The Bishop screamed ,”the church was vibrant in Rwanda, yet the nation descended into a bloody civil war.” I still remember the Bishop’s voice on an evening in 1995 at our church conference, one year after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, an atrocity that claimed millions of lives. The question behind his lamentation was piercing: How can a praying nation fall so grievously? The church in Rwanda prayed and fasted. Yet the country collapsed like a fragile house of cards.
“The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3)
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The painful truth is as old as Scripture itself: when a nation departs from righteousness and acquiesces to corruption and violence, when leaders unfit for public trust capture the machinery of government, even the sincerest prayers can seem to falter. That observation is not an affront to the power of prayer, prayer remains a foundational pillar of the Christian faith. Rather, it is a sober reminder of a biblical principle: intercession must be joined to obedience, justice, and wise stewardship. Israel learned this at great cost.
Consider Israel’s demand for a king in 1 Samuel 8. God had warned the people through Samuel that choosing a king on their own terms, rather than trusting God’s order, would unleash oppressive policies and grievous burdens. Then came the terrifying caveat: there would be a day when they would cry out because of the king they had chosen, and God would not answer (1 Samuel 8:18). The lesson was not that God abandons His people, but that prayer cannot sanitize disobedience or excuse poor choices, especially in the realm of leadership and governance.
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“And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.” — 1 Samuel 8:18 (NKJV)
We often assume we can elect anyone, based on charisma, tribe, money, or manufactured narratives, and then use prayer to bend their hearts toward righteousness. But what kind of prayer would the church have prayed if it had supported Adolf Hitler’s rise in 1930s Germany? “Lord, give him more power?” “Prosper his agenda?” A grim irony: blessing a wicked ruler strengthens wickedness. We cannot use fasting and prayer to compensate for bad choices at the ballot box or for the abdication of moral responsibility among faith leaders.
Where the Rubber Meets the Road in Nigeria
Nigeria stands at a crossroads. Many citizens know the truth, yet are pressured, manipulated, or co-opted, sometimes with the tacit approval of religious voices, to support leaders and systems that perpetuate corruption and deepen social pain. Afterward, congregations are called into prolonged fasting and prayer, hoping to influence the very outcomes cemented by earlier compromise. Predictably, the people suffer.
Poverty, insecurity, corruption, impunity, the erosion of trust in institutions, these forces have constrained the hopes and agency of millions. Meanwhile, segments of the church have faltered: cozy relationships with the political class, transactional endorsements, and the elevation of spectacle over substance have undermined moral credibility. These realities echo the dynamics, that once ensnared Germany, though every historical context is unique and must be treated with nuance.
“The evil bow before the good, and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.” — Proverbs 14:19 (NKJV)
This proverb is not a call to fatalism; it is a promise that righteousness ultimately prevails. But Scripture never teaches that righteousness triumphs without righteous action, courageous truth-telling, or principled resistance to injustice. Prayer is a powerful catalyst, not a substitute for integrity, accountability, and civic responsibility.
History’s Cautionary Tale: Germany’s Descent and Capture
The story of Germany between the World Wars offers a sobering warning. Severe economic hardship, social fragmentation, and the calculated manipulation of fear prepared the ground for the Nazis. The regime consolidated power through propaganda, repression of dissent, co-optation of institutions, and paramilitary terror. A distressing part of that history is that segments of the church were seduced, silenced, or sidelined, through intimidation, patronage, or the false comfort of neutrality.
- Control of narrative: Media capture and propaganda normalised the abnormal.
- Crushing of opposition: Parties, unions, and independent voices were neutered or criminalised.
- Co-opting religious authority: Some church leaders were placated with rhetoric, access, and gifts, until it became clear that the regime intended to hollow out or replace orthodox faith with ideology.
We must never weaponize history to vilify entire communities or faiths. Rather, we draw lessons to guard against any form of authoritarian capture, whether through patronage, fear, disinformation, state violence, or the sacralising of political leaders.
Nigeria Today: A Moral and Civic Challenge
Nigeria’s struggle is not reducible to a single cause or community. Violent extremist groups, criminal networks, ethnic tensions, and entrenched corruption have converged to test the nation’s social fabric. Citizens rightly describe a sense of being hemmed in by insecurity and economic distress. Yet laying blame on broad religious or ethnic categories fuels grievance and blinds us to the real drivers: weak institutions, impunity, disinformation, the monetization of politics, and the commodification of faith.
The church, and, indeed, all faith communities, can play a historic role in national renewal, not by becoming partisan instruments, but by being the conscience of the state, the refuge of the poor, the advocate of justice, the teacher of truth, and the defender of human dignity. That calling transcends elections; it is the daily work of forming consciences, speaking truth to power, and modeling ethical leadership.
In his days, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. reminded the church that it is not the master of the state or its servant, but its conscience. That means the church can neither withdraw into apathy nor dissolve into political patronage. It must stand, with courage and humility, for truth, justice, fairness, and the rule of law, without hatred and without fear.
The Prophetic Vocation: Not Coziness, but Courage
From Samuel to Elijah to Jeremiah, the biblical prophets were never court chaplains to power. They confronted kings, rebuked injustice, pled the cause of the poor, and warned of judgment when rulers trampled righteousness. That prophetic tradition is not nostalgia; it is a template for moral leadership in any age.
G.K. Chesterton reportedly observed that: “coziness between church and state is good for the state, but bad for the church.”
Once the pulpit becomes a platform for patronage, or the altar becomes a stage for political endorsements, the spiritual authority that sustains a nation’s conscience is diminished. History teaches that regimes hungry for total control first capture narratives, then institutions, and finally the soul of a people. A bought or bullied clergy is a strategic victory for any would‑be autocrat.
The remedy is not rage; it is repentance, clarity, and courage. Church leaders must disentangle themselves from transactional politics, re-centre their ministries on truth and service, and rebuild trust with their congregations through transparency, accountability, and sacrificial love.
Ayo Akerele is the senior pastor of Rhema Assembly and the founder of the Voice of the Watchmen Ministries in Ontario, Canada. He can be reached through [email protected]. You can connect with him on: YouTube: @VoiceoftheWatchmen, TikTok: @drayoakerele, Instagram: @drayoakerele, Facebook: @Ayo Akerele
