Easter: There Is Hope For Nigeria, Says Anglican Bishop

Bishop of the Diocese of Kaduna (Anglican Communion), Cathedral Church of St. Michael, Bishop Timothy Yahaya, has said that despite the turbulent times that Nigeria as a nation is going through, there is still hope for the country.

This is even as he said, Nigeria as a country will recover its greatness of the past and achieve its future greatness.

Yahaya admonished all to believe in God and the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, adding that everything dead in Nigeria will resurrect again. “Our power, health sector, security, education will resurrect again,” he stressed.

“My Easter message to the nation is that there is hope.  For three days, Jesus was lying in the grave as if it was not going to happen. Today Nigeria too is going through a turbulent time, and it is like the greatness of Nigeria cannot be recovered, but I dare to say that not only the greatness of the past will be recovered, but the greatness will be achieved.

“There is great hope in this country. All it takes to build a great nation is in this country. And, therefore we should not lose hearts, we should trust and believe in God. The God that caused the resurrection to take place, it is the God that we serve in Nigeria. The same God is going to resurrect our railways, resurrect our power system, resurrect our educational system, resurrect our health system, resurrect our security system. Honestly, all citizens of Nigeria need to have hope. Hope is the tonic of every day’s life as far as our message is concerned.”

Asked if actually there is hope for the people because INEC had been accused of manipulating the last general elections, Bishop Yahaya said, “As far as I am concerned, INEC comes, INEC goes. And I know that INEC is not the final arbiter. Now there is an acid test on the floor of the court. How the courts deal with the matters before them, will tell the common man whether there is still hope. Even if anyone stains his hands, there is still hope because it is God that judges everyone. So, there is still hope. Whether you do it correctly or wrongly, there is still hope because one day God will bring it to judgement.

“Let me tell Nigerians; have you ever gone to the graveyard or the mortuary, do you see how helpless dead bodies are lying, in the mortuary there is no rich there is no poor, if you go to the graveyard you don’t see the bones of the poor and the bones of the rich, you see graves.” 

No matter how expensive coffins are, it is a dead body that is inside, so we should be careful how we live this life, and we should know that this life is not the end of this life. After this life there is another life.

“And before you enjoy that life you have to stand before a God that you cannot bribe with naira or dollars. You must answer Him fairly and squarely. Let’s be careful with what we do, we cannot remove hope from man. The God that made man gave us hope.

“Let me give you an example; every day we wake up, the NEPA of heaven has not failed to give us light, every day we wake and count season, dry and rain season, fortunately, the water board of heaven has not failed to give us water, that is the type of hope God gave us. Whether we like it or not, many years ago we were babies, but today we are fathers and some of us are grandparents, that is the hope of life.

“And if this hope is real everybody must have to be very careful. One day you will become a grandfather and from grandfather to the grave. Time and old age will go. There is a question to ask yourself; what legacy am I leaving behind. People who are professors today, who are declaring results, I hope they have a conscience. In this country where University professors should be models, they are no longer models, I think our ivory tower of learning needs to go through a sanitation process so that this country can get it right. But to say that because of few individuals there is no hope for Nigeria, I say our God is a God of hope. Therefore, we continue to hope,” the bishop added.