Mr Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer of Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), has warned that if Nigeria must live, the killings around the country must stop.

Adeboye said this when he paused his sermon at the church’s May Holy Ghost Service at the Redemption Camp last night to call on the congregation of thousands of people to join him in praying for the end of killings in the country.

He also said when a bishop of another church asked him who would win the 2019 election, he replied that unless the killings stopped the 2019 elections may not hold because people would be scared to go out to vote.

“When people are not sure about their safety how would they go out in parts of the country where killing is rampant to vote,” he said.

He, however, explained that the threat to elections was his personal reasoning and not a prophecy.

Recalling the effect of the killing of 17 people, including two priests in Benue State last month, he said it threw him into a sad mood, prompting his wife, Mrs Folu Adeboye, to ask him in Germany, where they were holding a programme of the church, why he was not his usual cheerful self.

“As a leader people from various denominations call Daddy, the 27 people killed were my children who were in a church or returning from a church programme,” he said he told his wife, who had not heard the news then. “As a father, I naturally became sad over that.”

Two priests and 15 other people were killed in an attack by armed herdsmen who invaded St. Ignatius Quasi Parish Ukpor-Mbalom in Ayar-Mbalom community of Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue on a Tuesday morning. No fewer than 100 houses in the community were also razed in the attack.

A week after, about 10 people returning from morning mass were murdered by suspected herdsmen in military uniform in Naka, Gwer West Local Government Area.

The attacks have continued in Benue and many other parts of the country.

In March, Adeboye visited Benue State, where he expressed displeasure with the mindless killings of people in the state and other parts of the country. He confessed he wept when he saw the people weeping over the loss of lives and property.

“Of course, no man of God will see a mass burial anywhere and not feel the pains of the people affected,” he said.

PT