Balanced Ticket or Balanced Federation? (6)

ON OBEDIENCE (2)


It is written:

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So, Samuel prayed to the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also. Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them.” So, Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who asked him for a king. And he said, “This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage and give it to his officers and servants. And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day.” Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the hearing of the LORD. So, the LORD said to Samuel, “Heed their voice, and make them a king.”
(1 Samuel 8: 4-22)

Although the message was directed at the children of Israel, not the entire world as it was known at the time, it is relevant to the Church in Nigeria today. This is because of the possible impact their actions or inactions can bring upon the various Nationalities of Nigeria.
It also shows that a people may be made to be aware of the consequences of their actions yet refuse to heed the warning and either sleepwalk into the problem or with their eyes wide open.
Without its own paradigm, anchored on the Scripture, the Church will continually fall for the worn “balanced ticket” mantra without making a dent on the problematic of the various Nationalities and become complicit in their continuous oppression as this will negatively affect the internal political trajectory of the Nationalities.
The Middle Belt has endured the most flooding in terms of their human and material losses. Therefore, making a “balanced ticket” paramount is akin to sentencing them to further “enemy action” especially when the “balanced ticket” has sustained Babylon since 1966.
It will be another farce in history, and this time, it will be a “tragic farce”.
This is confirmed by Peter Obi, which the Church leaders are directly and indirectly promoting from the pulpit, spiritualizing the “obidients”, covering them with the cloak of their offices as pastors and preachers.
With the Labor Party as his vehicle, he has defended the 1999 Constitution, saying that it is not the problem, that the problem is the leadership to run it, whilst also endorsing the Constitutional amendment recognizing anyone who has spent 5 years in any community as an Indigene.
This works primarily against Christians in the Middle Belt whose lands are being systematically taken over.
The Church, including Yoruba Christians, would have become the vehicle to sleepwalk the Nations into further captivity; for the Church would have enabled further Unitarization which the Labor Party stands for.
Human reasoning and wisdom suggest that a useful product is a product of the environment from which it emerges. Therefore, if the leadership is bad, its enabling environment must be bad, otherwise, the environment should be able to take care of it.
Nigeria has been going downhill with bad leadership anchored on a “balanced ticket” since the promulgation of Decree 24 as the 1999 Constitution and which was not even made available to the contending political parties. Hence the victors in 1999 were sworn in without their having a clue as to the contents of the Constitution which they swore by.
Among the “obidient” Church leaders are those with places of worship in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city.
The “Original Inhabitants Development Association” of the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja), is an association of displaced Indigenous owners of the land, who are mainly Christians and who are demanding political recognition and self-government as Indigenes, even within the context of a “balanced ticket-driven” Nigerian State. The 1999 Constitution rejected their claims.
They have been displaced from their lands with no compensation paid. Their lands are vested in the central government who appoints administrators and ministers for the FCT, without any consideration given to the original Inhabitants.
Their demand does not feature with the “obidients”, the Church and its candidate are now reinforcing it.
The United Nations held its annual International World’s Indigenous Peoples Day on August 9, 2022. The Church, gung-ho on a “balanced ticket” did nothing.
Being “obidient” is therefore not only the political preferences of those on the Pulpit, clothed in Scriptural robes but also the road to nailing the coffin of the Nationalities in Nigeria, specifically Minorities in the North, who are mainly Christians.
It is written:
Now it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul. “Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also, you will have delivered your soul.”
(Ezekiel 3:17-21)

To be OBEDIENT to God is to carry the flag of the Standard lifted up by the Spirit of the Lord.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.
Wale Odeku