IN other saner climes, looters or thieves like we have them here, will see shame because the system will trump him up as a deviant crook and reject him. Neighbours would watch him and hesitate to acknowledge him, they will follow him closely until he slips and they will provide the evidence to put him away in jail for a while.

But it is not like that in Nigeria, especially in the South East where Christianity seem to be thriving very well without any serious competition from other religions. A young Igbo boy, once he finds good money in his pocket, goes to his village and purchases a chieftaincy title. He will be either the ‘Onyiri Oha 1’ or the ‘Omeihiukwu 1’ or ‘whatever 1’ of his town or village.

None of them accepts to be the number two of their town, with the result that they create divisions in their families, which would usually run through to the town union.

Some very daring ones among them hijack the traditional rulership of the place entrenching perversity and lies in the community. How can kidnapping be stopped if people worship money and material things as we do in South East. If the five governors of the South Eastern states say kidnapping is beyond their capacities to curtail, then they should forget coming back to their Governors lodges come 2011.

The Church of God should stand up and tell these five men to forget contesting if they cannot guarantee security of people in the South East! Our governors in the South East must prove to the people that they are not involved in the complicity to drive away competent political opponents from the area through cultism and kidnapping in order to enjoy free ride to success at the polls in 2011.

In the South West where again Christianity reigns, a rich and perverse young man would buy cars, houses, throw great and wild parties and specialise in taking his neighbours and friends wives in turn to bed. In all cases whether in Igbo land, Yoruba land, or the South-South of Nigeria, the story is the same.

Pastors often use these deviants as societal symbols and testimonies of success! They are eulogised and admired by the compromised mind in a compromised altar.

The questions some ask include: Can this sin and wickedness against God continue without punishment from God? Will our Holy God accept a blemished and compromised church to come near heaven? Can a nation that is so pretentious and relishes in mundane pursuit with such an impunity escape God’s wrath?

Who will open the eyes of this nation if our prophets look the other way, while the devil plunders the people? Has the time not come when someone will tell government, for example, that the killing in Plateau State is enough? Should the Church and government wait till agitation and restiveness start over these killings?

The Holy Scriptures tell us that when Christ dismissed his spirit and died on the cross, the veil in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The Church is at the top of this nation, and God’s hand starts from the top. Let the Church of God in Nigeria rise up and fight corruption in governance; let its compromised altars repent and be cleansed and let the glory of God for Nigeria come!

Mr. Udegbe, a lawyer, writes from Lagos.