By Adedayo Ogunleye, Abuja

Influential Christian leaders have continued to speak against Goodluck Jonathan’s re – election bid, saying that his administration has not done enough to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians, while also charging their congregation to ensure they obtain their Permanent Voter’s Card, PVC, to enable them vote in the coming general elections.

Outspoken Catholic priest and director of the Adoration Ministry, Enugu, Ejike Mbaka, publicly condemned the Jonathan – led administration in his New Year message during the annual cross-over service held December 31, at the Adoration Ground in Enugu.

Asserting that he was divinely inspired to speak, the Catholic Reverend Father charged President Jonathan to resign from office honourably or face disgrace.

Mbaka said the Holy Spirit told him that Nigeria is at the brink of change, following the bad leadership provided in the last six years by President Jonathan.

In his sermon titled “From Good Luck to Bad Luck”, he stated that the President had brought bad luck to several spheres of life in the country.

“Goodluck met Yar’Adua and Yar’Adua died. Before you know it, the Goodluck met our oil and the oil had a bad luck and poured away. Before we knew it, the Goodluck met our naira, our naira had a bad luck. Where are we going? What is the fate of this country? Shall we continue like this, we need change,” the priest lamented.

Expressing worry about the future of Nigerian youths, the collapse of infrastructure and the insecurity in the country, Mbaka stated that the re-election of President Jonathan will spell disaster for the country.

“The continuity of Jonathan means disaster to Nigeria,” Mbaka declared, adding that “Jonathan should honourably resign quietly and let Nigeria be. The destiny of Nigeria is greater than Goodluck Jonathan.”

The priest also berated clerics whom he said have been compromised by Jonathan, charging them to ”drop the money they have collected” and speak up for justice.

Also criticising Jonathan’s performance in securing the nation and his human rights violations in the fight against insurgents, Father Mbaka said that at no other time in the history of Nigeria since the civil war had the nation witnessed so much bloodshed as under the President’s watch.

In a similar vein, a Pentecostal pastor, Samuel Adeyemi has stated that President Jonathan has disappointed the people who voted him into office.

“Nigerians voted Jonathan in 2011 because of the name ‘Goodluck’,” he observed.

Preaching at his Lagos-based Daystar Church, the pastor, who is widely known for his daily motivational talks on television, said Nigerians erred by letting their choice of who to vote for be influenced by mundane factors such as the name of the candidate, his tribe, or religion.

He charged his congregation to be prudent in choosing who to vote for, saying an evaluation of the performance of the present administration will tell them that there is much to be desired.

And, in a dramatic turn of events, Channels TV on Sunday terminated fiery Lagos pastor Tunde Bakare’s sermon broadcast after he made some critical comments about Jonathan’s administration.

Bakare, who broadcasts his weekly  sermons via Moment of Truth, a one-hour recorded paid programme, preached a sermon titled, “The Gathering Storm And Avoidable Shipwreck – How to Avoid Catastrophic Euroclydon”, in which he accused the government of plunging the country into political and economic disaster.

Warning of a looming storm, he asserted that there was a “fundamental flaw in the polity” and that there were visible signs of a storm ahead if steps were not taken to avert political disaster.

The pastor, a widely known social critic and rights advocate, in his message argued that the Nigerian economy had now crashed because it could no longer sustain the massive corruption in the subsidy fraud, and accused the government of ignoring the warning signs and nurturing a culture of criminality.

The pastor declared his support for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Muhammadu Buhari, while expressing doubts about the government’s preparedness and willingness to conduct the February elections freely and fairly.

The broadcast sermon, which normally was billed to last for an hour, was unceremoniously yanked off 45 minutes into the programme.

Neither Bakare nor the Latter Rain Assembly received any explanation from the station on why the programme was yanked off air.

In an even earlier critical sermon against Jonathan, a senior pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, J.T. Kalejaiye, penultimate Sunday declared that Nigeria needed change and admonished members of his congregation to be wary of leaders who come seeking their votes on the platform of religion.

“Of what use is my brother, my blood brother, who is not going to move the nation forward? And you want me to vote for him because he is my brother?” he asked.

“Brethren, wake up! Who is a Christian? That somebody bears Christian name doesn’t make him a Christian. You are a Christian yet there is no employment for our youths,” he declared.

He stated further that things were so bad in the country that a change is inevitable.

“Let’s call a spade a spade, brethren. Things cannot this way. Corruption is the the order of the day. You cannot steal and nothing will follow… Brethren, if you don’t go something, something will do you,” told his listeners.

The development brings a new dimension to the build-up to the February 14 presidential elections, for Jonathan who until now had enjoyed the support of several Christian leaders across the nation.

Mbaka, perceived to be highly influential in the South-east of the nation with his religious retreats drawing multitudes from all across the region, has already raised alarm that he has been receiving threat messages since his New Year Celebration message.

Stating also that he has been accused of receiving money from Buhari, but declared:

“Tell them I am not afraid of them. I have said what I was asked to say. The only word I have for them is Isaiah 54:15,17: “Surely they shall gather, but because the gathering is not of God they shall scatter. No weapon fashioned against me shall prosper.”

“They said Buhari gave me money, but I have never met with Buhari. I don’t know him in person. I only delivered the message I was given and I stand by that message because the future of this country is bleak with Jonathan on the saddle,” the priest stated

He said if President Jonathan is re-elected, “the next four years will be hell for the country. People are crying of hanger but then you will see what real hunger is.”