Onward Christian Soldiers – By Fani-Kayode

The United States House of Representatives declared Nigeria as the most dangerous place for Christians to live in the world last year.

More Christians have been killed in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world in the last 67 years. Femi Fani-Kayode The President of the Christiam Association of Nigeria (CAN) has warned against the continued killing of Christians in the country.

Well-armed and well-funded Fulani militias are slaughtering Christians all over the nation and the Government has done nothing to stop it or to bring them to justice. 808 Christians were killed in Southern Kaduna at Christmas. 1000 killed in Agatu, Benue state last year.

13 killed in Southern Kaduna on Easter. It goes on and on yet there have been no arrests. Christian communities are being wasted and ravaged by Boko Haram.

Christian youths of IPOB and MASSOB are being butchered on a daily basis whilst their leaders are being illegally detained.

Every single security and intelligence agency in the country except for the Navy is now headed by a northern Muslim.

The spokesman for the Fulani militias and herdsmen has just been appointed as Secretary to the Federal Character Commission. Christian Pastors have been persecuted and subjected to humiliation and arrest in the last two years like never before.

More Churches have been bombed, burnt down, sacked and destroyed in the north in the last two years than at any other time in our history.

The International Terror Index has described Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Fulani Militias as the first and fourth “deadliest terrorist organisations in the world” respectively.

All this and yet our President has REFUSED to give the leadership of CAN audience since he came to office 2 years ago despite ALL attempts by that organisation to see him and table their concerns.

This is too much. The impunity and disdain is glaring. The disrespect and contempt is nauseating. It is simply disgusting and disgraceful. Never mind the pretense and the denials.

Never mind the few slavish “Christian” Uncle Tom’s and fifth columnists in the corridors of power who will say anything to keep their worthless jobs.

The truth is that Buhari has NO respect for Christians and his Government has palpable hatred for all believers. Not only does he hate Christians but he also hates Shiite Mulims too.

If this were not so why keep their leader in illegal detention for over a year after murdering over 1000 of them and burying them in mass graves?

This is the way of the Sunni fundamentalists, the Salafists and the Wahhabis and that is the course that our goverment has chosen to take. As far as they are concerned all opposition must be subdued, killed, jailed or broken and they must hold on to power forever.

That is their ethos and they will never stop. The truth is that ANY so-called Christian that supports or serves this government should bow his or her head in shame.

This is all the more so when our Minister of Information can actually open his lying mouth and say that “muslims have not killed Christians in Nigeria”. What a shameless man.

He can say so only because he does not regard Christians as being human beings. He does not regard the loss of a precious Christian soul as being anything.

To him and to the Government that he so happily serves, Christians are nothing. If this were not the case how could he say such things and tell such monumental lies?

Our Lord and Saviour paid the supreme price on the Cross and rose again. He shed His precious blood for us. He conqured death and gave us life everlasting.

He triumphed after much pain and suffering. He did not go through all that for us to live as slaves or second class citizens in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world. We are the head and not the tail.

We were born to be victorious, to have dominion and to rule. We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We cannot be repressed or destroyed. Nothing moves us and nothing shakes us.

Nothing can separate us from the love of our Lord. Not even persecution, marginalisation, humiliation, incarceration, torture or death.

The Church of Christ was built on the Blood of Jesus and on the blood and bones of Christian martyrs through the ages. For over 2000 years believers have been slaughtered and butchered yet the Church and the faith is still standing strong and going from strength to strength.

The more you kill and persecute Christians the more the glorious gospel will spread. We have a President who is so sick that the only time he is seen is in the mosque on fridays.

What signal does that send? What has governance got to do with the mosque in a supposedly secular state? We have a Vice President who has been held captive and who is now a slave to some dark, sinister, evil and shameless cabal.

We have a Government that hates our people and hates our faith. To them the only good Christian is a subservient Christian who is prepared to turn a blind eye to the murder, butchery and slaughter of his own. To them the only good Christian is one that lives in fear and remains silent even as his brothers and sisters in the Lord are being murdered, persecuted, marginalised and humiliated.

I will never bow to those that hold that view. I will never shake or quiver before them because I serve a mighty God who is noble and strong, who is true to His own, who has filled me with His Spirit and who has called me to lead.

