Baptist convention wants more govt action on Chibok girls

The President of Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC), Rev. Samson Ayokunle, has tasked Nigerian political office holders to lose their sleep until the abducted Chibok girls are released.

Ayokunle, while addressing reporters yesterday at the 103rd Annual Convention of the church, said the alleged lethargy of the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan on the issue of the girls when kidnapped and his inability to equip the nation’s armed forces with weapons to confront the terrorists could not be divorced from continued abduction of the girls.

Speaking at Afon Junction Secretariat of Kwara Baptist Conference, Ganmo near Ilorin, he noted that for the prayers of Nigerians for the girls they probably would have died in the hands of their abductors.

He urged Nigerians to sustain the tempo of their prayers to God on behalf of the girls but with a caveat that God could not be coerced into answering prayers “at the time of man but at God’s time.”

The NBC President noted, “there are many ways by which God answers prayers it could be via instant response or by His (God’s) own time. Man can’t force God into answering prayers. I want to however, say that the prayers on the Chibok girls are not in vain. There is a part a man must play before God will play His own part.

“But I must say that the government has not done enough for the girls, they could have been anybody’s daughters. I think the last administration has a larger guilt on this issue, by refusing to move on time before the abductors went far with the girls. These girls trusted the government for their security but the government failed them.

“Besides, the security personnel who could have run after them were poorly equipped. Therefore the failure could not be from God. God does not oppress. In fact, government should not sleep until they have put in motion machinery to get the innocent girls out of captivity. There is a ray of hope for them if truly they are still alive.”

The NBC is the largest convention in the world outside the United States of America (USA). The convention according to Ayokunle has over 10,000 churches in Nigeria, 35 conferences and 496 associations spread over the 36 states and Abuja. Besides, it has 10 Foreign Mission Fields and 20 Home Mission Fields in Nigeria.

The theme for this year’s Convention is coined from Philippians 2:12, ‘Moving Forward: Working Out Our Salvation with Fear and Trembling.’ Over 20,000 delegates the world over are expected at the annual programme.

Ayokunle, while blaming some of the Federal Government’s policies for high rate of moral decadence in Nigeria, believed that religious organisations should not be exclusively castigated for the development as other reformers in the society like the family and law enforcement agencies have equally failed.