Presiding Bishop of Living Faith Church Worldwide (Winners Chapel), Bishop David Oyedepo, says that the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari is the worst administration in the history of Nigeria.
Speaking in the second of the five services conducted in the church last Sunday, Bishop Oyedepo, said at the 50,000 seater church auditorium of Faith Tabernacle, Ota, Ogun State, Southwest region that the hate speech bill being sponsored by Senator Sabi Abdullahi was the most ridiculous bill anyone could think of.
He lamented that while the government is seeking to criminalise hate speech, those who kill others at will are left to walk free.
According to Bishop Oyedepo: “The government in this country is making a draconian law – hate speech. They said if you speak hatefully, you have committed murder. Out of someone who says I will kill you and the one who kills, who has committed a crime? I don’t understand which kind of animal farm we live in. I said stop stepping on my toes and you said that is hate speech but somebody kills and he is walking free on the streets. This is the most stupid and nonsensical ideal anybody can think of.
“I said you are bad and you said that is a crime. Must I say you are good when you are bad? In my view you are bad and you shouldn’t be a leader. I have the right to say so. As far as I am concerned, I am a true born and thoroughly-bred Nigerian, an intelligent one. In my view this is the worst thing that has happened to Nigeria — this government. It is the worst and in fact it is like a curse.
“I have been here for some time and I led the first prayer and fasting for Nigeria in 1979. I am not a baby in the affairs of Nigeria. This is the worst government, a government with no direction. Their days are numbered. I can tell you as a prophet that their days are numbered.”
Meanwhile, irked by the Bishop’s posture, the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO), in a statement by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke,BMO said it was disingenuous for the Bishop to take to the pulpit to launch a scathing attack on President Buhari over a purely legislative matter.
“We make bold to say that the Buhari administration had no hand in what is clearly a private member bill that is not even a piece of legislation, yet an influential religious leader does not consider it necessary to direct his words at Federal legislators that would be considering it,” the duo stated.
BMO also took exception to the clergyman’s choice of words on Nigeria aside from saying that President Buhari administration’s days are numbered.
“To add insult to injury, the Bishop was even quoted as describing Nigeria as an ‘animal farm’. This is clearly not the type of comment one expects from a respectable clergyman.”
