Just read this article on today's Nigerian Pilot...

MUCH ADO ABOUT T.B. JOSHUA

THE average Nigerian citizen is not asking for too much if other men of God and government figures at all levels compliment the current effort of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration by taking a cue from Prophet T.B. Joshua, the General Overseer of The Synagogue, Church of All Nations (SCOAN) who has continued to exemplify true love and service to mankind.

He has become the archetypal father to orphans, widows, the destitute and all those who have found themselves at the unfortunate junctions of life. He has continued to dole out funds in defence of the defenceless. Scores of Nigerian students are on scholarship in Nigerian and foreign universities through his philanthropic efforts. In conjunction with his Emmanuel TV partners, the Ondo-State born prophet, through his ministry’s humble demeanours, has etched Nigeria’s name on illustrious heights. A country that was once famed for untoward posturing is now becoming a hub for spiritual rejuvenation. Let us not also forget the foreign exchange the influx of foreigners is generating for the country. Even the local businesses around the church cannot conceal the fact that life has been good.

Though he has been maligned by those who have not been able to attune themselves to the spiritual frequency at which he is operating, he has never joined issues with anybody; instead, he has preoccupied himself with his ministry’s principle of ‘spend more on others, less on ourselves’. As a Christian leader, he is aware that blackmail will certainly rear its ugly head, knowing that even Jesus Christ Himself was accused of performing miracles using the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Some self-acclaimed experts in Christian demonology have called him all sorts of names, but with a Christ-like mien, he has refused to be drawn into any sort of media war with anyone. “By their fruits, you shall know them” – here is a man who doesn’t even have a car he calls his own in a country where some other ministers of God fly private jets over famished congregations and yet they call him names. Judgment is up to God. A ministry that has steadily progressed for almost thirty years has no doubt, gone through the test of time.

Contrary to reports in some media that the church only employs its members as workers, a visit to the Ikotun-based ministry revealed otherwise. The SCOAN is an equal opportunity employer; Christians from other denominations as well as Muslims work there. There are no discriminations. Our religious and political leaders should emulate this concept. If all governors, senators and Reps members can form a league and do what he has been doing for Nigerians, the country would have gone beyond the ignoble trenches of harbouring some of the world’s most venerated beggars lining up streets in major cities and attracting the CNNs, AFPs, BBCs and Al-Jazeeras of this media-centric world.

Amid footage of people living in the most squalid conditions, we hear of politicians purchasing vehicles with money that can feed an entire community for years. As we inch closer to the 2015 general elections, politicians are already conceptualising winning strategies to further their interests in political offices. Some, if not most governors who have either done very well or failed woefully are bidding the gubernatorial landscape goodbye and are thought to be warming up to retire to the senate. While it is not a crime to aspire to leadership positions, there must be a deliberate design by the federal government, the EFCC and the INEC to regulate the mutation of ex-governors into senators. If there are performance benchmarks that qualify or disqualify candidates in such equations, we will enjoy some level of sanity and order in the process. Because the beauty of our politics has been centred on how much money a particular politician can throw around, it has become increasingly difficult to check the escalation of political rascality at all tiers of government.

In Nigeria, some local government chairmen own luxury hotels while some governors spend billions of naira on hotel accommodation – funds that could have been channelled into other areas begging for attention.

It is sad that we are still living in an era when a significant percentage of our population is struggling to feed properly. With the enormity of resources we have been blessed with, we should have gone far beyond this piteous state. The proponents of stomach infrastructure may not have conceived it as a political weapon to cajole the hungry into making induced decisions during elections, yet it has been given diabolical interpretations by those who claim that as a nation, Nigeria should have been thousands of miles ahead in economic prosperity.

Iwelunmor Patrick wrote in from Lagos.