CARNALITY vs SPIRITUALITY

Looking at the Church in Nigeria, it has become practically impossible to differentiate between the Church of the Living God and the world. This has got nothing to do with the Church’s influence on state affairs but rather state’s influence on Church affairs.
Pastors, Apostles, Teachers, Prophets, Evangelists and even lay ministers have become “politically correct” at the expense of being “Biblically correct”.

Church leaders have become political prayer merchants, consultants, strategists and most recently, motivational speakers.

It is very ironic that most Pastors, endowed by God through His Holy Spirit for positive and lasting impact have become motivational speakers and gold-seekers.

You need to please follow me carefully because I’m not against being relevant in state affairs (which is what God has set us up to do) neither am I against Pastors’ being wealthy and prosperous because it’s needed for the work of ministry but the question is “how did you come about your wealth?” Is God really glorified in your prosperity or the devil?

We are looking at the difference between CARNALITY and SPIRITUALITY so, it behoves on me to ask a simple question, who is a spiritual man and who is a carnal man?

Your ability to accurately answer the first part of the question automatically gives you the answer to the second question.

The answer to both questions is summed up in a scripture found in Galatians 5:16 which says “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh”.

The scripture simply suggests that Spirituality simply implies “walking in the Spirit” but how do you walk in the Spirit? Another scripture says “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” – Romans 8:14 which suggests that walking in the Spirit is being led, at all times, by the Spirit of God but carnality implies walking outside or contrary to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Has God called Pastors to be motivational speakers? What exactly is the role of Church ministers?

A motivational speaker is simply a psychologist who arouses people’s emotions for a short period telling them what they can do without showing/teaching them how to do it but a Pastor (God’s minister) teaches the people, from God’s word and how God has dealt with him over time, how to achieve result in God.

Unfortunately, the pulpit of Christ is now filled with psychologists and philosophers all in the name of revelation.

The primary role of ministry gifts and callings is “For the perfecting (equipping) of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” – Ephesians 4:12 but are Pastors, who have become motivational speakers, truly equipping, empowering and edifying the Church today?

What we hear most Pastors preach about today are mundane things that do not and will not transcend beyond this earthly realm.

We preach about money (multiple streams of income) to a people who do not even know God or the purpose of wealth and that’s why they misbehave when they get the money.

We preach material acquisition to people who have not been faithful with the little God has committed into their care and when they acquire the possessions they become God’s enemies.

Some of these preachers preach Spirituality according to material acquisition/possession. You may preach the gospel according to material acquisition but after getting the money what next? Frustration, void and emptiness sets in and that’s what leads people into occultism, secret society membership and all forms of evil deeds because it is never enough.

Some of these Pastors even preach intolerance by encouraging the practice of the law of karma which states that “whatever you do to me is what I’ll do back to you in return”.

Personally, it is my opinion that the Church in Nigeria is responsible for the mess the nation is in presently because how can you explain the rigging at the PFN election that produced Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor as President but we rant against rigging when it’s happening in the politics of the land.

As my father and mentor will always say, a sick Church cannot bring healing to a dying nation. It doesn’t matter our rhetorics and abracadabra, the world feels us more than they hear us.

The Nigerian Church of today, in my opinion, is more carnal than Spiritual and until we re-trace our steps and move on to God, the nation will keep plunging into gross darkness but unfortunately, when evil happens Christians are not spared. 


Remember the Dana Plane crash of June 3rd, 2012? Two wonderful and firebrand preachers died with some members of their immediate families. Very pathetic but remember the saying that states “when sinners are being punished, even the righteous with partake of it”. How true that statement is looking at it from the Nigerian context.
It’s time to return to righteousness and begin to seek the true and the living God again.
It’s time to move away from carnality and begin to “walk in the Spirit as we are continually led by the Holy Spirit”.

This is a clarion call to you and me to search ourselves and make amends where necessary.

Shalom.

