Keeping Away The Wicked From Power & Authority. By Felix N. Jarikre.

Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, CAN president.

From British colonial times, Nigerians saw government as alienating, untrustworthy, oppressive and condescending, an instrument not deserving of their cooperation and self-sacrifice, but something to be sabotaged and pillaged without compunction.  “Government-no-man’s- business” was a parlance commonly heard. 

Unable to find a common vision, our founding fathers fought for independence with divergent agenda, suspicious of themselves, and mutually  antagonistic,  but casting a long covetous eye on a vast expanse of lands, peoples and resources they could rule over as the new overlords. Our independence, largely won from Britain without armed struggle or blood-shed, was negotiated without a genuine mind to develop majority of the people or fast-track their progress, but to keep them in perpetual subservience, ignorance and poverty.  

Several military interventions, despotic, tyrannical and corrupt, left the people  democratically challenged and disengaged. Frightened and yet ever needful of the people – especially their vicarious support – the political elites seem to be agreed on a conspiracy to keep the people politically naïve, disoriented, disenchanted and disorganized. 

One noticeable effect of our political disengagement is that we became versed and versatile in blame-game. No leader takes responsibility for anything troublesome. A friendly State governor managed to blame the Federal Government while leaving the President excused. For what he could do – but facing no fire for dereliction of duty – the local chairman/councillor conveniently blames the State governor. With the media, the people would rant, criticize, fulminate or even abuse the President. We groan without growing. The powers-that-be can afford to be tolerant because they are not threatened. The leaders at various levels are insulated. 

The illusion of freedom to speak, and supposedly change things is maintained while the political environment is controlled and regulated to leave things unchanged. Institutions are deliberately weakened to enable those currently holding power to steal and recycle looted funds with impunity. 

Why have things come to this sorry pass? Because, in short, the wicked has not been kept far away from authority and power. It’s better and far easier to keep the wicked away from power than removing them when they are already in power. The wicked boasts of their strength and despises the weakness of others. The wicked takes advantage of the weakness of others to undermine and enslave them. The sense of superiority of the wicked is validated when they inflict pain upon others. The wicked derives satisfaction from bringing low, undervaluing, shaming and downgrading other people. The wicked will manipulate, cheat, deceive and kill others in order to get power . The greed of the wicked will not allow them to be content with what they could legitimately earn. Using the instrument of office, they must cut corners, defraud, steal and plunder the commonwealth as a way of appeasing their raving greed.

Jehovah Almighty has a vested interest in keeping the wicked away from power and authority. Yet if the people are ignorant of this, the wicked will continue to hold sway. If our roads had become death-traps, our hospitals go largely unequipped and underfunded, our schools, concentration-camps of ignorance and backwardness, and we go for days, listless, trying not to go bonkers – without PCHN supplying electricity to our homes/offices – breeding laziness and poverty, you know that the wicked i.e. serpents and scorpions have seized power. 

Indeed, before the blood of Jesus Christ was shed, the generations of “serpents and scorpions” had already seized authority over the earth. The challenge of the times is not to appease or suckle up, but bring them down. It’s a divine injunction and imperative.  To violently overthrow the wicked, and keep them away from power is a task we ignore to our detriment.

To make sure you are not mistaken, “serpents and scorpions” are human personalities who reject the saving knowledge of the truth, and are competitive as to how much distance they can place between themselves and Jehovah Almighty. Their modus operandi is propelled toward preventing the holy Maker from intruding or influencing human affairs. They are vile and oppressive. They should not be tolerated but hacked down.

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Luke 10:19.

 The urgency of the times calls for the righteous to start mobilizing seriously with the inexorable objective of seizing political power in Nigeria. Religious power is meaningless without political power; and I say that with every sense of responsibility. This is not about partisan party affiliations as a PDP or APC person. Wherever you are, under your watch, the wicked should not be allowed to taste power. The only person allowed to exercise a born-to-rule mentality is the righteous man or woman. 

Learning from Daniel in the Bible, we have often been told of his strong resolve, his tenacity of purpose, his faultless integrity, impeccable faith and loyalty to his God. Often neglected to our detriment is that through his visions and dreams, Daniel had interpreted and predicted with amazing accuracy the war of supremacy and expansionist aggression amongst kingdoms of the emerging times. How powers behind-the-scene would exercise their capability to degrade one kingdom and upgrade another. Yet in the midst of this upheaval and turmoil, the Maker of the Universe, would set up a kingdom “ which shall never be destroyed.” (see Daniel 2: 44-45) 

Indeed rather than being second-in-command, Daniel is the kind of personality that should bear ultimate rule in any land or nation. Yet heaven had to be content with Daniel playing second-in-command role in Babylon because the world system supporting earthly kingship had not been taken down and invalidated. 

If the righteous has failed to exercise political power in Nigeria today, it is because they are blinded, ignorant, speculative and satanically diverted. If the righteous  has refused to exercise dominion in the political sphere, his so-called spirituality or religious activity is condemnable and contemptible. Women would continue to suffer prolonged barrenness, people would continue to be afflicted with poverty and incurable wasting diseases because we have refused to seize the only power that matters: political power! 

The beauty about representative government which is democracy is that it allows people with different family or educational backgrounds, religions, shades of opinions to contest for power freely. There is no reason to turn our churches into little Cave Adullams, exiled and hiding from the enemy, mobs of impotence and complacency, offering token worship to God – who clearly wants much more! We must advocate and mobilize for a transparent and accountable governance; this way we ensure that we keep the wicked away from power.

By taking down the first tabernacle, and manifesting the holiest of all through the sacrifice of his death, Jesus Christ abolished, terminated or ended the world system that supported earthly kingship – which is essentially wicked, despotic and arbitrary. What he accurately predicted came to pass in AD 70 when Roman soldiers set upon the Jerusalem Temple, destroyed it piece by piece, and burnt it down. The priesthood was decimated and scattered in forced diaspora. If ever there was any doubt lingering after the death of Jesus Christ that Jehovah had abandoned the old covenant of Moses as a worship system which supported oppressive earthly kingship, that singular incident was meant to remove it. You would either have to reject your doubt about the long-awaited expiration of Moses’ covenant as a system of worship/nexus of authority or accept the wrong-headed conclusion that Jehovah was powerless and helpless: withdrawn from human affairs without serving notice!

Clearly Jehovah Almighty is not about to fade away quietly into the blue clouds!  While you may pretend not to hear the inconvenient truth, what is inescapable is that the Maker has not withdrawn Himself from human affairs. Indeed, the inexorable kingdom of heaven is here to stay, mobilized to supplant every other counterfeit kingdom.