Amid the prevailing hardship in Nigeria, the shepherd-in-charge of Celestial Church of Christ, Apete Ibadan, Oyo State, Venerable Superior Evangelist Emmanuel Adewale speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on how Nigerians can rescue themselves from the widespread poverty and inflation putting them on boiling point.
IN the last few days, the Nigerian government has come under heavy criticism due to the prevailing hardship in the country. The seething mass discontent has even sparked protests in the Northern parts of the country. People are saying things are hard. One observer even said it is only those stealing public funds that won’t be lamenting now. What is your take on this?
You said everybody is crying that things are hard, but don’t you think things are hard? I believe those stealing are equally crying because they need to do more research now in a bid to catch their prey. To be honest with you, things are very hard in the country. Though money may be available in nominal currency, the real value of what the money can purchase has grossly pummelled. These days, you go to the market with a large sum of money to stock your home, only to come back with just a very small foodstuff. It is that bad.
For instance, a bag of garri in those days was perhaps not up to N1000, but a Kongo of the same garri now is about N700. In my house, in those days, about 23 of us would sufficiently and conveniently eat three square meals. But such is very hard now in many homes. Some families can’t boast of having two square meals daily, let alone three. The worrisome hardship has overnight reduced many people into professional beggars.
The harsh economic climate has taken a drastic toll on people’s purchasing power such that even if a graduate is being paid the sum of N100,000 monthly now, it can’t take him anywhere. Will he not eat, change his wardrobe, and transport himself to work? That is aside his need to send something home to his or her parents, which may even be occasional. I could remember that the first rent I paid back then in 1984 was N20 per room in the Agbowo area of Ibadan. That was after I had left the Postgraduate School of the University of Ibadan. But can the same N20 buy biscuits today? A single-room self-con goes for between N150,000 to N250,000 nowadays in the country, depending on your area and state. So, things are hard now, because too much money is pursuing few goods, which is inflation.
Not just that alone, the country also groans heavily under a very high degree of insecurity with calculated killings, kidnapping, and bandit attacks forcing the people to live in fear. That is in addition to the high cost of petrol. For instance, if you want to travel to Lagos now, the least amount you will spend on petrol is about N20,000; some of us even spend as much as N30,000 per trip. In December last year, I traveled to Lagos four times, spending almost N120,000 on petrol alone across the four trips. So, you can see our present predicament: money is not available, yet things are very expensive. Even those moving in and out of the country, especially overseas, are crying due to the damaging fall of the naira. As we speak, the exchange rate hovers around N1500 per dollar. The implication is that if you must import good foodstuffs, clothes, and gadgets from abroad, you have to spend through your nose. How do you cope with that?
In recent times, some Nigerian youths have succumbed to the Japa syndrome. They will sell their fathers’ property, land, cars, and all to run abroad. When it began, you could travel with between N2 million and N4 million. But now, if you are not having between N15 million and N20 million, you go nowhere. Unfortunately, some people, will sell their property and be swindled by smarter individuals who desperately cash in on the prevailing dejection in the country. As a result, these people will be consigned to the middle: they can’t get into the foreign land, yet they have nothing to fall back on at home. That is why, you hear people committing suicide now and then, because some people can’t just think straight again.
Imagine, you will struggle to go to school and graduate with a good grade and certificate, but because of the lopsided nature and structure of Nigeria, you will be left to wail and toil at the mercy of those at the corridors of power in the country through white-collar job. You are not dependent on your hands. In the Western world, it is your hand and your brain that will liberate you, but here, it is who you know and not your certificate or value you want to put into the economy that will determine what you get. So, everything seems not to be in our favour, I mean the common man. Therefore, I want to join the multitude of who are saying that life is hard. Come to think of it, even we too, the pastors, are feeling the heat.
 But how?
Many people will come to you after the devotional services to complain to you. As we speak, I have a lot of requests on my phone. Surprisingly yesterday, somebody wrote to me from a very far state in the country. This was someone who used to give me money years back. But he recently lost his job. So, he wrote to me asking me, ‘Do you have anything for your boy?’ This is a married man who had spent so many years in the banking industry, but suddenly lost his job and is now being made to contend with unbearable hardship. It was a few months ago that he lost the job, but he has started begging now because even the savings he had gathered over the years could no longer save his family from wanton hunger and pay his children’s tuition. So things are hard.
Many people will come to you and say: Sir, help us with anything, because we don’t have what to eat in our home. And that is the stark reality. You can’t even say they are lying, because even their facial expressions will advertise their abject lack. But as a church leader, will you then say no and turn your back on such requests? More so, it is the same people complaining of hunger that you are expecting to pay tithes and offerings for you to run your church needs. Or won’t you fuel the generator and amend dilapidated structures in the church compound, if you can’t erect new buildings? So, the prevailing hardship is affecting the income of the church and even the mosques too. Or can a broke person pay tithe? Is it the 10 percent of his zero income you will be asking? When it is time to pay tithes, all you will see is a multitude leaving their seats and flooding the toilet. Above all, where do you get funds for even evangelism and soul-winning? So it is hard everywhere.
 But what will you say are the biggest factors that have driven us to this current state in Nigeria?
Well, our economy used to be agric-centric. But the oil boom came and we criminally abused it. The government all started depending on the oil boom and gradually withdrew from the agricultural sector that was supposed to be still producing for us. In those days before oil came, it was cocoa, Kolanut, groundnut from the North, and all that were the source of livelihood for many Nigerians as they were the mainstay of the economy. Then, Nigeria was even taking a strong position in the world market and we were generating foreign exchange seamlessly to maintain ourselves. But the oil boom came and everybody left the farm. We all went to the city to pursue oil money.
Sadly, the oil proceeds were not used to extend the existing capacity of both the country and the people. Instead, we were siphoning and stocking them in foreign accounts. Those who were lucky were buying properties and expending the rest funds on consumables. There was little effort made to extend the production capacities of the country. Year in, year out, successive governments kept sucking and milking the country, draining the national treasury, instead of setting up factories and big companies where Nigerian graduates can be gainfully employed and be self-reliant.
Worst still, the rich were never paying taxes efficiently. So, we have been eating and eating. Imagine you have a lot of food at home, and you keep eating carelessly. Along the line, some of your foodstuffs became rotten in the store, while the ones you stored in the freezer are becoming bad. But you didn’t care, because you believed you had enough reserve.
You also didn’t care whether your neighbours were stealing from your store through the back door and taking the food to their own house, all because you had supplies in large quantities. But before you know it, if care is not taken, the reserve will become empty with time and you will be left with nothing. That is the Nigerian story. We are now left with no reserve. We have eaten and looted the whole commonwealth. There is also no production and discipline. Above all, there has been no concrete measure to curtail those abusing the country’s heritage and resources. The fault is in ourselves.
Jerusalem or the land of Isreal maximally will have rainfall three times a year. But all over the land, there are productions of anything food. If you travel for about three or four hours on the road in the country, you will see plantain farms on your right, and maize plantations on acres of land on your left. Yet, there is no water in the country. They all depend on irrigation, yet they produce big apples. You can ask those who go there.
A farmer will feed as many individuals in the country and even export. They have their chickens and fish. They have everything in large quantities. But in Nigeria, we only produce twice yearly. And even when the farmer struggles to produce, one rat called a bandit will come, carry a gun, and kill him. And that ends the business. So, a lot of things are wrong with us. Insecurity has killed our aboriginal intention for agriculture and farming. That’s why nobody wants to farm again. Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) was forgotten. To get back on our feet, we must all change our attitude. We must all be re-orientated.
and then