AS 2019 general elections draw near, the Senior Pastor of Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC), Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo, on Tuesday urged Nigerians to vote according to their conscience to elect political leaders, who would be committed to tackling socio-economic challenges, confronting the generality of the masses.
He also disagreed with the position in some quarters that alleged growing killings of innocent Nigerians in some parts of Benue, Plateau and Kaduna States by herdsmen were being perpetrated by terrorists from Libya, a Middle East country.
Speaking during an interview in Osogbo with journalists on the sideline of a programme tagged “Building The Broken Wall”, organised by the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Osun State chapter, Ashimolowo emphasised that “Nigerians should vote their conscience and use their voting power in the coming elections”.
According to him, “those who govern us should please realise that Nigeria is blessed with so many resources. Let them give attention to what helps the masses instead of a lot of infighting, arguments and we waste so much time.
I know we are pursuing and fighting corruption. I have said this three years ago. I think this government should do what is called the Pareto principle, spend 20 per cent of your time on your past pursuing those evils, but spend 80 per cent on building your future”.
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Ashimolowo continued, “because no man focuses on his rearview mirror and moves fast. If you keep looking back, your speed would be slow. Corruption you would think started with the current government. No. I have a book written by Peter Enahoro on how to be a Nigerian. It was written in 1961, it is the description of today. We are not celebrating corruption, but we are saying we need better roads, electricity, economy, education and we need the engineering system of Nigeria to work and good environment for agriculture to thrive”.
While tasking the Christians to be actively involved in politics, the clergy who commented on the worrisome insecurity in some parts of the nation posited that “as a 66 years old Nigerian, born in the North, raised in the South, I beg to differ with anyone who says that the destruction of Plateau, Benue and Kaduna states is carried out by Arabs from Libya. Why did they cross Sokoto, Kano, Jigawa and all these Islamic states”.
He, however, contended that there was critical need to fix the energy problem in Nigeria, stressing that it is possible for the government to address poor electricity supply in the power sector by harnessing our natural resources to enhance the effective provision of power, capable of boosting the nation’s economy.
Ashimolowo stated “Ghana complained of a power outage and that is once in three months for only one hour. Other Africa nations, there is no power outage. We can achieve constant power supply, we have natural gas. Nigeria has the second largest deposit of natural gas on earth. It’s been burning away for the past 50 years because for you to reach crude oil, you have to first remove the natural gas. Let’s harness it, sell and use it to run our electricity. If somebody is not running it, let’s expose them”.
and then