The African Church Primate, His Eminence, Dr. Emmanuel Udofia, has urged Nigerians to always pray for the country over spates of insecurity and wanton killings growing every day.
The Primate, who made the disclosure in a statement signed and made available to Blueprint in Uyo on Sunday, frowned at the killing of security operatives and innocent citizens.
He condemned the gruesome killing of Iniubong Umoren, a graduate of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Uyo, stressing that justice should be given without any form of favour or cover-up.
“Nigerians must remain prayerful over insecurity challenges in the country and must also be security conscious.
“Let me start with the gruesome murder of the young graduate, Iniubong Umoren whose unfortunate story has spread like wildfire. I condemn this totally and join the voice of thousands of women to ask that full justice prevails without any form of cover-up,” he said.
Udofia while commenting on the spate of insecurity and wanton killings across the country, recommended the establishment of community vigilante groups as an alternative to handle security challenges facing the nation.
The statement reads in parts: “I strongly recommend the establishment of remedial security agencies and vigilante groups in each community/state,. This is to prevent the daily invasion of our communities by “unknown” assailants and gunmen some of whom are disguised as men of the Police Force or the Nigerian Army,” he submitted.
“Nigeria has retrogressed perhaps to an irredeemable extent where prayer and a total change of attitude and action in the positive, seems to be the only viable panacea. It is no longer news that we have been noted globally and rated as the country with the worse case of insurgency, kidnap and victimization in the history of West Africa and our school children abduction story makes our matter even worse than has been recorded in recent times.
“Even more, the spate of military killings, farmer-herdsmen clashes resulting in the gruesome deaths of our productive population; religious intolerance leading to unending cold murder of Christian leaders in the northeast have all risen to the roof of our necks with unbearable painful distaste especially as our leaders continue to keep a deafening silence.
“Police stations are now being burnt down, officers murdered without a care while vandalism takes the centre stage. We now live in perpetual fear of the unknown as no one knows what would happen next. Our government must be awake to ensure that the labours of our heroes past are not in vain.”
The cleric commended Governor Udom Emmanuel for his zeal in giving empowerment to youths of the state, noting that testimonies of the programmes are everywhere.
The Primate also lauded Emmanuel for being enterprising towards the economic pressure on farmers and consumers, calling for more efforts on food sufficiency.
