Nations do not collapse because enemies are strong; they collapse because truth is gagged, prophets are silenced, and the people acquiesce to fraud as normalcy. Nigeria today is not suffering from a lack of resources but from a famine of bold, unbending truth. The hour is pregnant, and the cry of Elijah thunders across history: “How long will you halt between two opinions? If the LORD be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).
That was not rhetoric—it was a judgment. Prophet Elijah’s declaration was not an opinion poll but a verdict against a backslidden nation. And so it must be with us. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once roared, “If you are silent in the face of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Nigeria’s tragedy is that her pulpits and palaces are now overflowing with sycophants who flatter thrones but have lost the fire to confront evil.
We have too many Ahabs who trade the people’s inheritance for political crumbs, and too many Jezebels who enthrone corruption and call it strategy. Yet what we lack most are Elijahs—prophetic thunderbolts who will not kiss Baal nor dine at the table of compromise. As Prophet TB Joshua once charged, “When you stand for truth, you may stand alone, but you will never stand in vain.” That voice is what our nation is starving for.
The inverted reality is stark: it is not hunger that is killing Nigeria; it is hypocrisy. It is not poverty that shackles the land; it is betrayal by leaders who have exchanged principle for privilege. The prophet Isaiah declared, “Your builders shall rebuild the ancient ruins” (Isaiah 58:12). But ruins cannot be rebuilt by cowards. Rebuilding demands firebrands who, like Elijah, summon fire from heaven to consume falsehood, pretence, and systemic decay.
Courage, in this hour, is non-negotiable. Pastor Chris Oyakhilome once affirmed, “Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the mastery of it by the Spirit.” In other words, to confront the Jezebels of our time is to risk death, but to refuse is to embrace national suicide. Elijah stood not because he was immune to fear, but because he was consumed by conviction.
This is the haunting lesson: a man who kneels before God can stand before any throne, any system, any empire. Dr. Paul Enenche insists, “Destiny is not fulfilled by wishing; it is fulfilled by responsibility.” That responsibility is prophetic defiance. That burden is uncompromising truth. That calling is what will either resurrect this nation or bury her finally.
The spirit of Elijah must invade Nigeria’s pulpits, classrooms, courts, streets, and state houses. We need prophets, not performers; reformers, not puppets; firebrands, not flatterers. For if we fail to roar in this hour, history will inscribe our names as a generation that fiddled while the altars of Baal devoured our destiny.
But if we dare—if we, like Elijah, confront our Ahabs and Jezebels with unbending fire—then one day, our children will testify that in the age of drift, a remnant arose who called down the fire of God, and Nigeria was reborn.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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