Femi Adesina - CHOPPER CRASH: AND THE LORD HID IT FROM ADEBOYE

Some hours before a naval helicopter crashed in Bayelsa State last weekend, President Goodluck Jonathan had been a guest at the Holy Ghost Congress of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, which held at the Redemption Camp, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Of course, it was not the president’s first visit to the camp. In 2010, as part of build-up to the presidential elections of April 2011, he had also visited, and the picture of the president kneeling in prayer before Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, General Overseer of the church, was a common sight.

A lot of people thought it the perfect example of humility for Jonathan to have knelt before Adeboye. I felt otherwise. It was just the proper thing to do. Adeboye is a servant of God, while Jonathan is a servant of men–Nigerians. Who is an earthly king compared with the heavenly king? Kneel, he should.

And that was what he did again in the evening of Friday last week. The president knelt, and Pastor Adeboye, standing, prayed for him. No big deal. It was the right thing, by Christian standards. President Jonathan must have left the Redemption Camp in the wee hours of Saturday, back to Abuja by air. I left Lagos also that morning, travelling to Ishan-Ekiti, to attend the burial ceremony of the father-in-law of my friend and colleague, Shola Oshunkeye, our Editor, Magazines.

I spent exactly two hours, forty minutes in the traffic gridlock around the Redemption Camp, a distance of less than one kilometer. I’m also a Christian of the Pentecostal stock, but I’d probably never felt more frustrated with the excesses of religious congregants.

I wondered how non-Christians would feel in that hell of a traffic jam. But that is a topic for another day. Later same Saturday afternoon, a naval helicopter conveying six people from the funeral of the father of a presidential aide, Oronto Douglas, crashed in Bayelsa State. All on board perished. The dead included Mr Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa, Governor of Kaduna State, Gen. Andrew Owoye Azazi, the immediate past National Security Adviser (NSA), their aides, Dauda Tsoho and Warrant Officer Mohammed Kamal, and the pilots, Commander Murtala Mohammed Daba, and Lt Adeyemi Sowole. It was, indeed, a national tragedy, and the reverberations are still being felt round the country. On hearing the news where I was in Ekiti, I got this overwhelming sense of sadness.

Apart from the sheer tragedy of it all, I knew the development held grave consequences for our fragile polity, particularly Kaduna State, which had lost its first minority governor, the first Christian to rule the state. Conspiracy theories would fly around, no doubt. Then I asked myself: the two national figures, Yakowa and Azazi, were loyalists of the Jonathan government. Yakowa became governor because his principal, Namadi Sambo, had been picked by Jonathan as deputy in 2010.

Yakowa ran, and won elections to serve a full term as governor in 2011. On his part, Azazi was NSA till a few months ago, and hailed from Bayelsa, just like the president. And then the poser: Didn’t Pastor Adeboye see the crash as he prayed with President Jonathan? Didn’t the Lord reveal it to him? Couldn’t he have interceded, so that the monumental tragedy would be averted? Alas, the Lord hid it from Pastor Adeboye, and it reminded of the account of Elisha and the Shunammite woman in the Holy Bible. The woman was well-to-do, married, but had no child.

She showed kindness to Elisha and his servant, Gehazi, and the prophet prayed with her, and she bore a son. You can imagine the delirious joy that would fill such household. But did they live happily ever after? No. The child grew, and one day, he went to his father in the farm, and shouted: “My head, my head.” Some hours later, he was dead. What did the mother do? She ran to find Elisha, and as she grabbed his feet, Gehazi moved to push her away. But the prophet said: “Leave her alone. She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why (2 Kings 4:27).” Elisha was a powerful prophet, who did mighty things in the name of the Lord. He even had the amazing gift of knowing what the king planned privately in his bedroom.

But in the case of this Shunammite woman, the Lord hid what was to happen from him, just as He did with Adeboye last weekend. You know Pastor Adeboye, don’t you? He’s the former university don, who holds a Ph.D in Mathematics, but who left the classroom to lead the Redeemed Christian Church of God, which he turned into a global mega church. He hosts the monthly Holy Ghost Service, and the annual Holy Ghost Congress, at the Redemption Camp, attended by hundreds of thousands. (The horrors road users are subjected to when these events hold is not the issue today, maybe another day).

In 2008, the international magazine, Newsweek, named Adeboye as one of the world’s most influential people. It was a big recognition. But before then, heaven had also recognized Adeboye, as his ministry was backed up with signs and wonders. He is regarded as a foremost apostle who has authority with God, and with men. But last weekend, God hid the helicopter crash from him.

Why? “The secret of the Lord is with those that fear Him,” says the Good Book. The New International Version renders it thus in Psalm 25 verse 14: “The Lord confides in those who fear him.” So, why didn’t the Lord confide in Adeboye about the Bayelsa crash, which was to happen some hours after Jonathan had come for prayers? Why? At least, if He did, and Adeboye had interceded, Yakowa, Azazi, and the four others would probably be living today. God, why? “Surely, the Lord God does nothing without revealing it to His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7).” So, why hide the chopper crash from Adeboye? It baffles me.

