The former Superior Delegate of the Oblates of St. Joseph, Rev. Fr. Michael Odubela, OSJ has called on Nigerians to pray for the country as we celebrate the 60th Independence Anniversary.
Fr. Odubela made the call in his goodwill message titled “PRAY FOR NIGERIA! FREE NIGERIA!!” which he signed and made available to CEOAFRICA.
The message reads:
PRAY FOR NIGERIA! FREE NIGERIA!!
Today our dear Nation celebrates 60 years of independence and what started off as a blessing, that accrued from the struggle of patriotic Nigerians of yesterday, now appears every inch a malediction on the land. Yes, Nigeria was freed from the claws of Colonial masters but now everywhere in internal chains, orchestrated and maintained by Nigerians.
The number 60 in general symbolizes love, nurturing, home and family. That was the hope for Nigeria when the fetters of white imperialism was broken but the Nigeria of today is coloured with hatred and bigotry; starvation and malnourishment; homelessness and internal displacement and the family face is almost entirely eroded, especially as the nepotic acts of the nescient commander in chief runs unabated.
60 is a number of harmony, balance, idealism and harmonious relationship. Yet, at 60 Nigerians have nothing but the cry for the disintegration of the Nation at heart because the Nation's symbol of justice has opened its eyes towards the direction of a setting sun. Justice has lost its balance and its centre no longer holds. The might of the Nation has dwindled and the one time giant is now dwarfed beyond recognition. The beauty of its difference has turned the bane of her undoing and in the land of intellectuals lowbrowness holds sway. Harmony is fast becoming a sectoral song and its dance gets thicker by the day, yet political henchmen fester its wounds and their leaders, now fully resurrected charlatans parade themselves as champions of hundreds in a land of millions.
People who resonate with the number 60 are said to be concerned and responsible for the wellbeing of others, especially their family members, yet the lords and masters of our moribund democracy glow in their ineptudeness as they siphon our milk and glitter, eating away the honey of our tomorrow. They care about no one but themselves and think only at the level of the stomach and pocket as they cart away the fortunes of the land under their flowing agbada. Responsibility, as it were, is a virtue of a social order. Can we expect it from our leaders? Do we have the order required of an authentic social system? In a society where having is emphasized over being; where politics is rated over education; where thuggery is celebrated more than excellence; where some citizens are more powerful than the Nation and transparency is adjudged by the consideration of lesser evil, citizens are easily hoodwinked to take lies as truth and rudderless political gladiators celebrated as heroes of democracy. Nigeria has become a Nation on bended knee before other nations of the world. Like Oliver twist she cannot stop asking for more aids and loans when she has the wherewithal of herself being a benefactor and lender to nations. In the confusion and moral bankruptcy that the nation has been plunged into Nigerians no longer make comparison between the better and the best but we content ourselves with comparing between worse and worst. The plane of our moral character seem nosediving uncontrollably in a quantum speed as we have lesser men and women of integrity to show as models and champions of our National Courses.
Though the future seems bleak and hope seems invisible on the horizon. I wish to still call on Nigerians to arise as compatriots of a nobel course and free Nigeria from herself made chains of corruption, banditry, kidnapping, rituals, frauds, religious intolerance and so forth, that keep putting the Nation down and making her a shame before others. Let us rise in the hope of God's goodness and love for us, let us mend our ways to right our wrongs and in unison lift up our voices in prayer for God to help us keep to our resolution of uprightness and love.
Let us free Nigeria from her chains that she may be truly INDEPENDENT!
