Coordinator, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Prayer Outreach Nigeria, Kaduna State chapter, Bishop John Ekpeme has urged the government to step up training on intelligence gathering in order to address the challenges of insecurity bedeviling the country.
In an interview with newsmen on the occasion of the 75th Independence anniversary of Israel as a nation by CUFI, Bishop Ekpeme noted that if Israel could survive the several challenges it had passed through despite lean resources, Nigeria could do better with its abundant human and natural endowments.
“We need to step up our training on intelligence gathering. They should train more people and officers that will be able to gather enough information about intelligence. Among those intelligence that we have, they should be proactive rather than waiting to be attacked. We should not be on the fence.
“A nation that is insecure can never make development, a nation that has no peace can never make any kind of development, socio-economical, sociopolitical and otherwise. It is not possible.
“So, the issue of insecurity should be seriously handled by the Nigerian government. The government should empower and fund our security system the most, making sure that they supervise every fund received so that the fund is not diverted. They need weapons and other relevant things to run the operations,” he said.
He said Nigeria should count itself luckiest country in the world, considering the abundance of natural resources the nation is blessed with.
“If you are used to the history of the Israelites, you will realise what they had passed through in history, time, struggle and all of that. Nigeria as a nation, that is blessed with so much as far as I am concerned, as a die-hard lover of Nigeria and as a Nigerian, I believe that in recent times Nigeria had passed through a lot of challenges, economy, security, political and social instability and all of that. I believe that sticking to our visions, Nigeria can be great.
“If Israel was able to conquer all the challenges that they went through in history time, activities of anti- submissive and all of that, and today Israel is standing tall among the comity of nations, and has achieved so much and they are where they are today, and am telling you the little I know, I believe there is no country in the whole world that God has blessed like Nigeria.
“Apart from the sociopolitical challenge we have in Nigeria, another challenge is religion. Before you chose a faith you were Nigerian, if God wanted all of us to be Christians He would have made all of us Christians, if God wanted to make all of us Muslims, He would have made all of us Muslims. He knows why He was able to bring all of us together as Muslims and Christians. So, we should see Muslims as our brothers, and Muslims should see Christians as their brothers”.
