The Labour Party’s presidential candidate for the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, has stated that his opinion on church vigils has been widely misunderstood following his recent interview stating that Nigeria needs to convert night vigils to night shifts so that individuals can be more productive
A trending part of the interview on The Honest Bunch podcast where Obi said, “We live largely in a very unproductive society, that’s why the only thing that is attractive here is politics and church. We need to dismantle it and we’re gonna turn night vigil into night shifts so people can be productive
I go to church, I believe in God but we cannot have people Monday to Friday be in church morning and night, no. If I go from here now to my house, the only signboard you will see is sign board of churches, you to the East it’s burials. That’s not a country, if you go to any other country you will see products.
While some praised his plan as a way to boost productivity among religious individuals who are unskilled and, others criticized it as an infringement on religious values.
However, in reaction to the wide misconception the Peter Obi Media Reach (POMR) rejected accusations that he campaigned for the church’s dismantling adding that the interpretation of the recent media interview was misleading.
Obi’s position on the alleged ‘dismantling of churches’ clarified through his media aide, Ibrahim Umar, highlighted that there was “a huge twist” in his remarks during the interview.
“The Labour Party leader is well known as a man of strong faith who has enormous respect and love for every religion and tried in the referenced interview to bring to Nigerians how religion can be more effective in their lives. Obi, in the interview, was merely underscoring what Apostle James said in ‘Faith without Works is unhelpful.
We have been made aware of a significant distortion of Obi’s recent media interview, which erroneously claims he called for the dismantling of churches in Nigeria. The headline given to the interview has misrepresented the essence of Obi’s message, twisting it to serve a mischievous agenda.”
Even Jesus Christ did not choose his 12 disciples while they were praying; he found them working-fishermen, tax collectors, and so forth,” he said. Umar pointed out Proverbs 14:23, which states,
“All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
There is no biblical evidence of Jesus blessing an idle person; instead, he consistently rewarded hard work, as seen in the Parable of the Three Servants (Matthew 25:14-30), where the servant who produced greater profit through diligent effort received the larger blessing,” Umar
