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Onaiyekan calls for renewed partnership between govt , church in provision of education, health, others

By Nkechi Onyedika-Ugoeze, Abuja
26 September 2022   |   8:50 am
Wants govt to provide public funds for trusted religious organizations to run public schools The Archbishop Emeritus of the Abuja Catholic Archdiocese, John Onaiyekan, has called for a renewed collaboration between the church and the government in the provision of quality education, health and other humanitarian services to Nigerians. Delivering an address titled The Church…

Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan

Wants govt to provide public funds for trusted religious organizations to run public schools

The Archbishop Emeritus of the Abuja Catholic Archdiocese, John Onaiyekan, has called for a renewed collaboration between the church and the government in the provision of quality education, health and other humanitarian services to Nigerians.

Delivering an address titled The Church in the Service of Integral Human Development: The Nigerian Experience at the Caritas Nigeria Day Celebration yesterday in Abuja, Onaiyekan noted that in the early days of the missionaries, there was an appreciable good collaboration between the church and the civil authorities, especially in the areas of education and health, but regretted that along the line, this collaboration was terminated by the deliberate policies of the government.

He stated that it has become obvious that the government is not coping with the social needs of the citizens; hence, the need to find ways and means of reactivating collaboration in order to serve the people better.

He said: “Once in a while, we hear the government talking about public-private partnership (PPP). It seems that this is often limited to collaboration between the government and the private sector. They ought to extend it to a collaboration between the government and religious institutions that have experience that they can share with the government for the greater service of our people and two key areas of such collaboration would be education and health care “.

Onaiyekan, who lamented that public institutions which are consuming a lot of public funds are languishing under bad management, stated that the church and the mosque can receive public funds for the running of public schools for the people to enjoy, like what happened in the past.

“In the area of education, we have gone very much into private primary, secondary and universities. These are sometimes quite expensive because they are purely private and nothing goes for nothing. If government were to reach out to religious organizations, that have proved their worth as good managers of schools, then there is no reason we should not try a PPP in these areas of social services”.

He stressed the need to promote integral human development that takes care of the whole person and every person.

Earlier, the Executive Secretary of Caritas Nigeria, Rev Fr Uchechukwu Obodoechina said the celebration was organised to showcase what Caritas has been doing and motivate men of good will to partner with the organisation We all know the level of the unavailability of basic necessities to Nigerians and the responsibility of the church that is close to the people is enormous.

He said: “That is why we feel we have a duty as a church and as men and women of the faith to build hope among those who have no hope So Caritas is a participation of the work of the church The church has a responsibility for her sons and daughters men and women of goodwill but this job has to be systemically and professionally carried out That is why we work in partnership with other agencies and funding partners to realize the goals and vision of Caritas Obodoechina said According to him Caritas is working on 31 projects in 35 states touching the lives of over seven million poor and vulnerable households in the country.”

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