Delivering a captured nation (1), By Ayo AKerele

When the gospel is preached in spirit and in truth, not for pecuniary gains or as a poverty eradication system, prayers will be answered, light will shine, and true leaders will emerge. There is a spiritual dimension to national transformation. The evil forces of the capitalist West cannot be conquered by superior economic policies, but by superior supernatural forces. The foundation for a great Nigeria is not economics but righteousness. It is by building on righteousness that every economic policy will work, not the other way round.

I was sitting in my office on a very cold and snowy day when my phone rang. It was from a dear friend in Nigeria. “Dr Akerele, good day sir,” he said. “We’ve got a major mining project we want you to be part of in South West Nigeria. Are you interested?” Apparently, I had once consulted for the world’s biggest diamond mining company, which was exactly why he called me up to be part of this project. I told him to send me the proposal for review. And it was in the course of our conversation that I had the greatest shock of my life.

There is a city in South West Nigeria with a large deposit of gold that has never been explored. A US based firm that specialises in quantifying the amount of natural resources beneath the earth was approached to assist with assessing the value of gold in this city. At the end of their valuation, the mind-blowing figure given was that at the very least, the present quantity of gold underneath this city is valued at about $500 billion. I nearly fell off my seat. Five hundred what, I asked? The man actually said that was a very conservative estimate.

Then I agreed to be part of the project. We started with kick-off meetings, only to be stalled by the Nigerian factor – the corrupt and evil political elites. The government blocked it. We went out to push for foreign investors who would help us with the work of turning this natural resource into assets that could transform that entire state and several others in Nigeria into another Dubai. But the government blocked it. Why? You and I know what happens behind the scenes, and how foreign actors collaborate with criminal political elites to siphon resources like this into foreign pockets, leaving the people stuck in abject poverty. This was just in one city out of hundreds of other places in the South West, with incredible deposits of natural resources.

There is actually a sort of resemblance between the Nazis and our present-day leaders; even though the Nazis were scums, ​and the worst species in human history. ​

Gilbert K. Chesterton captured it very accurately when he said, “coziness between church and state is good for the state but bad for the church.”

There is a striking parallel between the circumstances that forced post World War I Germany into the hands of the Nazis and Nigeria of today into the hands of its evil leaders, sorry, dealers. Hitler promised to rebuild Germany, though he had in his sleeves an array of sinister plans to pocket the minds of the nation.

For the past three years, I have built most of my politically and leadership inclined articles and essays on the intrigues that underpinned the Second World War. In actual fact, I have become a World War II fanatic within the framework of building on the lessons of the failure of bad leadership in what was popularly called the Third Reich, to explain most of the problems facing the modern black society. The problems facing a nation like Nigeria is strikingly in parallel with the same problems that faced post World War I Germany. At the end of that war, Germany entered a period of recession that had never been experienced before in the history of that nation. It was a fallout from the failure of Germany to win First World War, and mostly because Germany was blamed for starting the conflict, in an unanimous decision of the world powers.

To punish Germany, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, and the country was forced to pay an incredible amount of money as reparation, alongside being forced to cede a large chunk of its land, and territorial integrity, to fellow European nations. Germany was also stopped from expanding its military assets beyond a certain number, among many other punishments. Thus, the German economy collapsed, leading to the rise of Adolf Hitler who weaponised this crisis to acquire political mileage and personal branding, till he became the leader of that nation.

It was all about an economic crisis. Dr Erwin Lutzer once said, “An economic crisis is the best gift for a leader willing to capture a nation.” Germany was simply captured by Hitler and his evil circle of leaders.

There is a striking parallel between the circumstances that forced post World War I Germany into the hands of the Nazis and Nigeria of today into the hands of its evil leaders, sorry, dealers. Hitler promised to rebuild Germany, though he had in his sleeves an array of sinister plans to pocket the minds of the nation.

Hitler silenced all opposition. Most African leaders and, most importantly, Nigerian leaders have captured all their major oppositions. The Nazis turned Germany into a one-party state. Nigeria is almost becoming a one-party state. The Nazis controlled the media at all levels, dictating their preferred narratives to media houses in exchange for government favours. The Nigerian government has historically, and even more recently, captured all the major voices of reason in the media.

There is no quick fix for a nation on its knees. It starts from setting the foundation of justice, accountability, fairness, and equity. Interestingly, these were the core values that formed the foundation for the new Germany that emerged after the era of the Nazis. Nigeria will not rise, much less become great, without the same core values ​of justice, accountability, fairness, and equity — all built on righteousness.

The German government under the Nazis produced various shades of killer forces, branded as the Gestapo, SS and SA guards. They were answerable to only the top echelon of the German leadership, and they arrested opponents, locked up dissident voices, and killed, extrajudicially, whosoever they so wished. The Nigerian system has historically produced various criminal forces that masquerade as the military and the police, wasting the lives of young people or even becoming tools of oppression and subjugation during elections.

But as the Germans became free at a time the world thought that the Nazis had finally decimated all hopes that they once had, Nigeria can still resurrect if the church can be resurrected. The only hope for a dying nation is life. The only hope for a nation filled with darkness is light. Both life and light are outside the purview of the present political class, which I have often referred to as “dealers.” The hope for a new nation rests with the carriers of life and with the bearer of light – the church of God. When the cream of leaders in the church return to God in all truth and righteousness, seeing the people as more important than buildings and; and seeing the transformation of the nation as a major part of God’s kingdom, change will come.

When the gospel is preached in spirit and in truth, not for pecuniary gains or as a poverty eradication system, prayers will be answered, light will shine, and true leaders will emerge. There is a spiritual dimension to national transformation. The evil forces of the capitalist West cannot be conquered by superior economic policies, but by superior supernatural forces. The foundation for a great Nigeria is not economics but righteousness. It is by building on righteousness that every economic policy will work, not the other way round.

There is no quick fix for a nation on its knees. It starts from setting the foundation of justice, accountability, fairness, and equity. Interestingly, these were the core values that formed the foundation for the new Germany that emerged after the era of the Nazis. Nigeria will not rise, much less become great, without the same core values ​of justice, accountability, fairness, and equity — all built on righteousness. God bless Nigeria

Ayo Akerele is the senior pastor of Rhema Assembly and the founder of the Voice of the Watchmen Ministries in Ontario, Canada. He can be reached through ayoakerele2012@gmail.com