REVEREND Uma Ukpai is a unique evangelist with a unique anointing to make profound declarations including one he made two years ago that a remote village known as Toru-Orua in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State would produce a governor, prophecy that came to past with the recent election of Governor Henry Seriake Dickson.

He is the president of Uma Ukpai Evangelistic Association (UUEA) which specialises in organising crusades all over the world and winning souls for the Body of Christ. He has no church. Recently, the Man of God was in Lagos where he addressed some media partners at the Lagos Sheraton. At that meeting, he declared that the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram has no capacity to destroy the nation.

According to him, care must be taken not to provoke the rest of the country to fight back and plunge Nigeria into another civil war. SAM EYOBOKA was there

YOU said earlier that Nigeria is a country of drama and trauma. What do you mean?

This country is a nation of drama and trauma. We copied American system of government but we did not borrow it completely. In America, only those who have made money from honest means, go to politics to serve and not to create wealth. They go to spend their money; but here, we go into politics to acquire power and accumulate wealth. Because, we borrowed the system we have not be able to evolve a system that will meet our needs. Those who we voted for no longer agree that we voted for them to serve us. They believe, we voted for them to serve themselves. So they don’t give account to their constituency because they have now become gods to their constituencies. It is like employing a man to work for you but he now works for himself and you are not powerful enough to stop him. That is where we are. When you drive through Port Harcourt-Enugu-Onitsha, Port-Hacourt-Aba, you will weep for this country.

Rev. UMA UKPAI

If you travel through Port-Harcourt-Warri Road and come out alive, you must be very lucky. But if our leaders are holding power in trust, they will not ignore those roads. If they were voted into power to serve then we become their boss; but we are not the boss. They are the boss and yet we made them what they are.

Sir, did we really vote for these people in the first place?

Well, we pretended to have voted for them and the world believes we voted for them. They are using us to validate that vote allocation. So, in a way, we made them what they are. But we have not been able to challenge them that we didn’t vote for them. By keeping quiet, we are also saying we voted for them. They are pretending we voted for them and we are also pretending we voted for them and they cannot publicly say we didn’t vote for them. That’s why I call it a country of drama and trauma.

How do you feel being a Nigerian at this point in time?

I feel like praying more that God will help us because He is our only hope. We are holding on to Him for our comfort. I tell Him He is the only one that can fix us. I feel helpless, because even if I shout, my shout won’t change anything.

Do you fear this country may disintegrate?

I am  too close to God to be frightened by anybody. I have had an encounter with God, so nobody can frighten me. Boko Haram cannot break Nigeria. Nobody can break Nigeria. Boko Haram arrogates to them-selves powers they don’t have. They don’t have monopoly to violence. They are pushing us to the wall and any man pushed to the wall can fight back. We can fight back in a more organ-ised way than what they think. They are fighting us with ven-geful spirit. When we fight back, we’ll fight back in a calculated manner. The man who is bitter has limited ability to think. A man who is bitter has shut down three generators: the generator of imagination and every great man is limited by his imagination. They have shut down their wisdom generating plant and once you take wisdom out of life, you run into failure. The difference between a failed marriage and a functioning successful marriage is wisdom. But a bitter man cannot main-tain, sustain and service his wisdom. A bitter man has also shut down the ability to think creatively. If we are to fight back, we will be doing so becau-se they have pushed us to the wall. When you are pushed to the wall, you have the under-standing of where your enemy is coming from; and under-standing answers all the que-stions in life.

Fighting back

I pray God that we will not fight back, because if we do they will be surprised by what will befall them. Fighting back does not nece-ssarily mean carrying guns. Under the sun, prayer is the most powerful thing. That is what people seem to underrate. In those days, the Israelites fought many wars. They won with prayers and not with ammunitions. If you bring God into any situation, you are going to win that battle. The same God that fought then can fight now if we make the right connect-ions.

What is the Church doing to change Nigeria?

