With five days until the general election, Nigerians have been urged to vote for the candidate who has the will to pull the country out of its current doldrums.
The Senior Pastor of Awaiting the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Ministry, Pastor Adewale Giwa, gave the charge while speaking on a radio programme in Akure, Ondo State.
According to the cleric, the only way the people can make the right choice at the polls on February 25 and March 11 is to turn down any form of monetary inducement that politicians might offer them.
While decrying the situation of the country, Giwa lamented that Nigerians have forgotten that the politicians who swayed them in 2015 are the ones seeking their votes again in 2023.
He said, “Politicians have destroyed everything in this country. Nigerians are too forgetful. Once we experience little comfort, we are bound to forget all the suffering we went through in the last eight years
“Precisely in 2015, I was one of the men of God that first raised the alarm and warned Nigerians that what they were about to embark on would backfire. And when the suffering began, the politicians were not affected but ordinary Nigerians.
“But the people have not learned because when it gets to election time, the same politicians will bring out money ranging from N5000 to N3000 to N2000 and begin to share it for them. Some people even collect as little as N500.
“There are things you must consider if you are given money to influence your choice at the polls. The first is that you must access their performance while in office. Secondly, you are free to collect money from politicians on election day if the money will be enough to cater for your rent, children’s school fees, and feeding for the next eight years.
“Only those with deep thoughts will be able to realise this and do the right thing by voting for the right person.
The pastor further stressed that “what we need as a country for all the crises we are facing to abate is for the regions to go their separate ways.
“With hunger in the land, politicians know exactly what they are doing. They intentionally do not want to develop the country. When you get to America, the system has gotten to the point that even when the president is campaigning, only a few people will be available. People over there are too busy to be moving from one campaign ground to the next.
“The reverse is the case here in Nigeria, as the people have been too impoverished that when politicians bring money on election day, the people will be ready to collect any amount.
“Prayer alone will not solve Nigeria’s problems. We are one of the most prayerful countries in the world. When you are praying and there is no action, things will not work out as expected. God has given us all that we need to survive and govern ourselves.
“When I raised the alarm in 2015 about the incumbent president, it was because I knew his antecedent as a military head of state. And those that packaged him for Nigerians refused to speak out when they were wanton of killings in the south-west.
“At the state level, there is no more accountability. The local government is no longer functional. Governors are now taking over the duties of the local government.
“The people must resolve to reject any form of vote-buying on election day.” Even if you collect the money, it will be able to solve any form of predicament for the next eight years.
“But with what I am seeing around, I have not seen the willingness of our people to reject monetary inducement at the polls.”