Beyond Plan “B” proposed by Paul Adefarasin -By Tife Owolabi

Many of us, the Journalists and media outlets did a hatchet job on the profound suggestions posited by Senior Pastor of the House on the Rock Church Lagos, Pastor Paul Adefarasin given the prevailing insecurity and the circumstances we are confronted with on the daily basis and rising from the lacklustre posture of various administration to nip them in the bud. The clergymen in the now-viral video commented on various issues of nation-building, recruitment of people of great minds with brilliant ideas, competence and capacities to deliver the nation from this quagmire and maladies but rather some picked just an escapist quote just to make him appear as someone who promotes sinister agenda, secessionist apologist and also encouraging people to abandon the country and seek refuge elsewhere .

Though in news reporting no one can not determine the angle in which a newshound writes in a lengthy comment or event but what amused me was that virtually every Nigerian media took the same angle of a 15 minutes long video and only picked quotes of 59 seconds of the entire conservation he had on the pulpit with his congregants and was televised via different channels both online and terrestrial.

Pastor Paul Adefarasin

Below are what the revered clergymen said on nation-building.

“Nigeria has problems that are most significant that she ever has; ever exacerbated by the fact that we are not 60 or 70 million perhaps around the time of the first civil war and we are now allegedly I don’t believe those numbers personally, 200 million, I don’t think we ever had a bonafide census in Nigeria that is also the complicity on the part of the foreign parents of Nigeria and many of these issues need to be dealt with unless the truth is unveiled concerning our foundation years, our amalgamation, our independence, our first constitution, we will not get it right in Nigeria. “

“You must continue to join me and pray and preach as to what the next president of Nigeria should look like and the first thing is, we don’t care what part of the country the person comes from but, we care more about competence, capacity, vision, understanding, how to lead a nation and build the country after some much debilitation.”

“Secondly, apart from not caring the part of the next president comes from, the next president must be given to the development and have been proven in his/her track record in public /private sector that they can deliver and have delivered development. Nigeria needs to develop; our roads,healthcare, education and that is why we have so much incompetence in leadership today because of lack of education. Nigeria has spent 2 billion dollars every 2years educating its children for the last 50 to 60 years in the western hemisphere but, we have lost a majority of them to build other nations when they can be the Nehemiahs as building Nigeria.so,we need someone who understands development.”

“Three, we need a president who is not a genderist in other words, we must embrace both genders and you have genderist on both sides. We want people who are not genderists. A family needs a mother and father, a nation needs men and women to parent the next generations. We also don’t need a tribalist, secessionist or ethicist that must not happen and the constitution must provide to exclude those sort of people from high executive offices in all three tiers and three-arm of government. we also do not want a religionist which is part of why I might not be considered and I am not looking for the job of the president and do not seek any elected office nor appointment. I am very happy operating in my calling and I am slightly outside it because of where the country is. We also need somebody who has brilliancy, he is well educated and hasn’t left his/her education in the theoretical realm. so, practically they can deliver on the vision, embrace even their opponents. The beautiful thing about Abraham Lincoln is that he put all his opponents and he didn’t define them as enemies, though some of them were and all them at the table (cabinet). He recognizes that all of them have brilliant ideas to rise to the cream of the top of the politics in the politics of the day and by this, he was able to embrace ideas, amalgamate them and collaborate into one singular vision to give Americans the opportunities of being created equally to pursue and aspire to a life of justice, freedom, peace, development progress and happiness. so, we need somebody like that.”

