For over 430 years. Spanning four generations. The Israelites were held in bondage in Egypt. They went through hell on earth. Never for once did they pray for their leaders.
Of course, they couldn’t have. They had Egyptian oppressors as rulers. They couldn’t have wished their tormentors well. So, they wisely turned to God. They humbly took their hopeless case to Him.
They cast their burden upon Him. And left Him to speak to their situation. They laid their plight at His feet. What they could not control, they asked God to take total control.
They prayed to Him to break the chain. They desperately wanted their heavy yoke removed. They cried and wept bitterly. They tore their robes, covered themselves in ashes.
In excruciating pain, they shouted to high heavens. And God heard their voices of distress and agony. And they were set free.
The Israelites never asked God to appeal to the Egyptians. They told the Lord the Egyptian rulers were their yoke. The reason they wanted them broken.
They cared less if their burdens were lessened or not. All they sought from God was one thing: Freedom. Nothing more. And they got it in good, huge measures.
We can make use of that ancient template here. And we will be glad we did. Let’s wholeheartedly turn to God. Let us tune to Him to break our unending yoke.
This dispensation we plunged ourselves into has been a monumental yoke. Since 1999, it has been from one yoke to a bigger one. Yet, they cajole us to continue to pray for them, our leaders.
We are not praying to our real situation. We are praying aloof. We are not earnestly addressing the issue. We have a big yoke to shed. If we’re serious to move forward.
We keep moving forth and back. Aimlessly. It’s all motion without movement. We kick-started this mess with President Olusegun Obasanjo. Then came the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
We were faithful. We did pray fervently. We intensified our prayers. Yet, we migrated from one yoke to another. We keep yielding our yokes to bigger ones.
Our prayer bore Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Our yoke attained a significant leap thereafter. The yoke became heavy when Muhammadu Buhari happened to us in 2015. Some put all their hopes in him.
Others chose to pray their hearts out, Sordidly, the harder we prayed, the heavier the burden! Buhari’s eight awful years worsened the yoke. It festered unchecked. We were practically crushed.
But, he couldn’t break us. We proudly denied him that luxury. And that pained him to the marrow. We survived him all the way. We upped the game. Stranger than fiction!
We increased the tempo of our prayers. We took it to the highest level, like never before. That way, we ended up with President Bola Tinubu.
Resolute, we didn’t stop praying. Yet, our yoke climbed higher to the ultimate, unbearable. That’s our unpleasant stage now. We are writhing in great discomfort.
This is how far our prayer for our rulers can carry us. We are burdened. All this while, we never gave a meaningful thought to this: Did our rulers ever pray for us? Big doubt!
They would rather tell us to keep on enduring. They are wicked and selfish. We should be patient, while they recline in abundant comfort. And their looting and recklessness increase in leaps and bounds.
That’s why we have to change our prayer point. We are setting God against oppressors, tormentors. Just like the Israelites. We have opted to be direct and emphatic. No more make-believe; no more cover-ups; no more pretence. We have exhausted our patience.
Let us wise up. Let’s go the way of the Israelites of old. Let’s walk in their footsteps. We are fed up with these rulers of ours. We want to break these chains, shackles. And be detached from their despicable acts.
We can’t pray enough neither can we stop praying. That will be giving up. And it’s extremely risky. But we can change our prayer points. And it’s expedient we do just that now. That’s the path we’ve chosen to tread henceforth.
We have stopped praying astray. We won’t beat about the bush, never again. We know where we are going. We are firmly aiming at our yoke. There’s no stopping us. It is our choice.
Arise, O Lord, and let our enemies be scattered. They are in legion, in and outside government. They’re the hawks laying siege on us. They won’t let us breathe. But are breathing heavily on us. They are all over, waiting to devour us.
Let’s think out of the box for once. Pray earnestly that our heavy yoke be broken instantly. That may instil fear into our rulers. Perhaps, they will have a genuine rethink. When they see our new prayer point.
The God who answered the Israelites in their lowest moments. He’s still very much around. He who did it for the Israelites is alive. He will do it for us. Even exceedingly beyond our greatest expectations.
The Israelites did this faithfully. They adhered to it strictly in the ancient times. Today, they are better for it. Their huge successes in all human endeavours were made possible by that resolve. The Egyptians they saw yesterday. They see no more today. We can reincarnate the same.
Unarguably, Tinubu made the yoke heaviest. And we are not finding it funny. We wonder aloof why he did what he did to us. He took us unawares and for granted. And for the wrong reasons.
He feigned stubbornness. He yanked off fuel subsidy without recourse to data, facts and figures. It was like a brain wave. He was ruled by impulse of some sort.
As if that wasn’t enough. He speedily followed it up with a big bang. He hit hard the foreign exchange rate. He collapsed the official rate into the black market rate. And the result: naira’s unhindered free fall.
Those dual indiscreet steps hiked our burdens. The duo took our suffering to high heavens. They landed us where we are today. Deep shit!
The real reason for changing our prayer point. It’s now the breaking of our yoke. No more prayers for our unruly rulers. We are done with them. We are sincerely singing a new song. You dare not blame us.
As if reading our minds, on Monday, Tinubu changed gear. He crossed oceans. And picked a useful lesson from his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei. By revisiting the Orosanye Committee Report.
What did the youthful Argentine president do? Simple measures. You may call them “little, little things.” But they worked wonders for Argentines. He “inherited the worst economy in the history of Argentina and a worse condition than Nigeria.”
What did he do? “He cut government expenditure, wastages and size of government; blocked stealing of government funds and corruption, attracted FDI through concessions, tax holidays and improved ease of doing business.
“He flies regular business class for all his travels, no presidential jet parties for his son. No settlement of his boys and political allies. A lesson for our government.”
Milei came into office only on December 23, 2023. See the wonders he wrought on his people. His country witnessed its first monthly budget surplus in 12 years! He did that under three months. What a feat!
If Tinubu had made just a half of these happen in his nine months. There wouldn’t have been hunger and hanger. In fact, we would have no reason to go a-borrowing. That’s the type of leadership we direly desire. It’s what we thirst for.
Great, he got that message in the Orosanye Report. Its revisit aligns with our aspirations, hopes and expectations. It will bring down to its knees our huge cost of governance. From top to bottom!
Tinubu’s insistence on the full implementation is profound. It’s “hailable.” It has been the best to happen to us in the past nine turbulent months.
No, no! That won’t stop us from praying. It will rather spur us to pray even harder. It’s the tonic we need to intensify efforts on all fronts. And erect a restructured Nigeria. That’s the ultimate goal. We don’t want anything less.
O God, let this yoke be removed. Let the chains be broken. And the shackles cut in sunder. Let it be sudden and devastating, Lord.
Our rulers should not be able to comprehend it.
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