As Nigerians react to President Trump’s threat to invade Nigeria on the ground of Christian persecution by Islamic fanatics and ethnic bandits, John O. B. AGBAJE, a prolific writer and author reasons from a different perspective. In this article sent to PTL News, the writer is of the view that Nigerians should anchor their expectations more on the God factor rather than depend solely on human solution. Enjoy the reading.
Between fifty and sixty per cent of every ten subjects currently circulating on social media revolves around the threats of Nigerian invasion by the American soldiers to deal with the Islamic terrorists, as signalled by President Donald Trump. This is a move that sounded a note of relief to the beleaguered populace that has been groaning under a siege of the oppressors.
Everyone can see how Nigerian politics and politicians have finally steered our nation to the brink of large-scale disaster. An attempt by anyone to recount the loss of lives and properties that have been visited on Nigeria by terror gangs and their sponsors would be a meaningless exercise due to their number and magnitude.
My call here wears a double face. The first is on the burning issue of the threat of American
intervention in our internal affairs to stop the senseless killings of innocent citizens by the Islamists, especially the Christians. Going by the way many are clamouring for this with a loud sigh of relief, there is a need to caution against where the hope for the safety and deliverance of the Church is shifted away from God to whatever the planned American invasion may be promising.
A sensible reply of the king of Israel to the cry of a citizen seeking relief from similar desperation sounds a note of lesson here: “…A woman cried to him (the king), saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” And he said, “If the LORD does not help you from where shall I help you…?” (2 Kings 6:26, 27).
The Americans indeed possess the military and technological capabilities to make a difference in the dire situation that has overwhelmed the Christians in the northern part of the country. However, there is no one who can predict what the outcome of any invasion in our circumstances will spell.
The challenges of our country are woven around complex issues of tribes, economic mismanagement and religion, together with fiery sentiments in which the issues are coated. The fact remains that God is our only sure help and bulwark. The Psalmist said, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.” (Psalm 20:7).
There is no doubt that a situation like this will register a call upon the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to arise and deliver His people who are faced with vicious attacks that have rendered their lives miserable. The argument that Muslims too are dying in the carnage does not mitigate the fact that Christians are facing existential threats of an irrational dimension, in a genocidal pattern and intention that cannot be covered up except where a fool is addressing a fool.
But while modern politics and diplomacy may dangle options about the ways out of this debacle, the Bible does not expect Christians to transfer their hope to anyone and anything outside their God, who Himself is a Man of war. Reading through the Bible will highlight several instances of His intervention for the deliverance of His children out of danger. As it has always been with His chosen race, we know that God can use anyone and anything in pursuit of His agenda in the world.
Thus, where it may please God to use the American military in this assignment, protest by anyone against it will not be more than the weight of a balloon. But again, in reality, it is only in His personal involvement that we may expect to achieve the best and neatest result that will not escalate our bloodletting or even lead to a full-blown war. In effect, while the Body of Christ is bleeding profusely, while we yearn for the deliverance of the Church from wherever, we will still fix our gaze and repose our hope on our God, our only Saviour.
Where the Americans become His chosen instrument of deliverance, we will appreciate Him for this in the glowing expectation that the whole operation will be neat, precise and snappy. We even expect that it may present an opportunity for resetting Nigeria, at least constitutionally. This is because God, who Himself will be leading the mission, will back its successful pursuit to minimise loss of lives and damage to infrastructures. From God’s vantage and overruling viewpoint, His involvement will take cognisance of the fact that even the souls of the terrorists belong to Him and He yearns for their salvation, like He does for every human being on the earth (1Timothy 2v1-4). At the same time, however, being a God of justice, no killer will go unpunished (Proverbs 11v21).
The other aspect of my counsel must be placed on the marble as a resonating reminder of the failure and diversion that the Church of our time has embraced. This is what, in the calculation of heaven, makes it seem apparent that she is hell-bent to frustrate the agenda of God for Nigeria. Persecution to the point of death has always been the response of powers of darkness to those who bear the light of the gospel to expose them. It did not start, nor will it end, with the Nigerian Church.
But the real trouble with the Church is how she neglected the groaning of the Northern region of Nigeria for decades, even at a time when the people would have been more receptive to the gospel. A missionary friend wrote that those whom the Church failed to reach with the Bible at the time of peace are those who have now risen to chase us around with bombs and weapons of destruction.
The Nigerian Islamisation agenda has been on for a long time, much earlier than the coming of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC). I devoted a chunk of time to this in my latest book, “Nigeria in the Image of its Church”. For some decades now, the Christians have busied themselves with the pursuit of money and material comfort in flagrant neglect of their calling to stand in the prayer gap. The Church, from the inception of the Pentecostal movement in Nigeria, has always lacked the required orientation and culture to pray for the nation and its leadership as enjoined by Paul in 1 Timothy 2v1-4, just as earlier noted.
Finally, the problems confronting Nigeria and its Church are far more spiritual than it is human, political and administrative or managerial. As I have stated in the past, terrorism in the country has three deep-rooted and interconnected causes. Most of our calculations are based on the two that are more glaring. We all know about the marauders with their weapons of destruction. We also know that they have sponsors who stole the wealth of Nigeria and are now using the same wealth to torment us. But the deepest and most devastating of them are forces in the realms of the spirit, way out of any detection by the best of political analysts and journalists.
Or, how is it possible for anyone to discount the activities of blood-sucking powers in response to the bidding of the demonic leaders we are parading across our traditional, social and political platforms, who need blood, either to renew the existing covenants or contract the new ones? Those are locations and instances where American technology, multiplied a million-fold, cannot register any impact.
This is why we will need to pray the prayers of the Psalmist: “May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble, the name of the God of Jacob set you on high, May He send you help from the sanctuary, and strengthen you out of Zion.” (Psalm 20v1, 2).
Many aspects of our challenges are far more than what the Americans can handle. Again, pointed questions like what may happen after they have come, sweat and eliminated the terror gangs that fall within their radar. The power that is driving the killings in pursuit of the loud Islamisation agenda may not be intimidated by any physical artillery, while we may not shut our senses to how a regrouping may require only a short period of time.
This has left the Church with only one choice, which is to migrate to the altar of repentance and the side of righteousness to plead the cause of our nation before God. Such an endeavour will incorporate prayers for the terrorists who are blind to the plan and purpose of God for their lives. The same prayers will see how, in the course of time, they will be totally disarmed by God in response to our prayers to bring about the plan of God to pass in Nigeria. Amen, and Amen.
John O. B. AGBAJE
November 09, 2025
0803 645 3851, 0701 570 878
About the Author:
John O. B. AGBAJE is a member of Christ Apostolic Church who has been a church worker for over fifty years now. He is also a Christian journalist and an author of books amongst which is a highly impressive work on Eschatology, titled Prophetic Force. The series in four volumes are his inspired efforts to demystify the complex subject for clear understanding of the laymen and wayfarers. He writes from Ogun State, Nigeria.
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