“That’s not all, we also need somebody who can amass round himself /herself across the reach of governance and government particularly in his or her cabinet. People who are like him or her, competence, capacity, brilliance and vision. So that every significant and periphery ministry of the state does well collaboratively to deliver on our national vision and God knows we need a visionary. Someone who sees, lives and breathes a better Nigeria, better than any country on the face of the earth. It is possible. We have the brilliants, so many great Nigerians.
My friends, we need to look out for the people who only go into politics and government for personal gain and aggrandizement, for the allure of power and money. The purpose of power and money is not for aggrandizement but are for the delivery of service. Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people and we are sick and tired (forgive my ruddiness of these idiots) who cannot see beyond their noses. if you are not good enough for the job leave it. Too many people are suffering, living beneath their privileges and our opportunities as an aggregate whole and for goodness sake, it is high time. If we call ourselves a federal republic, one we must be Republican and two we must be federated. This is not a federal republic. I see nothing Republican about Nigeria and nothing federating about Nigeria. This is a situation where the centre determines everything and the centre feeds the components but in a federation, the components feed the centre, the centre is only responsible for national matters like bordering integrity, national defence and when you don’t have that in place, you impede on the growth of various components of the federation. That is why some states are just downright lazy and by my last estimate and I am not an accountant, I think that there are three-variable states that have some measures of self-sufficient. So when Lagos state delivers 5.3 trillion nairas in royalties, customs, taxes and duties, VAT etc., it goes to the centre and the centre appropriates to lazy states, lazy states with leaders who have no vision, except to grab power, grab land and take what isn’t yours whilst you are standing on top of gold all over the country. Nigeria can be great and we must over this travesty and tragedy and lay the foundation for a great nation.”

“Lastly, If I catch anyone of you ( congregant) in government and you don’t deliver service and you become a thief there I will give you problems and ask God to give your generations problems. I am speaking to those of you in House on the Rock. Otherwise, go into business and make money there and leave the government for service delivery. You are ruining millions of lives. we won’t have beggars on the streets if the government will do her business and I am not speaking of this present administration I am speaking of all the administration and I include the British administration that governed Nigeria. We got to do something about it and you must be a critical voice to encourage those who do right in governance and leadership and politics and also you must be a publishing generation that publishes the truth and doesn’t just forward anything you get on WhatsApp, verify it if it is true to publish it. Governance is not merely the business of those in the state House. It is your business. you have a voice and you are their employer and when you correlate your voices and work together in a pyramid, the bloggers, vloggers, news media, the broadcaster and news anchors and every one of you with smartphones, use it and hold government accountable. it is their responsibilities to be accountable to the people who employed them and that is why that 1999 constitution is ought to be jettisoned and an authentic document of the people and her best representative need to come together and put together the terms and agreements as federating regions or components and the laws that work for our country. we now live in a situation where men are writing unjust laws and the purpose of the law is justice and when the unjust write laws they write injustice and that is what we have to live by and because our education is so bereft of learning as a nation we settle for a bag of rice, a keg of oil and a bribe for a vote and it won’t last those whom they give it to more than few days or weeks and we go back to penury. I believe that every Nigerian should have equal opportunity not all fingers are created equal but the opportunity should be equal especially those who want it they should be able to reach out and get it but you have denied more than 80% of the population the opportunities. We must drum it just as I have said to the market woman to understand it in her language, the pedestrian, the person who sells kola-nuts, sobo drink in parts of the country so that every single individual can hear it and I have done my job for our country this morning and those of you who know how to drum it down, take it and run with it.”

“1000 persons cannot defeat the third college of 200 million so-called Nigerians. Mathematics is on our side and this not a fight. we may be ideological opponents to others but that is our rights. it is our just rights and freedom as a citizen of this country otherwise take away my passport and lock me in jail. I say this because no country in world history has survived two civil war. you could be on the flight and running for your dear life any day from now if the thing doesn’t come to an end. my encouragement to leaders and government on all sides isn’t to be partisan. Blend the isles. it is time to sit down and dialogue and don’t be short-sighted and let us look toward a future that still has brightness in it because as long there is a creator who has vested so much in this land and her people there is hope for the future and we must rise to that possibility and put away petty-succubus and let recognize that we are one brotherhood as created by God and we are one brotherhood or fraternity call Nigeria our home and our fatherland.”

In all the aforementioned and the recommendations by Pastor Paul Adefarasin it is cleared that the news item was either syndicated across board or the media houses used framing, a communication theory where Journalists selected the topics they will present and decide how they will be presented. This determines how the audiences/readers think and how audiences also interpret the information through their frames and the audiences framing also may overlap or contradict the media frame.

Tife Owolabi
+2348064698045
Journalist
Niger Delta
@tifeowolabi
facebook.com/Tife Owolabi
” if it bleeds it leads”…