Bishop of Anglican Diocese of Ekiti, Most Reverend Christopher Omotunde, has blamed what he called ‘decadence and nose-dived’ standard in quality of education being witnessed in the country on takeover of mission schools by state governments.
Consequently, the Bishop called on the Ekiti State Government to without delay, return schools established by the church to it for effective management and to boost education standard in the state.
Omotunde, who spoke in Ado Ekiti Monday at a press conference heralding weeklong activities marking the 50th anniversary of the diocese, described the takeover of schools by government as ‘a robbery action’, saying the rot in educational standard could have been averted if the schools were still under the management of churches.
He said: “Government acted like armed robbers by taking over schools they didn’t know the vision behind their establishment. It is sad that governments in Nigeria are bad managers and you can see the damage they have done to schools established by missionaries across Nigeria.
The cleric lamented how the facilities at the Ile Abiye Hospital established by the church in Ado Ekiti to enhance quality healthcare delivery at affordable rate were allegedly taken over as by the government as Ekiti State Specialists Hospital (now Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital), saying this further confirmed how destructive the government could be.
According to him, the church will use the anniversary to immortalise the late Primate of the Anglican Communion and indigene of Odo Owa Ekiti, Most Reverend Abiodun Adetiloye and other Bishops that had superintended over the diocese, for their contributions and sacrifices.
Reeling out achievements of the church, Omotunde said the diocese had made tremendous impacts in the spiritual lives of Ekiti people since its creation in 1966 by establishing many churches and School of Science and Technology as well as Youth Skills Development Centre to build human capacity.
The cleric said the church was at present venturing into estate developing business being part of the efforts to boost the state economy and make the church self-sustaining.
He said: “We have been performing our social responsibility very well. We are not only teaching our members, but we enhance their capacities in skills acquisition.
“We recently built a church in the prison yard in Ado Ekiti and today, the spiritual lives of many of the inmates had improved for better. This is part of our welfare and social responsibility to the people and we won’t deviate from this”, he said.
The Bishop warned the Christians’ Association of Nigeria (CAN) against unnecessary conviviality with politicians, saying the association was set up to propagate the ideals of unity and spiritual growth of Christians and it should not deviate from this vision.
Comments