Simply put,although in recent years,the number of Pentecostals in Nigeria has grown in leaps and bounds,it can not eclipse the Catholics over night. The conclusion to be drawn from the analogy above and what readers should ponder is: can the Obi-dients out number,out maneuver or over take the old politicians in Nigeria,just like that ? When 1.3 billion Catholics which l have likened to old generation politicians is matched against 644 million Pentecostals,that l have tagged as our youths or Obi-dients,the old generation politicians more than double the number of Obi-dients. The statistics above is drawn from the World Christian Encyclopedia,3rd edition (2020) which states that there are currently “644 million Pentecostals/Charismatics worldwide,including all the members of Pentecostalism’s 19,300 denominations and fellowships as well as all charismatic Christians whose primary affiliation is with other churches.”Īnd l would like for the purpose of this analogy to designate our youths or so called Obi-dients as the Pentecostals that have been around for 50 years compared to the institution of Catholicism that is at least 2000 years old. That means that one in twelve persons today is a pentecostal or charismatic Christian.” “The Catholic churches form a denomination within Christianity and,with around 1.3 billion believers worldwide, are the largest Christian grouping”.įor the sake of this analogy,the old generation politicians in Nigeria can be likened to members of the traditional religion like Catholics that have been around for over 2000 years and the oldest institution in the Western world.Ībout “8.3 percent of the world population. That is because it would take more than the first cut which is said to be the deepest, to dislodge the current political class from the political stage.Īnd l would like to assure our youths that some of the political grandees are willing to exit the stage.Īt least Turaki Atiku Abubakar, presidential flag bearer of the PDP has alluded to that in his recent public comments.Īnd,l am also obliged to intimate the youths that the elders that are currently bestriding the political space would prefer a proper succession plan which l would like to admonish our youths to work towards negotiating with them,as opposed to planning to maliciously or malevolently kicking them out as they appear to be planning.Īlso,since members of Gen-Z appear to be so fixated on joining the new fangled Obe-dient movement of which the name of God is being invoked in vain as mr Peter Obi’s emergence as Labor Party,LP 2023 Presidential candidate is being touted (in my view falsely) as a phenomenon endorsed by God and a chapter in the Bible -Ephesians 6:5 where the word obedient is mentioned is being used to justify the call for Christian’s to vote for Obi: l would like to stick to the trending ‘God’ narrative by leveraging data from Christendom in an analogy to drive home the point about the handicap that the Obi-dients face in their vaulting quest to catapult Obi into Aso Rock Villa in 2023.Īccording to a study published by the Vatican and also corroborated by Pew report,the population of Catholics all over the world is in the neighborhood of 17-18% of the world population estimated to be 8 billion.

So they should focus on graduated take over with a possibility of achieving their goal in 2027 That is when there will be a test of the will of the bulging youth population in Nigeria that has unprecedentedly seized the political momentum by registering massively and obtaining their Permanent Voters Card,PVC with which they are planning to vote in 2023 in order to retire those that they refer to as old politicians who they accuse of preventing them from benefiting from their common patrimony in the period that they have been at the helm of affairs.Īs a pragmatist,l have pointed out to our youths in the past that the so called old generation politicians that they intend to displace are like old foxes that can hardly be outsmarted.

The roost new leaf guide