And to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord ” — Abraham Lincoln [A Proclamation For a Day of National Humiliation Fasting and Prayer, 13th March,1863.(Quoted in Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting by Derek Prince)]

Adeboye’s call to National prayer and fasting may appear to be a weak response to Nigeria’s present sociopolitical crises which have defied any hopeful solution.

The man of God was under fire recently as he was attacked by the presidency for pontificating ‘restructuring’ as an immediate solution to the state of socipolitical and economic quagmire facing Nigeria at the moment.

Adeboye, a strong proponent of the verities of the script contained in Chapter 13 and verses 1-3 of the Apostle Paul’s letter to Romans, has always urged all to respect and pray for those in political authority.

The highly revered and powerful man of God chose not to exercise his right to reply to the presidency but has chosen to call for a national prayer with fasting for 30 days beginning for Nov. 1 to Nov. 30

If anyone thought Pastor Adeboye’s call to prayer is a weak response then such a person is invited to take another look at history where even some of the most powerful peoples on earth had to, at the most critical times of national crises turned to the divine for help and political denouement from seemly hard and impossible situations.

Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States exercised his executive powers and signed a proclamation of a national day of prayer in 1863. Faced with a gruesome civil war as President, Lincoln knew only God Almighty could help him win against those who wanted slavery to remain. Therefore, Lincoln’s defeat of the Confederate seccessionists marked the beginning of the process of the liberation of the black man from slavery, to this day.

Seemingly impossible things like freedom and justice for oppressed and deprived peoples which happened in history could only later find explanations in some sets of coincidences which, not only resembled divine interventions but have been staunchly claimed by self-styled prayer warriors on a global plane, to be the actual hand of God shaping history.

What war and agitations could not achieve in many years, the faux pas of men often hastened to resolutions. Call it the force of history repeating itself but Christians refer to it as the Almighty God reigning in the affairs of men.

The cold war posed one of the biggest challenges to the United States of America (USA) in its modern history. Americans once lived everyday during that era in perpetual fear of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 indeed, brought the world to a brink of another nuclear war after the bombing of Hiroshima.

The USA and Soviet Union went ahead with an arms race that got both countries to a point of mutual assured destruction (MAD). And the world was torn into two between the iron curtain of the Soviet led Eastern bloc and the American led Western bloc.

I grew up in that era where Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov, later Mikhail Gorbachev dominated foreign news reports in No and, it was much about nuclear weapons and the possibility of World War 3.

But suddenly! Like a deux ex machina, the Berlin Wall came down, Lech Walesa emerged as President in a free Poland and the biggest one that hit the world- the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia was again born and a new figure Boris Yeltsin finally buried the USSR while George Bush, the American President was dazed. No one imagined all of these could happen without a nuclear war between the Soviets and the USA. But it happened without a war and the Christians said it was an answer to painstaking prayer of missionaries and churches. Consider it laughable but it happened just like they said they had prayed!

Derek Prince, as a British soldier fighting in the Middle East in the 2nd World War took interest in the future of a Jewish state and chronicled in his book, Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting , how the modern state of Israel was born. It was against all odds and plainly impossible to establish an Israeli state and to go on to maintain it against Arab invasion. But it happened and was attributed to prayer. The subsequent conflicts involving Israel, including the six day war and the 1976 deliverance at Entebbe were all attributed to prayer.

Considering the history of the attributes and influence of prayer in political affairs, when therefore, a cleric of Pastor Adeboye’s repute now resorts to prayer to find solutions to Nigeria’s problems, anything can happen!

As a born Anglican who once practised Pentecostalism and has resigned from attending church on account of excessive church politics and established hypocrisy and, I have suffered for it, I know with the tinge of God’s grace when a Christian leader means business. It will therefore be foolish not to take seriously, Pastor Adeboye’s call to prayer and fasting.

Whereas Adeboye’s call may appear to be made only to members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, I urge all Christians and Moslems in Nigeria to try and understand the claim of the divine in influencing political affairs for the good of all. I therefore urge all of us to heed the call to prayer and fasting as made by the man of God.

Frank Tietie, a human Rights Lawyer, writes from Abuja.