“And
as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge
him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: Laying wait for
him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse
him.” Luke 11:53-54
It is a
time-worn tactic: when the enemy gets extremely desperate about someone
considered disruptive to the agenda, the way out is to provoke him to speak,
and then find a phrase in his speech that could be tossed into the public space
to bait the undiscerning mob and lurking hyenas to come a-devouring.
Pastor
Enoch Adeboye is not greater than his Master, our Lord Jesus Christ. And he is better off wearing as a badge of
honour the unrelenting assaults by people, (ironically, including people of
faith -
modern scribes and Pharisees), who constantly twist his words and invite
the VDMs of this world to come finish the hatchet job.
Before the
current hullabaloo about his speech at the Washington DC Gala which had been organized
to draw attention to the perennial persecution of Christians in Nigeria, we
have witnessed instances
of paid mobs barricading the Redemption City insisting that Pastor Adeboye
must speak out on political issues, such as Ruga - that evil Fulani supremacy
land-grabbing agenda. Ironically. when
he eventually spoke out on the matter, employing the wisdom of God to invoke a
hypothetical Professor friend of his, through which he made his
prescriptions for the nation, the silence from the disappointed Pharisees
was deafening. Up till today, most commentators
would prefer to ignore that bitter prescription: why can’t the local community
just decide to boycott the Fulani beef for a season to help reset the false “herders-settlers”
narrative on which Ruga is premised?
There was also,
of course, that memorable day in 2021 when Pastor Adeboye, on an emergency
visit to succor members of his church who had been kidnapped in Kaduna state,
was literally begged and compelled by the then governor El Rufai to come to
government house to “pray
for the State”. Which clergyman can
refuse such an invitation?
And
despite the clearly uncompromising, even harsh, words spoken by Pastor Adeboye
on the occasion (see video here),
all that the Pharisees picked from the brief event was the joke by El Rufai
that he had once being conferred with the “honourary priesthood of the RCCG”. Incredibly, several Christian commentators
insisted that there could not have been smoke without fire, and Pastor Adeboye must
have indeed secretly ordained El Rufai as a “Priest” in the Redeemed Christian
Church of God. It is simply incredible!
Fueling
the current “Adeboye is blindly defending his ethnic kinsman President” narrative
are references to his previous statements and actions on insecurity in
Nigeria. Not only had Pastor Adeboye petitioned
the Presidency in 2010, he actually carried a placard and led his Church
members on public “protest“ in February 2020.
The occupants of Aso Rock at both instances were from other ethnic tribes
in Nigeria, unlike the present situation.
It is
remarkable however that few seem to recall that Pastor Adeboye clearly had very
friendly relationships with those Presidents.
For instance, earlier that same 2010, he had publicly prayed for the President
(GEJ) in what was later angrily dubbed “holy hypocrisy”
by some section of the Press.
Likewise, many of the sponsored rallies against Pastor Adeboye, during
the Presidency of Buhari, had been premised on the allegation that he was refusing
to comment on public issues, in order to protect the government where his
spiritual son was the Vice President!. This
then is the classical “Head I win, Tail you lose” scenario!
Particularly
remarkable still, is the fact that the 2020 “protest” had been at the
instance of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN); and was directly linked
with the gruesome beheading of a CAN chieftain.
Bishop Lawan Andimi, CAN chairman at Michika LGA, Adamawa state, had bluntly
refused the Jihadists demand that, in addition to a fifty million naira ransom,
he must renounce his Christian faith before he would be released. Sadly, only few Churches responded to the call
by CAN for a national “prayer walk”. Pastor Adeboye boldly did.
Today,
social media heroes are insinuating that those self-sacrificial efforts by
Pastor Adeboye were actually directed at sabotaging governments of those days. And that he was doing that because those
governments were headed by people not from his ethnic group!
One can go
on and on about the many open, but clearly spurious plots to vilify Pastor
Adeboye over the years. But let’s get
down to the Washington Gala issue.
On 23rd
June, Pastor Adeboye honoured a gathering where he was to receive an award for
his extensive decades-long services in cause of the persecuted Church in
Nigeria. The Event was themed: “Thank
you America. Please do more”. In his
speech accepting the award, Pastor Adeboye revealed that he had actually been
in the United States for the annual Convention of his Church in North America,
and he decided to extend his stay by a few days to personally be at the gala to
receive the award.
