By Clara Egbogota
Lagos – The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Most Revd. Alfred Adewale Martins, has urged Nigerians to pray for Nigeria and new direction for political leaders to overcome insecurity challenges in the country.
Martins made the plea on Tuesday at the Ordination Service held at St. Jude Catholic Church, Mafoluku, Oshodi, Lagos.
“For this reason, we are calling on people to pray for our nation and our leaders for new direction in handling the insurgency ravaging the nation,” the cleric said.
He said that our leaders should also be accountable to the citizens by ensuring that the money voted for arms and ammunition were channelled to the appropriate and right source.
According to him, when the money voted for the purchase of arms and ammunition are channelled to the right source, our soldiers will not be sacrificed; they can in turn protect the citizens.
“The insecurity in our nation is beginning to look like it is overwhelming the government.
“It is looking as if the armed forces and other security agencies do not know what to do anymore.
“For this reason, we are calling on people to pray for our nation and our leaders for new direction.
“They should see that the leaders provide the right kind of equipment that our troops need in order to fight the insurgents.
“We read recently that the Boko Haram are using latest gadgets, latest technological instruments to fight.
“Many get killed, because they do not have the backups, and we were told that over N33 trillion was voted for defence in the last 10 years.
“One wonders what has happened? Much of the money were supposed to be for capital expenditure, for buying equipment, and buying of military hardware,” he said.
The cleric also urged the government to do a little more than they had been doing.
According to him, this is to ensure that the troops were well equipped, in order to boost their morale to carry out the great task ahead of them.
Martins then urged the newly ordained priests to be humble and focus on God to attain greatness.
“They have ended a stage in their lives and have begun a new stage; in this new age, they are beginners.
“They are new priests; they need to be humble in order to learn; they need to be humble in order to get all the resources they need to do their works.
“They should never ever forget that Christ is their model, not anyone else; if there is any sort of conflict, Christ should be the guiding principles,” he admonished them.
Also, Rev (Fr.) Geovin Onyia of the Ijede Deanery, in his sermon, urged the newly ordained priests to be the mouthpiece of God.
“Some people will not like what you say, but you have to defend the rights of God, be very firm and fair in your judgments,” he said.
Onyia also urged the church to always pray for their priests as they were more vulnerable to temptations.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Paul Ariole, Chukwuemeka Okafor, Harrison Okoli, Emenike Onyia and Onyebuchi Reuben were ordained as priests.
(NAN)