Clerics, govs, others assure Nigerians on New Year

By Our Reporters - 02.01.2008

THE General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracle (MFM), Dr. Kayode Olukoya, has said the New Year will usher in great political boiling in every facet of the country.

Olukoya made the declaration in the early hours of Tuesday during the church’s cross over night to usher in the New Year. The cleric, who made a 30-point prophetic statement, said there would be dramatic changes, strange shaking of people and places by divine order in the nation.

Olukoya noted that he could only say it in coded words “this year, the arrester will be arrested, the cap will launch a battle against the shoe.”

Olukoya, who explained that the year would witness great natural disasters and ‘climate madness’ in diverse places, noted that many fake prophets would be exposed.

He added that strange diseases that would defy treatment would rage in the year, unless serious prayers were offered.

Also, the Bishop of the Abeokuta Diocese of the Catholic Church of Nigeria, Right Reverend Adewale Martins, has admonished Nigerians to toe the path of peace in the New Year in order to foster meaningful development as a nation.

Bishop Martins, who spoke at a special thanksgiving service to mark the New Year celebration held at SS Peters and Paul, Adatan, Abeokuta, maintained that no meaningful development could take place in the absence of peace, urging Nigeria to be more prayerful in the new year.

In Osun State, Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola said the New Year held promises of brighter prospects for the citizenry Prince Oyinlola, who attended the New Year service at the St. Michael’s Anglican Church, Okuku, urged Nigerians to be prayerful and optimistic that their lot would be better in 2008.

“ I wish the people a peaceful and progressive 2008. We thank God for the blessings of the past by the virtue of what we have been able to do and we want to urge our people to continue to pray that God will continue to give us the power to continue with the progressive development of Osun State and Nigeria,” he said.

The governor also thanked the people of the state for their support in 2007 and called for greater cooperation in the New Year even as he promised that his government would continue to give its best in service delivery.

Edo State governor, Professor Oserhiemen Osunbor, on Tuesday in Benin said only unity of purpose would make the state to realise its potential.

Osunbor, in a New Year message, called for the closing of ranks among interest groups in the state. He said Edo people should put the acrimony of the past behind them and forge a partnership with the government to move the state forward.

“This New Year season is a time to extend love to one another, the love that knows no discrimination, and keeps no record of wrongs,’’ the governor said.

The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Ebele Okeke, has charged civil servants to re-double their efforts in this New Year in providing support for President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration to move the country forward.

She said as policy implementers, the civil servants must ensure that democratic dividends were delivered to the people in conformity with the determination of the government to better the lot of the citizens.

Okeke, in her New Year goodwill message, commended them for their contributions to the civil service the previous year, while urging them to recommit themselves to sustaining this momentum in 2008 for better service delivery to the citizenry.

She said that the present democratic dispensation had created a new operating environment for all civil servants, and that the civil servants should be above board with a view to providing effective service delivery to the people.