‘Whatever Happens in Nigeria, the Church Permits it’
Rev. Ladi Thompson and Deacon Bola Adewara, CPAN President at the meeting
The General Overseer, Living Waters Church Unlimited, Rev. Ladi Peter Thompson, was a special guest at the June edition of the monthly Breakfast Meeting of the Christian Press Association of Nigeria (CPAN) with the theme: Security in the Hands of Buhari, where he speaks extensively on Boko Haran and insecurity in Nigeria; the role of the Church as a change agent; that why Nigeria is where it is today is that the nation is living in denial that we are at war; that the issue of Boko Haram is not a religious war against Christians and Muslims but a Satanic war, for the advancement of satanic agenda on earth and as solution he calls on the Church to step forward and play its roles. Here are the excerpts of the interview by therevealerng.com.
His Comment on CPAN
You are not helping me by coming to listen, you too are his workmanship, created unto good works, and God has foreordained you, you are the ones that God has ordained as a mouth piece and you are the one who will face God on this aspect for the purpose of his kingdom before sensationalism. You are here to fight for the future of Nigeria, for religious liberty, for your own destinies, to ensure that there will be light that darkness does not cover Nigeria.
The seed of Nigeria, Africa was planted by Christians
The first part of the national anthem says the labour of our heroes past. When most people sing that they refer to the likes of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello and rest, it is erroneous. There was a time nobody could ever think about anybody from the black race and its citizens carrying passports, that idea didn’t exist especially in the era of slave trade. Today you carry your passport and enter the United States of America. You travel to Dubai and with dignity they welcome you. Many of your great grand-fathers couldn’t enter like that; they were chained like animals, as slaves. It was the church that sent the men that planted the idea that the black man is not an animal, all citizen s of the world is entitled to citizenship of their own and Africans too deserve that, these were men like William Wilberforce, and the rest. We are the people that said you are not an animal you are a human being and they insisted that Britain and the rest must see us as such. Then they also planted the seed of Nigeria.
Apart from that we also have a long list of Africans, like an igbo man who was captured in Iseke, he bought his freedom in 1776, he joined an elite group called sons of Africa. They were the one that campaigned to dignify the black man. They were the one that bought a piece of land in Africa called Sierra Leone. It was a clearing house and crucible of the Christian faith. Then there was Ajayi Crowther who was captured by the Fulani in 1821 and was sold as a slave but God returned him as a champion.
Apart from himself, I can give you a long list. These were the people who stopped human sacrifice. Would there have been a Nigeria if there was still human sacrifice? Killing of twins, idol worshiping. They were the first people that agitated for the independence of Nigeria. The church paid the price. We are the major stakeholders. We have the right people to speak about the future of this country. What happened to us was that our voice was silenced by the time Boko Haram came the grandson, Ajayi Crowther, the church moved back. For us to avoid any form of doubt apart from the church, many other Muslims paid the price for our coexistence.
Mallam Ibraham ‘s contribution to Christians/Muslims peaceful co-existence and religious tolerance
In the late 1970s, there was a Mallam Ibrahim in Kano who after studying the Quran was interested in Isa and his followers were known as the Isawas. He was beheaded in the public at the order of the Emir of Kano. People like Mallam Ibrahim were people that sued for peaceful coexistence and religious tolerance. Apart from people like Mallam Ibrahim many who worked hard for us to have one nation, the church paid a heavy price.
Remembering the labour of our heroes past
There was a case in Bonny; a slave was beaten to death by his master because he refused to eat the food offered to idol. He refused to participate in idol worship, till he was drowned and they mangled him but he kept asking God to forgive them. So when we talk about the labour of our heroes past it is the duty of the church, it is the neglect of these things that have led to the problems that we are in today. So the labour of our heroes past must go all the way back to all those that have worked for the existence of Nigeria.
Why the Church should step forward and speak out
If God comes down today he will not ask from President Muhammadu Buhari. He will not ask the Vice President or the senate leader, if he wants to ask about the state and future of Nigeria. Who is he going to ask? He is going to ask the church. So let us broadcast this. Don’t let anybody deceive themselves. Wherever we are today, it is due to what the church either permitted or what it did not permit. Wherever we are going to be tomorrow is primarily going to be based on what the church permit or does not permit.
In the days when our heroes past did what they had to do, we saw that the devaluation of human worth was canceled and human worth had value.
The diagnostics of the nation in denial
When former President Olusegun Obasanjo said there is going to be war, he was wrong. We have been at war for about two decades. I want this to be broadcast to the ends of the earth. Every nation in the world that is progressing has already recognized that there is a new form of warfare. It uses what they call hybrid effect. It is well documented all over the world. It is a global warfare with local faces. It is well documented that those warfare has never existed before. In this type of warfare, the enemy has no uniform, it has no form, the enemy can be anybody can be a pregnant woman, it can use a child, it can use a church, it can use a mosque. It is a new form of warfare. It has been afflicting Nigeria ever since we discovered it in the 1990s. The point I’m making is this: ff a doctor makes a wrong diagnosis of a sickness and a disease what would be the outcome in the life of a patient? That is why the streams of blood have become the rivers of blood in northern Nigeria and they will still go on to become national torrents of blood in the country if we continue to misdiagnose.
