By Ijeoma Obioma.
A former Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC), Reverend Tor Ujah, has called on government to fund Faith Based Organisational institutions in the country.
Ujah shared his thoughts with journalists on Saturday night shortly after he was honoured by the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International in Makurdi, the Benue State capital.
He emphasised that the faith based organisation across the country had contributed immensely to education and health,hence the need for the government to fund the institutions.
“An award may be good recognition but what happens to the land is more important and that is why I would like that the Benue state government should give attention to working with, cooperating with and also helping to fund the Faith based organisations in their drive towards education, agriculture and Christian living, because everything is not silver and gold.”There is a greater need to build knowledge and character in leadership than we focus on mere physical things; salaries, inflation and others, they are important in life but the indices that build the people are first of all, mental and second, spiritual and third, the leadership driven.
“We need to build more leadership in our people, we need to increase the level of their spiritual awareness and lifestyle and we need to also increase our educational investments right from the very elementary level where people are small to the point where we think they’re big, people who are not are not as knowledgeable as they are and while the faith-based institutions; the church the ministries the different groups are doing it out of voluntary and service, it is a mandatory thing for government to do.
“Government is duty-bound to support this agencies. Whatever the government is doing they claim they do it for public institutions, for government owned public institutions, this is myopic, this is wrong this is to say that many people in our land if not for faith-based organisations, Christians schools, hospitals will not be anywhere. So it is our duty to return that investment, support the churches to build the land,” he said.
Ujah noted that though the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship does not build schools or hospitals neither does it engage in agricultural project, it however involved in preaching of the gospel to form character and to build leadership in the lives of people.
“it’s also important the government takes a critical role of supporting these institutions and many of the ways to support it will be by providing funding in the areas where they like what is going on, also by providing infrastructure; the government can build blocks of schools, provide laboratories, libraries for the schools and for the institutions that promote our values.
“Government can also help to promote the development of people from the rudimentary levels by providing scholarships to the children both in primary and secondary schools. These are even more important than our university levels who are grown and knows how to take care of themselves.”
He commended those who have been preaching the gospel both in Benue and across Nigeria as he posited that their contributions may not easily be seen now but will be seen much more in the future by the work that many of them are doing sacrificially and they ought to be supported.
The former NCPC boss added, “It is good that after many years, may be 30years, of spreading the gospel in the land, some groups are thinking it needful to recognise that service. For me the work that we do is more important if it has impact on the land that whatever we would receive.”
