The NATIONAL PRAYER ALTAR
MARATHON PRAYERS
Monday 2nd – Sunday 8th March, 2026
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3).
The matter of effective Christian leadership in a period of national Christian crisis shall be examined again in this prayer call. The attention being given to this matter is neither to promote strife in the Church nor to condemn fellow Christians but merely to alert everyone to deal with the impending dangers. Wherever the Islamists succeed in entrenching themselves, to uproot them has been almost impossible. There are many Christian countries Islamized, but no record of one Islamic country Christianized. Therefore, the Islamists must not be permitted to entrench themselves in Nigeria. For the resistance to be successful, Christian leadership must be completely on the side of the Church. Christian leadership is crucial to the outcome of this conflict.
Nigeria is facing the risk of having twenty-four years of uninterrupted Islamist rule if a Muslim should emerge as the president of Nigeria in 2027. A Muslim president in 2027 will end his tenure in 2031, making it sixteen years of Islamist rule from 2015. He will likely hand over to the Muslim North for another double-tenure that could continue until 2039. Taking cognizance of the current advance and aggression of Islamist terrorists nationwide, twenty-four uninterrupted years of Islamist rule will redefine Nigeria’s secular status. If that should happen, the first casualty will be the Church. For instance, at a recent prayer meeting, a brother lamented that the sound of Christian prayer meetings is no longer heard in many parts of northern Nigeria. This is the time for Christians to challenge their leaders to be vibrant in putting measures in place to preserve religious balance in the country. The 2027 election is crucial for the Church, unless God has other plans.
Buhari informed Nigerians that Tinubu would continue from where he stopped. He knew what he was talking about. The following are an example of the concerns:
1. Tinubu pursued Nigeria’s first-ever sovereign Sukuk issuance, a Sharia-compliant Islamic financial instrument, to diversify financing sources. The National Assembly approved a plan, including a $500 million debut sovereign Sukuk, as part of broader external borrowing plans. Of course, this was presented as an economic policy. In 2017, Prof. Ishaq Akintola of MURIC had said, “Jihad is not limited to war. There is intellectual jihad, political jihad and economic jihad. Sukuk is a form of financial or economic jihad.”
2. In late 2025 and early 2026, the federal government formally launched the Nigeria National Halal Economy Strategy. President Tinubu, represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, unveiled the strategy as part of “efforts to position Nigeria to tap into the global halal market,” which is estimated to be worth about US $7.7 trillion. The strategy was developed in collaboration with Saudi Arabia’s Halal Products Development Company (HPDC) under a bilateral cooperation agreement signed in 2025. Could this be described as “food jihad”?
3. There are concerns about the ideology of the new Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) appointed by Tinubu in 2024. That Council is the body charged with developing the educational curriculum for schools. The man at its head is the author of a book entitled THE ISLAMIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE. He is also the National Coordinator of the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Nigeria. The Islamization of Knowledge is designed to recast the whole idea of human knowledge from the standpoint of Islamic thought (Raji Alfaruqi). It opines that knowledge as we know it should be isolated from western or secular perspective and be infused with Islamic elements (Naqib Al-Attos). A few years ago, Christians had to resist certain portions in the curriculum tagged “Religion and National Values,” where sections in that curriculum denigrated other religions while promoting Islam. That was to have been fed to young minds. Education jihad?
4. To fight terrorism, Nigeria entered into security agreement with Turkey, a country which, allegedly, supplies weapons to Boko Haram. Turkish defence contractors arrived in 2022. Last month, Tinubu went to Turkey to strengthen ties to ‘fight terrorism’, after a call by Sheik Gumi for the government to do the very thing.
Of course, liberal-minded Christians would join Muslims to dismiss these apprehensions, claiming that those are ‘government policies’ meant to ‘benefit’ the country. Section 10 of Nigeria’s Constitution states, “the Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.” Why should the same government pursue religion-based policies? Those who are familiar with the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya (approved deception) know that these apprehensions cannot be dismissed.
