NATIONAL PRAYER ALTAR
MARATHON PRAYERS
Monday 26th May - Sunday 1st June 2025
RE-NEGOTIATE NIGERIA
Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law (Zeph. 3:3-4).
Last week, a disquieting news broke out, about a 22-year-old female Youth Corper who was arrested to be tried at a Sharia Court in Zamfara State for converting from Islam to Christianity. Not a few people believed the story which remains controversial. When the government denied it, many were persuaded that the Islamists of northern Nigeria were only trying to conceal the matter, especially given that similar and worse events have happened in the past, and still do, but are usually kept from the press.
Only recently, on May 7, Peter Emmanuel, a young man at Kwassam DCC in Kaduna State, preparing for his first degree from ECWA Theological College in Gure, Kaduna State, was gruesomely murdered at his residence along with a colleague; murdered by the same brutally intolerant religious fanatics merely because he housed a convert from Islam to Christianity who had fled for his dear life from the traditional hounds. His hospitality was his crime. His guest had been branded a religious criminal.
The furor over the present case is understandable in view of the rampant instances of such happenings in northern Nigeria. Sadly, those cruelties are hardly reported, given the risks in doing so. Considering the countless people killed for no other reason than for being Christians, murder appears to have been legalized in northern Nigeria, so long as the murderer can prove that the victim was a Christian. Besides those countless deaths, there have also been multiple Christian girls abducted in broad daylight and married off to Muslims, with the reprehensible backing of their religious and traditional leaders, while the State looks the other way and nobody gives a reasonable ear to the grieving parents or the child. Human and constitutional rights do not appear to exist in a section of the country; the sad case of one country, two legal systems.
A few weeks ago, we published a prayer bulletin entitled “OUR WORST ENEMY IS HATE”. There, with data provided from the Presidency, we listed various religious riots that have occurred in northern Nigeria since 1979. With or without provocation, Christians have been murdered, maimed, and displaced in various parts of northern Nigeria and in the Middle Belt. The viciousness of those attacks is nothing short of pure hatred. The situation has degenerated to the point of those Islamist terrorists now ravaging the entire country in different euphemistic names, particularly in the northern Nigeria and Middle Belt: herdsmen, bandits, kidnappers, ISWAP, etc. Now, the attacks have gone from being religious riots to becoming ethnic cleansing, deliberately orchestrated, in which Muslims have risen against Muslims. According to Hajia Kalthoum Alumbe Jitami, the self-declared emancipator of the Hausas, over seven million Hausa people were allegedly killed during the eight-year tenure of Buhari. At present, there is open conflict between the Fulanis and the Hausas. The intolerance and discrimination by a section of the country against other citizens is at the root of the dysfunctionality of the Nigerian state. No country can make progress in an atmosphere of suspicion, rivalry, and distrust.
Under the circumstances, it is needful to take the country back to the drawing board and re-negotiate the federation. The National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) published a paper some years ago, stating that what Nigeria has is “One country, two nations”: the one aggressive and ravaging nation on one side, and all the other ethnic people of the country grouped on the other side. Chief Obafemi Awolowo well said, “Nigeria is a mere geographical expression”.
The fundamental problem is that Nigeria is made up of ‘two races’: the negroid Fulanis, and the other indigenous ethnic nationalities of the negro race. For many years, the Hausas assumed that they were negroid, under the illusion of a ‘Hausa/Fulani tribe.’ Recent events have finally convinced them that there is no Hausa/Fulani tribe in Nigeria. Hausa is Hausa, and Fulani is Fulani.
The value system, aspirations, and expectations of the negroid and the negroes in Nigeria starkly differ. While the negroes have a democratic approach to life, in which everyone is equal and entitled to equal rights, the negroid people see the entire country as a fiefdom, with their ethnic stock as feudal lords. This contrasting value system must be resolved if the country should have peace.
The situation might have been different but for the inordinate ambition of the British colonialists who sought to impose the yoke of neo-colonialism upon the country. At Independence, the British deliberately manipulated governance in favour of the negroid group, thereby laying a foundation of imbalance in power. Since Independence, Nigeria has not been able to recover from that deliberate sabotage.
The onus is on the negro people to set aside all ethnic and religious differences to re-negotiate Nigeria. Unless Nigeria is re-negotiated and the various groups agree on how the country should be managed, peace and progress would continue to elude the country. According to the Ethnic Nationalities Movement, there are 389 ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, of which 388 are of the negro race while only one is negroid. One then wonders how one immigrant ethnic group manages to hinder 388 indigenous ethnic nationalities from re-negotiating Nigeria. The answer lies in the divide-and-rule strategy of the manipulators, in the name of religion, and the greed of the leaders of the negroes. Three categories of their leaders have been responsible for the difficulty in re-negotiating Nigeria:
1. The traditional rulers
2. The religious leaders, particularly the Christian leaders
3. The politicians representing the negroes.
These leaders carry the sad DNA of those African tribal chiefs who sold their people into slavery for a bottle of gin, gun powder, mirror, and cloth. In modern times, they have upgraded their means of settlement to money, houses, land, and exotic vehicles. The concept of collective interest is alien to them. Their compromising and self-seeking attitude is at the root of the strength and dominance of the killers over the much larger indigenous ethnic nationalities, the actual owners of Nigeria.
