FOLA OJO FROM PUNCH
The thirty-second video rattled social media in its virality. Author of the clip was a young woman around 18 years of age. The periorbital areas of her eyes were swollen. She must have cried her heart out for hours before putting her voice and image on record in front of a phone camera. Her weakened voice lanceted through the weight of the bottled-up pain and agony. Between sobs and cries, she dug in into a fight with her Immortal and Invisible Maker who is God of Heaven.
“God, you lied to me. I will never talk to you again. I will not go to church again. You lied to me,” she lamented.
The young woman’s lamentation came as a result of her adored candidate’s defeat in the last presidential election. She was disappointed at our Good God who does not lie or take bribes. Her pastor had assured her in many prayer sessions that her candidate was God’s privileged person in the race. That turned out to be a lie. She was jolted. Did God lie to this young woman? No! God is not a man that would lie! But men who lie in the name of God, did. Representatives of God and ambassadors of The Good News lied to this gullible young girl. They lied to many Nigerians and bruised their emotions. They spoke what God did not speak to them to speak. They claimed that God told them He had anointed a man as ‘Messiah” over Nigeria, but it was a lie. They spoke many things about the election that they falsely branded as God’s final answer. Alas, it was all fabricated in the unholiness of their depraved hearts.
Even after the whole world now knows who the winner is, they are still chanting around town that God told them that He is going to torpedo, and torpedo, and torpedo the election results. Their god, not God of Heaven and earth, is now speaking from both sides of his mouth. The world is waiting for the tornado of the prophesied torpedo. Men who have histories of false prophecies are still prophesying falsity with audacity. And these young minds and some foolish adults believe them for whatever reasons. Woe unto him who says a thing and it comes to pass when God has not spoken it, the Holy Guide says. This young girl, however, has had enough of Brobdingnagian lies from the pulpit. She is already out of church. She has already picked her fight with God who never said one word to the prophets who deceived her and millions of Nigerians. And in this political season, I have stumbled on videos of frustrated young people who believed words from the manipulating mouths of their ‘pastorpreneurs’ who are hungry for cash-freebies from politicians to fuel their private jets.
Let me make this very clear to our readers. It’s in everybody’s rights to take positions in any and every election. Pastors, like every human being, have their own biases, opinions, and worldviews. They can use their pulpits to lend support to any candidate of their choosing based on belief. They can present their candidates as the Messiah pre-packaged before the foundation of the world. But they have no moral rights to voice their personal opinions and biases and claim it’s the voice of God that fires like thunder without fluff, flub, gaffe, or goof.
In the last week I had thought this through and asked myself and friends around me why some men on the pulpit lie blatantly and horrifyingly?
Our young people who vociferously carry on their shoulders politicians’ agenda and fights are the worst victims of this charade. In a population of about 200 million, they are a little over 80 million. They are the crème de la crème and corps d’elite of the engine that drives a nation. But failures in government caused them to see no hope for tomorrow, nor decipher a glorious future on the horizon. Our young minds are endangered species and an abandoned breed. These preying pastors take advantage of them by prophesying lies to boost the size of their Pentecostal platoon, and swell up their financial empires. In a system where not much works, brainwashing is an easy buy for the hungry and angry. Ravaging poverty and the scourge of hunger in Nigeria make a vast majority of Nigerians susceptible to believing words from men in spiritual authority.
