It was a glorious and beautiful day. I woke up at 5.00am and got ready to go out by 5.30am. Actually, I didn’t sleep deep that night because one sentence kept reverberating in my head through the night

Walk for Light!

I ran to my mentor’s room to find out if he was ready and soon after we set out for the airport (Omagwa International airport, Port Harcourt). We had had a great time that weekend starting from saturday. We landed in Port Harcourt around 6 pm and went straight to Presidential Hotel from the airport for “Purple Night”. A event with over 700 people in attendance. My mentor spoke powerfully at the event and I met a few friends and members of my team there. It was a fun-filled event.

On Sunday, we went to church and then had to do 2 seminars on Holidays and Cash in the evening. My team in Port Harcourt were already having seminars at Little Africa Restaurant, Woji Road, GRA, Port Harcourt by 4pm and we needed to be there to support them. After which we moved to Landmark Hotels to hold another seminar for an older, larger team. I also took a trip into town to see my babe’s sister’s family and didn’t get back till quite late. I eventually went to bed in the wee hours of the morning all the while thinking about what the next day(Monday) held in store.

Me at "Walk for Light"

I had been waiting in earnest anticipation for the “Walk for Light” day. We had been told earlier that we’d march on protest to the governor’s office in church and that August 12 or so would be the date. This was announced around May/June. August came and went and nothing happened. I was beginning to think that the leadership of my church (Daystar Christian Center) were growing cold feet with respect to taking responsibility for our underdevelopment and lack of good leadership in this Nation.

The church has proved to be very passive and irresponsible in my view in the last few decades with respect to the emergence of a New Nigeria. They have neglected their responsibility to take action and substituted it for making long and ineffective prayers for God to do what they should do.

Statistics have it that 45million Nigerians go to church every sunday. That is all the critical mass needed to change a Nation of 140million people if they would only take responsibility. The church had taken a back seat too long and were becoming irrelevant as opposed to light shining in darkness.

On the backdrop of this, I felt my own church even though it has shown what church is supposed to be by engaging in empowerment and community development on a large scale, was retreating in the face of imminent confrontation. That is why when it was announced that the walk would happen on Monday, October 19 by 10am, I was ecstatic. Finally, we are going to let the world know that we don’t agree with the black state of our Nation (epileptic power supply) and we were going to do something about it.

Rev Sam Adeyemi, Pst Nike Adeyemi, Pst Godman and other ministers at Daystar's "walk for light"

So, that was the reason why I was so restless knowing that I was far removed from the site of the walk. We got an early flight that day though we missed the first one out of PH and I almost ran through the arrival lounge pushing my luggage trolley. Since we landed at Murtala Domestic Airport in Lagos, I had been communicating with a couple of friends who were already gathered at the church venue for the commencement of the walk. My mentor and a friend who I travelled with kept making fun of me as they saw my eagerness to get united with other Walkers for Light.

We got into the car quickly that came to pick us at the airport and told the driver directly that he should do his diligence to get us as close as possible to the walkers since we had already found out that the walk had commenced. We caught up with the first set of walkers around Radio busstop, Obafemi Awolowo way in Ikeja, jumped out of the car and immediately joined the nearest platoon of walkers.

We stood out as the odd ones for a while because we had no “Walk for Light” t -shirts which had been handed out to everyone to wear before the commencement of the march. We chanted and sang songs demanding for Light and expressing our sorrow, discontent and disapproval of the current situation of lack of power in the country. Many people laughed at us, some encouraged us, others wandered at us and some where disgusted at us.

Light walkers at the Governor's office in Alausa

We couldn’t care less. We were on a march for light. After all, we were the light of the world and the least we could do was “Walk for light”. We caused quite a traffic jam because over 4,000 people turned up for the walk. What amazed me the most was that people took time off from their regular jobs to participate in the walk.

Finally, I started feeling in my heart that

Maybe we are on our way to change after all.

Maybe the church is recognising that if only they’d get involved and committed to the New Nigeria project, it would move from being a mere dream to a reality our eyes will see in our own lifetime.

Anyway, by and large we got to the governor’s office in Alausa and expressed our compelling reason for marching in protest.

Let there be Light

Afterall, that was God’s first creation on earth.

If we must therefore rebuild a Nigeria that has become void and lacks any sensible form whatsoever, our first assignment must be

LET THERE BE LIGHT.

Very many years ago, when Africa was simply geographical statistics to Europe; when the land was divided and passed from on european Nation to the next as gifts regardless of the diversity of those who lived in that geographical region, the church stood alone as a body that had a singular role of developing and building the region.

Missionaries from different parts of the developed world stormed the then jungles of Africa bringing with them a message of salvation through Jesus Christ and education as an essential tool for development.

In times when the colonial masters and native government of the African people couldn’t be bothered about the responsibility of education, rather, they were encumbered with acts of milking the land dry of its rich resources and making gains by that, selfless missions started schools to educate Africans and teach them how to read and write.

So focused where these missions, that they shouldered funding almost completely, getting no funds from the colonial masters or the native leaders in the building of the school structures or payment of the teachers who actually doubled as missionaries then.

With time, the schools moved from single class schools to multiple class schools. Curricula were drawn up and very soon, africans started competing on almost level grounds with European students all around the world.

Teaching the African man to read was the first step in the direction of his liberation and that responsibility was taken on by the church.

Now, there are schools everywhere in an african country like Nigeria. Government has gotten involved though on a paralytic level in education. The church has shirked its responsibility and is focused on making profit especially now that churches have millions of naira come in by way of offerings, tithes and other giving vehicles or projects from the upwardly mobile professionals and middle class citizens who must attend church because religion is a culture.

The church now is involved in financial blessing seminars and faith conventions featuring night vigils with prayer requests of financial abundance and prosperity at the expense of National development.

Church members have grown a thick skin against the deep poverty that is eating the land and have turned their face away from other members who are in church to come in contact with their “angel” (who will probably provide their next meal). Loads of young lads and ladies have no one to pay for their education and are stuck as a result at secondary school education and forced to go do manual labour. Some are even jobless

Yet, in most churches in the land, the congregation gathers, enjoy worship with scintillating music and dancing, listen to the word, pray and go home while the Nation regresses in illiteracy and bondage. Pastors now live a “larger than life” life especially in an environment where “God gives the power to get wealth”. A large percentage of them can not give proper account of the monies that they spend as they have an unhindered access to the church account and spend at will.

The church is sleeping is why a Nation’s government is killing innocent citizens in the niger delta and not much noise is being made about it. After all, the vice president dines with the leadership of the church associations regularly and they wouldn’t want to corrupt the goodwill that is between them till date. 

Loads of youths have dreams to be successful in the arts (music, graphic arts, dancing etc) and even sports but lack an enabling environment and a platform to launch and the doors of the church are locked from monday during the day to friday during the day with so sort of empowerment going on. 

How long shall this neglect and wickedness continue. If this nation, Nigeria must develop, the church must take it’s rightful place again in taking responsibility for the building of this nation academically, spiritually, financially and even politically.

Our values are flawed because the church is sleeping. LET THE CHURCH ARISE AND LET THE ENEMIES OF NIGERIA BE SCATTERED.