With a new generation of inquisitive and restless negroes, the negroid group has adopted violence to beat the others into submission. The new generation of negroes, armed with education and western civilization, not willing to submit to servitude on their land, has drawn the violence of the others.
Religion has been their clever tool for cultural and political domination; an instrument to divide others. They took it from the British. Most killings of negro Christians are done by negro Muslims. It is a game of thrones, as during the Civil War when Christian Gowon, Benjamin Adekunle, Obasanjo, Danjuma, Dogonyaro, Akinrinade, Alabi-Isama fought against Christian Ojukwu, Phillip Effiong, Okoro, Okonkwo, in an internecine war that lasted three years. After they had weakened themselves, the negroid schemers took back power in 1975.
The first thing the Negroids did on getting power was to purge the Civil Service in 1975, dismissing over 10,000 career civil servants to make place for their mostly native authority officials from the North, so that the machinery of governance could be under them. The victims of that purge were the negroes. Following public outcry against that purge, Murtala Muhammed appointed Monsignor Pedro Martins, the Chaplain of the Army, to conduct an inquiry. Pedro Martins reported that 98% of those dismissed did nothing to warrant dismissal. For producing such a report, Murtala Muhammed dismissed him from the Army. What did the negroes do?
The primary battle of the negroes for the emancipation of Nigeria should not be against themselves but their leaders. Unless the indigenous ethnic nationalities can call their leaders to order, or replace them where necessary, those leaders will destroy them. The crumbs that they get from the federation account (which ironically belong to them and their people) seem sufficient for those compromising leaders. They do not work for the Common Good.
The worst of those compromising leaders are Christian leaders, who sit in the office of Jesus Christ and use the name of God to control the minds and hearts of millions. Even when God has provided abundantly for them through the offerings and tithes of His people, they are not satisfied. The stolen water and bread that they eat in secret seem more delicious to them than the loaves in the temple (Pro. 9:17).
Re-negotiating Nigeria requires focus on one task: a new constitution. All the indigenous ethnic nationalities should give attention to decommissioning the 1999 Constitution (as amended). If Nigeria is to regain balance, have peace, and make progress, all efforts must be geared towards giving Nigeria a new constitution. The current 1999 constitution is an oppressive tool imposed by military fiat. It lacks constitutional legitimacy. Absurdly, it has been in force for twenty-five years, because of the complicity of the leaders of the indigenous ethnic nationalities, despite their majority in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives. So long as those legislators receive their outrageous and humongous monthly constituency allowances, they will not be bothered about the emancipation of their country. Nigerians must insist that the next election will not be held under the 1999 Constitution (as amended). It is possible, if there is citizens demand for a new constitution.
PRAYER POINTS
1. Ps. 24:1-2
Worship God as the Supreme Owner of Nigeria.
2. Hos. 8:4
Ask forgiveness for Nigeria, for appointing leaders without seeking the will of God. Pray that the land be no more ruled by leaders who use money to force their way into office.
3. Lam. 5: 19-21
Plead with God to return to Nigeria with mercy.
4. Matt. 6:10
Pray that the government of the Kingdom of God should reign over Nigeria.
5. Is. 29:6-8
Execute the judgment that is written, upon all nations attacking Nigeria, causing bloodshed and insecurity in the land.
6. Zeph. 3:3-4
Pronounce God’s judgment upon all treacherous leaders in the land.
7. Is. 33:22
Pray that God will take over the process of giving Nigeria a new constitution
JOIN US AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER ALTAR
DAILY INTERDENOMINATIONAL PRAYERS FOR NIGERIA
Started since 18th April, 2022
TIME: 9:00pm – 10:00pm daily (Nigeria time)
VENUE: ZOOM
ZOOM link:
https://zoom.us/j/96806190505?pwd=K2RqcUN3YjRwQzEzRDZaMUt2N1ZsUT09
Meeting ID: 968 0619 0505
Passcode: 024184
LINK TO MARATHON PRAYERS ZOOM ROOM
https://zoom.us/j/94064259957?pwd=bm13eDlSNTMrZWhVdTl5bmNRRlBHQT09
Meeting ID: 940 6425 9957
Passcode: Altar