Baptist Church Decries Hardship, Corrupt Electoral Process 

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Baptist Church has expressed worry over what it described as the unbearable high cost of living in the country.

Regarding the ongoing processes leading to the next year’s general election, the church said that what happened recently during the party primaries leaves a very bad taste.

President, FCT Baptist Conference, Rev. Dogara Raphael Gwana, who disclosed while addressing journalists in Abuja as part of the opening of the 7th annual session of the church conference, said the Nigerian market and economy are practically at the rooftops with both the rich and the poor all crying.

According to him, “the cost of living in Nigeria today has become nearly unbearable. All facets of the Nigerian market and economy are practically at the rooftops. Everyone, both the rich and the poor, are crying. This is so because the Nigerian society is a consuming society not a producing one,” he said.

Gwana said that it was regrettable that Nigerians at the moment are depending on importation for virtually everything they consume in this country.

He said, “The governments at the state levels don’t put in any efforts in establishing factories or reviving the ones that have gone moribund. All they do is to queue to Abuja every month to receive their allocation of the national cake. Although the federal government has invested heavily into the local rice production, yet the price of even the local rice produced in-country is still at the rooftops.

“Foodstuff, transportation and other daily needs of the common man are completely unbearable. While the church prays for government to be guided and helped by God, the government should show deliberate commitment and interest in the rescue of the country and the support of the common man,” he said.

He said that Nigeria is no doubt facing

multifaceted problems, ranging from social unrests, insecurity, rising crime and criminality and much more with little impact being made by government’s intervention.

Gwana spoke about attacks on churches in recent times, saying that such attacks have become so regular that the government’s excuses for not finding the perpetrators of the mayhem may no longer hold water.

“We condemn what is clearly religious intolerance in Nigeria. Several Christian communities in Southern Kaduna, Benue and Plateau states have long became killing fields and what pains the church is the fact that the criminals are hardly apprehended or prosecuted,” he said.

On the recent primaries conducted by political parties in preparations for the 2023 general election, Gwana said Nigerians were practically bought by those with deep pockets.

“What we saw recently during the party primaries leaves a very bad taste. It is unfortunate that the few people called delegates who have the responsibility of presenting elective options.

It is most unfortunate that those who aspire to govern Nigeria were spending foreign currencies,” he said.

Gwana also spoke on the controversy over the wearing Hijab by Muslim students in Christian schools, saying that with the ruling of the Supreme Court on the issue, federal government should ensure that schools previously owned by the churches but forcefully taken over by government are returned to their owners.

“All over the country, there are some schools that were established by some Islamic organisations which were taken over by the federal government when the Christian missions schools were taken over. Yet till today, those schools with the Islamic origins are still maintaining their traditions and cultures. But their Christian counterparts are being denied such rights. This is why we are joining the Nigerian Baptist Convention in calling for the return of all Christian schools that were taken over by the government during military era. Returning those schools will help their original owners to restore sanity back

to the system,” he said.