Inter-Faith group cautions clerics against ‘unholy utterances’

Religious leaders in the country have been warned against making unholy and unguarded utterances that could destabilise the country.

The National Interfaith And Religious Organizations For Peace (NIFROP) in Nigeria, which gave the charge, urged clerics to rather unite in prayers to end the nagging security challenge in the country, rather than making provocative comments that could worsen the situation.

Sunday Garuba, NIFROP president, made the plea during a press conference in Abuja on Monday.

The cleric, who described the security challenge confronting the country as a “devil”, said the menace could only me surmounted through prayers.

His statement below:

We note with all sobriety the attention being drawn to the security situation in the country by citizens that have expressed their concern. The concern being expressed falls into different categories as it is glaring that some people are genuinely troubled by what is happening, some are reacting as part of a bandwagon effect of following the trend and some are speaking out in continuation of their criticism of the government in order to meet the terms of their consultancy for opposition politicians.

But we wish Nigerians to recall our almost prophetic warning in the past that some politicians were setting the country up for trouble. These were people that in their desperation to win at all cost threw caution to wind and made deals with the devil while their false prophets helped to pronounce doom unto the country.

Some of these so called clergymen have nefarious dangerous agenda that will worsen the contrived insecurity and help their patrons make case for illegitimate regime change. Their failure to acknowledge the efforts of the government and its agencies is suspicious as far as the security situation is concerned. It is for this reason that and Nigerians should watchfully track their activities with the possibility of holding them accountable if the country should fail.

These people who wanted to win at all cost had taken steps that are now haunting the entire country. It is something they had regularly done but which they escalated in the weeks before the general elections. Their nefarious activities include arming citizens to destabilize the government, which they later scaled up by contracting foreign mercenaries and terrorists groups as reported by the federal government recently. But their evil plans were exposed by the Almighty God and Nigerians who refused to allow them rig the 2019 general elections as they had planned.

We must highlight the dimension of the crimes arising from the desperation of misguided youths to catch up with politicians in the sinful display of opulence. The reality that crimes like kidnapping and robberies are linked to this desperation by their perpetrators to become materially equivalent to their political sponsors. There have also been several instances where the weapons used for these crimes have been traced to politicians that issued them.

The land is poisoned. The security situations we experience are the direct outcomes of this contamination of the land by those that seek to truncate God’s plan for the nation. Instead of repenting and seeking divine intervention to undo the damage they have done, they have further compounded things by hiring political commentators and consultants posing as clergymen to sow fear in the heart of God’s children and divert attention to the real cause of the turmoil they announce in the land.

The National Interfaith and Religious Organizations For Peace, in compliance with the charge left to God’s elect, is using itself as a point of contact to declare the positive into the national life of Nigeria while rebuking those that speak for the devil. We declare that peace shall not only prevail in Nigeria but will permeate the land to give peace to all citizens on all sides.

We acknowledge, in the spirit of thanksgiving to God for giving Nigeria a good leader for once, the contributions of President Buhari to freeing Nigerians from the evil clutches of political jailers that had held citizens hostage. It is not lost on us that Nigerians must for once give the President a chance to deliver on his promises and set the county free from the evil people that are today angling to return to the horrible days of holding the country in their grips.

It is our fervent belief that the politically motivated killings, presented as terrorism and bandit activities, will end when Nigerians across religious divides come together at a mutually agreed location to pray to God to send the rank of saboteurs into disarray. Such prayers should also be used to pray for God’s favour and support for the government of President Buhari and the progress of Nigeria.

A president who had in past led the Armed Forces to degrade Boko Haram under one year can certainly do more when properly fortified and supported spiritually with prayers from the citizens as opposed to those that prophesy doom into the destiny of the nation. When the country is united in faith and prayers Nigeria will certainly overcome the current security challenges.

Even as we, as clergy, do battle in the spirit to neutralize the enemies of God’s people, we encourage our brethren in the military not to be dismayed. The enemies they fight for the country today shall soon be no more. Our troops should take the collective goodness of 200 million Nigerians with them into battle against the terrorists that are acting out their lives as children of the devil. They must not feel discouraged by charlatans that are dismissive of their work because they have been paid to do so by politicians.

Gentlemen of the press, we will not end this briefing without doing our duty to those that have been hiding behind God’s name to terrorize Nigerians with their false words. As recorded in the Bible (Contemporary English Version) in Ezekiel 13:3 “I, the LORD God, say those lying prophets are doomed! They don’t see visions–they make up their own messages!”

We, therefore, counsel those that are posing as clergymen to stoke fear among Nigerians that there will be reckoning and those that have used the Lord’s name in vain will account for their actions.