Johnson Kayode Jedidiah
kayodehci@yahoo.co.uk
@kayotunde
21F717DF

The trouble with our education is that we do not realize we are in trouble (2)

In this concluding part of a 2-part article, Daniel explains the problem faced by young Nigerians in search of a foreign education and he offers some options for Nigerian policy makers

In spite of high rate of illiteracy in the country and in our part of the world, it is no longer news that there are more Nigerians seeking education than the country’s educational institutions stretched beyond capacity, could accommodate. In many Nigerian universities it is typical to find 6 students sharing a hostel or a privately rented room, lecture rooms designed for 300 students (with half its chairs missing) now accommodate close to 500 students; the teachers available would find it very difficult to thoroughly teach, examine and supervise these students. And we say nothing about the millions who could not get into the universities.

If you look into the education system at secondary schools which serve as feeders to the universities, the picture is worse. A total of 6 years secondary school education has now been reduced to the possession of 5 credit passes in the SSCE exams, which not many can boast of on the first attempt. Thus on arrival at university, the question is not what one has already knows from secondary school, but what is written on the certificates. At the stage of JAMB’s UTME, the university entrance examination, I think the story gets worse: of every 15 applicants only 1 will be accepted in the university (regardless of how many actually pass the examination).

It is no longer news that Nigerian students are everywhere in the world. In Nigeria, one hears of graduates arriving from far flung places like Kyrgyzstan and Australia. Many Nigerians have been studying in Ghana for decades, but now some are branching out to Benin and Niger Republics and new universities and polytechnics are popping up daily in Nigeria. Yet only recently, students of the University of Abuja protested and insisted that they rather study in programmes that are not accredited than allow these programmes to be suspended by the Ministry of Education.

So Nigerians have over the years become experts of world educational systems; we know which countries force us to write IELTS and which ones respect our NECO; we know where we can study in English and where we have to learn a foreign language before beginning our studies. Of course we know where we can find jobs while we study and where cost of living is best. Perhaps it is this expertise that has drawn thousands of Nigerian youths to study in Scandinavia over the years. In the past, education was tuition-free for scholars from developing countries and all one worried about was food, clothing, shelter and school books.

The ‘free-movers’ of Scandinavia soon discovered a brute fact, cost of living is exceedingly high and jobs are scarce even to those who speak the national languages. Consequently, many of them dropped out of the free education and sought places in the workforce. Now the free education policies have been replaced with expensive tuition fees for everybody; but Nigerians have not stopped coming. They pay their way through school and attempt to work or take periodic breaks from studying to work and save for the next lap. From students there are reports of Nigerian (and other African students) sharing accommodations meant for one person; taking and sharing odd jobs to pay their way and increasingly being supported from home.

What these point to is that the option of seeking foreign education is not as easy as it sound. We need to urgently look at the capacity of the Nigerian nation to educate itself and arm citizens with skills needed to compete in the modern world. In this regard, there is need to revisit the trends of opening up new universities by the Government (at all levels) and the private sector to focus more on expanding the capacities and competences of existing institutions. If at all there must be specialized universities for agriculture, they should teach agriculture and not nuclear physics.

On the other hand, foreign education should not be pursued as an alternative to home training. Instead, government could assist Nigerian institutions to forge partnerships with foreign institutions such that foreign education could be pursued as an addition to, or indeed component of degrees awarded in Nigeria. But there is need to educate the youths – there is no way a decade spent mopping floors in Europe to finance a Masters degree could be thought to be better than studying in a Nigerian university. Yet regardless of the state of institutions in Nigeria, some people would opt to study abroad. This is a fair ambition, but it is not fair when people head to Kyrgyzstan because they are one of the 14 – those for whom the Nigerian educational system cannot give a place to study regardless of their grades.

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Daniel Nengak

Until he took a break to study International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö Högskola in Sweden, Nengak Daniel Gondyi was a Senior Programme Officer at the Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD in Abuja. He holds a Bachelors in International Studies from the Ahmadu Bello University. At CDD, he worked on a number of projects including the West Africa Insight (http://westafricainsight.org ) which seeks to collect and analyse futures information in West Africa. He reads and writes about human rights and democracy in West Africa. He loves cycling, asking questions and reading. He is presently reading Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet for a second time. Nengak can be reached via email on nengak.daniel@gmail.com

Still Waiting For The Palliative Buses

 

Arems Terkula

Introduction:
Five months after the introduction of palliative buses by federal government to cushion the effects of the partial removal of fuel subsidy on petroleum products, the buses have been withdrawn from the roads.

