On Friday the Leader Of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Primate Elijah Ayodele, suggested that traditional deities, Sango and Ogun, as well as the Bible and Quran should be used to swear-in public office holders.
Primate Ayodele suggested that curses should be attached to the tools during the swearing-in of public office holders.
He said the government should look into religious tools to battle financial corruption instead of relying on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which always ends up losing cases against corrupt leaders.
Primate Ayodele said Christianity, Islam and the traditional religion should be employed in order to make judgment for corrupt leaders, instead of going through the court process which ends up leading to waste of state resources.
He made this suggestion while bemoaning the corrupt situation of some leaders in the Nigerian system of government.
The clergyman, in a statement by his Media Office, said for “anyone that believes in the traditional way, their gods (ogun, sango, etc) should be used to swear them in with curses attached if they become corrupt in office.”
He also cited that in the Bible, there are verses that deal with such things which will take effect immediately if the political leader defaults, also for the Islamic religion too.
According to Ayodele: ‘’Nigeria has gone deep in corruption and it’s becoming impossible to overcome it. This is because political leaders don’t fear the oath they swore before coming into office. They don’t see it as anything anymore because the institutions which are the judges that swore them in are not even strong enough, corruption has eaten deep into the judiciary system too.
‘’Going forward, the religious system should be allowed to take over the battle against corruption in Nigeria. This should include Christianity, Islam and the Traditional religion. There are verses in the bible that can make a corrupt leader get punished immediately. Let them allow men of God that are deep in spiritualism, punishment of any kind can be invoked on any corrupt leader at little or no cost.
‘’In the Quran too, Islamic cleric who are true to islam practices should be allowed to invoke punishment of corruption on politicians that err. No matter how hard the punishment may be, they deserve it. Even if it has to do with losing parts of their body for being corrupt, let it be so.
‘’Also for the traditional religion, there are god of iron, god of thunder, Esu, and others that can be used to punish anyone that err against their oaths. With this, fear will be instilled in our political leaders because they know judgment comes immediately they err. No investigation will be needed to carry out these punishments.
‘’These are what we need in Nigeria at the moment to bring an end to corrupt practices if not, we will not be able to overcome it anytime soon.’’
