The Primate Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Henry Ndukuba, on Sunday decried massive looting of resources that has impoverished the poor, stressing that inability to punish perpetrators has caused challenges.
Ndukuba who was a former Bishop of Gombe Diocese, made this remarks in an interview with journalists shortly after the 25th anniversary and launching of N500 million Walter Miller College of Nursing and Midwifery Kaltungo.
The Primate noted that there is nexus between poverty and corruption, stressing that the greatest insecurity in Nigeria is theft of collective resources.
“Nigeria is a blessed country. In fact what we have is enough to go round but when you see a man in his senses stealing billions of naira and nothing is done; he gets away with it where people who are blessed in privileged positions use the opportunity they have to loot the treasury of the people.
“Corruption is the greatest insecurity in Nigeria, until we kill corruption, Nigeria will not enjoy the prosperity that God has given her and until we deal with wickedness, there will be no peace because without justice we can’t get peace,” he said.
Ndukuba added that government and citizens must collaborate in the quest to tackle the hydra-headed monster, saying “Not only maintaining security in Nigeria there is need for the leadership both government and the people to work together because security is the business of all of us. We need to work together to make us we maintain peace and harmony and promote those factors that will ensure peaceful co-existence and security in Nigeria.”
On his visit to Gombe Ndukuba described it as historic, lauding the effort of the current and successive governments of the state.
He said, “This is coming home and it’s so lovely to step on the grounds of Gombe and we thank God for the great things that the Lord is doing.
“What the Lord is doing through his Excellency the governor and the leaders of Gombe State, we doff our hats for the emirs and all the leaders because the wonderful thing in Gombe is that the government, traditional, religious leaders are working together to see that we maintain peace to create an atmosphere that is suitable for people to do their legal and legitimate businesses with all that is happening in terms of insecurity in Nigeria this is one of those states that people can close their eyes and sleep.”
On the Walter Miller College of Nursing and Midwifery, Kaltungo, the Primate appealed for support adding that the vision was to bridge the gap in health personnel in the state and region, “by the time the Lord gave us the vision to establish the college of Nursing and Midwifery the North-East where we served was one of the most dangerous place to give birth to a child because of infant mortality was high and women that die while giving birth was high and we thought that one of the things the church must do in working with government in order to take care of the people because the government may not do everything so the church, religious organisations must partner with government in order to provide for the people that how we came up with this vision,” he added.
Continuing Ndukuba added, “our desire is that with this college of Nursing and Midwifery we will raise people from the grassroots, sons and daughters of Gombe ego will be so qualified that they can not only work in Nigeria but in any part of the world. We call on government and all the agencies that can help us to ensure that the college comes into full operation so that Gombe and the North-East will have a place to train not only skillfully, but professionally with the fear of God that move gave birth to healthcare.”
Ndukuba added, “Originally, healthcare should not be priced or given to only those who can only pay the highest money. It should be caring, compassionate mission and ministry. Our people are suffering we can’t afford to close our eyes; let’s the rich, privileged in the society help, let the religious organisations help instead of fronting our wealth, driving big cars and fly in private jets, we should turn to the needs of the people, the best thing to do is to sow in the lives of the people.”
