Sam Adeyemi: The elite is speaking to itself, not citizens — that won’t work anymore

Sam Adeyemi, senior pastor of Daystar Christian Center, has called on the elite to start communicating better with the regular citizens.

Adeyemi said this on Friday during the ‘Urgent Conversations’ series, a programme hosted by Radio Now.

He said one of the problems facing the country is that the elite thinks the only way it can maintain relevance is to negotiate within its class.

“The elite class is speaking to itself, it is not speaking to the citizens in a way that is understandable and the elite class thinks that the only way it can maintain relevance, is by negotiating within the elite class. That won’t work anymore,” he said.

“The elite class in almost every country uses political power to channel economic resources to benefit itself. And it takes force to change it. That was how Europe changed and we don’t need to wait till the country breaks down before we change that equation.”

Adeyemi said citizens need to be involved in discussions so as to know what is going on in the country.

He said this would help people trust the government and in turn, lead to the creation of wealth for the country.

“I’m asking the people to speak up. Factor us citizens into this discussion so we understand what is going on. We back ideas not just personalities,” he said.

“We need to shift the mindset of the average Nigerian. Education is important, the school system is broken down, informal education is necessary, we need to hear some things over and over.

“We must not underestimate the impact of speaking to citizens, we can’t share money out to all of them, but once we shift their mindset, they value honesty and they know that with a good justice system, if they work hard, they will make the money.

“If the government speaks to them, they can trust the government that it will not lie to them. Once the trust is there, people are the ones that will create the wealth that even the government will spend.”