2019: What will happen in churches if God-fearing leaders are not elected – Adedayo

Former Special Adviser on Media to former governor of Enugu and
current governor of Oyo State, Dr. Festus Adedayo has declared that
that there may be revolt by members "if the church does not get
involved in the process of electing God-fearing persons into
government in the 2019 elections".
Adedayo made this known in a lecture he delivered at the Seminar
Series of the Ibadan Anglican Church Diocese, held at the Comfort
Akinfenwa Events Hall, Molete, Ibadan on Tuesday with Bishop of Ibadan
Anglican Diocese, The Most Revd Joseph Akinfenwa in attendance.

He said that the need for church members to get involved in politics
is "because governments are proving incapable of and are showing
helplessness at solving people's problems of existence, they run to
the church for succor".

He said, "Governments are literally throwing their hands up in
surrender. The perils and pains are proving intractable for secular
powers-that-be to handle. Unemployment has reached a crescendo;
economic, health and social crises have proven really indomitable, in
spite of coordinated attempts to tackle them. Hopelessness is becoming
infectious like a pestilence and the world, which had made governments
and technology its hope, is returning to the Church for the way out of
its existential dilemma".

According to him, if Nigeria is not successful in electing God-fearing
men and women into positions of power in 2019, who will in turn
ameliorate the heavy load which the church carries, the pressure on
the church would multiply, probably leading to a revolt of immense
proportion.

"As predicted in II Timothy 3:1 which says, 'but know this, that in
the last days, perilous times will come,' the perilous times are
actually here and science and technology are profoundly incapable of
providing solutions to the pains suffered by humanity. The perilous
times are the existential void, agony and crises that man undergoes
today. The pains man underwent decades ago are little compared to his
challenges today. The Church is still where people frequent for
solutions to these existential crises and where they get "spiritual
fixes" whenever they get to inexplicable crossroads of their lives,"
he said.

He called on the church to wake up from its apathy of the past towards
politics and the process of acquiring political power.

"You cannot blame the church wholesale for this. The church had been
driven away from having anything to do with the process of seeking
power. The backstabbing, murder, corruption, occultist search for
power and sundry vices of politicking in Nigeria would make anyone who
has integrity to protect to see politics and politicians as lepers.
Due to the abdication of space by the righteous for the unrighteous to
reign, the worst of us have superintended over the best of us, while
the collective keeps silent. For how long will the righteous stay on
the sideline and allow the heathens to foul up Nigeria?

"Not only must it come out of its hiding place, the church must take
full and undisguised interest in who runs for offices, from the
minutest to the biggest office in the land. It must move against the
reprehensible set of people who contest elective offices and who have,
over the years, drawn Nigeria backwards. The church must also
wholeheartedly goad on and support the few good ones in society who
demonstrate purity of mind and character".