2019 election: Catholic Church will enforce ban on political prophecy – Bishop Onaga

Enugu Catholic Bishop, Most. Rev. Callistus Onaga, has said the Catholic Church would enforce strict compliance to the directives by Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) that Catholic priests should not get involved in endorsement of candidates ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Bishop Onaga, who made the assertion while delivering his Christmas message at a press conference in Enugu, said, “The habit of some clergy men making predictions and showing partisanship in the way they preach at the altar has been stopped.

“The clerics shouldn’t engage in political prophecies on who wins or loses.”

The Bishop also urged Christians to extend love to all, even their enemies as well as the less privileged.

He, however, expressed concern over what he described as grave socio-political and economic situation prevalent in the country, saying that the country was sitting on a brink of extinction.

Bishop Onaga charged Nigerians to pray hard and to use the opportunity of Christmas celebration to seek God’s intervention in the land in order to avert the wicked plans of the devil against the country.

“In Nigeria today, you are all aware that things are going helter-skelter, not to just exaggerate; things are not going well. It will be wrong for anybody to say things are going well in Nigeria. Both politicians, men of God, businessmen, and all kinds of moguls know that Nigeria is sitting on the brink of extinction.

“And we are praying to God that 2019 will give us some hope. And I know; I believe that God loves Nigeria, something will happen.

“So, my dear people let us use the Christmas of this year to ask God to continue to lead us to the land of hope that we are moving to,” he said.