Obong Akpaekong
The first Emmah Isong Annual Public Lecture, which held at Transcorps Hotel, Calabar, on October 26, 2014 was a novelty in two different ways.
The first was that it was instituted by a cleric and not the government or some public institutions as had been the tradition. The second was that rather than focus on Christian living, it dwelt on efforts that would make the Nigerian project more successful.
The event brought together players from different political parties including the big two of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and All Progressives Congress, APC. They sat together in the beautiful events hall of the hotel listening to the two guest speakers as if they (politicians) were not die-hard rivals. A loud applause rent the air after Stella Attoe, a professor of History at the University of Calabar, was done with her segment of the inaugural lecture titled “Nigeria at 54: The Way Forward and the Essence of Democracy.”
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The thick applause was repeated when Prof. Emmanuel Ekanem, who was then the chief medical director of University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, ended his lecture titled “The Christian in Politics: A Case Study of William Wilberforce and its Lessons for Nigeria.”
Attoe had traced the evolution of Nigerian politics from the era of colonial masters to present-day democratic experience. Coming four months to the 2015 general elections, she admonished politicians, the electorate and Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to play the game by the rules and ensure that the exercise was peaceful and credible.
Ekanem recalled the efforts of Wilberforce in the abolition of slave trade, and enjoined Nigerian and world leaders to eschew modern-day slavery in whatever forms it might manifest.
Eight years on, both the religious and secular societies are happy that Bishop Emmah Isong, who is the presiding bishop of Christian Central Chapel International, CCCI, in Calabar, has sustained the lecture series and ensured that the momentum does not fall. The Eighth Emmah Isong Annual Public Lecture, delivered by a fellow cleric, Rev. Emmanuel Idu, pastor of Destiny Church International, Netherlands, on Isong’s birthday of October 26, was compelling, insightful and inspirational.
Participants had thought that with the topic, “They Desire a Better Country,” adopted from Hebrews 11:16, Idu would be talking about the wonders and beauty of heaven- that single hope of Christian faithful – and how to navigate to its shores. But no, he went the way of the technocrats, politicians and academics that have been delivering the lecture in previous years, pleading that all hands be on deck to make Nigeria a better country.
Netherlands, where the Nigerian-born preacher lives is the home of the International Criminal Court, ICC, at The Hague, popular for its trial of heartless world leaders and individuals who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, many of them Africans. Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia got a 50-year sentence at the ICC for war crimes he committed against his countrymen and Sierra Leonians. Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Cote d’Ivoire also spent a disgraceful eight years of trial in that court.
Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, a former Seleka commander in Central African Republic, also stood trial there for war crimes.
Well over 30 Africans from other countries like Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Mali and Uganda have stood trial in the court at The Hague. So did former Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
The Eighth Emmah Isong Annual Public Lecture doubtless, was intended to spur up the good people of the land to brace up with their ballot paper power and get involved in politics and governance so as to attain their desired better country.
Idu began his presentation by tracing the origin of political power and the conquering of kingdoms to the Bible and Nimrod, a descendant of Noah, who is said to have died in Ur in 1638 B.C. Reading from Genesis 10:8-10, Idu said the skillful hunter became a world model as a strategist, fighter and conqueror. He said Nimrod trained people and sent them to take over territories.
“In the world those who are stronger rule over the weaker,” he said, noting that the elite, the rich and the skillful everywhere, were coming together to form the government, which they use to oppress the weak and cause them to become weaker and poorer.
He tied the greatness of the biblical Pharaoh of Egypt to the skill of the youth Joseph, who interpreted his dream and advised him on the way forward for the Egyptian economy. Joseph became an instant political power as he was made prime minister of Egypt after that display of wisdom and skill. Pharaoh, using Joseph, bought lands from his subjects and became richer and stronger while the people became poorer and weaker.
He said that like Joseph, people with skill, money, wisdom and connection can always attain political power. According to Idu, who was at the lecture with the wife, Irene, the French, British, German, Portuguese and Spanish colonialists did the same when they scrambled for Africa, partitioned it and introduced Trans-Saharan slave trade, which depleted West Africa while they dominated the continent and made her people poorer and weaker. Rev. Idu expressed the joy that with time, the Africans discovered that the whites were not better than them and beg and to fight for independence.
In another example he cited, Idu said in France, royalties, nobles, aristocrats; priests and the then ruling Catholic Church oppressed the common people, who were mainly farmers. The French people also suffered for fighting a war to liberate America from Britain. Pushed to the wall by war, hard time, hunger and heavy taxation, the common people began to resist the authority, which resulted in the French Revolution of 1789 to 1799.
He urged Nigerians to revolt with their votes in 2023 general elections, by doing away with selfish and corrupt politicians if the better country of their dream must emerge. Idu also advised Christian faithful desiring for a better country to always step forward and contest elections.
Bishop Isong has won the hearts of his compatriots for instituting the annual public lecture. The lecture has shown that church leaders do not only pray and teach congregates the Bible and prepare them for the life after death but that they also take practical steps to promote political and socio-economic discourse and development of their nation. Over the years, the lecture has educated Nigerians on the electoral process, fought against election apathy and enhanced better voting patterns.
It has provided society a template for socio-religious activism while remaining a veritable instrument for stimulating political engagements aimed at improving the national economy. The lecture always comes with a book presentation. This year, the bishop presented his latest book titled “40 Ways to be the Shining Light.” There was also an essay writing competition with the topic, “They Desire a Better Country”, the topic of the Public Lecture in which 96 youths participated. Praise Odey Ojong, Esiere O. Kaiso and Favour Usang Effiom, winners of the first, second and third prizes of the essay competition were presented with cash awards of N200,000, N100,000 and N50,000 respectively.
Bishop Isong’s selection of lecture presenters from the circle of academics, top government functionaries, technocrats and clerics deserves commendation. In 2016, the House of Representatives member Onofiok Luke, then speaker of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly delivered the lecture, which was titled, “Nigeria’s Anti-Corruption War and Economic Recovery: The Connect.” The topic was timely and an adequate connect with the state of affairs of the nation as the Muhammadu Buhari-led central government was waging some war against corruption that many said was selective.
In 2017, Godsday Orubebe, a former minister of Niger Delta Affairs delivered the lecture titled “Can Restructuring take Nigeria to the Next Level?” It was a painstaking effort to identify the socio-economic and political problems the nation was facing and show how restructuring could free her from their grip. Prof. Tony Ukam, a Calabar-based lawyer, delivered the lecture in 2018 while Dr. Otuekong Ukut, a cleric delivered that of 2019 titled “Nigeria’s Indivisibility: A Case of Sacrosanct it or Sycophancy?”
In the seventh lecture (2020) titled “Curbing Drug Abuse: A Major Panacea to Reducing Crime in Nigeria,” the presenter Rekpene Bassey, a former chief security adviser to Cross River State government, lamented that the drug abuse situation in the country was alarming and that the federal government did not have the political will to enforce the necessary laws against it.
Bishop Isong, a widely traveled cleric and public speaker, studied Banking and Finance at the University of Calabar. He is the chairman of Cross River State Anti-Tax Agency and national publicity secretary of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN. Isong is also a former PFN chairman of Cross River State.