I’m sure the pastor himself must have been somewhat embarrassed when he heard the news. Jonathan just left here, and God did not reveal this to me, he must have said. Elisha heard the things the king said in his very bedroom, because God opened his ears. Why didn’t God open Adeboye’s eyes to see the crash as he prayed for President Jonathan?

Mystery, mystery. The inscrutable ways of our God. No wonder the Good Book also says, “the secret things belong to the Lord our God.” Surely, as God, He knew the crash would occur, since He’s omniscient. But why did He keep it to Himself? Why did He not allow Adeboye, and the large army of believers at the Redemption Camp to intercede, by revealing what was to happen later in the day? This God! No wonder the Holy Bible again tells us: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings (Proverbs 25:2).”

But I hear there is a pastor in Lagos who had foreseen the helicopter crash, and had told his congregation to pray fervently against it. Thrice, I learnt, he asked the church members to pray. He reportedly said a serving governor and a retired Army General would be aboard the chopper. Now, I’m talking of a real pastor with prophetic gifts, not those charlatans and impostors who see nothing but tragedy, and play to the gallery in the media, just to make money from gullible people. This is a consecrated, diligent holiness preacher, whose church has been growing in leaps and bounds in recent years. He had led his church members to pray three different times, I was told. Yet, the tragedy still occured. So, what happened to the prayers? Did the Prince of Persia withstand the answer, as he did to the prayer of Daniel in the Holy Bible? Or did God just refuse to answer the prayers?

Why then did He give the revelation to the pastor in the first place? Baffling. Confounding, even perplexing. I sympathize with the families of the dead. I never met Gov Yakowa one to one, but I knew Gen Azazi. Two days after the tragedy, I saw his number on my phone. Should I now delete it? He would never come back to use it. But somehow, I could not get myself to erase the number, at least not yet. I also saw his email address, which he had told me was a better way of communicating with him, if there was anything urgent.

Do emails get to people in the great beyond? Doubtful. For the families of the aides to Yakowa and Azazi, and of the two pilots, 2012 is a year they would inscribe in their Black Book, a year that did them evil, that caused them sorrow, and brought tears in torrents. God, please spare your creation.

Spare humanity of this kind of tragedy. It was reported that some people rejoiced in Kaduna when the news of Yakowa’s death filtered in. Ignorant people. They were happy, saying Kaduna, the headquarters of the old Northern Region, where Muslims are in the clear majority, would once again be ruled by a Muslim. Is religion now greater than human life? A true, good Muslim should rather condole and commiserate with the Yakowas, than rejoice.

See former head of state, Gen Muhammadu Buhari. He turned 70 on Monday, and the day was to have been marked with a special lecture to be given by Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah. Former Minister of Defence, Gen Theophilus Danjuma, was to have been chairman of the event. Everything was set. But hours to the appointed time, Buhari announced a postponement. He said he did so to honour the dead. Is this the man they call a religious bigot? They should tell it to the Marines. But those that rejoiced in Kaduna did not do well.

Yes, I suspect that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in its characteristic manner, fiddled with the Kaduna State gubernatorial polls in 2011, under the security blanket that had been thrown over the state after the violence that attended the result of the presidential election. But should one wish Yakowa dead? Never! It is inhuman, and those who rejoiced at the tragedy need to plead for mercy with God. I was a firm believer in zoning. If shortsighted people had not torpedoed it, there was no way a Christian from the southern part of the state would not have ruled Kaduna eventually. And amicably too!

There would have been no way an Idoma would not rule Benue, an Ebira not rule Kogi, in the name of fairness and justice. With zoning, it would have been inevitable. But they shot down zoning (and it is forever dead), so things are more difficult for the minorities.

Will a minority, a Christian, rule Kaduna anytime soon? The answer lies in the womb of time. The death of Yakowa has surely worsened the complex politics of Kaduna State. Another worry. The spiritual atmosphere over Nigeria is foul. It is odious and sepulchral. How can blood flow like water, and lives be lost so wantonly in a country? Even chickens are not killed with such flippancy, no, not even at Christmas.

This country needs deliverance, needs cleansing. But how will it come, when God has begun to hide things from even people like Pastor Adeboye. It is surely time to fear. Early this year, precisely in January, I wrote a piece with the headline, ‘Before we head for the nearest border,’ and 12 months later, the spiritual fog, the miasma over Nigeria has not lifted. Will one not eventually head for that nearest border? And lest I forget: Merry Christmas to you all, whether you are fully within these borders, or you already have one leg outside.

SOURCE: The Sun News - http://sunnewsonline.com/new/columns/chopper-crash-and-the-lord-hid-it-from-adeboye/

Pls, who is Pastor adeboye, Do you mean one of the merchant of Gospel on lagos ibadan express way

I guess Adeboye's g(G)od didn't see it coming

Dap07: I guess Adeboye's g(G)od didn't see it coming

This has nothing to with Adeboye. It was God who did not see it coming

Even Oritsejafor was the one preaching at the funeral and he didn't have any revelation about it...