Segun Awofadeji in Bauchi
The Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC) has challenged Christians in the country to pray earnestly for God to intervene in the situation of the country, especially against the myriad of self-inflicted challenges militating against the development of the country.
The Christians were particularly challenged to pray for the success of the 2023 general election so that the country will remain a united entity beyond 2023.
The President of the North-East Baptist Conference of the Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC), Rev Musa Likita, presented the challenge while delivering exhortation titled: ‘Let the new King Come’, at the 2022 Baptist Day held at the First Baptist Church, Yandoka Road in Bauchi last weekend.
Likita declared that Nigeria found itself in the present precarious situation because it completely abandoned God and rely on self-will coupled with the selfish disposition of the leaders.
He took his reading from 2 Samuel 9:1-10, stressing that self-reliance always lead to self-destruction because, according to him, “Any nation that abandons God will not make significant progress.”
The clergyman lamented that 62 years after Independence, Nigeria is still crawling, bedeviled by challenges
that are not making it to
move positively in all ramifications.
Likita lamented that: “Christians and Christianity has been relegated to the background in the scheme of things in the country, particularly in the northern region, as Christians are now being treated as second class citizens in the country, and they hardly get what belongs to them.”
The Conference president added that: “In this part of the country, Christians must change their names in order to get employment, get approval to build churches and other structures. This ought not to be so because the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has guaranteed freedom of association and religious affiliation.”
The cleric, therefore, called on Christians to carefully study the various candidates, especially the presidential candidates, and ask for the guidance of God on whom to choose, saying: “We cannot afford to make electoral mistakes which will haunt us for another four years.”
According to him, “God is ready to choose for us but we have to tell him to give us good leaders who will not subject Christians and Christianity to untold hardship and discrimination.”
