By Amidu Arije
The Bishop of the Diocese of Lagos West, Archbishop Vinning Memorial Church (Anglican Communion), Bishop James Olusola Odedeji has urged Nigerians to imbibe the spirit of love, humility and forgiveness among themselves.
Odedeji who spoke at the end of a church service on Tuesday to mark the 2018 Christmas celebrations said Jesus reflected and stood for love and forgiveness, hence all mankind should emulate his virtues at all time.
“The message of Christmas is the message of love because Jesus had three ministries; the ministry of loving, caring and giving that is why Christmas is pointing to giving and giving. It is also a message of love, forgiveness and reconciliation because Jesus was sent to reconcile us back to God. It is a fulfillment of God’s awaited promises,” he said.
The clergy man also stated in his words that prayer is fundamental to the success of the 2019 general elections, he urged all to go down on their kneels praying to God for peace.
“The message is first of all, we are to pray to God to give us a leader because a leader determines a lot of things, but my prayer has always be that the best candidate will win,” he said.
While commenting on the economy situation of the country, Odedeji said the economy is in a complete shamble that Nigerians are not happy as there is no food on their tables. On security situation, he said Nigerians are living in fear and that insecurity has taken over the North East of the country.
“The economy is bad people, are very unhappy because no food on the table, security is something else, everybody is living in fear and if you talk of the North East area where they have almost finished the area, we are just praying that God will defend this country and give us another life to live,” he said.
He cautioned Nigerians to avoid vote buying and selling if quality leadership is what they aspire to have in 2019 elections.
“They should not be violent and they should shine their eyes and they should not buy or sell their votes as much as possible and that will help us to get to where we are going, but to so things are bad, people are correct to say that one, they are very sad,” he said.
