Senior Pastor, The Trinity House Church, Ituah Ighodalo, speaks on some burning issues on Arise Television programme, “Nigeria at Crossroads”. Ben Ogbemudia monitored the broadcast.

Is Nigeria really at crossroads?

The truth of the matter is this: is enough of rhetoric, okay? We know the gate keepers in Nigeria. We know the people that are holding this country by the jugular. They are not many of them. I don’t think they are up to 1,000 people both at the federal and state levels. We need to go to each and every one of them. We need to speak to them and tell them: let my people go.

For you to get the people out of Egypt, Moses had to go to Pharaoh and said to him: let my people go; so, they may worship God. So, we need to go to Aso Rock to tell President Muhammadu Buhari to let our people go. If Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, needs to been spoken to; we tell him. We need to tell the chief of staff, and we need to tell people in different government agencies, that this is the right to let Nigeria go on the right direction. Why don’t we do it?

Managing our resources

I hear that the recommendation goes to council. There are increases in prices of fuel and electricity tariff, why did they do that? We need to go to every person and every region. We need to go to the people in Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, and Niger. We need to go to people in Ogun, Anambra, Abia, Imo, Enugu, Bayelsa and Rivers. We know them all. They are gate keepers in Nigeria, holding onto the resources of this country, not doing the thing they need to do. Why do we have a law in Nigeria in 2021 that doesn’t allow us develop our natural resources?
Why should the law not allow us develop our natural resources.

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Who says it belong to the federal government, and they are seating back and not developing it? Why are we wasting time? There is gold in the country. We have all sorts of resources available. Why is federal government not developing them? We need to tell them that enough is enough. We have more than enough to keep us as a country. We don’t need to import foods, why are we importing foods. People are just making money right, left and centre, even without proof of the their resources. What sort of nonsense is this? We need to tell them that we know every one of them. We need to tell them to stop just talking generally in the air. If they keep talking generally in the air, nobody will take responsibility.

Tinubu and Presidency

We need to call Bola Ahmed Tinubu, you want to be president, why do you want to be president? What is your plan? What do you want to achieve for Nigeria.

Even with the Lagos State that you have, I went to Ajegunle and Bariga the other day, people are leaving in the slums. They are leaving on rubbish heaps, and Tinubu is running all over the place that he wants to be president. Why can’t he develop Lagos first, so that every body in Lagos have a comfortable home and are living well. Why is he running around federal government?

On Igbo Presidency

Look I told my Igbo brothers, why are you wasting your resources in another place. You people are well comfortable, why don’t you pull your resources together and develop the east, develop Anambra, Imo, Enugu and make sure they are now the Dubai of Nigeria? Why are you people wasting time? Why not go into the ground and dig up your gold? We must talk to everyone of this gate keepers: enough is enough. Why are you holding to the people’s wealth? How much money do you want?, How long is a man going to live? I am 60 years now, how much more life do I want to live? How many clothes do I want to wear?

Buhari medical trip

My president leaves this country and went to London for medical treatment, what for? I can only forgive him because of his age. Honestly, why would he do that? Imagine America president, Joe Biden, coming to Nigeria for medical treatment. This is absolute nonsense when some of the best doctors in world are Nigerians. I can tell you that in this man, Buhari’s medical protocol, there will be, at least, four Nigerians in the team looking after him. Nigeria has dispatched all her competent hands, thrown them into the sea, and exported them to other countries. Over there, they are turning out to be the best, building other nations. We have eight Nigerians in America president’s cabinet, doing a fantastic job for him and Americans, making policies for him. If they come to Nigeria, we will frustrate them. They will be jobless.

What kind of nonsense is this? It is a enough. We must tell every one of them that is enough. We must stop it in Nigeria. What are we looking for? What are they looking for in power? Is it just to put people in a bondage? We all have more than a enough to eat and survive, if we are honest with ourselves. People are rolling everywhere in Lagos, area boys are on drugs doing all sorts of criminal things. Our so called leaders are not doing anything about it and you want to be in government and get power for what?

