By Toby Chuks
As Nigerians continue to face teething challenges of insecurity and economic hardship, Onitsha based journalist, author and socio religious activist Theo Rays Ejikeme has called on Men of God in their respective Churches and Ministries to as matter of divine work they are called to do empower their followers to do exploits in public interest most particularly public interest such as providing creative, innovative and corrupt free political leadership, creative, innovative and corrupt free civil service plus creative, innovative and corrupt free security service as well as creative, innovative corrupt free community service in cities, towns and villages
Ejikeme who is the CEO of Divine Illumination Integrated Concept and convener/host of Ekpere Ime Ogbe (community prayer drive) in his Easter message made available to journalists in Onitsha quickly blamed the failure to address challenges facing Nigeria to the fact that the citizens place private interest ahead of public interest thereby paving the way for private interest to control the system of life. According to him “in my observation people don’t see life beyond personal needs. People don’t see themselves as agent of service to others and consequently they end up using public positions to protect their private interest. That’s why Nigerians continues to find it difficult to address challenges”
He observed that Men of God focus their teaching, outreach and service delivery to protecting the private interest of their followers on the ground that it is the responsibility of government to protect public interest. “But who are the government? he asked, pointing out that “Government is made up of people who believe in God under various religious denominations. Take the Southeast region for instance, people in government in the Southeast are Church members who were born and breed in the Church and yet the Church at all times blame government for failure to address challenges”
Going further to buttress his point he added “Life is characterized by stages: from individuals to family, to kindred, to village, town, city, tribe, region and country onward to continent and then the universe. All of these stages requires human services in the order of private service, family service, community service and public service with public service top most important. Our problem is rooted in the failure to recognize the importance of public service ahead of private service. Nigeria is suffering today because people don’t have capacity to render quality public service
“Worse of all is that Institutions and organisations like the Church and school that are saddled with the mandate to prepare people to protect public interest are after their private interest. Both the Church and the school have been commercialised for private interest. We have a situation where people take loan from bank to run Church and school for private purposes. So Church and school is about private business not to churn out great minds that are capable to build a great society. That’s why Nigerians are suffering. The message therefore is that all of us have to stand up and face public service. That’s what we are doing at Ekpere Ime Ogbe initiative:
He explained that Ekpere Ime Ogbe is segmented on a four point agenda including how to be spiritual and physical at work, how to develop the family and the youth into productive services and how to protect private, community and public interest. He explained that the major emphasis is how people can work as messengers of God inline with what God fully represents for human beings observing that those who work for God as priests, reverends, pastors, bishops, general overseer among others fall short of what God represents for human beings in their day to day activities because they are selective in following Biblical message of God.
He blamed the failure of Men of God to empower people to render quality public service to the fact they are selectively following old message of the Bible that are no longer relevant to human system today. He cited the erection of Church building as old message that is no longer relevant in God’s system because according to him Church building represents the Temple where the Israelites worship God and operated their relationship with God but Jesus Christ is worship God in the order of truth and spirit and operating in open place, in the street, in village square, event place and on top of mountain in not in the Temple”
Going further on how to address the challenges facing Nigeria, the Onitsha based journalist called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu along with Governor of Anambra State alongside other Governors across the federation together with the National Assembly to as a matter of urgency widen the spectrum of national life by using the instrumentalities of religion, agriculture, sport, beverage, indigenous technology, indigenous medicine, chemical, textile and garment, entertainment, tourism, construction, designing and packaging to create more day to day activities for the people noting that the major cause of the problems facing the people is limited engagements.
He cited sport as example noting that a quite number of sporting activities including football activities are not in place in many parts of the country because both government and the private sector do not invest in sport. He added “we don’t need a prophet to tell us that the condition of life in Nigeria will improve tremendously if government apply tools like agriculture, sport and others listed above to create more activities for the people. That’s what we are doing with Ekpere Ime Ogbe”
