…Leads Other Clergymen On “Occupy The Streets” Crusade
The new face of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Rivers State Chapter, Rev Dr Minaibi Dagogo Jack has urged the Christian Community to rise up to the challenges of the time as God’s own people and reposition the Church from the receive mode to the transmit mode.
Rev Dr Dagogo Jack stated this in an exclusive interview with National Network in his Emekuku Street office, Port Harcourt over the weekend.
According to the cleric who is highly infuriated with the lukewarm attitude of some of his colleagues and the Church in speaking out against mis-governance and the hardship being inflicted on the citizens by the political class said the Church has all it takes to determine the kind and caliber of persons that could be entrusted with public affairs and even decide the direction of governance in this country only if the Church leaders and the mass of Christians will realize the enormity of powers they possess as children of God and utilize them to their advantage.
But rather than activate the potency and efficacy of prayers, Dr Dagogo Jack lamented, the Church has chosen to relax and rely on faith alone.
He argued that though faith is a christian requisite, faith without work is dead. He regretted that the leadership of the Church in recent times has compromised by hobnobbing with politicians and political office holders and by so doing, sold their birthright of cautioning and calling these leaders to order when need be because of the meaningless favours and crumbs they receive from these bad leaders.
A minister, an activist, politician, critic and former governorship candidate in Rivers State, Rev Dr Dagogo Jack said he has come to display the same activism for which he is known to reactivate the PFN in Rivers State and by extension, the Church in general.
With the 61 million adult members of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria across the country, the man of God wondered why the Church, and the Christians cannot dictate who are to be entrusted with the leadership of this country at any time when in most cases, no winner in any election can or has scored up to this number of only PFN adult members.
He deposited the failure in this regard on reluctance, ignorance, lack of confidence and wanton abdication of power to where it does not belong.
But all this is now over, he declared, calling on the Church, PFN leaders and Christians as a whole to wake up from their slumber and take active part in all the electoral processes necessary for the election of political leaders from the beginning (primaries) to the end, knowing their own and those that have the ability, the mind and fear of God for their support.
To give bite to the new consciousness and renaissance according to Rev Dr Dagogo Jack, the Rivers State Chapter of the PFN has established chapters and leaders in all the units, wards, communities and local government areas of the State for decentralization of authority, to be proactive and to ensure that no stone is left unturned in carrying out the new policies and revival measures of the Christian body.
According to the PFN Chair, the programme titled “Operation Occupy The Streets” will involve all the PFN leaders and leaders of all the Churches under the PFN umbrella in the State starting on July 15, 2021 and will storm through all the 23 Local Government Areas in the State.
Happily, he noted, all those who left the Christian body (PFN) in the past have started coming back, both the Churches and their leaders because of the restoration wind of change currently blowing across the body.
The building of the corporate headquarters of the State PFN, Rev Dr Dagogo Jack said, has also commenced in earnest after many years of the existence of the Christian body without an office of its own in the State.
Pastor David Ibieyomie of the Salvation Ministries who had distanced himself from the PFN in the past for obvious reasons is now the Chairman of the building committee, the PFN leader explained.
“This will show you the seriousness of the new consciousness in the PFN in the State and the calibre of people that has made themselves available to put the leadership of the Church right and give the followers direction and focus to reclaim their right both spiritual and temporal”, Rev Dagogo Jack stressed.
As a foremost advocate of constitutional democracy based on equity and justice, Rev Dr Dagogo Jack decried the alienation of the mass of Nigerians by the leaders who have made exploitation and self aggrandizement a creed, sharing the common wealth of the citizens as though they are their private estate.
The same deceit that characterized the previous regimes across the States of Nigeria, he said, are still very much alive today.
“The people are frustrated and suffering hunger in the midst of plenty. What is given to them and celebrated as development are largely not what they need.
What we are talking about is participatory development in which the people are actively involved right from the decision and choice of what projects they want to their execution”, he noted.
Rev Dr Dagogo Jack, a former Chairman of the Coalition of Nigerian political parties (CNPP) in the State and a firm believer in verile opposition as a feature a democratic government insisted that the only way the majority of the people will be satisfied is to involve them in the choice of what they need, where to site such project(s) and in the actual execution of such projects.
He contended that where the people want light and they are given flyover, where they want a manufacturing company for essential goods and you are building schools, that is not development in the real sense of it.
According to him there should be an order of priorities of projects and programmes and according to the needs of the different segments of the State.
The man of God lampooned the present crop of politicians in the State for short sightedness alleging that they are only interested in lining their pockets, recalling that some of the structures like the 5 million population benchmark for Rivers State, used in resource allocation and the agitations that led to the creation of the South/South political zone came as a result of other people’s efforts and struggles, the benefits of which are being mismanaged by those who know nothing about how they came about.
Rev Dr Dagogo Jack believes that if only the Christians and the Church leaders will key into the new consciousness being spearheaded by the State chapter of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria under his watch, these usurpers and corrupt leaders will be shown the way out in 2023.
“If we earnestly come together, pray with our might and back it up with action, we’ll not only make it difficult for these corrupt leaders but also chart the direction of the leadership we want.
We have the power because as children of God, we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
Ours is to bring peace and calm on earth and drive away darkness with the light of God we represent. That’s the scripture” the man of God declared.
Rev Dr Dagogo Jack enjoined all Christians to be part of the re-awakening crusade that will criss-cross the 23 Local Government Areas of Rivers State with effect from the second week of July, 2021, stressing that everybody has their own share of the blame for the sorry situation of the country and the mess staring us all in the face – the political class, the media, security agencies, the Church, etc. To make amends therefore is the responsibility of all, the man of God contended.
