2023 Presidency: I’m supporting rotation for equity, justice, fairness, balance -Rev. Dangana

REV. DR. STEPHEN DANGANA, the Chairman Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, Plateau State chapter, is also the Pastor of Citadel Assembly in Jos. The cleric spoke with our Correspondent in Jos, DANIEL DAUDA on wide ranging issues. Excerpt:

 With challenges of moral degeneration in the country, how can pastors help to rebuild moral values and peaceful coexistence in the country?

Moral degeneration is not a new phenomenon today, it has always existed. If you remember the reason for the flood is because of moral degeneration, God decided to rebuild strong tower during the time of Noah but of course, after that, God said He will not strive with man any longer.

Back to today, our communities have been bedeviled by too many things; so many vices and those vices are sometimes we wondered where they came from, where the desire for those vices came from. But our response as pastors and church leaders is to continue to preach the undiluted word of God; that is our first primary assignment.

Secondly is to create an environment. For people, who are going through challenges that lead to social vices. Somebody could be depressed, somebody could have challenges in his family, nucleus family that could lead to those vices and we have been able to create a safe haven for people who we see are going through different kind of challenges that will help them to deal with this kind of challenges or keep them away from such vices.

Peaceful coexistence is what we always preach. Jesus said in the gospel of Mathew, “Blessed are the peace makers for they shall be come the Sons of God”. So, we preach peace, we encourage pastors and non-pastors alike and in fact, everybody, to become vanguard of peace, preachers of peace and practitioners of peaceful coexistence with our neighbours, with our friends and with every man for that matter.

We are in a generation whereby ritual killings are on the increase. As a clergy, how can this issue be addressed?

Ritual killings have become a new phenomenon for us. In those days, we used to hear that it is native doctors that engaged in things like that. But today, because of the degeneration of our moral values and moral standard in the society, youths have taken over ritual killings to quickly get rich.

And so, the message from me is very simple, is to go back from the beginning and that is what I said earlier is to preach God’s will for us as a people, to preach God’s work, to preach diligence, to preach that the love of money is part of human dynamo, and to preach that it is wrong to take another life for your own benefit. Somebody has asked me this question before and I said to him, we are all collectively responsible for these vices because some writers will write songs and they will be singing their song about money, about all kinds of stock and young people are looking at it, and he will have a Limousine, he will have dollars spreading it, and they will look at him as if he has all kind of that money that he glamour and people see in it and as a result of that, people give you a shattered of it.

The same thing with preachers. Preachers must preach the accurate and the proper word of God so that we don’t end up leading people astray, living people going after money and all those kind of stuff that make people lose their sense of humanity. So, it is a collective efforts starting from home, parents should teach their children and wards and so on and so forth.

You are the PFN chairman in Plateau State. How do you think Pastors can redefine the faith of believers towards achieving the salvation of Jesus Christ?

We have challenge, and the challenge is that there are those who preach and it appears as if all the life that matters and salvation all about is what we get on earth. But Jesus, when he came, he said repent for the Kingdom of God is near. So, he was referring people to the kingdom of God, and when we pursue the kingdom of God, the Bible said: “your kingdom come thy will be done”. When kingdom comes in our individual live, then we will be able to make perfect in our lives.

So, we have as it were the collective responsibility as pastors, as clergymen to be committed to rightly divining the word and most importantly, to let the true word of God to pursue righteousness, to pursue holiness, and the Bible said without holiness, no one can see God. So, if our righteousness is to God then, we must pursue the righteousness that would make us to see God….So, it is a critical factor. I hope that preachers will learn to drive the message and drive the message of the Cross!

The issues of Yahoo boys and ritualists are sign of end time. How can these things be addressed?

Well, you have already said it, it is the sign of end time. We are really at the end time! And the thing we can do as preachers, pastors, Imams, teachers in the class, Government and everybody, we must be involved in ensuring that we address these vices because people see it as a legitimate business. So, is a new phenomenon.  People legitimize Yahoo-Yahoo, but our preaching must be strong, we must be resolute for it and Government must play its part by ensuring that when people are arrested and proven to be guilty of that act, the appropriate punishment should be given to them so that it will serve as deterrent to others that are attempted to do it.

How comforting the resurrection of Jesus Christ to Christian?

Yes, they should be very comfortable because if Christ did not die and rise again, then we have no hope and our hope and salvation is not in the birth of Jesus Christ. It is the resurrection of Jesus Christ that revalidate that we sing and we preach earlier, that is the pure message of Jesus Christ, nor that the little child was born in Bethlehem because Jesus Christ was not the only child that is born at that time, but Jesus Christ was the only child that went to the Cross for the sake of our sins. And if there is anything that we must preach as preachers, that is the message and that is our hope. Because Jesus died and rose and we too when we died, we will rise again!

