The Founder and President of, World Royal City Church, Prophet Effa Emmanuel has emphasized the need for church and the government needs to work together to address the humanitarian crisis the country is facing.
Addressing journalists on Saturday during the 17th Anniversary of the Church and the opening ceremony of the meeting of a network of 4000 pastors in Nigeria, Prophet Emmanuel said some of the people in the rural areas have built trust on their religious leaders hence the need for the government to work with them becomes necessary.
He further proposed that the Church should be given a representative at the National Assembly so that he can represent the interest of the body of Christ when it comes to addressing humanitarian crisis.
“In every society, you can’t do without religion. Religion is a faith-based organization, and they are the people that interface with people at different levels. So yes, government needs to partner with so that they can get to people that ordinarily they will not get to, because there are people who would walk into this office, who have not eaten, but who would not walk to government offices, but because it’s a church, we are seen as a charity organization, we are seen as a philanthropic center, and so if government works with the church leaders will be able to reach more people than we are reaching now.
“And religious leaders have been able to build trust with the people, whether as pastors or bishops and prophets. So when we work with the government to reach these people, they will trust us more. So I think that it’s a collaboration that has been ages long and it’s existing, but I think we should have more of that.
“I even think that we should have a member of the housing representative who is representing the church, the Body of Christ, so that they can speak for the church, because you don’t know the pains of the church.
“So yes, that collaboration between government and religious leaders is very important because it will help them to know the plight of the people better than people who are coming to them just to give them what they want to hear”, he said.
Furthermore, Prophet Emmanuel urged the government to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive as a measure to address the current economic crisis.
“The first thing the government need to do to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians is to create an enabling environment, a fair environment for people to do business, because the government of any country cannot solve the problem of its people, it’s the people that solve the problem of the people, the government’s role is to create an enabling environment where there is water, where there’s peace, where there’s security, where there’s power, where all the resources are available, so that the least of us and the greatest of us can have the ability to thrive in that environment”, he asserted.
The clergyman also charged Nigerians to always think outside the box in order to create wealth, instead of depending solely on the government who have also ensured external and internal security for businesses to thrive.
“It is the private sector that generates jobs, and economic flow in every country to thrive. But because we have been solely dependent on the government for such a long time, now that the government is gradually pulling back, we are feeling left alone because we have allowed our creativity to go down.
“We need to begin to say I created this company, or I created this partnership, or I am leveraging on this and having these people come together so that we can create something to ourselves, for ourselves, just like the film industry is doing the movie industry is doing the music industry is doing that.
“Telecom is also doing that. You are seeing private individuals coming up and taking advantage of the population, the strength of our youth, and all of that to create jobs and create an economy that is vibrant and abundance”, he added.
Speaking on the activities to mark the 17th Anniversary of the church, Prophet Emmanuel noted that they have invited pastors from across the country to support them. He said they would be presenting 100 suits to pastors which will bring it to 1000 suits they have provided for pastors so far.
“This is our 17th year of existence, and we are using this occasion to celebrate our existence as a church and God’s faithfulness in our lives for these 17 years.
“We also have two associations that we have inaugurated; the Pastors’ Support network which is a network of over 4000 pastors and the grand alliance of Christian bishops and ministers. So, at the pastor support network, the Lord began to tell us to raise pastors who will be taught how to lead in this generation and raise pastors to support pastors. Usually, pastors expect support to come from outside, but we also said that support for pastors can actually come from within themselves.
“So, pastors are support networks, a network of pastors supporting pastors. We started with just a group of 10 pastors, and today we have over 4000 pastors, and in this two-years of existence we have got succor and encouragement to pastors, we’ve given up over 1000 suits to pastors, and most times, we help them out when they have crisis in their ministries and their personal lives.
“The grand alliance of Christian bishop is just a modern organization, and it is an organization of Bishops, today here we have over 50 Bishop from six states in the country, and they have all come to celebrate with us, as we celebrate our 17th year anniversary”, he added
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