From Austine Tule, Makurdi
The planed federal government’s regulation of the Church has received knocks from the Senior Pastor of the Spirit Life Christian Assembly, Thomas Shikaan.
The man of God in an interview with The AUTHORITY in Makurdi at the weekend described the move as most unfortunate, saying it was bound to fail.
According to him,” I think what the federal government ought to have done would have been to consult with renowned religious leaders in the country in the folds of , David Oyedepo, Chris Oyakhilome, Enoch Adeboye and a host of others with a view to knowing how they have been able to manage their resources viz –a-viz population of the people they manage instead of making attempts to regulate the church.”
Pastor Shikaan who equally threw his Weight Behind the recent call by the governor of Benue State Samuel Ortom for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference insisted it was an idea whose time was ripe.
He noted that most of the challenges being faced by the country were occasioned by a feeling of unfair treatment by some segments of the country which he said made the convocation of such a conference very necessary.
He said, “I want to add that for us to begin to make any way forward we must look critically into some of the salient issues that have continued put us on a coalition course with other nationalities.
“We must begin from knowing who are real Nigerians with a view to ascertaining our real population because as we speak you have a segment in our country where people who are below 15 years are allowed to vote and then how can you have a credible electoral process under such an atmosphere where some people are already place in advantageous positions ahead of others even before elections are conducted?”
Shikaan who also took the federal government to the cleaners over her proposed National Water Bill which seeks to concede five kilometres of land from river banks to the federal government added it was another subtle way of re-introducing the hitherto rejected RUGA settlement which was vehemently rejected by the people.
The man of God wondered why the federal government was bent on coming up with policies that were only targeted at advancing the economic interest of a particular segment of Nigerians.
“I you give out five kilometres to the federal government for instance from the River Benue then it means you would have conceded almost a half of Makurdi to the federal government and the same applies to other towns in Benue and we must stand up to resist this with every vehemence.
“Here too, I stand with Governor Ortom, who having studied the proposed bill saw the ills that were associated with it and raised an alarm that has now been agreed by a good number of Nigerians.”
