IT'S TIME TO DESTROY THE PREDATOR AND VAMPIRE LIFESTYLE IN NIGERIA ONCE AND FOR ALL!

ZION B-BC NEWSLETTER. A Publication of the Zion Faith Bible-Believing Church, Kpeyegyi, Abuja Nigeria. [VOL. 4. NO 114. 18 October, 2015.} “…ONLY The Truth, Will Set You Free! (John.8:32).

IT’S TIME TO DESTROY THE PREDATOR AND VAMPIRE LIFESTYLE IN NIGERIA ONCE AND FOR ALL!

Doingbusiness in Nigeriahad always beenfraughtwith lots of undiplomatic bureaucracy deliberately packaged by relevant officials to force foreign investors, part with large sums of illicit “tips” in bribes and extortions! During the infamous Abacha’s Military junta of the nineties, a foreign journalist produced video footage of bribe-taking on an international television station by officers of the Immigration and Customs Departments on duty at the Murtala International Airport, Lagos and by top civil servants at the Internal Affairs, Trade and Commerce Ministries where he had several days of business transactions! His mission to Nigeria was a deliberate effort to prove that the country was the most corrupt nation as regularly indicated on the Amnesty International Annual Index report indices, but Abacha and his cohorts in government brazenly denied all facts and truths of the show of shame with the cliché “ It’s not in our character”! No wonder, Nigeria remains the most difficult commercial destination for foreign investors to transact business in 55 years of post-independence existence! A fresh economic report in the last quarter of 2015 has revealed that the country occupies 170 position out of 184 countries of the world in which business transactions remained an albatross! Especially in the past 16 years of failed governance, the country became notorious for all for all forms of criminality ranging from armed robbery to kidnapping, money laundering, oil bunkering, human trafficking, examination and election malpractices, currency forging, arson, contract killings, assassinations, impunity in governance and endemic corruption, to mention a few!!

WHY SHOULD NIGERIA CONTINUE TO ATTRACT INTERNATIONAL ATTENTION FOR NEGATIVE REASONS SINCE INDEPENDENCE? The Military came up with some spurious excuses of ineptitude, maladministration, tribalism, ethnicity, and most importantly, large scale corruption in government on 15th January, 1966, barely five years of freedom from colonial shackles and forcibly seized the hard-earned political independence from our founding fathers! But did they have to shed the blood of those who peacefully negotiated the nation’s liberty without firing a single shot? They did and since then, tons of litres of blood had ceaselessly flowed in Nigeria like the Rivers Niger and Benue waters combined! It was the case of one ambitious armed section of government which exploited its advantageous position to abuse the trust of its principal and turned the nation’s arsenal for external protection against the masses who had since then been subjected to remain the grass that suffered for as long as the battle for supremacy subsisted! The reprisal against the first military coup in July of the same year eventually led to secession by the then Eastern Region from the rest of Nigeria and a continuous flow of innocent blood issued for the 30 months that a civil war lasted! A wall of suspicion and insincerity had existed in the political game since the first military coup between the North and the South and to date - 55 years on; the dichotomy could not be bridged because it got wider and wider by the day! The Boko Haram terrorism is the climax of blood-flow which had continued unabated for over five years – 2009-2015 for the same fundamental accusations of maladministration, nepotism, tribalism and corruption in successive governments – civilian or military! Recently, some South West Yoruba Leaders have come up with the idea of “reconsidering the place of the South West in a union that could no longer protect them!” In a communiqué issued at the end of a Yoruba Summit entitled, “National Insecurity and the Menace of Fulani Herdsmen In Yorubaland” – held in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital in the first week of October, 2015, the Leaders threatened to, “use all legitimate and peaceful means to attain self determination!” The nomadic Fulani Herdsmen are no strangers to all agrarian States in Nigeria because they moved their cattle and livestock to graze at random and in recent times have clashed with virtually all the farmers in all the 36 States and even, the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, for trespassing and destruction of farmlands and products! All clashes always ended in bloodshed and loss of precious lives and properties and a school of thought believed that the Fulani Herdsmen were a branch of the Boko Haram terrorists in view of the sophisticated weapons they employed in all encounters with the farmers! When a 77-year-old former Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigeria was abducted from his farm in Akure, the Ondo State Capital in September 2015, the Fulani Herdsmen who in past times had ravaged his large farmland, were fingered! The elder statesman who was eventually released after an alleged ransom was paid by members of his family did not disclose the identities of his abductors while the South-West Association of Fulani Chiefs denied the allegations!

