The President of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, Israel Adelani Akanji has admonished Nigerians to keep hope alive not minding the socio-economic situation of the country at the moment,.saying, “It is my sincere prayer that during this year 2022, we will all experience the glory of God.”
The clergyman stated this in his New Year message to Nigerians, where he said that Nigeria and Nigerians cannot but be grateful for entering 2022 with faith in God that this new year will even be better than the past “years of our lives to the glory of God.”
“Now, as we enter 2022, it is with gratitude that 2021 was better than 2020 and we are entering 2022 with hope and aspiration that 2022 will even be much better than all the good experiences we had in 2021. In 2021, we had good experiences that COVID-19 in 2021 had greatly reduced even though there were other challenges still going on in the country,” Akanji said.
Speaking on the challenges of the past year, Akanji said several people lost their lives during that period; many families were in pain, friends have been called home to glory, breadwinners have been called home to glory, children had died and there was pain all over the world. However, he said that Nigeria had its big share of it as well.
“Every one of us knows that the year 2021 is a year for which we must all thank God. Before 2021 was the year 2020 that was loaded with a lot of trials, we had all kinds of problems going on in the country and added to it was the global pandemic COVID-19. For the first time, the people of our generation faced a total lockdown where we could not go out of our homes from the end of March and it continued for 10 weeks that people had to stay at home,” Akanji said.
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According to him, Nigerians were all calling upon God to give us a better year in 2021, just as 2020 was closing up because of the pandemic. Speaking further he noted that despite the various variants, at least, all over the world, the pandemic was not as disturbing as it was in the year 2020, the lockdown had been removed and people were able to interact and move from place to place, schools were opened, markets were opened and travel bans were lifted. “Now we came into 2022 and we want to thank God that He did intervene, God did hear our prayers, and God did make things to be much better,” Akanji said.
According to him, certain things are in the component of the revelation of the glory of God. Hence, when believers talk about the glory of God; it is not in the absence of a problem, rather it is despite problems that God shows His glory.
“This year is a year of Glory of God. The glory of God will be revealed in our lives, in our families, in our churches, in our nation Nigeria. I want to speak to the evil workers in our nation to repent of their sins. All kidnappers, bandits, ritual killers, armed robbers, those collecting ransom and all those encouraging them, conniving with them; those who turn the other way when evil is being perpetrated, I want you to know your time is up. God will be glorified in this year 2022 and in God being glorified, while some people are being assisted, some are going to be defeated, some are going to be destroyed. I want kidnappers, armed robbers, murderers in this nation to know their time is up in 2022 because it is a year in which God will be glorified and if God will be glorified, then Pharaoh, his chariots, his soldiers, no matter how strong they are will be defeated,” Akanji said.
According to the cleric, several people are boasting that they have Ak-47, they have bombs, they have all kinds of weapons to use, and bandits are using strong motorcycles to perpetuate their evil. However, he strongly emphasised that those who trust in the arms of flesh will fail; all those weapons of war that people are carrying will be destroyed unless there is repentance.
“Therefore, this is a year of God being glorified and if God will be glorified, let us be ready for His strange methods. It doesn’t matter what the reality looks like in Nigeria, this year 2022, except God’s strange method. This year, you will be assisted, God will be on your side like He assisted the Israelites,” he said.
However, speaking on what Nigerians should expect for the year 2022, Akanji said God will be glorified this year and prayed that Nigeria will experience God’s glory. But, he said that such experience would be based on what side every individual chose to be. “Be on the side of those that will be assisted and those who are assisted will look and see the destruction of the enemy. This year, we will with our eyes, see the destruction of the enemies of this nation. Those who are pursuing Nigeria to destroy it will themselves be destroyed.
“Finally, to the evildoers, this year your time is up. Stop pursuing innocent people of this country, stop pursuing children of God, stop pursuing the people of Nigeria because as you keep pursuing them, you will enter into destruction and God will be glorified,” Akanji said.
