The Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Baptist Conference on Wednesday, celebrated its 10th anniversary as it commends Barrister Nyesom Wike for his developmental projects in the FCT.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, the President of FCT, Baptist Conference, Reverend Dr Gwana Dogara Raphael explained that the Conference emerged through a unanimous decision of the former United Baptist Conference to regroup into two conferences.
He said the then United Baptist Conference covered Abuja, Nasarawa and Benue states, but today there is the FCT Baptist Conference and Benue-Nasarawa Baptist Conferences.
The theme for the Annual Session is, “when the righteous pray”, taken from James 5:16b which says that the fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much.
While commenting on the state of the nation, Reverend Raphael said food items and other household items have become difficult to touch.
He said the current hardship however, is because of a long-drawn failure of succeeding governments to take certain difficult decisions.
The Clergyman said whatever government is doing should go beyond palliatives, stating that Nigerians deserve much more than palliatives.
“I believe that the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has good intentions for the people. I equally believe he has strategies to implement these policies.
“The only appeal is that some of the policies should carry a human face. No man continues to beat a child even when the child is crying and shedding tears of blood.
On security, the FCT Baptist Conference President acknowledged the successful military operations against the terrorists, bandits and kidnappers.
He however said there are still incidences of kidnaping and all forms of criminality in several parts of the country. He expressed belief that government has all it takes to tackle this menace and end the miscreants.
“All the intel about the operations of these evil men is at the behest of government. We believe also that the sponsors of these evils are not spirits, and government can fish them out.
“We need to see that some people are caught as sponsors and dealt with. Often times we see the Nigerian Police or military parading young men that have been caught with weapons and nobody cares to ask who got the arms for them”, he noted.
On the agitation for Shariah law in South West, Reverend Raphael expressed shocked and disappointed by the quest of some fundamentalists to introduce full sharia law to the Southwest.
He said Shariah law is an Islamic law that assumes full practice of Islamic precepts as the civic obligation of everyone.
According to him, the implication of this is that non-Muslims within such a state are considered secondary citizens as they either surrender to Islam or they are denied certain fundamental rights”, he added.
Speaking on development projects in the FCT, the Clergy commended the ongoing road projects in the Federal Capital Territory under the leadership of Barrister Nyesom Wike as the Minister of the FCT.
“We wish him divine guidance, strength and wisdom in the assignment. Many roads that were abandoned are now open and traffic gridlocks are becoming history in FCT gradually”, he said.
He announced that in the 10th annual session, every department of the Conference will look into all the challenges mentioned above and several others, and cry to God in prayer for divine intervention.
“We will educate ourselves about our civic responsibilities and spiritual obligations to the country. It is our hope that by the time we are marking the 11th anniversary of our Conference, our country will have become a better, safer and richer place”, he added.
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