A Lagos-based pastor, Tunde Bakare, has called on Nigerians to earnestly pray for the country, as he said yesterday that many of the presidential aides around the ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua are like vultures waiting for the bite of the dead.
"Vultures are all gathered hovering, thinking about an end of the man and the benefits, but they have forgotten that God rules in the affairs of men and gives it to whosever God wishes," he said.
In a message titled "Nigeria: The Beginning of the End", Mr. Bakare, presiding pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly, Ogba, Lagos asked the congregation to pray for Mr. Yar'Adua's quick recovery to save Nigeria from been a country without a leader, which he said has a serious spiritual implication.
"We console the president and his family at this time of his illness and will want to say that presidency is not a birthright or a hereditary title that warrants the head of the incumbent before another can come in. Those who even wish the president dead may even die before him, but in this present moment considering the health of our president in spite of all the propaganda, but if truth must be told, the health challenges of our president warrants his immediate resignation as his patriotic duty to the nation."
Weak deputies
Mr. Bakare blamed lack of a strong and effective deputy as the cause of the present problems in the country. "Not having a good deputy gives room to the likes of Absalom to rise and make conspiracy and
what you think you are in charge of is snatched away from you." He also condemned an over concentration of power in the hands of the president, to the extent of being afraid of handing over to his vice
president.
"Do I need to tell you that this was the problem in the days of Obasanjo and Atiku? What of Babangida and his deputy? They cannot stand strong people around them. When they were supposed to be doing good things and building roads, Atiku and Obasanjo fought themselves from the lowest to the highest court of the land, wasting precious time and resources. Today, what did they get from it?
"With what I heard, every minister that served with Obasanjo always signs their resignation letters and just leaves a blank space for the date to be filled on the days they were appointed so that they could easily be fired. It was in the open that everybody that worked with him signed resignation letters in advance, so he would just put the date when he would fire them."
According to the vocal pastor, all those detractors - like in the days of David - just need a loophole, like Nigeria currently has, and "as we speak here, several meetings are going on in Abuja and places calculating the eventualities. If it is like this or like that what should we do?"
Mr. Bakare, however, warned against a possible civil unrest and an outcome of sacrificing good governance on the altar of selfish interests of a few individuals.
"There was a time in biblical history when there was no King in Israel when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Lawlessness replaced the rule of law; this is the time that Nigeria is about to fall into if care is not taken."
The end is here
"In the month of September 2009, we received a word from the Lord concerning headless structure and organisation and that which began with CEO's of banks is now spreading to churches and eventually the nation. Today as we are speaking, Nigeria is without a functioning president."
Citing the exemplary lives of the biblical kings, Mr. Bakare said that anything by appointment or by whatsoever means must come to an end, but advised that the best way is to have it in honour and not disgrace. He used the life of David to explain how his children, Absalom and Adonijah, rose to rule in his stead while he was weak but still alive.
Mr. Bakare, however, said that such are the people that currently surround Mr. Yar'Adua and planning on how to make selfish benefits out of his eventual death or continuity in weakness.
Condemning the rotational presidency policy of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Bakare said that "there is neither a part of our constitution nor any part of our law that says that we must all subscribe to that. They said the plan is to ask the vice president to resign and then swear in the Senate president, who will be president for three months to conduct an election; you are about to make a constitutional blunder and cause a crisis that will mar it all."
President Yar'Adua on Monday, November 23 left Nigeria for treatment in Saudi Arabia of what has been diagnosed as acute pericarditis - inflammation of the lining of the heart. However, controversies have trailed the absence of the president from the country, with some calling for his resignation, saying that he has left the nation's affairs unattended to. The Federal Executive Council, last week, said the administration of the state has not been affected by his absence.
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