What Truly Should Be Our Priority Now as Leaders of a Nation?
This question has become necessary, given where we are today as a nation and where we are supposed to be.
While completing my INEC nomination form yesterday, Section E, Question 1 caught my attention. It asks: “Have you ever been adjudged a lunatic or been declared a person of unsound mind?” The answer is either Yes or No. That question got me thinking: Can we, as the political leaders of today’s Nigeria, truly say we are exhibiting the characteristics of a sound mind?
When Nigerians, including children and security personnel, are being abducted into the bushes, citizens cannot travel safely on our highways, several million Nigerians are uncertain where their next meal will come from, and several billions are being siphoned frivolously through non-existent agencies and projects, should politics really be our primary preoccupation?
A sound-minded leadership would have declared these existential challenges a national emergency and immediately mobilised all relevant institutions, security agencies, experts, community leaders, and other critical stakeholders to confront them with urgency and resolve. At a moment like this, the survival, security, and stability of Nigeria must take precedence over every other consideration. This is a time for decisive action, not political calculation or the pursuit of partisan advantage.
Further in the same Section E, Question 6, was: “Have you ever presented a forged certificate to INEC?” Again, the answer is either Yes or No. This raises another important question: Why shouldn’t INEC, in the interest of ensuring that our leaders are exemplary in following the rules and to strengthen public confidence in our electoral process, publish the academic certificates and credentials submitted by every candidate seeking elective office?
Transparency strengthens democracy and builds public trust. Nigeria’s problems are too serious for politics as usual. It is time for leadership defined by competence, character, capacity, compassion, and commitment to service.
A New Nigeria is POssible. -PO
Reno,
The fact that you dismiss Nigerians who live here, work here, pay taxes here and endure the daily consequences of bad governance as having “mono vision” says more about your dishonesty than about their lived reality. The suffering caused by insecurity, inflation, failing infrastructure and institutional decay is not made up. It is an everyday experience for millions, YOU INCLUDED.
Foreign celebrities visiting Nigeria briefly, hosted by privilege and insulation, are not the measure of governance. Tourism, hospitality and culture have never been Nigeria’s problem. Governance is. No rapper, billionaire or pop star queues for fuel, struggles with public hospitals, or plans daily life around power failure and insecurity. Their pleasant experiences do not cancel the hardship of citizens, and pretending otherwise is intellectual fraud, one that you have exhibited for years now.
You have repeatedly insulted the same governments you now defend with missionary zeal. That record alone makes you untrustworthy. You pivot whenever proximity to power is on offer, and the public has noticed. It is why your commentary is met with scepticism and why your claims must always be challenged.
Nigeria does not lack patriots. What it lacks is honest leadership and credible representation. Patriotism is not propaganda. It is telling the truth, even when it is uncomfortable. Until integrity, competence and character become the basis for public office and representation, people like you will continue to surface. I will continue to challenge falsehoods and sanitised narratives, because Nigeria deserves better than performative loyalty and convenient lies.
The Banquet
(This is a supernatural memo, coded for the called, a mystery to the crowd)
I share a banquet table with friends all the time
We are having that kind of a year
A year of feasting
We will usually have a fellowship meeting and as the meeting is ending we will most likely be heading for a feast
We dine at the best restaurants and company is always splendid
We were fulfilling prophecy and bringing hope to a nation that somehow found itself trudging through a season of famine
It is logical for the church to declare a fast in the time of famine
The Lord told us in January 2023 that we are coming into an eight-year period of abundance
Nothing we see in the physical and our environment suggests it
But we have seen a prophet fed by ravens in the season of famine
We have seen a widow and her son sustained by the word of a prophet
We have seen another widow producing several drums of oil out of a little bottle
We have seen thousands fed by a few loaves of bread and some fishes
We have seen words spoken in the middle of the night producing a city in two years
We cannot look at the prevailing wind on the outside
We have to observe the wind of the Spirit dominating through us on the inside
As I sat across the table at the latest feast we had, the Lord began to speak to me
He said "Don't eat and drink in this feast, don't also engage your friends in a conversation. Just sit still and observe the radiance in the faces of my children.
