The General Overseer of God’s Mercy Revival Ministries (GOMERM), Ikotun, Lagos, Dr. James Akanbi has counseled the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) including Nigeria against going to war with Niger Republic, saying you can only know the beginning of a war, you can never tell the end of it.
The cleric, who addressed journalists, last Sunday, at the end of the church’s power conference with the theme: “The Unlimited God: From Minimum To Maximum,” urged ECOWAS nations to draw their timetable very well before they venturing into war with Niger.
Analysing the dangers of war, the General Overseer said nobody prays to experience war because of the harmful effects on the people.
He said: “Nobody wants these coups happening in the West African sub-region. It is going to bring the whole of the region under the dominance of the military rule and you know military rule is a period of no accountability and responsibility. They are not accountable to anybody, they steal blindly when they want to steal, and whatever they want to do, they do it to the worse level. How will you challenge somebody holding a gun? It is not possible! So, it is not the best form of government and I don’t want it to continue.”
Describing war as a wind that blows no good to anyone, Akanbi said: “If they want to go to war, it is better they draw their timetable very well because you can only know the beginning of war, you might not live to tell the end. For example, if we have about 14, 000 tanks and Niger has about six tanks that are functional; we can override them, but what about if they go into guerrilla warfare? So, it is a terrain we do not understand; it is a terrible thing. Many of these guys are terrorists and if they integrate themselves into other terrorist groups and they fill Nigeria, what then will become of us? If they infiltrate the six states that share borders with them, what will then happen to the rest of the country? There will be no peace then. We need to actually look at it very well before we go into war with them.”
Akanbi called on religious leaders to speak the truth to those in power, saying itis the assignment that God has given to them. He noted that failure to do this, is the reason the political class has taken Nigerians for a ride. “We should be able to stand on our feet and tell the government what we want.”
Thanking God for clocking 24 years as a church, Akanbi said: “We thank God He has actually been there for us all these years when this ministry started in 1999. God commissioned this ministry to ‘counter the devil’s revival at this end-time,’ we have every reason at GOMERM to thank our faithful God of Mercy and wonders. From the humble number of 12 souls that the ministry started with, only Him could have increased and enlarged us to where the church is today in 100 branches in different nations of the world.”
