The Peter Obi Media Reach (POMR) says its attention has been drawn to a "huge twist in his recent media interview, saying erroneously that he called for the dismantling of Churches in Nigeria."
Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in 2023 election, had in a recent interview with Nedu Wazobia on his podcast, argued that he would convert night vigils to night shift, while noting that Nigeria needs a productive economy, not prayers.
The remark has been misinterpreted in some quarters, critics accusing him of speaking against the church.
But in a statement by Ibrahim Umar, POMR Spokesman on Monday, the media office noted that by the headline given to the interview, the import of OBI’s message has been greatly overturned and grossly distorted to serve a mischievous end.
"The Labour Party leader is well known as a man of strong faith who has enormous respect and love for every religion and tried in the referenced interview to bring to Nigerians how religion can be more effective in their lives," the statement said.
"Obi, in the interview, was merely underscoring what Apostle James said in (James.2.14)” Faith without Works is unhelpful” and in (James2.24) “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone”
"When Obi said that he would turn night vigil into production night, he was only stressing the importance of worshipping God through work.
"Even Jesus Christ never picked any of his 12 disciples where they were praying but where they were working: fishermen, tax collectors, etc.
"Proverbs 14:23 even copiously explains what happens if you fail to work: “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”
"What we are doing in Nigeria, which is what Obi's interview is highlighting as wrong and should discontinue is exchanging work for prayer when the two should go together.
"There is no evidence in the scripture where Jesus Blessed an idle person; rather, we see abundant evidence of him blessing hard work as captured in the Parable of the Three Servants (Mathew 25 Vs14-30). The servant who delivered greater profit out of harder work got a bigger blessing.
"The problem In some of Nigeria’s worshipping communities is that they are not following St James advisory(James.1.22) that we should be ‘doers of the words’
"So, Peter Obi's media office wishes to put it in an unmistakable tone that the slant being given to our Principal’s interview by some media houses negates the essence and should be disregarded.
"As a man whose campaign mantra is on taking Nigeria from consumption to production, and watching the country going down because of lack of production, Obi's message should resonate properly away from the intention of mischief makers.
"Obi's two main quotes in the interview 'It’s attractive, politics and church, but it has to be dismantled. We are going to turn night vigil into night shift so that people can be productive,' all try to explain what is wrong in our worshipping culture that should change so that we can be in a good state of mind and body while glorifying our creator."
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