LERE OJEDOKUN & ERASMUS ALANEME
4 October 2004
Abuja — WORK resumes all over the country this morning as activities marking Nigeria's 44th Independence Anniversary were rounded off yesterday.
In Abuja, there was an inter-denominational service attended by President Olusegun Obasanjo and Senate President, Chief Adolphus Wabara.
At the service held at the First Baptist Church, Garki II, Abuja, leaders were charged to re-examine themselves and identify how they had contributed to the nation's stagnation and calamity.
Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) under which auspices the service was conducted, blamed corruption for national woes while tasking everyone to embrace a new code of conduct, morality and belief.
In a sermon, CAN chairman for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Rev. Williams Okoye, quoting from Ezekiel 22:23-11, admonished that all forms of profanities and excesses be curtailed.
He condemned oppression of the poor by the bourgeois, warning that the wrath of God dangled on whoever was unrepentant of his or her ways.
"The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor, the needy, yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them", he stated.
Rev. Okoye who stood in for CAN president, Dr. Peter Akinola, however, expressed hope that the country could attain progress and prosperity if the citizens would obey God's commandments and love righteousness.
"Nigeria will change when we individually change. The root of Nigeria's problem is corruption emanating from corrupt individuals. We should have a redefinition of the nation's morality, code of conduct and belief. Righteousness exalts a nation. Make the fear of God and righteousness the foundation of nationhood", he counselled.
Commending government's efforts at national rebirth, he called on Nigerians to support the administration in moving the country forward.
Chief Wabara read the first lesson taken from Ezekiel 22: 23-31 while President Obasanjo took the second drawn from 1 Timothy 2: 1-8.
Another highpoint of the service was prayer and intercession for the continued peaceful co-existence of the country as well as healing for national economy.
The service was attended by ministers, service chiefs, judges, senators, members of the House of Representatives as well as captains of industry.
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