The last few weeks have been very difficult times for commuters living within Abuja and its environs as the 300 palliative buses also called “subsidy buses” introduced by the federal government in January to cushion the effects of the subsidy removal have been withdrawn from the road following government’s alleged inability to pay the cost of the buses already supplied.

The situation is biting harder on commuters living outside of the city centre, who come into Abuja, from neighbouring states, to work. As a result of the sudden withdrawal of the subsidy buses, the usual Abuja green buses have raised transport fares by as much as 50 percent. On a normal day, a journey from the suburbs into the city centre cost between N100 and N150. But this has been raised to N200 after the withdrawal of the palliative buses. While ‘subsidy buses’ were on the road their charges were between N60 and N80 depending on the distance of the trip.

A janitor, James Ugbede, a resident of Masaka in Nasarawa State, told this magazine that he used to wake up as early as 5:00 a.m. to enable him catch the first bus to town which takes off as early as 6:00 a.m. but since the ‘subsidy buses’ disappeared from the road, now he wakes as early as 4:00 a.m. to get free ride to town. James just got to the bus stop one morning and without warning from the bus company discovered that the subsidy buses were no longer on the road. “I came out to the road one morning only to find out that the buses were no more there. After waiting till 7:00 a.m., I decided to board another bus to work,” he said.

The essence of the ‘subsidy buses’ was to help cushion the hardship in transportation brought about by the increment in pump price of petroleum products in January. The ‘subsidy buses’ were also used by the FCT administration, led by the minister, Bala Mohammed in Abuja to experiment the planned bus rapid transit, BRT, which is yet to keep off.

However, observers have said that the experiment of using the palliative buses in the place of the planned BRT has on the other hand, further frustrated the smooth operation of the subsidy buses. They said the process has introduced a new dimension to the many road traffic problems in Abuja. The BRT has taken over one lane out of the three lane roads in Abuja creating log jams on the road. This is mostly visible on the Abuja/Keffi express road.

Speaking on the withdrawal of the subsidy buses on the road the transport secretary, FCT Jonathan Ivoke told this magazine that the buses have been taken off the road to carry out repairs on them. The secretary who spoke through the public relations officer in the department, Stella Ojeme said “the reason why some of the buses are presently not on the road is because they are undergoing servicing.” Ojeme assured that the buses would return to the road anytime soon even though she did not say exactly when they will return. She said the BRT buses were yet to be supplied, and that they will hit the road as soon as they are purchased.

Contrary to her explanation, this magazine reliably gathered that the withdrawn vehicles are being parked in a bank warehouse pending when government will make payment for the buses. Inside sources have said government has not paid for the buses. They said a request was made by government after which the suppliers handed the vehicles to government but since government took over the buses no money has been paid for them.

The contract that which is valued at over N15 billion was financed through the Urban Development in January. However five months after the deal was signed, the automobile companies which made the supply have allegedly not been paid for the first batch of the supply of 1,250 units of buses valued at N8.9 billion, a development which necessitated the suppliers to withdraw all the buses pending payment from government.

Out of the number supplied, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and its Trade Union Congress, TUC counterpart were allocated 600 mass transit buses to be shared in the 36 states while a fresh order of 1,242 was placed to beef up the scheme. Unfortunately for many commuters in Abuja and its environs, the remaining buses on the roads cannot effectively serve their transport needs at the moment. The Abuja Mass Transit Company introduced by Mallam Nasir el’Rufai with over 800 buses most of which are now grounded is not helping the situation either.

Before their withdrawal from the roads most of the subsidy buses, which have not lasted more than five months were already in bad shape. A good number of them had had a series of accidents. The level at which some of the vehicles were breaking down had also been another source for concern.

Under the sharing formula of the buses in the FCT, out of the 300 buses, 200 buses are meant to be operated by government in conjunction with the Abuja Urban Mass Transit Company ltd., AUMTCO while the remaining 100 is operated by the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW and the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners, NARTO.

The 100 buses supplied to NURTW and NARTO were the only buses left on the road as at the time of filing this report. Some of the transporters plying the routes now include Safetrip Transport ltd, Auto Star and AMAC Transport. Only time will tell the real condition of the buses.