SHOULD EVERY TRIBE IN THIS CENTURY-OLD AMALGAMATION ALWAYS OPT FOR SECESSION AS A PANACEA TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION? The embers of the “Biafran secession” flames of the sixties are still being fanned by a certain “Radio Biafra” and some group called Movement for the of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), in the South East and the Diaspora, while the Boko Haram terrorists want the North East to be carved out as an Islamic Caliphate and in the process have destroyed over a million lives and properties worth trillions of naira since 2009! The Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), is also planning to create a showdown if the Amnesty monetary package, being enjoyed by about 30.000 youths of the region to prevent them from blowing up pipelines or kidnapping oil workers, was not renewed at expiration in December, 2015, not caring that all forms of confrontations –minor or major – always ended in massive bloodshed! SHOULD THE BLOOD OF OUR BRETHREN CONTINUE TO CEASELESSLY BECAUSE OF OUR MINDLESSNESS? The excesses of the nomadic Fulani Herdsman for unleashing terror and mayhem against innocent farmers on their landed properties and in their homelands coupled with cattle rustling all over the country constituted the height of criminality and the brazen abuse of the fundamental rights of other citizens of Nigeria and has to be quickly addressed by the new Federal Government of our amiable President Buhari, who constituency transcends tribal, religious, political or social sentiments! Nigeria was a signatory to the United Nations initiative of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which targeted EIGHT world’s developmental challenges and committed member states of about 148 countries to achieve them by the year 2015, and ensure productive employment and decent work for all – including women and young children: eradication of hunger and poverty, half the proportion of people living on less than one United States dollar per day; achievement of universal primary education with emphasis on the girl-child education; promotion of gender equality, including empowerment of women at all levels by 2015; reduction of child mortality and in particular, reducing the mortality rate among children under five by two-thirds; improvement of maternal health by three quarters reduction of maternal mortality ratio and achieve by 2010 universal access to reproductive health; combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases; ensure input of environmental sustainability development into country policies and programmes; achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020; etc. In Nigeria, there had been an uneven results and achievements from the MDGs in spite of all Tracking Survey which was set up in 2012 to indicate that most of the goals were achieved ahead of 2015 deadline – especially the goal dedicated to achieving significant improvement in the lives of at least 100million slum and rural dwellers, by 2020 - otherwise the recurring issue of the nomadic Fulani Herdsmen atrocities would have been nipped in the bud long time ago! It was high time global negative attention on Nigeria be transformed to positive expectations in respect of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which formed the new agenda to actualize change from poverty to abundance and inequality to legitimate opportunities for all peoples in the developing countries of the world which the United Nations believed was achievable in the next five years - 2020! The year 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a brain child of the United Nations which metamorphosed into the SDGs at the September 2015 UN Summit in New York, will ensure that all the grounds that were articulated in the bold vision aimed at improving the lives of those threatened by diseases, inequality and hunger particularly in Sub-Sahara Africa, were maintained and sustained by member countries in over 148 nations of the global village. Incessant and continuous bloodshed will not help Nigeria to achieve SDGs; only peace, unity, tranquillity, and serenity under a righteous government under the able- leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari and his divinely chosen team of ministers and advisers would deliver this nation from all maladies of neo-colonialism mentality! If the United Nations wished that Nigeria became an economically-viable and peaceful nation, must Nigerians wish for themselves violence and bloodshed? No part of Nigeria should ever dream of secession but proffer solution to all nagging issues that would always surface among diverse opinions! We beseech the Yoruba Leaders, MASSOB, MEND, and BOKO HARAM to sheath their swords and embrace meaningful dialogue through well-articulated conflict resolution channels. PMB once said in an interview that, “no person who was involved in the 30-month-long Biafran War, would ever dream of secession again in Nigeria”!

ENOUGH OF THE RIVERS OF BLOOD IN NIGERIA! BROTHERS SHOULD STOP KILLING BROTHERS, ESPECIALLY WHEN A DIVINELY ESTABLISHED GOVERNMENT IS NOW IN PLACE. Grazing lands and ranches should be allocated to Fulani herdsmen! We are in the 21 Century for God’s sake! “Righteousness exalts a nation, sin is a reproach.” [Proverbs. 14:34.].

Please look forward to more divine revelation in the next edition of Zion B-BC Newsletter as you share this with friends and remain blessed in the Lord. [For weekly access, to this newsletter, log on to: facebook.com/zionfaithbible.believingchurch or http://www.zfbbc1.blogspot.com, https://www.google.com/+zionfaithbiblebelievingchurch .

If you have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, don’t miss this great opportunity as you pray this prayer:Lord Jesus; I confess that I am a sinner who needs to be saved through the grace of the New Testament of your Blood, shed on the Cross at Calvary; I renounce every sin in my life and accept you as my Lord and Saviour. Please forgive me and write my name in the Book of Life. Amen.If you prayed this prayer, you have been admitted into the family of sons and daughters of God, who are born-again. Congratulations.

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, Resident Pastor and Editor.08130669886, 08098194390.g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.