He further
directly pointed out that he was aware that the government of Nigeria, together
with the many enemies of Nigeria, were following the event live, indicating
that his every word was being scrutinized.
He thereafter advised his audience to listen with discernment to his
short speech which would be coded as an African elder.
Here are the
salient quotes from Pastor Adeboye’s 38 minutes speech:
."Things
have gone far, far worse than before the bomb came. Far, far worse."
"So
may I thank you very much for making the theme of tonight: “America, thank you,
but you have to do much more.”"
"There
are certain people in my country only God can deal with. There are some people,
I regret to say, who are untouchable."
"If
you want to help us, help us."
"....
If you are going to help us, help us soon."
(see the entire
Transcript and links to videos on our previous article here)
It is
incredible that anyone can claim to misunderstand the clear position of Pastor
Adeboye, as courageously espoused in this speech. Falling back on his background as an applied
Mathematician, he had referred to Newton’s first law of motion to justify his
call for external intervention (including military kinetics) in his own
country. [Ironically, the social media “mob”
seems to have forgotten quickly who are those who had vehemently resisted
“foreign intervention” in our “sovereign nation” when Donald Trump first mooted
the idea of an American intervention in November 2025).
As a Pastor
and a wise African Elder, Pastor Adeboye doused this position by adding the
caveat that his prescription is not to be taken as a personal attack on the
sitting President. The President, he
politely affirmed, has in his [Adeboye’s] opinion, done all he could possibly
do, but he direly needs (in the spirit of Newton’s law) EXTERNAL ASSISTANCE.
And true
to type, it was this statement that the enemy has latched on, pronouncing
Pastor Adeboye a hypocrite, and employing many other shocking and unprintable
adjectives. Nobody seems interested in
the fact that a man overseeing over 8,000 churches in the troubled northern
Nigeria could not be reasonably accused of being indifferent to the situation
there. Neither were the social media mob
impressed with some of the cited cases of members of those churches who paid
the supreme price, with their lives, whilst still refusing to yield to the
Jihadist’s wish.
The mob probably
wouldn’t have been impressed even if they got to know that when Pastor
Adeboye’s late son, beloved Pastor Dare Adeboye, indicated his desire to become
a full-time Pastor in the RCCG, Pastor Adeboye’s response was to transfer him
from his then station in the United Kingdom to Kaduna, Nigeria. That was in 2009, at the height of the Boko
Haram menace. Private accounts (by
Pastors in the RCCG) recounted to Church Arise! how, at least on one occasion,
Pastor Dare was saved only by the whiskers as Jihadists made for his abode
during a rampage that left many dead.
So how
come a simple expression of personal opinion - that the President of Nigeria
has done all he could possibly do in the prevailing circumstances, but that the
problem is getting only terribly worse, therefore requiring external
intervention; how could such a statement lead to every Tom, Dick, and Harry now
disparaging a man who has faithfully and sacrificially served the Gospel and
the nation for over half a century?
And it is
not as if Pastor Adeboye is the only one espousing such a position. It is one that other informed God-fearing and
courageous commentators have repeatedly made.
For instance, the highly respected Earthshaker, Mike Arnold, has made it
clear that Nigeria is the epicenter of the global Jihadists’ dream of a
platform to receive their anticipated end-time messiah, the Mahdi. According to Arnold, at least
eight black-flag jihadist groups are currently operating in Nigeria. These are principally religious zealots,
drawn from all over the world, who would count suicide for the cause, their
greatest achievement in life.
In the
same vein, the highly esteemed Rev Ladi Thompson of the Macedonia Initiative,
in a series of no holds barred interviews with Deola
Fayeun, went as far as saying he pities the sitting President, as he is totally
helpless to address the situation confronting him. Pitted against economic interests of powerful
military chiefs (some retired and some in service) – which by the way would
mean that Presidential directives can be ignored with impunity, and may only be
implemented if the President himself would put on the khaki and go to the field
himself; top politicians entrenched in all the major political parties and
several of them in government, including the man who would take over office
should some unfortunate incident happen to befall the President; a National
Security Adviser who is on record as supplying
arms to his Fulani kinsmen while demanding that the victims of the Fulani
militias surrender
“unlicensed” weapons in their
custody, the cunning, desperate, and very powerful Chinese
mineral exploiters; and on top of it all, the two-century -old master of spells and enchantment, the Usman dan Fodio caliphate itself!
