CHALLENGING 2017: PART OF WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE COMING YEAR
REV. BR. KENNETH ALAMEZIE, BSS
It’s really funny how folks willingly take upon themselves the burden of needless expenses occasioned by tactless profligacy on frivolities at every Christmas celebration, which aftermath is lack, The celebration isn’t a new thing to man, yet each time it comes around you see folks behaving as though it would mark their last on earth. Of course, there are people—lucky or unlucky--who may not be here with us when Christmas 2017 comes around. But that’s not the point here today. We just thought it wise bringing to your notice today a bit of what to expect in the coming year: to be forewarned they say is to be forearmed.
You know, I kinda think it’s not a bad idea taking your wife and kids out for a shopping spree. You could visit any of the best Malls in town, or alternatively you could even fly them out of this comatose country to get a taste of something better somewhere in the US, Dubai or China, though I wouldn’t hide that the latter may have to feed you guys with plastic rice. And if your financial status is somewhere below average, it may not be out of place if you went to the Lagos Line Main Market, Onitsha, to spend your hard earned freefalling Naira. Those are good things to do.
But, as you carry on with your spending this season, I wish you don’t forget the very fact that it’s still the frugal/helpless president and his bungling team that are still handling things in the country. I wish you don’t forget that the vulnerable Naira is still on the freefall, nearing #500 in exchange of one US Dollar. I wish you don’t forget that the budget for the coming year is no better than the controversial padded one of the outgoing year, only that the padding this time may be a bit smartly done than the other one was. Yes, I wish you don’t forget that there is still no practical solution in sight to contain the biting recession in the country. The president is still helplessly searching. And don’t forget that people like Wole Soyinka, due to the worsening state in which the country is trapped, have already begun plans to exit this rudderless ship. Maybe Ghana may be there next stop. Lest I forget, the Nobel Prize winner has dubbed his own move Wolexit! Myself am still watching, yes! Also don’t forget that there is still a systematic stifling of businesses belonging to Ndigbo in the country. Above all, don’t forget that the ruling party, APC, is still the one and only “Apparently Poverty-generating Congress.”
Am I my being pessimistic here? NO, of course! Rather, in as much as I am embodied with the spirit of optimism, yet I feel a duty within me to remind you that optimism does not in any way negate viewing things from the lenses of realism.
Now, we advice you not to be carried away by the spirit of extravagance dominating the season, for after the celebration comes the true situation. We beg you—because of what’s going to happen in the coming year, read the hand writing on the wall—to try as much as you can to spend wisely, if at all you must spend anything, your depreciated and still depreciating Naira this yuletide; please tell others as well.

It may interest you to know that against what many money-minded, cucumber/fundraising preachers are telling you about how next year is going to be a year of surplus, bounty, rest and all that, the year 2017 will be more challenging than what many Nigerians have witnessed already in this outgoing year! Only Divine Intervention can make things happen otherwise. I only wish it would not get to the extent that people will be crying on the streets.

This is not to instill fear in anyone, as I wish not to be seen as Jeremiah's replica--the guy dubbed a prophet of doom. But folks, it's good we say things as they come to us--as they are, and I believe this is the only way we can get the people of God prepared for whatever the year will bring with it.
Let me make it clear here-- a lot of innocent blood have been shed and are still being shed in this Lugardorian enterprise, which is at best a blood field of a sort; and these hapless souls are crying for Justice and mind you, their cries may help to stiffen things the more for the living. Only, genuine repentance, reparation, and prayer from the heart--by Nigerians, especially Christians and their leaders--can halt the impending famine, death, of which many will be because of wishful killing that will explode in the land this coming year.

So, let no one deceive you with empty prophecies borne out of vain imaginations of bogus and whimsical minds. The year 2017 will have many ups and downs with it; though fellow Christians-- now I don't mean mere churchgoers who wear spiritual diapers even at their old age and as a result don’t know a thing about their God-given rights in Christ Jesus, but those mature folks who know they are of Abraham's seed-- are going to have bumper harvest amidst dreadful poverty, confusion, and famine in the land. God sure loves to give exceedingly to his own, even as he takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servants. This kinda sounds too good to be true, isn’t it? But it’s TRUE and I believe it.
However, more of what to expect in the coming year shall be coming your way via this platform in our first edition for the year 2017.
But be sure that though darkness, death, and fear may pervade the land, yet we who are journeying with the Glorious Holy Spirit residing in us, and in the glorious heavenly yacht, prepared by God himself for His own, are going to be having a good time while the devastating rain lasts. God Bless You!