Lagos Controls 72% Of Nigeria’s Cash – Audu Ogbeh

•     Shun ‘siege mentality’ – SGF to Christians

BY CHAMBERLAIN ODEY, JOS – Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh has declared that 72 per cent of Nigeria’s total cash volume in circulation is in the hands of people and businesses within Lagos State alone.

Ogbeh said covering a tiny part of the total land mass in a country of over 190 million people, Lagos state, with a population of about 22 million, controls a greater chunk of the country’s total currency in circulation, while the rest of Nigeria controls the remaining 28 per cent due to their economic backwardness.

He said to reverse the unhealthy situation, the nation’s northern region must move beyond peace talks to business and investment summits among its various stakeholders.

Speaking at a two-day summit on “Sustainable Peace and Security in Northern Nigeria as a Panacea for Development: The Role Of Religious Christian Leaders” held in Jos, Plateau State, Chief Ogbeh said the region is plagued by abject poverty that makes it vulnerable to sectarian crises.

The Minister urged leaders of the zone to work towards youth and women empowerment that would step up economic activities and increase revenue accruing to and circulating in the region.

Also addressing the summit organized by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in 19 Northern States, Minister of Sport and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung, urged Christians in the region to break away from a “siege mentality” and do away with lamentations as these cannot help the Church to grow in the face of other challenges and forces within the Nigeria state.

He said until Christians within the region learn to act and propagate the Gospel, the Church in Northern Nigeria will capitulate to the same forces that extinguished it in North Africa and Lebanon.

In his remarks, Minister of State for Labour, Steve Ocheni said the Church must be guided by the admonition of ‘love your neighbour as thyself’; noting that if all can abide by this divine rule there will always be peace.

Ocheni said once people accommodate one another, the chances for conflicts will be reduced to zero, maintaining that technological and economic development can only thrive in an atmosphere of peace.

Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, who corroborated the position expressed by the Sports Minister, said for the region to achieve enduring peace, the Church must “purge itself of siege mentality”.

Mustapha said for a long time the Church in the region has been held back by this self-defeatist mentality, regretting that a dummy has been sold to the Church that there is an agenda to ‘Islamise the region’, with no Christian seeking to know if there is, and there can be a Christian agenda to proselytize the unbelievers and the Muslims.

Insisting that no evil can prevail against the Church in Nigeria, the SGF urged Christians to always work towards advancing the interest of God’s kingdom while also protecting even unbelievers.

Similarly, the SGF said it is important for all Nigerians to know that the insurgency, as currently orchestrated by Boko Haram, is directed at the state that is Nigeria, not the Church.

In his goodwill message, National President of CAN, represented by Rev Joseph Wushishi, charged the Federal government to restore calm and peace in all troubled areas in the country.

He also urged the summit to ensure the event throws up a paradigm for enduring peace in the region and the country at large, expressing hopes that the gathering would serve as a preface to an interfaith summit within the region.

Also speaking, the Catholic Archbishop of Jos, Most Rev Ignatius Kaigama, harped on the non-negotiable place of peace as basic to all positive human developments, and charged all elected and public office holders to exalt their Christian faith in their public conduct without necessarily oppressing others.

Welcoming participants, Chairman of CAN, Northern Region, and convener of the summit, Rev Dr Yakubu Pam said “if the North must develop, there is need for closer working relationship with different groups including the security agencies in order to catch up with the pace of development in the Southern part of the country”.

The Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, who declared the Summit opened, said; “We have concentrated efforts in establishing the vital nexus that will help us in identifying the key roles we have as a government, in driving the peace process on the Plateau through diverse approaches that will help us consolidate on the gains we have made so far”.

The Summit, holding at the Crest Hotels and Gardens, Jos, will be rounding up on Tuesday, August 28, 2018