Rivers State: The Role Of The Church In Encouraging Cultism

My grandfather believed in God. In fact, Chief Daniel Makele Okocha was one of the very few people that the Anglican Communion allowed the rare privilege of being buried right inside the Church. The only reason why he was laid to rest at the door post of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Rumuigbo, was because of his immense effort in dragging the House of God, all the way from Port Harcourt main town, to the ancient community of Ekinigbo, at a time when voodoo held my people to ransom.

Very early in life, I was told how Chief Daniel woke up one morning, to the consternation of his entire family, and declared total submission to the will of the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ - Jehovah.
The strong man of Ikwerre land told whoever cared to listen that he was given an urgent mandate to beam in God's incandescent light into a community that was then under bondage of diabolism. But it cost him a lot, he lost landed properties, relatives and friends due to his new found love. At a time when land cases were usually settled by swearing of oath and other rituals, Daniel Makele Okocha gave up almost all that he had because of Christianity; the Church meant everything to him.
Till date, the Holy Trinity Church remains the official Church of the Okocha family. We were taught that man was created specifically for the service of God and humanity; to us, the Church is the symbol of love, development, hope for a bountiful existence and a blissful eternity. Are these virtues still available in God's house these days? In Rivers State, has the Church been able to recreate the Kingdom of God on earth?
In the midst of the killings, beheadings, kidnappings, armed robbery and wanton violence, what particular stance has the body of our Lord Jesus Christ taken to show complete and public condemnation, unapologetic disapproval, and a ferocious fight against cultism?
The term 'cultism' is just a silly way of describing an ugly set of young men and women who have sold their soul to evil for the demonic rewards of violence, quick wealth, territorial control, peer supremacy, sexual slavery and other instruments of immorality. Let us say it exactly the way it is; cultism is the bane of underdevelopment in Rivers State and Niger Delta at large. The irony of the whole thing is that this same cultists are committed members of different churches littered everywhere in our towns and villages.
A typical Sunday morning in the oil-rich Rivers State is usually the most colourful day of the week. As early as 7am every Sunday, sons, daughters and residents of the supposed Treasure Base of Nigeria, file out en mass in well tailored apparels, beautifully crafted shoes, and excellently groomed bodies, all in a bid to pay homage to the creator of heaven and earth. The location is that building with the best architectural design in town. With interiors not less than Persian inspired works of art, Port Harcourt Churches are the best. Sundays are very fantastic in Rivers State.
Many have said that the main reason why they go to Church every Sunday is because they want to tap from the spiritual wisdom of their various men and women of God. To them, God speaks out through a certain man or woman every Sunday to his people. They can't miss service, never, it's not possible. But the questions that loom large are these; what do they hear in those Churches? What does the Man of God or the Woman of God preach every Sunday? Isn't your man of God or Woman of God concerned about the astronomical rate of killings, beheadings, kidnappings, armed robberies and other ills in Rivers State? What is the position of the Church?
The sad truth is that our Churches are as disconnected from the society just as an unplugged electric kettle is to a power source. Yes, power source. The Church is supposed to be the power source of the society. Pastors are supposed to be men and women of God who can manage the burden of uprightness, in order to preach same to their congregations.
The Church of Christ in Rivers State must step away from mediocrity; the body of Christ must understand that there cannot be earthly prosperity in the midst of cultism. Cultism represents everything about devil, hence the Church in Rivers State must come out with a definite and an aggressive approach towards the decimation of this very scourge that has pervaded the length and breadth of Rivers State. The Church must stop encouraging cultism with her deafening silence.

Saudi Arabia's Proposal To Destroy Prophet Mohammed’s Tomb And Move Remains To Anonymous Grave Risks New Muslim Division

One of Islam’s most revered holy sites – the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed – could be destroyed and his body removed to an anonymous grave under plans which threaten to spark discord across the Muslim world.

