A preacher once said in his sermon that the intensity of attacks we get from adversaries is an indication that we are actually standing on the right path to our break through.
It is most often, at that stage all we need is tenacity of purposed to be more focused on our goals because all they want to achieve is to distract us.
Take for example, a football match, the attack goes to the man with the ball and the attack becomes stronger when taking the ball to the goal post and trying to score a goal.
Now, in Edo state, we are all witness to the political intrigues going on and the reorientation that it is not business as usual in governance and politics by politicians.
As the Governor Godwin Obaseki led administration clock one year in the second tenure few days from now there have been alignment and realignment of political forces both in the All Progressive Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the political space.
As usual, you cannot please everyone if you must succeed and those who have pitched themselves against the incumbent governor of Edo state, Mr. Godwin Obaseki have put up arguments to condemn the giant strides of the administration apparently to distract the governor.
Though, not a new phenomenon in politics, but it should be noted that there are lessons to learn from all that is playing out in Edo State today, especially when it has to do with who we should associate with at any particular time.
Those we associate with are obviously a very strong influence of our human life and they either makes us achieve our goals or derail us from the path of the goal.
In other words, the caliber of people we hang around with have a very strong influence on how our life will go. It also means that the kind of people at the helm of affairs in our life or around us will obviously determine what happens to us and no wonder it is often said that people get the kind of leaders they deserve.
Irrespective of how blessed we are or talented and gifted, what God plans to do in our life or want to use us to achieve can be possible or destroyed by the people we associate with or the people who control the affairs of our lives.
In a nut shell, these people have very strong influence and impact over our life to the extent that they direct us to the path that leads to their own inclination and while moving with such particular kind of crowd their urge to satisfy their selfish motives rubs off on our life.
In Edo state today, the focus of the present administration is no more in doubt that it is people oriented which goes contrary to the expectation of those who think otherwise and want the old ways of sharing the tax payers resources amongst themselves to remain.
They forget that with the revolution spreading across the world, so many things are changing, and politics is not an exception because the focus of any good government is the welfare of the people and not the politicians or those in the corridors or kitchen of government.
In the past, due to some political affiliation and the need to service allegiance of party stalwarts, it was difficult for definite decisions to be taken that will put an end to some form of acquiescent relationship even when it is counterproductive for the overall interest of the people.
We sometimes feel that when we are part of an organization or in a relationship with others, it is difficult to be bold to take certain decisions like pulling out when it is no more mutually beneficial from that relationship and that becomes our undoing, because most times until we do that, God may not be able to accomplish his plans for us.
We really require being at the right place at the right time, in the right group or association of people for some meaningful achievements to be attained.
Therefore, whom we associate with matters a lot. There was a man that Jesus Christ wanted to heal that was blind. The Bible says Jesus walked the man out of the city. He had to change the man’s association and his location in order to give the man the miracle.
I am of the opinion that if God wants to change a situation, He filters the good from the lot and causes some rumbles, which ordinarily may not seem comfortable before his purpose manifests because His ways are just not our ways.
From that story, If Our Lord Jesus is God in the flesh, He would have been able to do the miracle anywhere; He could just have been able to heal the man, regardless of whom was there. But He moved the man from the city, He took the man completely from where he was and from the people he was with, in order for the miracle to be possible.
This made me to believe that there are things that God cannot do for us or for our community, state or nation, until He successfully changes where we are or who we are with and this is very important even in our present political dispensation.
This understanding is very necessary, so that we don’t continue to pray and fast endlessly for a situation and at the end there are no answers, and we wonder why God is not doing what we expect.
The problem may just be that we are going with the wrong crowd of people in the name of one association, club or political party or whatever, and God need us out of them. He may just want us out of that circle for Him to do that which He wants to do.
While we commit our leaders into Gods hand in prayers, we need to understand that when there is a shaking or what seems to be a movement of sorts, it is a sign that there is something God wants to do especially in this season when all attention is gradually focusing on 2023
As a matter of fact, we should not in any way resist change, if God is involved, we should let God move us from where we are, from whom we are with, the group of friends we are associating with, so that He can do what He wants to do because God knows the beginning and the end.
Interestingly, there must be some kind of change and such changes do not actually call for enmity, No. In politics there is no permanent friend or enemies since it is all part of the game and such political movements and shakings going on in the state are very normal.
In the book of Psalms, which is one of the biggest and important books in the Bible, look at the very words that opens the book? It says in Psalms 1:1 – “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sit in the sit of the scornful.”
The truth is that we do not need everybody in the name of one association or political party because there are people who make progress when certain persons are around them, while there are others, they stop progressing when certain persons are around them and when they are striving to make progress, they are either distracted with unnecessary criticisms or the through the pull him down syndrome.
But, when such persons refuse to be distracted and move ahead without such overload they make appreciable progress.
As some politicians heat up the polity, we should know that there is nothing worse than having the wrong people around us or the wrong set of politicians who are only concerned about their interests and careless about the people they are suppose to serve.
Such Politicians are more interested about where their bread will be buttered and interests protected. They are shameless politicians who want to remain in the corridors of government by hook or crook forever.
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Eubaldus Enahoro is Editor of the Nigerian Observer
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