And then the table we were sitting on, which was not so big began to expand in my sight and it became a whole banquet hall
(Now we were at a party and we had our own table, so this was not a restaurant or an eatery)
Obviously, now I was seeing a vision
So I sat there
The Lord said look at the tables I have prepared before you, be sure I have forgotten no one
(Now I don't know every member of the ministry personally, I am however familiar with many and I began to look around the table for them. I was sure if I could find them, they, in turn, would be able to account for others who are in their teams or their immediate sphere of influence. That way, everybody will be accounted for)
On that first table, I saw names carefully written on golden place cards, placed on the table in front of each seat, so that everyone knew where to seat
Surprisingly everyone was present at this feast, including old friends and even some whom I had lost contact with or fallen out with due to one reason or the other
The room was filled up to the last name, for everyone invited to this feast was present
It was a feast with the King, none dare turn it down
Then the Lord said "Walk with me as I walk in the midst of my people"
Then we began this walk through the hall
For every table, as we walked through, the guests would stand and the Lord would greet them one by one by name. In some cases, he would mention things about them that made their faces brighten up especially because it showed them that he was mindful of them and he remembered intimate details about them
We got to a table and the Lord turned to me and said "Now, cheer up, why were you looking gloomy?"
I said "Oh, it is because of my friends, the ones that saw you and brightened up but when they saw me they looked disappointed"
The Lord said "They loved you much more than most. What you saw in their faces was not a look of disappointment, it was a look of concern and hurt that came from a place of love"
"How can I make it right?" I asked
The Lord didn't say a word, he just walked on, smiling. shaking the hands of some and tapping the shoulders of others before engulfing them in his warm embrace
Then he looked at me and said "Cheer up then, this look does not befit a feast, why are you sulking?"
I was not sulking, I was about to do that justifying thing that we do when we need help after trying to solve difficult puzzles by ourselves and discovering that the puzzles were more difficult than we envisaged.
I was about to vent my frustrations
The Lord said, "Alright then, out with it..."
I said "I miss my friends, I have managed to keep many but I have lost some along the way. Some had kept me at arm's length and I have kept others at arm's length deliberately. Some wanted more attention than I could spare them and others whom I gave my attention abused it and used that privilege to hurt me while pretending they cared.
It was the most challenging bit of my journey and It hurts
The Lord said "You lot and your sentiments, it is what makes you so unique among all of creation. The fact that your weakness is also your strength.
He was like God and yet wanted to be like God, a paradox, don't you think?
She was loved and yet she was craving for love. He tells her he loves her, and she knows this to be true but the kind of love she craves is not the kind of love he is offering
He was offering the stable, responsible and encompassing love of a husband, she was craving the hot, passionate, quickened and reckless love of a lover
She knows the second love is not sustainable or reasonable and without the first love, she wouldn't even dare to crave the second because it was the first love that brought her to the place of fulfilment that led her to even crave the second.
She takes the second and then it dawns on her, like a child who wishes his mother dead only to discover after her mother had died that she could not wish her back to life, that she was satisfied with the first and was only consumed by lust for the second
Lust ruins love and so she lost out on the real because she was chasing an illusion
This has always been the undoing of your kind
You want the past to be present and you want the future to be present while also desiring the present to be present
You forget time is a continuum and until you have come to a place of timelessness, it is the coming and the going of people into and out of your life that marks the beginning of eras and their ending
You must learn to deal with this and to master it
Now cheer up, we have much ground to cover before the feast begins"
Sometimes being with the Lord, even in a vision is a mind-boggling experience, you expect your spirit to have instant comprehension of all things but you find yourself reeling at the depth of His unfathomable wisdom for months after your encounter with Him
We got to a table, there were eight seats and all of them were empty
Curiously enough all the place cards were present and the table was of another colour and shade of gold than the rest
The Lord said "Here, in this banquet, I have invited some witnesses, they know this terrain and their insight can be of great help to you in those areas where you struggle, especially in dealing with issues of your fellow saints and those who yet to be saints but have been drawn into the same space with you"
Just then the witnesses arrived and the Lord hugged them as they sat one after the other
There were seven of them, even though there were eight chairs
The Lord said "Always keep a seat unoccupied at their table, they do not stand to talk to the saints and when any saint approaches their table, he must be seated in silence in order to learn of their wisdom and glean of their experiences.
