By Bayo Famoroti
The Lord Bishop of Diocese of Ondo,, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Rt Rev’d. Dr. S. A. Oni, has called on government and policy makers at all levels to give premium to the sustainable development goals
He made the call in the Bishop’s charge delivered to the 2nd Session of the 24th Synod at the weekend at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Idimoge, Ondo City with the Theme: “Rebuilding the old waste…” Isaiah 58:12.
He said this is achievable by investing in capacity building of the citizenry, particularly in the educational and health sector, while preference should be given to girls’ education which is half of the over 10 million out of school children that is home to the highest number of people living in extreme poverty.
The cleric also noted that the rising deficits and debts, the failure of the approved budget to address some of the structural deficiencies behind declining revenues and rising inflation, have posed a serious concern to any right thinking Nigerian.
“In a situation where the budgeted expenditure stand at N20.51 trillion is the highest ever. It indicated that 60% of the budget will finance debt repayments (5.31 trillion), personnel costs (N4.99 trillion) and overheads cost (N1.11 trillion). More so, the budget was based on an exchange rate of N435.57 to 1 Dollar, compared to over N700 at the parallel market, automatically making an expenditure in the budget unrealistic”, he said.
Bishop Oni said that as a Diocese and the nation at large, there is a need for commitment by possessing the mind to work like those who built the wall of Jerusalem.
Said he: “The catalogues of problems bedeviling the church and our nation today could be equated with the old wastes that are symbolic and symptomatic in nature, that are traceable to the abandoning of godly vision or divinely orchestrated blueprints and systemic failures of many years.
“We may ask ourselves, where are the moral values; the culture of hard work, integrity, respect for a good name rather than the quest for materialism, the dignity of life, when life was held as sacred when every soul matters and the love of our neighbours paramount without any restraint by tribal sentiments and the geographical divides of the pursuit for ethnicity emancipation was never the order of the day”.
