Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa has promised that he and his colleagues would continue to do their job of lawmaking and providing good governance for the people of the state.
Obasa added that Year 2020 had been a year of challenges for the country, state and the Assembly and that this warrants those that are alive to appreciate God Almighty.
The Speaker made the comment on Friday during the Year 2020 annual thanksgiving of the Assembly Chapel with the theme; “All Round Expansion.”
Obasa, who said that the day marked an opportunity to appreciate the goodness of God, added: “In every sense, the year 2020 has been a unique year with its attendant challenges. But the good book, the Holy Bible, admonishes us to faint not but be fervent in the spirit and that if we fail not, then surely, we will be counted among the victorious.
“As such, I declare each and every one of us under this canopy including everyone under the sound of my voice as victorious because we are alive.
“We are alive to see today and alive to move on despite the challenges we all faced this year. The book of Psalm, 147 verse 1 says: ‘Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing praises unto our God’.
“I, particularly, will sing praises to God because the Almighty God has done wondrous things in our midst this year. I will sing praises because, together with my colleagues and the inestimable members of staff of this assembly, we scaled through a lot in the year 2020, unscathed.”
The Speaker, who intermittently sang praises to God, said the year’s theme was carefully selected bearing in mind some of the challenges that were faced in the year.
“Our thematic text for this thanksgiving is taken from Genesis 1:28, which reads: ‘God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’.”
The Speaker said the word ‘expansion’ in this context speaks to the state of the nation presently.
“But it is our belief that the incoming year 2021 will be for our prosperity in all ramifications.
“Since we are created in God’s image, we are to be fruitful, or creative. God brought into being a flawless creation, an ideal platform, and then created humanity to continue the creation project,” he said while also quoting the Bible to back up his speech.
“You will all agree with me that the coronavirus pandemic experienced this year has reset the ‘norms of life’ button. The term new normal has become mainstream, as societies grapple with social adjustments and survival economies, so to speak.
“As such, concentrated efforts are being made to build resilience at various levels including healthcare, governance, socio-economic support, educational continuity, and togetherness management.
“Above all the efforts put into claiming our lives back as people, we are reassured in the word of God in Psalm 126 verses 1 and 2 that, ‘When the LORD restored the captives of Zion, we were like dreamers. Then our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with shouts of joy’. In the coming year, we will always have reasons to rejoice,” he prayed.
The Speaker said further that the Guest Minister, Apostle Wole Oladiyun of Christ LivingSpring Apostolic Ministry (CLAM) was at the Assembly last year and that he was invited to be in the programme this year based on his prophetic messages last year.
“I asked the committee that they must bring Apostle Wole Oladiyun back for the event this year. He told us that what happened this year would happen, but that we will survive it and we survived it.
“For a man to prophesy that something would happen and it happened it shows that he is a man of God,” he said while thanking the clergyman for his constant prayers.
Apostle Wole Oladiyun, who spoke extensively on the theme of the programme and thanksgiving, used the opportunity to pray for the nation, the state, the Assembly and for all those, who attended the programme.