The name Leah Sharibu is on the pages of newspaper for years; she has been in captivity. What is your view regarding her continued captivity?

We are deeply saddened…. and truly deeply disturbed about the issue of Leah Sharibu. Leah Sharibu issue has for us become a decimal and pathetic situation. But our prayers are that number one; we refused to give up hope and we will not give up hope until finally Leah Sharibu is free. We will stand in faith in support morally and otherwise to her family for Leah Sharibu to be back to her family, back to what she knows as family.

And we again urge the Government to be just because there is no way to say they don’t know of her whereabouts. It’s very unfortunate. Somebody knows something! They possibly know something but they are not telling us and that is why she is still in captivity. We plead with Government, we cannot say Government at all levels knows everything, no, but what we are saying is that there are people in Government who have involved personally in trying to ensure she gets back home. So, we gave them credit! We also ask that let it be collective efforts. We want Leah Sharibu back home. Others have returned home and it is not only Leah Sharibu, there are so many that are being kidnapped week in week out, but yet….and we are praying and asking the Lord that those people should be returned home.

Christians in Zamfara have been receiving threats to their lives. What will be your call concerning these threats?

Actually, I did not hear of that, but if there is anything to that effect, our plead is that Government in Zamfara State must do all that she needs to do  to ensure that no citizen is threatened by any group at all. The sole responsibility of Government is to ensure that all this did not happen. I remember when there was a threat here on the Plateau that Igbo should vacate and leave and what Government did there was a strong call, Government came out to say there are averse to such statement. And they did decisively to everybody who is threatening the peace of the state, whether you call them settlers or what, that should be the case there for the Government of Zamfara State.

And beyond Government of Zamfara State, Northern Governors must take a stand so that things like that should not happen. When people are issuing such kind of threads, where do you want them to go? There is nowhere for them to go….

There is this notion that Churches place priority on prosperity than salvation. How do you see that?

Prosperity is part of the gospel but not gospel. Prosperity simply means in my understanding “soundness” when you are healthy as far as I am concerned. But people who lack understanding may think prosperity is all about money, having money, building houses, living an exalted life and so on and so forth. But that is not prosperity; that is the deception of the enemy.

The gospel itself is the gospel of prosperity, bringing darkness into light, which is prosperity. But people narrow the gospel to financial prosperity and personal life, personal aggrandizement, mission of material things but that is not the gospel. For the life of the man does not consist on the abundance of his possession. What shall it profit the man when he gets the whole world and loses his soul? There is no gain for that. So, as we preach, we preach the entirety of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we make it to be relevant for us.

The purpose of the message is salvation, and so, if there is no salvation, it is useless. So, whatever we preach must lead us to salvation. And what is salvation? Salvation is freedom from sin; salvation is a covenant of the knowledge of saving grace through Jesus Christ. Every other thing we get in-between is to make our lives here easy on earth.

We are approaching 2023 general elections and there is a call for Christian-Christian ticket and also Muslim-Muslim ticket. What should be your advice for this?

Yes, I think the two major religions in Nigeria are Christianity and Islam. And I am a firm believer that for us to preach peace, we must be practitioners of peace. In other words, we must come as we relate with political activities in this country from that viewpoint that we must project peace, and we must be vanguard of peace.

So, when you said Muslim-Muslim ticket, how does that lead those who are not Muslims? Same thing when you said Christian-Christian ticket, how does that live those who are not Christians. We want the Government where everybody will feel the sense of belonging. For us, that is the reason we go for rotation because of the diverse nature of this Nation it has necessary things that we should do. In every ethnic group, there are great people who are capable to lead this nation and so, we cannot say some people are lagging behind, no. Every tribe you go, you have excellent mind and capacity to lead this nation.

Make everybody feel the sense of belonging that if I am a Christian and a Christian is the President, I want my Muslim brother to feel the sense of belonging, whether the Speaker of the House of Representatives or Senate President is a Muslim, let everybody feel the sense of belonging. Let balance all these things and move ahead as a nation.

So, are you in support of rotational arrangement when it comes to political office?

Because of our dynamics, because of the dynamic of this nation, that would not be bad idea and some people believe no, the good people should be in front. Like I said, every tribe has a good person.

Presently, we have President Buhari who is a Muslim and his tenure will end in 2023, are you saying that the Christian should be the next President?

I will encourage and support the idea for the sake of equity and balance and for the sake of fairness, the Christian should take over and another time Muslim should take over, and should continue doing that because this country we are, we must work together…

This country is not going to break today, and it is not going to break in 50 years to come. So, we must create a system that will work for us and make you feel that yes, I am a Nigerian and I will be proud of it. The Muslim will feel I am a Nigeria and be proud of it and same thing with the Christian!