Your Excellency Sir,
Much as I would have loved to congratulate you over the last election in which you were declared the winner by Independent National Electoral Commission. I am compelled to hold my peace; for justice is like a pendulum clock no one should tell its time until it sounds it. On justice we are waiting to tell what time it is for Lagos and Nigeria. The exigencies of the declaration somersault of electoral victory peculiar to our Country Nigeria, has listed us among the fair and law abiding citizen waiting for the final decision of the judiciary on the issue that should be based on the majority decision of the people made at the ballot!
Our Nation is unique in everything. We have been taught by political players to wait upon the Judiciary, by our experience at Imo state’s last Governorship elections where number four became the governor, through judicial technicalities.
A lesson in the anals of judicial ruling not to be forgotten so soon.
Hope Uzodima owes his victory to the supremacy of the Supreme Court over the will of the people, very unfortunately though, the consequence being that even if it may be reviewed in the future, that would not detract from the fact of him being addressed and regarded as His Excellency, nor will emoluments earned be returned to the state confers, worse still the decisions that technicalities empowered him to make for the state without the investment of the people’s mandate.
Your Excellency Sir, I may not be in your good books or that of your party, this, I can understand. Usually the man that tells the truth can’t thrive in an environment where sycophancy is the greatest employer if labour and many are feeding through it. Time may not permit me to communicate my appreciation of you but eternity will reveal how we labour to see all government irrespective of who is in the saddle, to succeed!
My attention was drawn to a certain information circulating on WhatsApp with the singular intention to complicate by the government, the already frosty relationship between the Yorubas and Igbos in Lagos.
The mischievous post read thus:
“Lords CHOSEN entrance was blocked, Pastor Lazarus called Sanwo-Olu and asked him why, he said that Tinubu ordered them to block it that he wants to relocate the church out of that place.”
The lines of the post obviously reveals it as an invention of a mischievous mind out to deepen crisis remotely caused by your political supporters over which your government is yet to take a decisive stand.
Sir, I personally got in touch with one Evangelist Chris Joseph, who had represented the General Overseer of the Lord’s Chosen, Pastor Lazarus Muoka, on the platform of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria on several occasions. He confirmed our suspicion of the news, as fake!
Joseph stated:
“The Church entrance was temporarily blocked because of the ongoing federal road construction. But there are other ways people access the Church.”
He thanked me and the Apostolic Round Table for our vigilance.
This will bring me to the basis of my writing you this open letter. My role as an individual and the communion of ministry gifts that I convene at the Apostolic Round Table over the withdrawal of support for your party’s presidential Muslim/Muslim ticket was not hidden. For this we owe no apology!
The endorsement of your person as the governorship choice of the pentecostal in Lagos runs foul of the rules of Churches and Ministry. The appearance of Peter Obi at the biennial conference of the PFN in Yenegoa Bayelsa State not withstanding, the PFN national body had to make an official statement when the prayer time for Peter Obi was being misconstrued by the public as an endorsement, that it was not!
That is the honour and dignity of our calling. I know you know beyond whatever impression that those individuals may be creating on your victory, the public can attest to the dynamics of how the 18th day of March went down! This is not an attempt to “tu isu de isale ikoko”, that, we would do if the need arises!
Sir, the election in Lagos State was a storm!
It took off the roof of harmonious living from our heads. The Yoruba host and their non indigenous neighbors. Of particular concern are the Igbos, though we are still living together within the decorative walls of a state of excellence, we are yet to locate where the roof to our once loving state has been blown to!
Sir, you possibly by now should be aware of the crisis in the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Lagos State chapter, over the attempt made by certain persons to remove the chairman, Apostle Dr. Enyinnaya Okwuonu who is an Igbo man, supposedly at the behest of the government in Lagos. Sir, the jostle for position within PFN is of course none of your concern but it is evil and damaging to the fragility of your Lagos and our Lagos!
PFN has a document of union (constitution) by which and through which her affairs should be conducted.
This is superintended by an able, competent National body which in their wisdom decided to postpone the state election of PFN to accommodate our nation’s general election. It was the need to assist Lagos state and Nigeria that necessitated the shifting of PFN election. The intimidation and harassment of the Igbos, who are the predominant members in CAN and PFN during the elections and which CAN or PFN is yet to make any statement over, should have demanded from us the age long caution of letting the sleeping dog lie!
Of course PFN is at liberty to conduct its affairs whenever it wants and whichever way it wants it done, but this isn’t the best of time to damn the state and attempt to kindle another tribal fire for the house of God in the State under your care.
Sir, I am compelled to write you being a Christian and by extension, a member of the Pentecostal body of believers in Lagos state to use your good office to call on the leadership of PFN not to aggravate the tension the last election generated under the impression of seeking to do your bidding!
The impression created among Pentecostal Christians in Lagos state about an attempt made by certain elements in Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Lagos state, is that your bidding is what they are remotely carrying out in a bid to advance the alleged
“No Igbo” in leadership agenda of your administration as a way to revenge the humiliating defeat suffered by your party on 25th of February 2023 Presidential election!
Sir, the decision not to vote your party for that particular election was a “Christian” decision not minding whatever impressions the circle of Christian leaders you surround yourself with, might have given you. The result of that election shows their weight and influence in our kingdom. I need not remind you of the efforts that went into March 18th election for which they want to take the glory!
Thank God for the National body led by Bishop Wale Oke, the President, their timely intervention, stalemated that agenda of hell at the gate of the church that would have given you and your government a bad and stinking name amongst your Christian family!
Gal 5 vs10:
“I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.”
