By CALEB AYANSINA

ABUJA – Primate, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh has called on governments at all levels, as well as politicians representing various segments of the country to pay serious attention to the people at the grassroots level, to improve their living standards.

Okoh, who was speaking at the dedication of the St. Silas Anglican Church and Vicarage, Kobi, built by the Fountain of Hope International, one of the societies in St. James Anglican Church, Asokoro in  Abuja, noted that other basic facilities would be provided to portray the love of God for the people in the community.

The Primate argued that it was so unfortunate that the electorate at the rural areas only see government presence once in four years during electioneering campaigns, noting that the rural dwellers are abandoned as soon as election results are made public.

Primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, Most Reverend Nicholas Okoh

According to the cleric, provision of social amenities is not the primary function of the Church, but of government who held the country’s commonwealth in trust, adding that the church particularly the Anglican Communion had been complementing government efforts, to improve their living standard across the country.

“The church gets no penny from government, the whole money of the country is in the hand of the government, and that is why we can only appeal to those we have elected, to always remember the people that elected them because most of the people who voted them were from the rural communities.

“So, we want to remind them that the people who send them to Abuja, to the beautiful air conditioned hallowed chambers, where they now occupy are in the rural communities. They should pay attention to their needs,” the primate pleaded.

He revealed that the church was shifting its attention to the nation’s rural communities to ensure Nigeria is saturated with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Primate argued that the rural dwellers were lacking virtually all good things of life, most importantly the gospel of Jesus Christ that is capable of setting them free from all yokes.

He said: “We want to be relevant to everybody in the country. We have discovered that it is the rural communities that actually need our presence more; they have less medical facilities, less number of schools, and even less good worship centres.

“So we are shifting attention from the city to the rural commu-nities, so that everybody in the country will flow with us. It is very important because as you know in Nigeria, all of us come from different villages. And some people in the city are somehow artificial, the real people are in the villages and that is why we are shifting our attention to the rural communities.”

The president, Fountain of Hope International 118NG, Brother Chidi Nwosu, said the desire to develop rural communities prompted the church to build the edifice, adding that the church would follow it up with the provision of other essential services like health, education, water, etc.

“It is high time the people left the city for the local areas. These are the people that need the help. You may be surprised that some of them have not seen electricity and have not heard the Word of God,” he said.