One of the problems we have as Nigerians is we are not telling ourselves the truth because tomorrow you are running to Aso Rock seeking contract, and other things. We should call these people and ask them their plan for Nigerians. Let’s ask them what they are doing with the blessing God has given us as a country? Let’s ask whoever says he gives out road contract for one billion, in your inner conscience, is it up to that money? All of them have houses in Dubai.

The other day, some one was saying come and see one politician’s house in Dubai, it is beautiful. What is he building a beautiful house in Dubai for? Why can’t he build it in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja or even his village?

The houses are wasting away, providing employment for white people, and you can not develop Nigeria, what sort of nonsense is that? At the end, we will still go begging these Americans, British people for assistance? These same people put us into slavery, colonized us, ensured that our laws do not work. Do you think it will be in their best interest to allow things work in your country? The president of Ghana recently said they were no longer exporting cocoa to Switzerland and he said if you want to eat chocolate, come to Ghana.

This is madness, how can we have crude oil in Nigeria and you are taking it else where to refine and import back to us? Who does that and we are seating down looking at one another?

People are sabotaging our refineries almost everyday and we allow them. Why should we allow it? We have to speak up and the problem with Nigerians is that people are not speaking up.

From everyday, you will hear general statements, such as Nigeria is bad, Nigeria is bad, who made Nigeria bad? We know them. We can call them out. Why are we hiding them? From former presidents, governors, ministers, local government chairmen, we should call them to account.

Until Nigerians hold them accountable with serious warning, this country will continue to recycle these people who have milked us dry in this country.

New Blood

So it is high time we brought in new blood, new thinking. People who are determined and intelligent. We need focus-minded young people that can turn things around for the generality of Nigerians. That has always be my crusade.

We must look for these people. For those people who have put us where we are now, will never, never aspire to leader us in this country again. I will pray. I will fast and I will fight them. They will never rule us again.

They had their turn, and they didn’t use it well. We should look for good people who can do good things and great things for this country. We are suffering. Come on, people are suffering. You need to go out there on the streets. I feel their pains because most time, I am out there feeding them.

These politicians have so visited our children with poverty. How can over 12 million children be out of schools in Nigeria with these modern day technology? With smart phone, you are already in schools and we are here priding ourselves as people carrying cows from Lagos to Kaduna, or Kano. Is that what we should be saying now? Is that the issue we should be discussing? What nonsense is that? You are punishing the cow and the poor herdsmen, carrying AK47 up and down, and we are discussing it.

This is not worth discussing in 2021. We should be saying these boys go to school. We should be putting our cows in the ranches. What kind of politics is this? We keeping begging the questions in Nigeria all the time. We don’t deal with the issues because everybody is afraid to talk because they will label you. How long can we live like this? We have to go to each and every one of these people and tell them, enough is enough.

On pastors kicking against COVID-19 vaccine

Why not let us encourage our congregation to invest their time in getting scientifically proven information from professionals on the COVID-19 vaccine rather than spread conspiracy theories and unverified information. Some of the pastors, who are discouraging their members from getting the vaccines, are wrongly basing their actions on faith rather than proper understanding of when to apply wisdom and when to apply prayers.

It is foolishness to keep having faith that God will protect you from an infection he has made provision for vaccines that can provide a high percentage of protection. I have taken the jab. I prayed about it, and I got a clear direction from God to go and receive it, and I have explained to my people in church that God provides knowledge. I will like to appeal to my brother pastors to do their research, get the knowledge and stop misinforming and improperly educating people on guess work, instincts and mere suppositions. Coronavirus is real, and you need the vaccination. The Bible says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Government needs to compel churches and their leaders to get qualified knowledge and answer important questions on COVID-19 vaccine. Some people think the COVID-19 vaccine is a deliberate effort to wipe out the human population. We need to address this fear and prove it is not so. Other persons think it is the sign of the anti-Christ (666) and we need to prove this is not also true. Other people believe the vaccines have long term effect and if you take it today, in 20 years’time, it would affect them. We also need to address such fears and prove scientifically this is not so. Most theories, fears and questions posed about COVID-19 need to be properly addressed by the government.

The problem is a lot of these questions about the vaccine are not being properly addressed and there is too much rumour flying all over the place. Some churches believe in divine health but if they study further, they would also know that God provided knowledge for healing.