Speaking on Sunday at Winner’s Chapel, Akho in Irrua, Esan central LGA of Edo state, Okpebholo said he did not seek help from native doctors or prophets to win the election.

“I want to thank God for his wonderful deeds in my life, as no one can accomplish this except Him alone. My life is filled with testimonies, and God has consistently granted me victory in all my endeavours,” he said.

“This is the first instance where someone has contested an election without seeking help from native doctors or prophets. My faith is in Christ alone. If God does not will it, then let it not be done.

“In Nigeria, and indeed the world, no prophet or native doctor can claim that I visited them for help in winning the election.

“The only factor I recognize is God. If He cannot accomplish it, then let it not be done. This marks the first time in Nigeria that a person has contested an election, and the prevailing sentiment is that God’s grace is upon him or her.

“As a member of Winner’s Church, I am confident that we cannot be losers, especially since both my deputy and I are part of this community. How can we lose?

“While others were strategising and utilising media outlets, I trusted in the Lord, and He granted me victory.”

Peter Osawe, the pastor of the chapel, spoke on ‘Wisdom kits for joy and rejoicing’ emphasised that God is the pivotal factor in human life.

Osawe noted that nothing occurs without God’s knowledge and encouraged the congregation to continue drawing strength from His word.

“Nigeria will become a better nation if we work together, as the process of improvement begins with us,” he added.

Okpebholo also attended a service at God’s People Worldwide Prayer Ministry in Illeh, Ekpoma, Esan west LLGA.

Ehijele Unuayan, the general overseer, urged the governor to remain focused on his vision for the state’s development and the welfare of its people.

Unuayan expressed gratitude to the governor for approving automatic employment for first-class graduates of Edo origin from universities in Nigeria and worldwide.

The governor stated that he was in church to seek prayers for success in governing the state.

“I am here to pray for the strength to move the state forward, to work for the Edo people, to utilize the state’s resources for development, and to promote justice and fairness for the Edo people,” he said.

The highlight of both church services was the prayers offered for the success of Okpebholo’s administration over the next four years.

The post Okpebholo: No native doctor, prophet behind my victory in Edo election first appeared on The Times of Abuja.

Civil wars are to Africa what sand is to the Sahara Desert, and yet, genocidal conflict in Nigeria should concern Americans the most.

Which is to say, the United States has a dog in the fight about whether Nigeria stays an emerging democracy or emerges as the next Islamist caliphate.

Nigeria isn’t close to collapsing, but it has been fighting an Islamic State-linked insurgency for 20 years in its Lake Chad region. The jihadists aligned with ISIS along with the radicalised bandit terrorists are behind what’s been called a “Christian genocide.”

Radicalised Islamist killers have taken down 55,000 people in just the last four years, according to a widely published four-year study by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA). Yet, the human tragedy in West Africa doesn’t merit a cameo in Western TV news.

But the dirty secret no one talks about is that there are three blockages to getting the news out based on Nigerians themselves.

First, the truth tellers in Nigeria’s news media have been lapdogs to government, or as Sherlock Holmes famously said, they are the dogs that didn’t bark during a murder.  Or maybe they are just paid off by the corrupt Nigerian officials to spike the story.

In Nigeria reporters get paid to attend official press events in brown envelopes stuffed with cash from the event sponsors, and for that perk the working-class journos happily parrot the government mantra that the root causes of the violence are poverty, lack of education and life-altering effects of climate change.

Second reason, and this is heartbreaking, Nigeria’s prosperity preachers don’t denounce the Nigerian government’s flagrant track record of turning a blind eye to massacres of sleeping Christian families in the nation’s Middle Belt.

It’s simply bad for business at the vaulted domes of the Pentecostal emporiums.  When a preacher steps out of line to challenge the federal government on this point, it soon happens that the preacher lacks a building permit, or his taxes need review.

True, there are some voices in the church who exposed the Nigerian army’s complicity with the terrorists during the bitter eight years of rule by President Muhammadu Buhari. Among them are Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah in Sokoto and Anglican bishop Jacob Kwashi of Zonkwa Diocese.

Bishop Kwashi, for example, in August 2021 said at a mass funeral: “We have never seen an evil government in this country like the one of today. The government is fully in support of the bloodshed in Nigeria. We are being killed just because we are not Muslim.”

But the sad fact is that the voices of Bishop Kukah and Bishop Kwashi are the exceptions that prove the rule in Nigeria.

The wealthy leaders of the megachurches are themselves part of the “conspiracy of silence,” according to Baptist pastor Joseph Hayab, a former chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria in Kaduna.

“I am disappointed with Nigerian preachers who are hiding in their churches speaking prosperity and prophecy, but they won’t’ speak truth to power,” Hayab says.

Third, the Nigerian government spokesmen and their allies in think tanks such as the International Crisis Group, will attribute the loss of life to ethnic clashes that are centuries old, or a resource war.

The Nigerian regime apologists are happy to follow the talking point of Secretary of State Antony Blinken himself, who told the House Committee on Appropriations on May 22, 2024, that what is happening in Nigeria is horrible, “But it has nothing to do with religion.”

The Nigerian government spokesmen claim that radicalized mercenaries slashing their way through women and children shouting, “God is great,” are just “communal clashes” between hapless farmers and frustrated herders forced by climate change to invade cornfields with endless herds of cattle.

What the media never say is that the farmers are typically unarmed whereas the attackers come with assault rifles by the hundreds. By all accounts, the bloodletting in Nigeria is accelerating and is related to dozens of insurgent attacks linked to Islamic State in West Africa or Al Qaeda groups in the Sahelian nations bordering Nigeria.

Nigeria needs the help of the West to solve a crisis that threatens the whole of Africa. The first step for Nigerian media and the nation’s leaders is to honestly diagnose the problem: sectarian hatred.

Dr. Dave Brat is a former US congressman representing a district in Richmond. Douglas Burton is the editor of TruthNigeria.

The post Dogs that don’t bark and prophets who don’t speak truth in Nigeria first appeared on The Times of Abuja.