them right.”
