By Dapo Akinrefon

LAGOS — The Patrick Utomi-led United Niger Delta Energy Security Strategy, UNDEDSS, yesterday warned Pastor Chris Okotie against utterances that can incite the public against national peace.

In a statement by its Executive Secretary, Mr Tony Uranta, the group said Okotie’s constant unsubstantiated false utterances against Nigeria’s leadership were unbecoming of a man who claimed to be a “man of God.”

Okotie, who is founder and presiding pastor of Household of God Church International Ministries, over the weekend said President Goodluck Jonathan’s declaration for the 2015 presidential election on November 11, 2014 had occult significance.

Okotie, who wrote on his facebook page on Friday, emphasised that the exact date the President made his declaration had a ritualistic undertone.

He said: “The implication of Dr. Jonathan’s declaration on that day (11-11-2014) has occult significance. When the number is repeated, it takes a greater ritualistic intensity.

It should be recalled that Okotie, a 2011 Presidential candidate of the de-registered Fresh Democratic Party had also in 2007 claimed that he was called by God to rule Nigeria but blamed the leadership for his failure.

In a statement issued in Lagos, Uranta, a member of the defunct Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue urged those close to the cleric to advise him to stop uttering “nonsensical partisan politics gibberish, and toe the true line of a Pastor for the sake of his followers.”

Berating the cleric, Uranta maintained:“It is a shame that one who claims to serve God should make such an utterance based on his personal but diabolical belief in numbers which in itself is anti-Christianity. “