The Trouble with our Education is that we do not realise we are in trouble

Daniel Nengak

A few weeks ago I sat by my computer while my friend Rotimi Olawale attempts to ‘tweet’ recent developments from Nigeria’s education sector to me. Apparently, the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC) was on a television programme that evening revealing to Nigerians certain moves Nigerian education authorities were making. As I reflected after we had vigorously debated the proposed policies on the social networks and resolved that we are not quite headed the right way.

You may recall that in January 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan had, while presenting awards to 52 best NYSC corp members also offered them automatic employment into the civil service and awarded them scholarships to undertake both Masters and Ph.D. studies in any institution in any part of the world. That evening, more recently, the NUC boss had announced a similar offer. 

He had reported that the President has directed the NUC to design a scheme to sponsor first class graduates from Nigeria to any top 15 university in the world. If you are wondering how and why the NUC was reduced to preparing candidates for the top 15 universities of the world, you are not alone. But these are very juicy offers that many Nigerian youths would wish they benefit from – but I am not qualified; I was not the best Corper nor did I earn a first class degree.

If you have paid any attention to national and regional examination results of Nigeria you will be amazed. It seems increasingly obvious that the pass mark of 5 credit passes in NECO and WAEC Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (SSCE) is beyond the reach of majority of candidates. 

JAMB UTME results are in my opinion, a little more positive although I wonder why this is so since most students sit for both examinations. Studying in a Nigerian university is not an easy feat; the odds are amazingly high that an applicant will not gain admission. In 2012, we learned that 1.5 million students took JAMB’s UTME; but we also knew from earlier reports that Nigeria’s 100 universities only have a combined capacity of about 100,000 places for beginners annually. So we know that whatever happens, 1.4 million (14 out of every 15) JAMB applicants will not get into the Universities in 2012.

Over the coming years, many youths who do get into the Universities would be confronted with rapists, robbers, cultism, exam malpractices and grade-fixing cartels, sex-for-grades, nepotism and corruption, plagiarism and other ills before they graduate. They will also worry about lack of accommodation, strikes, acute electric power shortages, school fees hikes, the financial situation of parents and sponsors (or the possibilities to work and pay their way through school). Note, whenever they graduate, only a tiny minority would earn the first class degrees to qualify for NUC’s scholarship. As the rest plough miserably through the labour market, I worry that perhaps the NUC has combined the gold, the silver and the bronze medals and awarded them to the first class scholars.

There is unemployment across every level of education (PhD, Masters and Bachelors) – and that is not unique to Nigeria. Also, those who earned first class degrees or graduated from prestigious foreign institutions are not immune from unemployment either. So it does not seem very clear what the government wants to achieve through this selective programme of unlimited (unbudgeted?) and foreign training for first class degree holders and youth corp graduates who were outstanding (some having executed outstanding projects like renovating schools with financial resources from God-knows-where).

One wonder if the Government is really convinced that there is a shortage of Masters and Ph.D. holders in Nigeria (when was the last time the Federal Civil Service Commission recruited new civil servants, though?). Perhaps the Government thinks that Nigeria is under-represented in the top 15 foreign institutions of learning. 

One also wonder if the vacancies that the foreign-educated scholars are needed to fill is only open to the Government-trained scholars – because we know many other young Nigerians with similar degrees who do not seem to realize that the government needs them to fill certain postings. It could be valid to speculate that the Nigerian universities are incapable of giving the type of education that our Government envisages for the scholars it is sending abroad – but that would be a question for the Government itself to try to answer.

What one worries about is that the Government’s reward system in education as exemplified by these scholarships is excessively selective. With this policy, the message to Nigerian students is simple: if you don’t get a first class, I know you not. This might help a lazy student to work harder, but it may also inspire the corrupt minded student to embark on schemes. To the youth corp member, the message is: whatever you do, get on the award list. And it is doubtful that teaching in an obscure primary school every day for a year would get one on the awards list. As the government has rolled out its initiative, it is critical for us youths to reflect on what our country needs of us. 

We have to provide policy review and feedback to our leaders and to evaluate how sustainable such policies will be. Perhaps in 20 years, every first class degree holder and the best corp members in Nigeria would have returned with the best foreign PhD. The question we ask is “then what?”