Under these circumstances, a conscientious Christian leadership should be mobilizing Christians to forge a powerful political base to ensure that a non-Islamist emerges as president of the country in 2027. That would restore balance to the polity and dismantle worrisome religiously inclined policies and structures in the country. Unfortunately, some Christian leaders would rather be breaking Ramadan fast with Muslims and paying courtesy visits to a president under whose watch 141 million Nigerians live below poverty level, to thank him for ‘taking care’ of ‘poor Nigerians.’ That is sycophancy unrefined. Their latest gaffe is to name the CAN Secretariat in Lagos State after the wife of the president. This is evidently a fawning decision, not a Holy Spirit-led one. Sometimes, Christian leaders play a brand of politics that weakens the Church rather than protects Christians.
This prayer call is an attempt to clarify issues for Nigeria Christians and prevent a misunderstanding of good intentions for the Church. Christians should not conclude that anyone is ‘ganging up’ against Christian leadership. The public engagement of these issues will have been unnecessary if Church officials gave room for dialogue, but they suspect anyone who objects to their compromising leadership style. Consequently, the issues spill out into the open, in front of the same Christians who would ultimately face the consequences of their mistake as well as of everything going on in the Church and in the country. If Christians are right in demanding accountability from political leaders, should Church leaders be exempt from similar accountability?
It is necessary to separate the OFFICE from the OFFICE HOLDER. The apex Christian body is the institution. To run that organization, people are appointed/elected from time to time to oversee its affairs. Those officials are the “office holders”. To protect the institution, accountability must be demanded from the “office holders”. While the institution is sacrosanct, its officials can be held accountable. Christians should not conclude that demanding accountability from Christian leaders means “fighting CAN”, or challenging the institution.
There has been an uncomfortable shift in leadership focus in CAN from 2016. When it started, the National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) was alarmed and warned that if the error was not corrected, Nigeria Christians would suffer unduly. Fraud of criminal proportions was committed. Instead of addressing that, some Christians chose to attack the whistleblowers, with the Church officials preferring rather to collaborate with the Islamists.
These family issues might have been resolved quietly if leadership embraced constructive dialogue. Unfortunately, it was leaders who would rather send the police after those offering helpful management audit, right in the house of God. A Christian leadership that would send the police to arrest members of the Church is not being Spirit-led.
The clergy should hold a conference to review their performance in the 50 years of leading CAN. That will make more meaning than the diamond jubilee fanfare of CAN in August 2026. A leadership under whose watch tens of thousands of Christians have been murdered and still being murdered, thousands of Church buildings destroyed, hundreds of Christian communities sacked, and millions of Christians forced into IDP camps for over ten years, has nothing to celebrate. The clergy should come to terms with the oft-repeated recommendation that laity professionals should be involved in Christian leadership. The Church must put its “first eleven” on the field. The Islamists are not joking. They are steadily pursuing their objective of an Islamic theocratic state in Nigeria. The Church cannot be sacrificing its members for those who laugh regularly to the banks..
PRAYER POINTS
1. Eph. 1:17
Pray for the spirit of wisdom and revelation for Nigeria Christians to understand the season they are in and what they ought to do.
2. Is. 5:13
Pray for the outpouring of divine knowledge upon the Nigeria Church so that Christianity will not perish in Nigeria due to lack of knowledge.
3. Jude 1:3
Pray for zeal and commitment for Christians to contend for the Christian faith in Nigeria.
4. Zech. 11:4-5
Pray that God will execute judgement on the shepherds in the Nigeria Church who sell out the people of God as flock for the slaughter.
5. Titus 1:5-9
Pray that God will move with jealousy for His people and reorganize the Nigeria Church to confront the Islamist invasion.
6. 1 Jn. 3: 8
Prayerfully destroy all the works of Satan in Nigeria and in the Church.
7. Heb. 13:3
Remember the Christian IDPs and pray that God will burden the Church with their afflictions so that Christians will join hands to support them.
