THE General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Enoch Adeboye, has called on the Federal Government to take swift action in eliminating terrorists and their sponsors to avert United States military operations in Nigeria.
Adeboye made the call Friday night during the November Holy Ghost Service, while reacting to recent threats by the United States President Donald Trump.
The cleric’s warning came after remarks by Trump, who vowed to end all aid to Nigeria and deploy the United States military to fight terrorists in Africa’s most populous nation if what he termed “Christian genocide” continued.
The ICIR reported that Trump added Nigeria to countries on watchlist for Christian genocide on Friday, October 31.
The Countries of Particular Concern list also includes China, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, and Pakistan, among others.
The US leader said he had asked US Representatives Riley Moore and Tom Cole, along with the House Appropriations Committee, to investigate the issue and report their findings to him.
In his message Friday night, Adeboye warned that if the United States eventually invades Nigeria, China, Russia, and other global powers would not intervene to defend the country.
“All the so-called world leaders will talk, they will condemn what America has done in the strongest terms, that’s all they will do. Britain is not going to come and help us. No other foreign power will come to our aid.
“This is not the time for joking. This is not the time for drama. This is not the time for semantics. This is not the time to begin to argue, is it suicide or kidnapping or whatever name they call it? And this is not the time to say, ‘Ah, it’s not Christians alone, Muslims are also involved.’ The point is, people are dying. Innocent people are dying,” he added.
He said he had advised the late President Muhammadu Buhari and other past leaders to deal decisively with the nation’s insecurity crisis.
“Our President inherited this problem,” he said, recalling the tenure of the late Buhari, whom he said had once privately advised to take decisive action when killings in the country became unbearable. He said Buhari did not follow through with the directive after issuing it to his security chiefs.
“Some of you will remember who called the service chiefs together and said, ‘I give you three months, get rid of all these Boko Haram people or resign. It’s not allowed to tell you who gave him that advice. He ran with that advice, but he didn’t follow it through, because he gave the order as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and the security operatives moved fast.
“But three months went by, and the work was not done. So, I went to see him. It wasn’t unusual. This time, somehow, the press got to know that I visited him. Of course, they were not there when we talked.
“Unfortunately, like I said, he’s not alive now. I would have asked you to go and ask him, ‘Sir, why didn’t you follow through? Because when three months passed and the work wasn’t done, why didn’t you proceed with your, are we going to call it a threat?” he said.
He further advised Tinubu to appeal to Trump for a 100-day grace period to address the insurgency in Nigeria, noting that the president should, in turn, issue a marching order to the service chiefs and other security agencies to resolve the issues within 90 days.
“Let the government use diplomatic methods to convince President Trump to give us 100 days of grace. All our service chiefs, fortunately, are new, should perform within three months, or resign,” he said.
“When giving orders to the service chiefs this time around, we should make it clear to them that they are not only to eliminate the terrorists but also their sponsors, no matter how influential they may be,” the cleric stated.
He pleaded that Nigerians should stop apportioning blame.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.