The controversial proposals are part of a consultation document by a leading Saudi academic which has been circulated among the supervisors of al-Masjid al-Nabawi mosque in Medina, where the remains of the Prophet are housed under the Green Dome, visited by millions of pilgrims and venerated as Islam’s second-holiest site.
The formal custodian of the mosque is Saudi Arabia’s ageing monarch King Abdullah.
The plans, brought to light by another Saudi academic who has exposed and criticised the destruction of holy places and artefacts in Mecca – the holiest site in the Muslim world – call for the destruction of chambers around the Prophet’s grave which are particularly venerated by Shia Muslims.
The 61-page document also calls for the removal of Mohammed’s remains to the nearby al-Baqi cemetery, where they would be interred anonymously.
There is no suggestion that any decision has been taken to act upon the plans. The Saudi government has in the past insisted that it treats any changes to Islam’s holiest sites with “the utmost seriousness”.
But such is the importance of the mosque to both Sunni and Shia Muslims that Dr Irfan al-Alawi warned that any attempt to carry out the work could spark unrest. It also runs the risk of inflaming sectarian tensions between the two branches of Islam, already running perilously high due to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
Hardline Saudi clerics have long preached that the country’s strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam – an offshoot of the Sunni tradition – prohibits the worship of any object or “saint”, a practice considered “shirq” or idolatrous.
Dr Alawi, director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, said: “People visit the chambers, which are the rooms where the Prophet’s family lived, and turn towards the burial chamber to pray.
“Now they want to prevent pilgrims from attending and venerating the tomb because they believe this is shirq, or idolatry. But the only way they can stop people visiting the Prophet is to get him out and into the cemetery.”
For centuries Muslim pilgrims have made their way to Mecca in order to visit the Kaaba – a black granite cubed building said to be built by Abraham, around which al-Masjid al-Haram, or the Grand Mosque, is built, and towards which every Muslim faces when they pray.
This pilgrimage, or hajj, is a religious duty that has to be carried out at least once in a lifetime.
Many go on to make their way to the nearby city of Medina to pay their respects at the Prophet’s tomb.
Al-Nabawi mosque around the tomb has been expanded by generations of Arabian rulers, particularly the Ottomans. It includes hand-painted calligraphy documenting details of the Prophet’s life and his family. Dr Alawi said the plans also call for these to be destroyed as well as the Green Dome which covers the Prophet’s tomb.
The Prophet is venerated by both branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia. The strict Wahhabi sect is a branch of the Sunni faith, however, and removing the Prophet could further inflame tensions between the two groups .
The current crisis in Iraq has been blamed on the Shia former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarianism, which alienated the Sunni, leading to the uprising. Isis, also known as Islamic State, which holds swathes of Iraq and Syria, and which murdered the American journalist James Foley, is a Sunni organisation.
Mainstream Sunni Muslims would be just as aghast at any desecration of the tomb as the Shia, Dr Alawi said.
It was previously revealed how the multibillion-pound expansion of the Grand Mosque has, according to the Washington-based Gulf Institute, led to the destruction of up to 95 per cent of Mecca’s millennium-old buildings. They have been replaced with luxury hotels, apartments and shopping malls.
King Abdullah has appointed the prominent Wahhabi cleric and imam of the Grand Mosque, Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, to oversee the expansion project – necessary to cope with the huge number of pilgrims who now visit each year.
Dr Alawi says the consultation document for the al-Nabawi mosque in Medina, by the leading Saudi academic Dr Ali bin Abdulaziz al-Shabal of Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, has been circulated to the Committee of the Presidency of the Two Mosques.
Several pages of the consultation document have just been published in the presidency’s journal. They call for the destruction of the rooms surrounding the tomb – used by the Prophet’s wives and daughters, and venerated by the Shia because of their association with his youngest daughter, Fatima.
The document also calls for the Green Dome, which covers the tomb and these living quarters, to be removed, and the ultimate removal of the Prophet’s body to a nearby cemetery.
The al-Baqi cemetery already contains the bodies of many of the Prophet’s family, including his father who was removed there in the 1970s, Dr Alawi said. In 1924 all the grave markers were removed, so pilgrims would not know who was buried there, and so be unable to pray to them.
“The Prophet would be anonymous,” Dr Alawi added. “Everything around the Prophet’s mosque has already been destroyed. It is surrounded by bulldozers. Once they’ve removed everything they can move towards the mosque. The imam is likely to say there is a need to expand the mosque and do it that way, while the world’s eyes are on Iraq and Syria. The Prophet Mohammed’s grave is venerated by the mainstream Sunni, who would never do it. It is just as important for the Shia too, who venerate the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima.
“I’m sure there will be shock across the Muslim world at these revelations. It will cause outrage.”
The Saudi Arabian embassy said in a statement last year: “The development of the Holy Mosque of Makkah al-Mukarramah [Mecca] is an extremely important subject and one which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as custodian of the two holy mosques, takes with the utmost seriousness. This role is at the heart of the principles upon which Saudi Arabia is founded.”

Taxation Takes Centre Stage At The 8th Annual Wole Soyinka Media Lecture Series

In the face of dwindling oil revenue, the Nigerian government has among other options, increased the drive for tax compliance. It is to this end that the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) is focusing on the theme, “Tax education, national development and the seminal role of the media”, for its 8th media lecture series which holds on Wednesday 13 July, 2016 by 10am at the main hall of NECA House, Plot A2, Hakeem Balogun Street, Off Lateef Jakande Road, Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos.