Don’t have cancer and think its headache and go and take medicine for headache. Analgesic can crash your temperature for a season but may hasten your death and lead to the demise of the patient. So what I am saying is this, listen to the comments; I have been involved in the listening in regional, cultural, from army general and others. This is a new form of warfare. In major parts of the world, the textbooks used to combat this war has not been written in the last ten years, any nation that continues to use the conventional textbooks of warfare will never defeat it. Traditional command structure cannot handle it. Any nation that is progressing is decentralizing the command structure, they are changing. Instead of then chain of command they are now using interagency agency cooperation and the training of the soldier is not adaptive which means you can change your strategy in the midst of battle. Part of why Nigeria is losing this battle is because the nation is living in denial that we are not at war, we are at war. The first thing we must get the nation to accept is that it is a new type of war. If it can deceive anybody else it cannot deceive the church it is an attack where it is not known to attack for many years. So as long as we continue to live in denial we are like a patience that has cancer that is saying he has headache. I have friends who I told to sell their house and relocate they didn’t listen to me and when they did six or seven years later, they couldn’t recover 15 percent of what they used to build the house. Not only that. It is a non conventional type of warfare. It is a hydra headed kind of battle.
You must get the diagnosis right and Nigeria must get out of denial.
We are at war while our leaders are saying we are preparing for war. I was in Plateau state the other time and blood was fresh on the street and Bishops were calling for guns. If they kill your children in front of you it is easy for you to get into the flesh but does that make it right? Will you get the right result? If your enemy has planned a battle against you in 45 years, you don’t bring your strategy in 45 minutes and think you will defeat them. The enemy can infiltrate a country for 40 years. Some will enter the judiciary, some will go into the army some will go into the politics. Jonathan admitted that there were enemies in his government but what method was put in place to remove them?
Hydra-headed war – Satanic agenda
We are dealing with a hydra, what we are seeing about Boko Haram is just the tail of the hydra the tail is destructive it has seven heads and ten horns so the Christians can recognise it. It is difficult for those who are not in the spirit to recognize what it is. Let me shock you; we are not dealing with a religious problem, it is not a religious problem. It is not primarily an Islamic problem, it is designed that anybody who treats it like a religious problem is like a neighbor pouring petrol into the fire to help you quench the fire in your house. Your house is burning and your neighbor is helping you by pouring petrol. It is a hydra headed disguised as a religion. I have given advice to three generations of CAN Presidents. I told them there is a different between a satanic problem and a religious problem. They said cant you see they are Christians? This thing will kill Muslins faster as it kills Christians. Within two weeks they started killing Muslims. What the church should understand is that we have been at war, we are not just going to war it is a new war
Nigerians have been at war
What uber did to transportation is what this new war head is to conflict. We have been at war. We are not just going to war. It is a new type of war that is like HIV. It can be in the body for 15 years you won’t even know. Just because they did not shoot a gun, you won’t know there is war. It has been going on in Plateau State for 10-17 years before the first gunshot was ever fired. So we are not just starting the war we have been at war long before.
Global effect of the hydra-headed war
Before the incidence of September 11,2001, happened in the US, Ten years before I went there, I told them get Christians together. We had meeting with the evangelical team in the State of Florida, they laughed. They said may be we came for aid. I said we didn’t come for aid. I said we too we have a problem let’s join hands together around the world and tackle this things. They were laughing. Ten years later when the first plane hit the first tower, I was in America. I watched the second plane hit the second tower in real time. My phone started ringing; they said how did you know? I said the signs are already there. it’s an evil program. It’s a hydra-headed. Anyone can be well trained to recognize this to know where it is. So why should anyone live in denial. Two planes hit New York. It was war against America. They struck at pentagon, New York. Why didn’t they say we have a war in New York? Why is Nigeria saying we have a war in north east? Are there not things that happened to Nigerians in high places that all the diagnosis in Nigeria cannot diagnose correctly that this is the sickness? Then what happens? They fly the person to France, to Saudi Arabia, to get diagnosis so the person doesn’t die? Because he would have died if they stay here so if that can be happening in the health sector what makes you think it is not happening now in the conflict sector.
Not every Christian is a serious Christian and the average Muslim in Nigeria is not a terrorist
In the year 2000 when we began to have security meetings round the country warning, the first place was in the church. We drew up a research and we began to show them interpretation that some people are used to sponsor terrorists, but we limited it to leaders because immature people cannot handle it.