They know the question but you must learn how to get the answers in silence.
By this time we were back at our table and the feast began in earnest
I heard a voice saying "They are calling us to a dance" and I came out of the open vision
There was music and conversation all around me
We stood up to dance
Before I arrived at the event I had been driving all about the venue thinking about a particular puzzle I sincerely wanted to solve
It had been on my mind for over a year and I was determined to resolve it once and for all
As soon as we stood up to dance, I realised the puzzle was gone from my heart
It didn't have the kind of weight it had before that moment
It just lost its power to matter
Awesome.
The dance was good
I felt like I was in a crowd for hours after
I mean hours after I had left the event and gotten back to my house
The presence of the feast and the feasters, the banquet and the witnesses were still as real and as heavy as it felt when I was at the party.
11/04/2024
PS: We will be having our Banquet of Praise tonight
All those He had joined unto me in fellowship were fully accounted for
Praise be to the One who is walking in between the Menorah (The seven golden lampstands while appraising His church)
It is the Month of April and today we have our global communion service
It is not religion, it is a lifestyle
So we do tonight's communion service in style
We will pray in the Spirit, we will read the scriptures, we will share testimonies to His praise and then we will break bread
There is a secret to how soft the earth has been under our feet as we followed the leading of the Holy Spirit in all that we do
There is a secret to our prosperity as a fellowship of His Kind
We do the things of the Spirit as it is done in the Spirit and as taught by the Holy Spirit
Make sure you have your communion emblems or even a hearty meal close by
Psalm 50 will be the light as we ascend to the place of His feet
Read it and meditate on it throughout today
The deep has called, let the deep answer
-GSW-
Finding Truth
I remember the first time i had to take a stand against a lady who claimed she was raped on Twitter and had the Twitter mob on her side
I found myself on several blogs being labeled as a rape apologist
I found myself being unfollowed by hundreds of people
I found myself being sent vicious messages in my DM and even getting death threats
I remember the pastor of this young woman, a man i used to respect a lot putting a call through to me and asking me not to defend the man accused of raping this lady because "Even though he didn't rape her" he was a married man and a lecturer to this young lady and therefore he had no business having sex with her regardless of whether the sex was consensual or not.
The man accused of raping this lady and his wife had just moved to the UK
He was a medical doctor
The young lady that accused him of raping her had raised an alarm in Ibadan the moment the incident happened
The University authority carried out a test on her immediately to ascertain the veracity of her claim
The university also set up a panel to look into the matter
After a thorough investigation, the University concluded it was not rape
This lady went on Facebook to write the story, slanting the facts but there were WhatsApp receipts and recorded conversations between her and this unfortunate young man
She was the one who told him to take her to a club
She was the one that climbed on top of him at 6 pm in the evening, right in the club, and had sex with him in public
She was the one who asked him to take her to a hotel for the night because that day was her birthday
She was the one that slept with him in that hotel a second time
And then when they were having sex the third time she asked him to stop right in the middle of the act and He stopped
They slept and parted ways amicably in the morning
She expected him to call her the next day to ask how she was
He didn't
She took offense and declared she had been used
She screamed rape!
