President Goodluck Jonathan, today joined other Christian faithful to worship in one of the Anglican churches in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The Church of the Advent plays host to the President and members of the first family every year and the 2013 service had all the elements of Christmas, from popular carols to songs of praise and thanksgiving.
The First Lady read the first Bible lesson from the book of Isaiah chapter 9, verses 2 and 7, while the President read the second lesson from the book of Hebrews.
The Primate of the Anglican Church, Nicholas Okoh, spoke about the joy and peace that Christ brought, as they affect Nigerians.
“Do not join anybody to cause trouble, because you may be a recipient of the evil of the trouble. Do not join anybody to cause confusion because we have nowhere to go.”
While reminding the congregation and all Nigerians of the need to shun being used as political pawns, he said: “some of you don’t have international passports, do you? And the people who are telling you to do this, do that do not only have international passports, they have bank accounts, and houses abroad; they can go and stay there and at the end of the whole matter they come back.”
President Jonathan, in his goodwill message after the session called on the Nigerian clergy not to allow politicians to plunge the country into chaos as they want to do.
The president cited examples of events in countries like South Sudan and Pakistan and pledged that his administration will continue to do its best to ensure that the country does not degenerate into crisis.
He made the promise especially now that bitter criticisms of his administration and what he called unwarranted letters appear to be the order of the day, when according to him “we the politicians begin to think about our next elections, doing what we ought not to do, making statements we are supposed not to make, and writing letters we are supposed not to write.”
The President added that the country does not belong to politicians alone and called on men of God to continue to pray for the reign of terror to stop.