But for prayers, we will not be where we are now. We are praying and I tell you prayer has taken us this far. Some of us are also confronting bad leaders. I tell you it takes a believer to confront leaders in Nigeria. He can only do it when he has discovered God can protect and provide for him. When a man has not found God, he cannot fight the gods that be, there are prayers for good gov-ernance, freedom, strength, knowledge, understanding and liberty.

Is Boko Haram about power change 2015 or a religious war?

It is a combination of the two because Northerners believe that power belongs to them. I don’t blame them. The Northern politicians have done better than the Southern politicians. The Northern leader believes he is holding power in thrust and he is there to serve. That is why on a given day, he can give food to thousands of people.

To him, he is holding that power in thrust. In the South, our lead-ers believe nobody voted for them and they are therefore little gods. In the North, they have beebn voted to power to become servant gods. As a result they cannot publicly disgrace their leaders or abuse them, but we can flog our lead-ers at the market square and pay boys to clap for us.

Once your friend becomes anything politically, he has become a masquerade. You can’t talk to him. You have to stay away because when he is flogging people in the market, he can flog you. So, you stay away until he comes down from his high horse. He avoids his old friends because they remind him of his days of poverty and he does not want the world to know of his past. He wants the world to believe he was born rich and powerful. It is a sentiment you can use to encourage Boko Haram. But that is not their desire. Their desire is to islam-ise the country. Even Northern leaders are afraid to speak against Boko Haram because Boko Haram has no respect for anybody. They can kill anybody.

Do you think we need a sovereign national conference?

Well, my friends have been talking about it and my question has been; who and who will participate in the conference? Are they not going to be the same Nigerians we gave a constitution and cannot operate it? Are they not the same Nigerians we gave a chance to govern us and they forgot us? I don’t know when we will find qualified jurors who will preside over the conference and show us the way forward.

The most cheated man in life is the selfish man. Maybe we can bring Ghanaians to do it for us because they are not as tribal-istic as we are. For us, it is the springboard on which we stand. I have said it over and again that we have not really become a nation. We are a combination of nationalities and everybody thinks he/she must protect his/her territory. No matter how long you live in any part of Nigeria, you cannot become an indigene; even when you have lived there for over 50 years.

With that mindset, how can we move forward? We see everything from a tribal coloration. When you meet Nigerians, they ask you where you are from. That determines their choice of words; that determines their attitude towards us. Unfortunately, nobody chooses where we were born into.

Until we defeat this lion called tribalism, this coun-try has no hope. Some people are surviving because of where they come from and they do everything to defend and protect it. They’re protecting it because of their stomach; because if you remove that platform, they will be thrown out of relevance.

What is your reaction to a prophecy that Nigeria will break up on or before 2015?

Once you know your enemy is coming to wage war against you or an armed robber is coming to attack you and the armed robber defeats you, then you are stupid. They told us some years ago that a sect was going to shake Nigeria but we did not listen to them. If we do not listen to them this time around, then we should blame ourselves. Our leaders should do something about it. We should see our-selves as a people from the same family, a people with the same challenges and needs. They should see Nigeria as the only country we have. We have enough to go round everybody. It is not where you are that determines who you are but it is who are you that determines where you are. You don’t have to be a senator or governor to survive. Whatever God has carved out for you will take you to your destination in life. You don’t have to amass all the money in Nigeria to survive.

Money plays little role in our survival in life. We should also recognise the sacredness in every one of us. I may not like you but you are precious to God and because God has the final say, I should love you for what you are. If we think we can do whatever we want and get away with it, we will keep misbehav-ing. Everybody has a God.

If you were invited to the federal executive council meeting for a talk, what will you tell them?

It is very simple. I will ask them how far they have gone with what God wants them to do as council members. Two, they should not deceive themselves; there is no judge over the affairs of men. God is not mocked. Whatever they sow now, they will reap. We will all reap whatsoever we sow right here.