I spoke with this young lady for hours over the phone
She agreed everything happened according to all the receipts tendered to me by the man affected
(The man reached out to me in my DM because the Twitter mob had investigated his house address and office address in the UK and had written to the hospital via mail and Twitter that they had employed a rapist
Letters were also written to the embassy and the man's landlord
The man's wife was not spared too
He was about to lose everything and nobody was willing to hear or tell the truth, so he came to me in my Twitter DM and on WhatsApp to tell his story and present his evidence)
I had the option of going with the crowd or swimming against their evil tide
I chose to tell the story as it really happened
I braced myself for the impact and it was devastating!
Only God knows how many people i blocked that season
The vile words and curses that many heaped on their own heads because they read the rant of a lady who needed urgent psychiatric help at the time
The thing about a rape accusation is this, it never truly goes away
It becomes part of your story, your framing, your perception, your image, your CV
Every time you are investigated for a job or even a relationship or friendship, it pops up
You have practically been labeled a sex offender, a pervert!
It sticks and hyssop will not be able to wash that stain away
Nothing can wash it away except the blood of Jesus
It is not one of those crimes that just blows away
It will keep coming back
Those who accuse people falsely of rape ought to be given the same energy of negativity and labeling they were willing to unleash on their victim
This is never the case
Soon, someone will come to their defense and claim mental health issues or another reason to excuse them from facing the full consequence of their actions
I am not excusing the bad behavior and absolute lack of ethics displayed by this lecturer who was married and supposed to be a good example to the young lady in question but to accuse him of rape is wrong
Two wrongs can no right make!
I found myself handling another case yesterday
A case that speaks to the darkness in the heart of many of us in our relationship towards those that we claim we love or pretend to love
A friend told her friend about a party they should attend this Christmas
The friend said her boyfriend's friends from the USA would be coming to Nigeria and the party was going to be so much fun
This friend knew her friend didn't like parties and was working hard to put her life together after a series of mistakes from her past
This friend however had been asked by her boyfriend to bring her friends to this party because it would be dry without babes
She was caught between leaving her friend alone to make her plans for the holiday season or bringing her to the party so that her boyfriend would not be disappointed in her
After days of persuasion, her friend agreed
They went to the party on the 24th of December
The lady's friend said she remembered getting to the venue, dancing, eating, drinking, and then feeling a bit tipsy and going off to one room to sleep
When she woke up she was back in her apartment all alone
This was on the 25th of December
Yesterday, her friend came to visit her and started talking about her exploits at the party with pictures and videos taken on her friend's phone
She made a big fool of herself
Danced for the guests practically naked and then slept with one or more than one of them (She wasn't sure)
She couldn't believe her friend didnt protected her, stopped her from whatever madness she was doing, and took her home or at least pretended not to be there and not be the one shooting her video
Her friend said she was outside under the canopy with her boyfriend when someone came to call her and that her friend was drunk and misbehaving
She rushed in and found her doing whatever she was doing, tried to reason with her but her friend told her to shut up and leave her alone
So she went to sit down and decided she would record whatever it was that her friend was doing and show it to her later as evidence of her bad behaviour
I have seen such cases before several times
Friends setting friends up to be raped
Friends luring friends to ritualist dens
Fiends posing as friends
One of the friends has serious insecurity issues
Insecure people usually see themselves in a certain light that makes them want to drag the people they see as better than them or as their competition through the mud
Just so they can feel better
Insecure people are also quite envious and full of jealousy, they can easily to cajoled to do things just to get the validation of others
The friend that took her friend to this party was in my opinion not really a friend
She was just pretending to be one
The friend that went to the party too was not very observant or wise
The least you should do in your life is learn how to listen to your instincts and not become part of someone else's agenda
If you dont feel like going out, stay indoors
If you feel like going out, go out!
Why would i want to do something and someone will convince me against my better instinct to do something else just to please them
Was that not peer pressure?
There is a certain age you get to, you develop a mind of your own and stop falling for that nonsense, especially when you are closer to thirty than fifteen
And with all the life experiences you have had beforehand, you really shouldn't be unkind to yourself.
