The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Enoch Adeboye, has warned Nigerian authorities to prevent potential new hostilities brewing in the West African nation as fears over the military coup d’état that occurred in the Niger Republic deepen.
Communities along the more than 1,500-kilometer-long Nigerian border, which runs through the seven states of Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, Jigawa, Zamfara, Yobe, and Borno and is close to the Niger Republic, are already experiencing safety problems.
The acclaimed priest countered that Nigeria is already engaged in several severe battles and does not need any more wars in response to the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) order to reactivate military action against the Niger Republic.
‘Beyond Expectations’ was the theme of his sermon today at the church’s 2023 Convention.
We continue to wage wars against hunger, he declared. We are engaged in very severe wars, and we certainly don’t want any more. We want to defeat the enemies we are already up against, and we don’t want any new ones, whether they are on our territory or not.
The cleric asserted that peace is always superior to battle after sharing his personal account of the Nigerian Civil battle, which raged between the Nigerian and Biafran sides from July 1967 to January 1970.
“Many prayers are still needed for Nigeria. I was near the front lines of the Civil War as a young lad, not as a soldier, but because of what I witnessed. If given the choice between war and peace, I would pick peace.
Nigeria, according to Adeboye, is already engaged in a number of wars against terrorists and kidnappers, among other enemies. He emphasized that “the country does not need more wars but to win the ones it is battling right now.”
In Nigeria, we are already engaged in a number of conflicts, including wars against kidnappers. We are engaged in conflicts with terrorists. There are still areas of Nigeria where residents cannot guarantee that they won’t be killed before the next morning when they go to bed, according to Adeboye.
We are still at war with people who believe that if you are a farmer and you plant, what you have produced is food for their cows, and if you protest when their cows come to take your harvest, they will kill you.
Adeboye’s remark came in response to the debate around the ECOWAS’s (the Economic Community of West African States) plan to send troops to the Niger Republic under the leadership of Bola Tinubu, the president of Nigeria.
Recall that on July 26, 2023, the military in the neighboring Niger Republic overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum’s legally elected administration.
The ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), a multilateral armed force composed of the 15 member states, may use force to compel a return to democracy, so the troops who took control had until last Sunday to restore 63-year-old Bazoum.
In the midst of a wave of economic measures, such as border closures, Nigeria also shut off energy to Nigeria, but the coup leaders resisted, and the deadline passed without action.