The Bible says “he who is scared of losing His life will lose it” and “he who is prepared to give up his life will gain it”. I would rather die than be a slave to any person, any government, any tribe or any other faith. I am what I am. I am a Christian soldier. I am the Odum Agu of the South. I am the Odogwu N’ Arah of Christiandom. As long as my Lord and Saviour sits on the throne I fear nothing and I worry about nothing.

I believe that Nigeria belongs to Jesus and whether anyone likes it or not His counsel over this nation will stand, His will shall he done, His purpose shall be established and His name shall be glorified. The counsel of the ungodly and the will of satan cannot stand in our nation. Nigeria cannot be islamised and she will NEVER be turned into a vassal state of Saudi Arabia.

We must either reconfirm the secularity of our nation-state and restructure her or we must break her. That is our duty and that is our calling. We must either accept the principle that people of ALL faiths are equal, that they are free to worship their God in whichever way they deem fit and that religion has no place in matters of governance and the state or we must go our separate ways. We must either accept the fact that our people will no longer be subjugated or bow before any form of religious or ethnic hegemony or we must redefine Nigeria.

To those that feel that they can stem the tide and oppose or stop it I say it is too late. This message has sunk in and it is loud and clear. The horse has already left the stable. The cat is already out of the bag. The genie is already out of the bottle. The days of subservience and fear are over.

The incessant and endless bloodshed and the brutality and insensitivity of the ailing tyrant have woken us up. They have stirred something deep and dangerous within our souls. We are defiant and we refuse to continue to wallow in self-pity and crawl on bended knee. Dr. Martin Luther King said “if you are not ready to die for something then you are not worthy of living for anything”.

We are ready to lose our very lives for our faith and in defence of the gospel. That is what Christian soldiers and believers are meant to do. We are called to live in peace with our neighbours but we shall stand tall and strong as they spit on us, cheat us, humiliate us, rob us and strike us down. We are mighty. We are strong. And as long as our people and our brothers and sisters in the Lord are treated with contempt, disdain and hatred by your people and your government, as long as we are killed in our homes, farms and Churches, as long as we are misrepresented, humliliated, wrongly accused and persecuted, we shall oppose and resist you in every lawful way with every fibre of our being. The truth is that there cannot be peace in Nigeria without justice.

There cannot be joy without equity. There cannot be blessings without God’s pleasure. There cannot be progress as long as those in power and their friends continue to target, persecute, marginalise and murder the children of the most High God.

The Holy Bible says “once has it been written and twice has it been said that all power belongs to God and the heavens rule in the affiars of men”. It says “the nations are as a drop of water in the ocean before the Lord”. It says “He holds the universe together by the power of His word”. It says “He forges the destiny of nations and jealously guards His counsel”.

Any Head of State, President or leader whose sole objective is to destroy the Christian faith or the Church and to diminish the influence and power of Christianity in Nigeria shall meet a terrible and tragic end. It has happened before and it will happen again. Our God does not sleep.

The Bible says, “He is a Man of War: who can stand against Him?” The blood of all those innocent Christians murdered by agents of the Nigerian state, the Fulani militias and herdsmen and other terrorists in the last two years whilst our Government turns a blind eye and does nothing is crying to God in Heaven for vengeance. And until that vengeance comes the Buhari Government and all those that support them shall know no peace.

Like Sennacherub and the Assyrians the Lord shall divide their tongues and they shall turn their swords against one another until they are no more. As for the believers and the Christian faithful, no matter what they throw our way, we stand and we fight.

We move on fearlessly because our God is awesome and strong. We stand firm and we do not flinch because our Lord is mighy in battle. We are Christian soldiers and warriors of the faith. We are on the frontline of the battle and we are ready to die for our faith.

We wear the armour of God and we carry the sword of truth. We are the Sons of Gideon and the Armour-Bearers of Light. Like David, we stand against Goliath, like Moses we stand against Pharaoh and like Jehu we stand against Jezebel. The Seven Fold Spirit of the Living God is with us: we cannot be cowed and we shall not be defeated. Onward Christian soldier!

By Femi Fani-Kayode