Business Day (Nigeria)

Prayer for my country, Nigeria

- NEW YOU CAN TRUST I SUNDAY 15 DECEMMBER 2019

With a contrite heart, a humble spirit and on bended knees I come to you, O God, our Creator, our Father and our unfailing Guide to pray for Nigeria, the only country I can call my own. Let me first of all fully appreciate your uncommon favour by blessing us with abundant human and natural resources. Our young men and women with brilliant and creative minds are breaking academic and profession­al barriersan­d doing us proud in various spheres of human endeavor across the globe. Only you could have done this for us.

I must thank you too for freely giving to us oil and gas, several solid minerals and vast arable land, scenic and breath-taking tourist attraction­s, traversing rolling hills and vales, waterfalls and the aquatic splendor of the rivers and lakes flowing into the vast Atlantic Ocean. What about the clement climate of all-year round sunshine and the seasonal rains? We are grateful for all these great potentiali­ties, even though many of us take them for granted. Honestly, I know that you are never a joker to have blessed us so richly. It is all because you have a special interest in this country; to take it to heights beyond our human imaginatio­n. But only a few know this.

Our dearly beloved Father, let me admit the bitter truth, that we have failed you in several ways by not appreciati­ng what you have given us for free.worse still, we have beenmisusi­ng them in more ways than one. With profound reminiscen­ces, during my strange encounter with you back in October 2002 you described Nigeria to my humble self as “an irritating sore by your side”! And when I asked what it was all about, you took me round this same country to pin-point sundry crimes and criminalit­ies that trigger your angst. Was it bestiality, sodomy or homo-sexualism? What about ritual murders, involving innocent children, importing arms and ammunition and worshippin­g lesser gods?what about the crop of power-poaching politician­s who have sold their souls to the devil and see money and material acquisitio­n as the be-all and end-all to life? These are just some of the ways we have irked you.

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