Church
Arise! itself has on several occasions drawn out parallels between Nigeria’s
situation and other nations where Jihadist groups, dedicated to the coming
Mahdi, have overwhelmed the hapless states.
These include the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in
Lebanon.
Hamas has
in fact has become the de facto government in Gaza; while the Lebanese
government is clearly subservient to Hezbollah who has ridden roughshod over
the state for over forty years. In his visit
to the US in February this year, Lebanese Army Chief, General Rodolphe Haykal, was
clearly too
terrified to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist group. This sounds very familiar, as the Nigerian Security
Chiefs have been heard similarly publicly describing the terrorizing
Islamists as “brothers” and “prodigal sons”.
Pastor
Adeboye’s “crime” is in pointing out these stark realities: that the situation
on ground is beyond the capacity of a President, who in his opinion is doing
all he possibly could. Significantly, no
one seems interested in his subsequent Prescription for addressing the
situation before things would degenerate completely. We now draw attention to
this.
Yes,
terrifying as the situation is, as Pastor Adeboye put it, there is a way of
escape for the persecuted Church in Nigeria.
In fact, he believes that the redemption for the Church is actually at
the door! Unfortunately, the spell-bound
social media mob is actively doing the devil’s job for him, by distracting the
Church from considering and discussing how to implement those inspired
prescriptions.
Church
Arise! however believes that the Way of escape can only be profitably accessed
when approached on the terms specified by the Holy Spirit. A guiding principle that comes to mind in
this regard is the Bible verse: “Be not
overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21).
This is clearly
a tough injunction. We are not to merely
disallow evil from overcoming us, we are to overcome evil itself. And to do so, employing only “good”. The
truth, of course, is that whoever “overcame” evil with evil had already
succumbed, unwittingly, to evil!
There is indeed
no short cut to deploying the Spirit’s “good” to confront and scatter the many
evils confronting Nigeria. We must do so
by exercising the full complements of the fruit of the Spirit. This includes quite
importantly, us forgiving fellow believers of past wrongs and errors; and understanding
that the Lord does indeed make “all things” to work together for good. For
those who love Him. The other side of
the coin requires we too repent of our own errors, intolerance, and excesses. In practical terms, this entails “forgetting”
those things that are past (especially when repented of by the people
concerned), and jointly looking forward to what the Holy Spirit has for us for
our future. This is tough, but it cannot
be circumvented.
The
prescription is tough, because the challenges themselves also are clearly
formidable. Indeed, they are backed by immense spiritual forces.
Church
Arise! had
rejoiced and cautiously embraced a P-BAT (whose candidacy we had pointedly campaigned
against), simply on the hope that the plans for a perpetual Fulani hegemony
over the Nigeria space was finally being broken. Several informed commentators have concluded
that even P-BAT himself is realizing too late that he had he grossly
underestimated the problem, and now is resigned to coasting along.
It is
clear that the Jihadist forces would prefer a full-blown war and total scattering
of Nigeria, rather than relinquish their power base which had been in
construction since 1804, and is so close to coming to fruition. As the proverb goes, rather than surrender
the meal, the rat would rather waste it all. This was exactly what GEJ saw,
very clearly, and patriotically decided to relinquish office in 2015.
Pastor
Adeboye in his Washington speech, indicated clearly that though he would prefer
a peaceful solution to Nigeria’s problem, he was not necessarily running away
from a religious war. Only that, in his
words, “If there is going to be a religious war in Nigeria, I will not be the
one who will start it”.
It is so
easy lambasting P-BAT, but it is clearly a futile social media kind of game
that cannot produce any profitable outcome.
The best
outcome we could hope for is an orderly check-mating of the Islamists. This is possible. And we dare trust in the LORD that this is
now imminent even in these dark hours.
Afterall, it is said that dawn is preceded by the darkest hour.
Going back
to the Hezbollah example, with 90% of their rockets and missiles degraded
by Israel in the ongoing conflict, it was easy to achieve (about a week ago),
what was absolutely unthinkable, just a year ago: a peace agreement
between the states of Israel and Lebanon.
