Action Alliance (AA) candidate in the November Anambra State governorship election, Ozo Jeff Nweke, has urged the electorate in Anambra State not to sell their votes.
He also declared that he joined the race to liberate the people from hardship and stigmatisation.
Nweke likened his candidacy to that of the biblical Moses’ mandate by God to liberate the Israelites Pharoah.
He made the declaration during a special sermon he delivered at Hear The Word Of God By Fire Christian Ministry in Awka, the state capital, yesterday.
He urged the faithful to resist the temptations that corrupt electoral processes, emphasising particularly “vote-buying”.
He advised Christians to get actively involved in politics and strive to inculcate Christian virtues of righteousness in our political system, campaign against vote-buying, rejecting money for votes and refusing to be corrupted while occupying political positions.
He warned “When you collect money from a politician to support him, you have sold your conscience, and, you have just solved your problem momentarily with that N5,000, N10,000 or N20,000 you received from him to vote for him.
“When he gets to that position, he will not cater for your welfare because he has paid you to buy the position.
“And because you took that money from him to vote for him you have become an accomplice in that fraud he is committing in the office; the public money that politician has siphoned from the public treasury because you voted him because of the money he gave to you, you have become an accomplice,” he said.
He stated that when the Israelis were passing through hardship in Egypt, Moses decided to abandon his comfort zone in the Egyptian palace and went into seclusion, where he meditated on the hardship his people were passing through, and, after receiving divine mandate, he took up the herculean task of leading the Israelis out of Egypt to their Promised Land.
The AA governorship candidate admonished Christians to get involved in politics arguing that it was wrong to describe politics as a dirty game and politicians as corrupt and sinners.
Nweke said “Pharoah was subjecting Israel to poverty and it was worrying Moses. And just as he (Moses) was worried about what he should do to help his people, God appeared to him.
“As I am standing here as a gubernatorial candidate, some of you have judged me to be a sinner. Maybe because I am not your pastor or well dressed as he does. But, you may be wrong,” he said.
“It is not a sin for a Christian to participate in political leadership, it is only sinful when you don’t inject righteousness into leadership”, Nweke admonished.
He reinstated his earlier advice to his co-contestants to resist the temptation of deploying derogatory words against political opponents, but to focus on identifying the people’s problems, needs, and explaining to them the strategies you would adopt to solve the problems if given the governorship mandate.
He warned that a campaign of calumny to win people’s trust and support is usually counter-productive in achieving a peaceful election and also in inculcating sound political values in the electorate.
Stating that though he is aware that there are people who have been brainwashed against him, the AA governorship candidate, however, pledged “I will serve with righteousness as a governor.”
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