I welcome you to yet another edition of your regular publication. It promises to be handful and topical. Our nation is currently going through some sort of oppression and torture in the hands of foreign gods, as an aftermath of having seemingly fallen captive to their grip as evidently manifesting in our experiences as a nation these past few years. Is it the unavailability/price of fuel or persistent outage in power, train attacks, herdsmen killing farmers, kidnappings, all rampantly on the increase daily or the completely broken down infrastructure in most places, making it very difficult for people to work or travel? The socio-economic indices one can use to assess a people's wellbeing; for Nigeria as of today are all in negative and a level of hopelessness and despondency are staring most, or majority of the populace, including the millions of believers who are equally domiciled within the territory of the Nigerian nation in the face. The realities of the woes that befall us on daily basis as a people these times are sure signs of some kind of disconnect between the One(God) who called us and those of us who claim to have been called. Like Gideon asked the angel of the Lord in Judges 6:13, “If the Lord is with us, why are all this is happening to us? And where are all His wonders that our fathers told us about?” Possibly, like the Israelites, we have been handed over to our oppressors and it is time for us to check ourselves.

On their way out of bondage, Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments, Genesis 35:2 (NKJV).

Our theme for this National Edition is centred on the above verse as our message to the Nation. As was with Jacob’s household, one may be wondering, where was Jacob when his household and the people with him brought in the gods?  What is the way out? 

On leadership, the quest for a Godly leadership is one desire many of us have been nursing for several decades now: and the opportunity is approaching for the nation via the forthcoming general elections, we shall be featuring a classic on qualities to look for when deciding who to present to represent you at every level of leadership at the polls as presented in this interview with the late Rev Dr Samuel Tugba (one of the founding Editors of COUNTDOWN). In the interview, the man of God maintained that you cannot serve God with pride.

As co-workers of the truth, we have the instruction to go into the world and establish the kingdom of Him that called us and as such it is not a time to be indifferent at all, we need to establish a Godly leadership in order to witness an egalitarian society where our children can have a guaranteed tomorrow, as equals among their peers world over, without any inkling of servitude or any form of marginalisation as the Israelites experienced when they got entangled in the grips of foreign gods. Being apolitical in such times as we are in now will bring us no good. Going through African history, you will discover that the men God used to emancipate Africa politically were all Christians. We have played Church enough, we have been praying. There are Churches everywhere but evil seems to be multiplying in equal proportion. 

Who we need now are men of conviction, men ready to go all out for God, men with changed hearts, people whose hearts are after God. We have no choice but to be the watchmen over the society especially in the field of politics via political participation. We need to move away from this pattern of docility and compromise, we need to raise people who can confront the status quo for a real change, and we need to develop an agenda, a blue print to save this country. We have not been faithful to the Great Commission Mandate. China is not in Christ, Russia, same and we are losing the West gradually. The Church is supposed to be the light of the world; the Church should be the alternative to the failure of the state. It has been done before – in education, health etc. The Church provided better alternatives in the past, how did we get here? As I said earlier, kindly take your mind back to post-independence Africa. 

Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Jomo Kenyata of Zambia, Milton  Obote of Uganda, Patrick Lumumba of Congo, Kwame Nkuruma of Ghana, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria. They were responsible for all the good that came out of Africa in the past. They were all Christians! Where are the Christians today? It is our earnest prayers here at Countdown that the people of God do not have to go through what the people of Israel went through before retracing our steps back to genuine commitment and faithfulness to the only one and true God.

Taiyelolu Ojo,

Editor-In-Chief

04 03 22