The average Muslim in Nigeria is not a terrorist. You can argue with me or is it every Christian that is a serious Christian? What is the percentage of serious spirit filled Christians in Nigeria? It is the same like the radical ones in Islam that was why we limited it to leaders. The average African is led by his conscience. They go to mosque. They go to church but they don’t read the fine print.
A few years later someone just copied all the things going on in the last ten years and translated it and converted it to political things and began to circulate. Immediately anyone was hearing a Christian would go and meet a Muslim and said, do you think we don’t know what is on your heart? At the end of the day, it was even the Christians that was helping to make the Muslims who had no plan to be radicalized, it was shocking. I told someone this is Africa, there is a lot of syncretism whether it is Islam or Christianity or anything.
Now we are the one that would go and meet the Muslim and say you people are murderers. He would say why are you saying that? Then the Christian would quote a portion in the Sura and ask: is it not there? The Muslim would say hei! hei! Is it there? Then he would go and read it. Someone who is not even thinking of being radicalized before has now been evangelized to be radicalized by the Christians.
Insurgency in Nigeria: why the south west a problem
We have seen the southwest has been able to separate works of satan from religion. if you call someone in the south west lets go and worship God by stamping our legs ten times, he would join you; let’s go and hit our heads on the ground as worship, he would join you but say let’s go and take knife and kill someone as an act of worship, he would say no, it is satan’s work. Why? Because, he has been programmed to recognize an act of worship from satanic works. They are difficult to be radicalized, this is the problem.
Identifying the solution
The solution is very easy. God in his office as creator is a leveler for all men so when it comes to that time, we are not there now, the time of solution is not yet now. Where we are now is a time of sensitization. We are a nation at war. We have been at war. It is a new type of war. It is a special type of war. If after declaring that, and we get the entire nation to face it that we are at war and define the kind of war, if anyone even up to the commander-in-chief of the armed forces now manifests patterns that fit into that new kind of war then, with complete confidence, we can start war but based on guess work.You have not even diagnosed it properly someone would say drink palm oil, try this one, use razor blade, let blood come out, the suggestion will kill the person.
Divine solution
The Bible says there is a wisdom that is better than the weapons of war. It is a primary preserve of the body of Christ in Nigeria. I want you to also know that divine solution also involve far-sighted strategies. Somebody said we knew that Boko Haram was going to happen. We knew that if the church did not wake up there will be a lot of bloodshed. When did this happen? It was in the late 90s, 98, 99, and by 2000 we had launched the Macedonia Initiatives. We had toured the northern Nigeria. We have told them the church will be the first in the line of attack but will not be the only institution in the line of attack, but as we were saying this in 2000, a lot of people were laughing.
In 2001 and 2002 we were in Sokoto, we were in Plateau State, people were laughing that it was impossible. I will tell you that the solution of God is the issue of time. If you saw the problem before it even started then you know that God is on your side. Sometime when there will be problem in 2016 God would send the solution in the year 2002. Only the churches see such things.
Why the Church must act fast
Let me tell you, the truth is that, if the church refuses to do what it has to do in 2002, and then there is escalation in 2020. To cover up our disobedience, we will start making noise to distract people’s attention, but deep inside us, we would know as the custodians of the things of God, we would know that probably if we have submitted to God we would know that the problem we would have solved in 2002 is the problem we are seeing in 2016.
Church solution is the position of non violence communication.
I want to say to the church that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal and will never be carnal. Right now the church is trying to run on emotions. It will be the greatest error. Our Church solution is the position of non violence communication. Our position is fixed. If there is anybody here who doesn’t know that God so loved the world and gave his only begotten son, if there is any journalist here who doesn’t know that God so love the church that he gave his only begotten son, you will not be a partaker of the good.
God love is for all
I have mentioned to people that God loves Shekau like he loves anybody here. There is this expression of God that while you were yet sinner he loved you so God does not hate Shekau? God does not hate a Fulani herdsman? And if your heart is beginning to hate, you will be cut off from the solutions of the kingdom of God so the church is not allowed to rejoice over violence and having said that, I must establish to you that, that is the church.
Sometimes God permits the church under certain circumstances to permit warfare, that is why the Bible says there is a time for peace and a time for war. But he now gives the church the first choice. It will be the church permitting disobedience as a last option. The Bible in Revelation 12 says there was war in heaven. If there was war in heaven, who told you there cannot be war on earth especially when the trouble maker that instigated war in heaven is the same one behind the war on earth?
When Samuel saw that king Saul refused to execute king Hagag, Samuel speaking the word of the Lord rebuked Saul and based on the authority of God, he collected his sword and killed Hagag so the options of kinetic is not completely off the table but it is a totally admission of failure on the part of the church to do the perfect will of God because there is a wisdom that is better than the weapons of War.
