The General Overseer, Power and Wisdom of God Church, Badagry, Lagos, Pastor Idowu Ayadi says Nigeria is being troubled by the “spirit of cheating”.
This spirit of cheating, he said, was responsible for the majority of the challenges facing the country.
However, he called on Nigerians to play a noble part in complementing the positive efforts of the Federal Government to address the nation’s challenges.
Ayadi made the call at a news briefing on Saturday as part of the activities marking the celebration of Christmas in Badagry.
The cleric tagged his message: “The Spirit Troubling The Nigerian Nation”.
Ayadi said he consecrated himself to pray for Nigeria, and after many days of prayers, it was revealed to him that the source of the nation’s problems was the “Spirit of Cheating”.
According to him, to destroy the spirit of cheating, everyone has to buy into speaking the truth and never sell it.
He said that society should stop worshipping money, while parents should not teach their children how to cheat.
“All clergymen should emphatically teach their followers that life does not consist in the abundance of the things they have, and that act of covetousness is evil.
“On the side of government, there must be check and balance mechanism that will prevent the commission of fraud.
“The three arms of government, the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, must work together, effectively and efficiently.
“If all these are done, the spirit of cheating will die a natural death, and the lost glory of our country shall be restored.
“Then, we will take our rightful position among the comity of great nations,” he said.
Ayadi said many that were born with the truth had sold the truth, while many who did not have the truth, had refused to buy it.
He said the spirit of cheating in Nigerians had turned all infrastructure that would have promoted prosperity into a sorry state.
The cleric said that all efforts being made by the government to improve our roads and power supply had not yielded the desired results.
“This is because the spirit of cheating is in the people who are frustrating those government’s efforts.
“Infrastructure decay is the major contributor to our economy penury.
“There will be no economic prosperity in any nation where there is inefficient infrastructure to support the production of goods and services,” he said.
Ayadi said that the spirit of cheating made the perpetrators of insecurity to believe that whatever they could not get legally, would be obtained through the cruel and dubious means.
He said: “We should not pass the total blame of insecurity in our country on the current administration and military alone.
“It is the effect of the long term accumulated failures of our past leaders, who the spirit of cheating had deceived to believe that as long as they and their families are comfortable, what happens to others is not their concerns.”
The cleric then urged the government to set aside an hour once in a week to pray for the nation’s security.
He said Nigeria must remain one indivisible country, urging everyone to pray for unity of the country and set aside those things that would militate against it.
Also, Ayadi said that the first wave of the COVID-19 was an art of God to demonstrate to the world “His unquestionable power”.
He said the second wave of the global pandemic had come to be added to the list of diseases that would continue to affect human beings.
The cleric urged Nigerians to observe and keep all safety guidelines, advising government not to embark on any form of economic shutdown again.