I am happy she didnt end up dead or in a pit somewhere
The drink she drank at the party was spiked and the video didn't present her as drunk in a way that she couldn't make the right decision
She was one of those few ones who when they get drunk, switch to another character completely and wouldn't even believe what they are capable of
I believe her friend knew this or had seen her in action before and set her up to use her to entertain her boyfriend's friends for clout.
Only a "friend" can do this to another friend
This is what makes it hurt the most
You had a lot of emotional and social stock to invest, handed it to this particular person in trust and the person finds it so easy to burn that stock without a second thought
When both friends narrated their stories, both were claiming to be victims
The one who took the video claimed she did everything she could to dissuade her friend but her friend was so far gone and wouldn't listen to reason
She said she took pictures and videos so that she would use them to exonerate herself in case her friend accused her of the very thing she was being accused of later
The video however didn't show her friend trying to dissuade her or warn the guys taking turns to "have fun" with her that she was drunk or high on drugs and should be left alone
The video showed guys laughing, spraying her dollars (To Encourage her) and she in turn stripped shamelessly and then proceeded to do lap dances before an orgy ensued
It was what she had done for years before she decided to turn a new leaf and she had turned a new leaf for almost two years before her friend, whom she met in church and told her story decided to make her bring out that tiger once more.
If you see the video, you will never believe this lady didn't know what she was doing
If you see and hear her out later, you will believe this lady had no idea what she was doing
It is her word against the words of her friend
She couldn't go to the police or anyone for redress
She wrote to me asking for help
I listened to her after reading her story
I listened to her friend too and I realized something had broken in her that needed urgent help to heal
People are going through a lot
The first man didn't rape the lady but he abused a position of trust and should never have slept with that young woman
It was not rape but it was a shameful act that should be widely condemned
This was why i was happy that he was dragged on social media to the point where he and his wife had to do videos
apologizing and promising never to misbehave again
The second lady was raped but how do you prove that?
How do you heal from a friend's dagger in your back?
You turn to the Lord
You go to him with the burden and the pain
You turn to Him with your wounds and sores
You cry and ask him to heal you
You forgive the rapist(s) and yourself
You forgive the one who sold you to be slaughtered
You let go of the hurt and the pain
It will take a few days but you will be whole again
Then you take a few lessons from your experience and become a better version of yourself going forward
Job 14: 7-9
“For there is hope for a tree,
If it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
And that its tender shoots will not cease.
8 Though its root may grow old in the earth,
And its stump may die in the ground,
9 Yet at the scent of water it will bud
And bring forth branches like a plant.
PS: If you ever find yourself in a position where you have to stand for what is proper versus what is convenient
You must always choose what is proper when there are other people's interests involved
When it is only your interest that it involves, you can consider the pros and cons of other factors before making your decisions
Doing the proper thing does not mean being right
Doing the convenient thing does not mean being wrong
But when you have the interest of others to protect, you must do the proper thing
Like enforcing the will of a dead man or woman, you must do the proper thing even if it is not convenient
Today, the HoM of GSWMI Blissful Homes Fellowship,@omoteedavies Sister Omotayo Ndakson is celebrating her Birthday, she is the host of our Couple's Hangout from 29th December to 30th December.
That hangout is going to be hot!
Happy Birthday to you, precious sister, the glory of God is evident in your life. This coming year is full of grace and glory in multiple folds in Jesus name. Amen
If you can join us, please do so
-GSW-
In a twist of sad irony, let me congratulate the giant of Africa, Nigeria, for matching the great China, with the same number of contingents at the ongoing COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Nigeria's contingent to COP28 totaled 1411, the same number as the Chinese
In a twist of sad irony, let me congratulate the giant of Africa, Nigeria, for matching the great China, with the same number of contingents at the ongoing COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Nigeria's contingent to COP28 totaled 1411, the same number as the Chinese
One of the things I’ve learnt in my life is the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit.
We are used to programs, some form of order of directions. Opening prayer, opening hymn, first reading, praise, worship, sermon, offering etc