Coup: Time for Africa to work with God, not waiting for God to bring good leaders – Clergy

By Toby Chuks

As the news of coups after coup continue to resurface across Africa, Onitsha based journalist turned global preacher, Evangelist Theo Rays Ejikeme has called on Africans most particularly Nigerians to as a matter of urgency and importance learn how to work with God and stop waiting for God to bring leaders. Speaking to journalists in Onitsha following another report attempted coup in Benin Republic, Evangelist Ejikeme who is the Convener of Divine Illumination on Africa attributed the current wave of coup in Africa to “passionate interest of the people in good leaders”

The preacher observed that the interest in good leaders among Africans is undermining both the purpose of God and the strength of the people adding that what Africans need most is to enact a good developmental framework not waiting for God to bring good leaders. According to him, “the purpose of God particularly under Christianity that I am practicing is for people to workout their salvation with benefits of deriving solution to their problems through good works of righteousness, truth, love, faith, knowledge, wisdom, discipline, hard-working and sacrifice not to wait for God bring good leaders.”

He went further “this issue of waiting for God to give us good leaders is very popular among the Christian fold to the extend that Church leaders limit the work of God to ceremonies while waiting for God to bring good leaders. Instead of using God to champion the cause of righteousness, truth, love, power, faith, immorality, possibilities, creativity, productivity and dominion as required of Christians they use God to organise ceremonies and end up dwelling on political message that it is the responsibility of government to solve problem. Imagine a situation where all the government officials – from head to toe -are members of the Church and yet the Church is saying that government is not doing well”

Arguing that Africans particularly Nigeria have waited for good leaders enough having been waiting since Independent in 1960, he said that what Nigeria needs urgently is a good developmental framework set out on a strong initiative with good thinking to inspire creativity, innovation, massive development and productivity. To this end the Onitsha based Man of God is bringing to the table a framework set out on what he called 3Es as follows: Evaluation, Evolution & Eradication with emphasis on evaluating three major things which include: the individual, the institutions and the way God and money are being used.

He explained the 3Es in brief thus below
“First and most important to evaluate is the individual. At individual stage most of us are naive, cheap, weak and lazy to the point that we lack capacity to think, work, find, discover, create, form, innovate, produce and change situation. In this era of globalization when people of other parts of the world are highly knowledgeable, highly sophisticated, broad minded, brilliant, clever, elastic, durable, versatile, industrious, ubiquitous, escalating and rampant in thinking, working, finding, discovering, creating, forming, developing, producing and changing, Africans are following those who are called by God and waiting for God to give us good leaders.

“The second issue to evaluate is the institutions including religious and secular institutions. The institutions saddled with the responsibility to develop and build the people in right order also lack the capacity to change situation because they are waiting for God to bring good leaders. The institutions are more interested in amazing wealth and acquiring landed property than developming people in right order of truth, love and discipline. That’s why corruption in massively thriving in Nigeria. Of note, both the individuals and the institutions are waiting for God and expecting God to bring good leaders who will solve our problems.

“The third issue we have to evaluate is the way we make use of God and money. God and money are meant to appreciate human beings, provide basic needs such as food, water, shelter, light, health care, education, security and more importantly develop strong economic base. Of note, we misplace and misuse God and money in various ways such as putting God and money into irrelevant things like ceremonies that do not appreciate human beings. Take for instance, a lot of money is being spent for God on issues that are not yielding solution to our problems such as organising ceremonies, building worship centers and giving loyalty and preservation to old things.

Describing Divine Illumination as an embodiment of ideas, knowledge and vision on how to apply the instrumentalities of God to address the challenges facing humanity most particularly Africa at this point in time, he said that he taking off the programs of the 3Es program in Igboland as charity begins at home. He therefore appealed to Igbo leaders including Governors and others at all levels of government, elders, traditional rulers, Church leaders, market leaders, captains of industry, academics, NGOs, Civil Societies, Corporate bodies, social clubs, Ndigbo Lagos, Abuja and other places including foreign countries, the women groups, youth groups and the like-minded not just to take a look at the program but also get involved with it.

I am asking Ndigbo “kayi mee ka ebunu gaa azu wee bia ogu” because we cannot continue to do things the same way and expect change”