Before Us Are Chances, Choices and Consequences…

Enough of congratulations… wake up! Roll up your sleeves and get to work!

GBUBEMI GOD’S COVENANT SNR reports the most telling congratulatory message from the Latter Rain Serving Overseer, Pastor Tunde Bakare to President-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, General Muhamadu Buhari.
Pastor Tunde Bakare last Sunday rejoiced before God and before Nigerians that, in spite of the fear everywhere, what could have plunged this nation into sorrow turned into widespread joy. “Almighty God turned our mourning into dancing.
That was what God did in the days of Esther when He spared the lives of the Jews (Esther 9:20-22),”Bakare said.
But for God, he said, nations of the earth were waiting to see Nigeria’s disintegration because they knew we could not conduct an election without violence.
“We were threatened with international court of criminal justice’; they will take anybody that would cause violence; even our neighbours, against all expectations, were mocking us to see what would become of the Big Brother, but God frustrated the tokens of liars.”
A really elated Bakare rejoiced that America congratulated Nigeria, and that Britain has seen the marvelous work God has wrought in our nation. The preacher did not fail to salute the efforts of three major actors in the 2015 presidential election.
His first choice was Prof Attahiru Jega,“for the quality of leadership he gave to INEC and, especially, for his comportment in the face of grave accusation and provocation.”
The second person was President Jonathan Goodluck who was on the hot seat, expected to toe the line of his predecessors. Bakare thanked him three times over. His words:
“The 2015 presidential election has revealed now to those who called him incompetent while in government, that he has capacity where it matters; Jonathan exhibited unusual courage when it mattered most. Courage is the finest character when under fire.
“Thank God the president did not buckle and drag us back to 1993. Thank you Mr. President for setting a good example; as Thomas Jefferson said, “However deep in or horrible too, it is more profitable to set a good example, than to follow a bad one.
“Thank you again, Mr. President, for not following a bad example of Nigeria’s history; generations yet unborn will not forget you as a great leader who sacrificed his political ambition and desire for the unity and wellbeing of this nation.
“2015 presidential election has made a democratic icon and a hero out of our President; he has charted a new course for Nigeria as a man who in spite of his frailties practices what he professes; namely, that the ambition of any politician is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. Thank you Mr. President; your tenure ends on the 29th of May, 2015, but the impacts of your magnanimity will last forever.”
Finally, Bakare acknowledged Mr. Integrity himself, General Muhamadu Buhari. “I am glad today for you, Major General Buhari that you did not quit in spite of the overwhelming discouragement along the way from 2004 to 2015. Quitters, indeed, don’t win, and winners don’t quit.We all can now breathe a deep sigh of relief, with the slogan: Victory at last!”
In his characteristic way, Bakare celebrated God with two Scriptures: Romans 11:33-36 and 1 Timothy 1:17, then started his analysis from 1 Samuel 12:1-25, showing he Prophet Samuel’s address at Saul’s coronation pointing the good and the right way to succeed to the new king, and to all Israel:
“Every chance in life, like the just-concluded Presidential/Nass election and the upcoming governorship election, is a chance and an opportunity to choose; but once choice is made, consequences will automatically follow. ”A good choice will inevitably, even if there be trouble and trials along the way, attract a wonderful outcome; but a bad choice, even if there is sudden success, will end in disaster. Why? Because means and ends have a terminus: a destructive means cannot bring about a constructive end.”
“In the world, you cannot have everything; therefore, a choice is all that is left for everyone. Fourteen candidates vied for the presidential seat, only one was chosen. Different people voted for different candidates, but the one with the largest number won the day.
“He who chooses the beginning of a road, chooses the place that road leads to,because it is the means that determines the end. Many believe that the end justifies the means, but no destructive means will bring about a constructive end.”
God gave Israel what they wanted “Israel demanded for a king, but the prophet made them understand that in spite of their euphoria, they just goofed (1 Sam 8:7-). The voice of the people is not always the voice of God.It is important we read the situation right, so that the disaster God has averted from us will not bounce back on us.
“Saul chose 3,000 people for himself, 2,000 for him, 1,000 for his son Jonathan: what kind of people were they? They were a people untested, untrained for battle; they were just people whose faces he liked. “We just cast our ballots; we don’t care what kind of change we’re asking for; Nigerians just want change. I pray the change will benefit all Nigerians North, East, South and West in Jesus Name. Amen.”