Adebimpe Balogun, the first female President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), will deliver the lecture commemorating the 82nd birthday of Wole Soyinka. Discussing alongside Balogun will be, Auwal Musa (Rafsanjani), Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Modupe Oyekunle, President of NECA’s Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNEW), Simon Kolawole, Founder & CEO of The Cable Newspaper, Emuesiri Agbeyi, Tax Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Deremi Atanda, Executive Director of Systemspecs. Opeyemi Agbaje, Managing Director of Resources and Trust Company will moderate the event. Tunde Fowler, the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has also confirmed the agency’s participation.
As the 30th July due date for filing outstanding tax returns by companies to the FIRS draws near, the WSCIJ intends to use the lecture to contribute to strategic thinking and provide a veritable opportunity to raise critical questions for national debate on issues surrounding taxation. These will include the importance of taxation to development, evaluating the compliance rate, technology driven payment, the lack of trust for wise use of funds generated by the government, the level of reportage of the issue in the media and many more.
The lecture is an annual programme of the organisation designed to examine varying topical issues that have a reverberating effect on the perceived performance of the media on the health of Nigeria, and its democracy. It has since 2009 held on 13 July, to honour Soyinka, while also drawing attention to critical national issues.
Admittance to the event is open to journalists, accountants, lawyers, tax experts and agencies, pressure groups, policy makers, members of the diplomatic corps and other stakeholders in the civil society.
Signed,
Motunrayo Alaka,
Centre Coordinator.
motunrayo@wscij.org ; wscij@wscij.org
ABOUT WOLE SOYINKA CENTRE FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) is a non-governmental organisation with a vision to stimulate the emergence of a socially just community defined by the ethics of inclusion, transparency and accountability through support to journalists.
Initially known as the Wole Soyinka Investigative Reporting Award (WSIRA) at inception in 2005, the change in name became necessary in 2008 to reflect the intentions of the coordinators to embrace a more robust line of activities that have greater capacity for engendering the right values of investigative journalism in the Nigerian media.
The Centre is named after Professor Wole Soyinka in recognition of his life-long work in support of the freedom of expression, freedom to hold opinion, and freedom to impart them without fear or favour and without hindrance or interference.

Kachikwu hands over to new NNPC GMD, vows to sustain reforms

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, Friday, formally stepped down as the Group Managing Director, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, with the handing over to the new helmsman, Mr. Maikanti Baru.
This was even as the newly appointed GMD, Baru, rolled out a 12-point programme for the NNPC, which included addressing and defraying the cash calls arrears owed International Oil Companies, IOC, by the NNPC and also ensuring that the Federal Government is relieved of the burden of cash calls obligations.
Speaking during the handover in Abuja, Kachikwu promised to partner and support the new GMD, in undertaking a wholistic reform of the NNPC and the Nigerian petroleum industry and also in bridging the infrastructure deficit in the industry.
Kachikwu said over the last 11 months when he held sway at the NNPC, a number of milestones were attained, while he expressed optimism that the new GMD would surpass his achievements and take the corporation to new heights.
Some of the achievements, according to Kachikwu, included the restructuring of the NNPC, the deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, revamping of the countries refineries and bringing the NNPC to profitability among others.
Details later.

Federal High Court affirms Ikpeazu as Governor of Abia state

Justice A.I Allagoa of the Federal High Court in Owerri, has, Friday,

affirmed the election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State.
Ruling on the matter filed by Mr. Friday Nwosu against, Ikpeazu on alleged
forgery of tax documents, the court ruled that the plaintiff, (Nwosu) was
unable to prove that the tax documents were forged.
The court ruled that the tax documents were not forged, and went further
to dismissed the matter.
The post Federal High Court affirms Ikpeazu as Governor of Abia state appeared first on Pointblank News .

Federal High Court affirms Ikpeazu as Governor of Abia state

Justice A.I Allagoa of the Federal High Court in Owerri, has, Friday,

affirmed the election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State.
Ruling on the matter filed by Mr. Friday Nwosu against, Ikpeazu on alleged
forgery of tax documents, the court ruled that the plaintiff, (Nwosu) was
unable to prove that the tax documents were forged.
The court ruled that the tax documents were not forged, and went further
to dismissed the matter.
The post Federal High Court affirms Ikpeazu as Governor of Abia state appeared first on Pointblank News .

Breaking News: Six die in Borno mosque suicide attack

Six people were killed on Friday when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a mosque in Damboa, Borno, the army said, in the latest violence to hit the restive region.
Nigerian Army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman said one bomber was foiled at the Damboa Central Mosque but another 'gained entry into another smaller mosque and detonated the bomb, killing himself and six other worshippers'.