"President Goodluck Jonathan is a 'war time president'...we need a President with a heart of a lion" – Rev. Oladimeji Thompson

Reverend Oladimeji (Ladi) Thompson is the Founder/Senior Pastor of Lagos-based Living Waters Unlimited Church, and the international Co-ordinator of Macedonian Initiative, a non-government, non-denominational organization established to provide succour to Christians persecuted because of their belief in Jesus Christ. Lately, the security consultant has assumed the office of a Special Adviser to the National President of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, on Anti-terrorism and Security Matters.

In an interview with Sam Eyoboka, Rev. Thompson outlines the serious security challenges currently threatening the corporate existence of the nation and how best the Jonathan Administration can tackle same.

Rev. Thompson said: "We are at a point in Nigeria where if we need-ed wisdom before, we need double now. From the colonial times till today, the city of Kaduna has been the heartbeat of northern Nigeria and the spiritual barometer of our national development. From colonial era till today, Kaduna dictated the pace of the country."

"It is clear that this Federal Government does not have the people who have the good capture of what the problem really is in Nigeria and because of that it is making matters worse every-time. For many years church elders have been able to restrain Christian youths from retaliating; each time they see their homes wasted, their relatives killed. Youth connotes energy; restiveness, aggression."

"In reality, Jonathan is a war time president. There’s war going on. What has happened in Jonathan’s case is that he has refused to acknowledge that there’s war in Nigeria. In the incident of 9-11, you can situate Nigeria into USA 55 times over. Four incidents in four different American locations; there have been Islamic attacks in 300 places in Nigeria. When American wise men sat down, checked what was going on, they declared that a new type of war was being waged against the sovereignty of the nation."

"So, the reason why things are going from bad to worse is because we need a president with a heart of a lion and with the ability of an army general to preside in war times. Secondly, nobody has urged the president to wage war on an external enemy; he is being asked to recognize war just as Britain, US Spain India and many nations of the world recognized that there is a new type of war. For every single day that Nigeria refuses to acknowledge that this is a nation at war, we are moving closer and closer to a shameful end of a nation that was designed by God to be the pride of Africa."

"When it comes to the area of security, the government has done badly. In fairness, the government did not create the problem which has been there since the 1950s when we were practicing a constitution that was forced on us as a nation. The point is, through the years, Nigeria needed a consensus leader who will make things better, but somehow such has eluded us."

"So with every successful generation, the matter has gotten worse. But it apparently looks as if the harvest of ineptitude is now coming and this government is probably going to go down in history as one of the worst in Nigeria; not necessarily because they are actually the worst but because somehow, fate positioned them at the time the meltdown of Nigeria began to increase." He said.