Integrity is not enough “Now I congratulate Nigerians who have chosen a man of integrity as their President; but fellow Nigerians, integrity is not enough. Integrity is good and is needed because it’s a scarce commodity in Nigeria. Integrity is important, but integrity is not enough to run a government successfully (Psalm 78:70).
“I trust God, as he (Buhari himself) has said, that he will look for proven people of integrity, but Buhari must be careful not to choose only people of integrity, but of skill, technocrats who know how to turn the situation around, and not men at ease, the owambe type who just wear robes and just be going up and down and eating fat at the expense of the people.”
Fighting corruption is not a slogan “Nigeria, open, shine your eyes and give me your maximum attention: Presumptuous battle and propaganda cannot deliver a nation. “If you’re going to put people in charge, you must give them authority to function. We must manage our weaknesses by putting men of strength there to do what we cannot do and must let them fly for at least two years.
“Fighting corruption is not a slogan; attacking with a weak weapon by preparing charges they will truncate in the court is not a powerful weapon against corruption. Corruption is a monster; if you’re really going to fight corruption, you must look within, check out the record of everyone around you, and tell them: ‘you cannot be part of this government because of this.’
“That’s how it will work. If you fight a presumptuous battle and you start propaganda, before long it will backfire on you, because that monster you want to unseat is more powerful than you are — and it has a way of fighting back.
“King Saul thought government is about owambe; he did not develop any weaponry, did not invest in it (they were even pocketing the military budget). He just surrounded himself with some thousands of people who shouted ‘Rankadede’ any time he showed up.” Enough of congratulatory messages “Hear the voice of Nigeria: You are a servant of the people, it is time to roll up your sleeves and get to work! We have done enough congratulatory messages.
Congratulation is not going to put food on our tables; congratulation is not going to tar our roads; congratulation is not going to fight crime. Enough of congratulations… wake up! Roll up your sleeves and get to work! And you will only succeed by the kind of men you choose; if a person is not tested, if he is not trained, he cannot be deployed. “Anybody that is going to be anywhere in government of Nigeria from now on, we have to check him out; not only by security report: what has he or she achieved before? Where is he or she coming from?
“Does that mean all Nigerians are bad? No. We have a great number of them; men ofcompetence, character, men who have capability; men who have turned dead companies around. You need those who can lay their hands on the plough and not turn back until they get results. “The people were called to face a formidable opponent with superior weapons of war. The enemy you want to fight is more powerful than you are. We have seen it; so you have to sit down, you have to think through, you have to take your time, so when you launch your multipleattack, no corrupt person will stand out there.
“What did Saul do to lose his popularity so soon? Presumptuous propaganda was one of them; attacking the enemy when he was not ready; that backfired on him. The second thing was impatience; he just wanted to do something fast, from the surface: No! “Nigeria’s problems are multi-layered; when a tree falls on a tree, you don’t start by removing the one at the bottom, it will break your back bone: you start from the top. This is not a witch-hunting exercise: you set the parameters: ‘These are the qualities of people we want’.
“Set those parameters and then expose them to training; not just our military, we’re talking about men who will be in government because some of them are not used to civil service mediocrity; they are goal-getters that go out there and get results.”
Revolutionise the civil service Then you have to revolutionise even the civil service because that is supposed to be the memory bank. You can’t have people who are fearful, who have become ten per centers who will tell new ministers, ‘welcome to the ministry, but this is not how we do it o’ “If you go attack what you cannot handle, those men are willing to kill you; they will come with superior weapons and put an end to you. Presumptuous propaganda will not lead us anywhere. We have to sit.
We have to think: there must be people in the engine room, thinking day and night. All Nigerians want to see from May 29th is a government that hits the road running with clear-cut objectives and goals with the right team for the first 100 days.
Before that finishes, the engine room has brought out other things to do in the East, West, North and South because, listen clearly: this is not time for the North, East, West or South: this is time for Nigeria!
If you put the right things in place, the wrong people will leave. Just make up your mind to do what is right, say what is right, to act in the right way; when you do the right thing, the wrong ones will leave you alone.
It’s not impossible to bring an end to corruption and corrupt men in Nigeria; if you assert it and everyone around you begins to do what is right and not these ten per centers and 20 per centers who benefit largely from the treasury. If we can fulfill that for once and people begin to labour and derive benefit from their hard work, our nation will change.
It doesn’t take too long to do it, provided the man at the helm of affairs and those surrounding him are quality people prepared for the task. If corrupt politicians remain around him, they will begin to counsel him and in a year or two we will be back to square one.