The verse quoted is the central submission in a chapter of a book written to prick the conscience of a Church that was bewitched from outside and overtaken by the work of the flesh from within! I commend your conscience to the Lord by His spirit that it will be pricked to be fair to all without consideration for tribe and religion.
Sir, Paul had marvelled at their departure from the gospel unto another gospel which was really not another. For what they freshly imbibed was actually another of a different kind.
This undoubtedly, according to him was at the command of those troubling them whose aim was nothing but the pervertion of the liberty and life of brotherly love that the gospel conferred on them being same in Christ without tribe or division!
Their motive, Paul revealed in 2 vs 4, “…who came in privily (secretly) to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.”
The aim of those behind this manipulation of PFN Lagos is to pull the carpet off the feet of Igbo Christians in Lagos State!
In Paul’s time, these fellows, whoever they were, were fiercely resisted, he stated we didn’t give them room, no, not for an hour!
The allegation that “Igbos are not wanted in the leadership structure of anything that has to do with Lagos” narrative should be neutralized now!
Your silence on this even when many fingers are pointing at you as its architect, will not and can never be golden! Time to speak out is Now!
We know many of our Christian leaders in Lagos owe their landed properties to the generosity of the Owner of Lagos who “charitably” handed them their C of Os in exchange for their political pliability. And a lot of them are beneficiaries of the kind gestures of you and your office. They must however be prevailed upon to substitute their zeal for you with the knowledge and deference to God and His word!
Sir, It is for matters like this that we must work for a state where the law will be supreme and is upheld, over and above individuals, their tribes and religions. A state where level playing ground is made for all to run their race and the natural reward system of hard work can meet with favour to throw competence and diligence up for honour. This I believe was the spirit that initiated my Lagos story!
The unfortunate state of our Churches subdued to live at the whims and caprices of the political power in the pro Islamic states of Northern Nigeria is mainly the reason for our cry against Muslim/Muslim ticket. That Christians can be killed like common criminals without being one, for whatever flimsy excuse shouldn’t sound to you like a fairy tale.
The case of Deborah Samuel should prick your conscience!
Sir, he who will build a state according to God’s pattern must learn a lesson from the man both Islam and Christianity regards as the father of their faiths!
Gen 12vs1 KJV: “Now, the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee.”
Abraham believed God who called him out of his native identity into a no identity status; the Hebrew; one from beyond!
For us as Christians; after this pattern, the SEED (Christ) of Abraham in whom all Nations of the earth will be blessed will pattern his own “city”; the Church!
I will build my Church… The word “Church” in Greek, is “ekklesia” meaning a group of citizens called out of their homes (tribes and tongues if you like), to form a public assembly of the brotherhood of Christ having all things in common!
A new Nigeria can only be built by those who priced the vision of a new nation by God for God beyond their earthly inheritance!
Your Excellency, Churches of men and their leaders may be confused about the ongoing debacle that the Church in Lagos is engulfed in. The direction of the Church of Christ in this tribal political war spin going on in Lagos is very defined.!
Gal 3vs28:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (KJV.)
Sir, this is in no way an attempt to make a case for the PFN state chairman, Apostle Enyinnaya Okwuonu. However his leadership of Lagos PFN is circumstantial owing to the death of his boss, Bishop Olusola Ore whom he deputized, and whose leadership found favour in the magnanimity of Pastor W. F Kumuyi and the Deeper Life Bible Church Family that made the purchase of the PFN Secretariat possible!
It is being rumored that the completion of the Secretariat would have attracted your assistance had it been that our Chairman is Yoruba and not Igbo. How true this is, can only be confirmed or dismissed by you!
Deprived of the required assistance of your person and your office, many Hawks and tribal bigots in PFN leadership in Lagos State would love and are scheming to see him fail. Apostle Okwuonu has no doubt steered the ship of PFN in Lagos away from troubled waters. Knowing, unfortunately, that he is Igbo, he endeavoured daily to tread with caution, yet stretching, striving to leave a legacy of completing the State Secretariat Project!
Many of our “Igbo brethren” have strengthened this project by financial contributions to help their brother succeed because they believe that we are one!
The drama at the State Secretariat of PFN at Onipanu on Tuesday 25th of April 2023 where all the state Excos were summoned to watch the Yoruba coup d’etat of an Igbo Leadership in seeming alignment with the spirit of the now infamous Yorùbá ro’nú, is a betrayal of the death of Christ!
A blasphemy of the Holy Spirit who descended on the day of Pentecost upon all men without consideration for tribe!
This saga is believed to have been carried out by those who erroneously believe that you have interest in further hostility to the Igbos after the election.
Done in their bid to curry your favour in alignment with their no Igbo man in leadership of imaginary picture of anything in Lagos State.
Sir, this, as in the case with the story of blocking Lord’s Chosen is not the case!
Let me therefore make an appeal to you and your Government, His Excellency Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu to dissociate yourself and office from this destructive cancer and disorderliness.
Sir, the only ground left to the Igbo and other Christian non-indigenes in Lagos until you reassure all is the Church!
1Tim 3vs15 (KJV):
“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth!”
Godspeed must not be wished to those who want to turn Christ’s ground and pillar of truth to that of lies for politics and political gain!
Your Excellency, this would have followed the pattern of writing personally to you, but since none of such in the past has ever been dignified with a reply nor any form of response. I will henceforth do through the medium to have witnesses of the Nigerian public that we spoke to you on issues of our concerns as Christians, as our Governor and Chief Security Officer.
Your Excellency, I can’t thank you enough for your time.
His Servant and Yours,
*Apostle (Dr) Bolaji O. Akinyemi.*
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