We therefore rejoice on reading the declassified report that, also a few
weeks ago, the US forces operating in Nigeria got an incredible haul
of military equipment from the Jihadists that required an extra plane being
sent in to cart it away. The two stories
certainly look similar, and could indicate similar solutions the Lord is
bringing up.
The optimism
and hope being presented here is not meant to downplay the challenges
ahead. The DCI group with the $9
million dollar contract to lobby Washington against the persecuted Nigerian
church is still actively at work. And we
also have to deal with the complication of a Boulos (Tiffany Trumps’s
father-in-law and strong ally of P-BAT) currently serving as the official
adviser to Trump on Africa and Middle east affairs. [The impact of the same Boulos is also evident
in Donald Trump’s flip—flop policy in Lebanon].
Mike
Arnold had in a dignified but very strong manner argued against convening the
Washington Gala, which he had boycotted.
His position, publicly
expressed a week ahead of the Gala, is sound and is to be respected. He strongly believed that the Organizers have
been compromised by the lobbyists working for the Nigerian government, and that
the proceedings would be tweaked to present the Nigerian government’s (or
better still, Nuhu Ribadu’s) narratives to Donald Trump. This, clearly, is prophetic, as shown by the rancor
generated within the Church and society in Nigeria thereafter. Not to mention Trump’s very troubling declaration
that the war against the Jihadists in Nigeria is already ending.
Nevertheless,
Church Arise! believes everything is still working out for Nigeria’s eventual
good. The situation, for example, could be likened to the case where Nuhu
Ribadu (and his presumptive future presidential running mate, Reno Omokri), had
brought the same Mike Arnold to Nigeria for a press conference in Nigeria last
October, hoping to use him to support
government’s vile position. That scheme backfired
so gloriously.,
In
particular, Pastor Adeboye’s voice at the Washington Gala is extremely
significant and is to be regarded as a God-sent. Without any doubt, the rising
narrative that the situation is improving in Nigeria was dealt a severe
authoritative blow, by Pastor Adeboye’s presence and speech at the Gala. The case would have been considerably different
if he had simply elected to have someone receive the Award on his behalf. Perhaps the DCI people did not anticipate
that!
So, in
closing this article, what exactly is the new dimension introduced by Pastor
Adeboye in his prescription for ending jihadist’s banditry in Nigeria? It is his
extending the issue of external forces beyond Donald Trump.
It is
widely acknowledged
that Pastor Adeboye provided the “foundational inspiration” for the formation
of the Christian Association of Nigerian Americans. This is one of the foremost groups advocating
for the persecuted Nigerian church in Washington, and as well providing
palliatives to the Church on the field, in northern Nigeria, Now, in his
Washington DC speech, Pastor Adeboye is charging his children in other nations
to follow suit, forming associations that would replicate what CANAN is doing
in the US in places like Britain, Switzerland, and Australia. These groups of diasporans should thereafter network
together and get their governments to partner with the Donald in the US to compel
the Caliphate to sign the Deal it always dreaded. The Deal that would re-negotiate
Nigeria thereby irreversibly breaking the backbone of Jihadism in Nigeria. It
could be pointed out here that such a powerful network of faith-driven diasporans
is one of the key strengths of the state of Israel.
It is our
opinion at Church Arise! that this is the clear path being provided by the Holy
Spriit at this time. And the furore
generated by the mob response to Pastor Adeboye’s speech making the
prescriptions might as well have turned out for our good, if it would lead us
to seriously consider the Prescriptions and diligently seek to work it out. Only that this would require all
kingdom-minded Christian groups, Churches, para-Churches, and Bloggers coming
together in unity. Like Israel was
forged in the furnace of affliction in Egypt, the time spent by the Church in
Nigeria should be sufficient to see a purified Church rise out of these
terrible affliction we have borne for decades.
At this
stage in our journey, it should have become abundantly clear that playing to
the gallery for the prize of social media “followership”, raining abuses on the
sitting lame-duck President, or worse, on self-sacrificing Elders of the Faith,
won’t get us anywhere near the Promised Land.
What needs
to be done is to embrace required spiritual disciplines of repentance,
forgiveness, faith, and together with united diligent actions, push to overcome
intricately-woven pure evil with our good.
Shalom
Church
Arise!
04-07-2026
This
article is fondly dedicated to the memory of our bosom friend, Architect Gbolahan
Fowora (FNIA, AIA), who slept in the Lord on this date a year ago.
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