By Anayo Okoli &    Chinedu Adonu

ATKingdom College, a missionary college, the graduates are not trained to only preach and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are also trained and equipped to be useful in various skills and trades to contribute to development of the society.

The graduates of the college, in addition to the work of preaching the word of God contribute actively to the growth of the economy, particularly through agriculture.

Located in the sleepy agrarian community of Ozuabam, Arochukwu Council of Abia State, the founder, Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Okeoha explained that curriculum was designed such that the ministers of God trained at the school are not liability to the society but assets; people who are effectively involved in the economic development of the nation.

He believes that agriculture should be the bedrock of Nigeria’s economic growth and poverty eradication, and means to create wealth and employment. He said that Nigeria must return to agriculture in order to become a self-sustaining nation. He urged the Federal and State governments to make farming compulsory in the chool systems.

According Rev Ekeoha, the college, established 24 years ago, has produced over one million ministers with various skills in different fields endeavour; aimed at reducing unemployment in the society.

He explained that the ministry came not only with a vision to preach the gospel of Christ but also to build a formidable gospel ministry where every minister is ready to be self made with skills to contribute to the growth of the nation.

He said the college has so far graduated five sets of ministers who are “all youths from age 25, with three years spiritual training, skills acquisition and agro economy to be self-reliant, feed themselves and preach the gospel with truth.”

And as part of its contribution to reducing unemployment, 1,825 graduates of the colleges are presently engaged by the college as staff and disclosed that the college has presence in 34 states across the nation. “The ministry started in the year 2000 and was called Kingdom Age ministry and the vision was to preach the gospel with style. Preaching the gospel the way the Apostles did. The Apostles were fishermen and they fed themselves with what they get from fishing.

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“All the ministers have one thing in common, you must be sound in spirit; and then learn human endeavors, like building, construction, etc.  We also engaged in agronomy. If you are not a good farmer you cannot be a good pastor.  “So, we adopted that theology and it has been of immense value to us; we have been using it to survive anywhere we go, doing it like the Apostles of Christ did. That has been the vision. “All we are doing is to train the youths with skills and agro economy to take them away from crimes and other social vices and bring them to Christ and be self employed and be useful in life.”

Ekeoha explained that the buildings in the college and some roads were done by self efforts by the college. The college, he said is designed in such a way that it produces its needs, feed themselves and others as well as render services to the larger society in many aspects as it has expansive hectares of land for farming and other business ventures such as bakery, palm producing, piggery, poultry, fabrication site, fishery, Micro finance bank, shopping mail, eatery, tissue manufacturing, among others.

The proprietor called on the government to invest in youths to acquire skills in trades and in agro economy.

“If the government can invest in these youths to acquire skills in different trades and in agro economy training, Nigeria will be better place ; but Nigeria has invested billions of naira in empowering the youths, but it was like just investing in grass that needs to be cleared before cultivating”, Ekeoha said. He called for government partnership and support with the college, particularly in the areas of accommodation and roads construction.

“Our challenges are accommodations, because we build based on the little proceeds from farms. We build our infrastructure using direct labour, we constructed some roads to make it motorable with proceeds from the farms. The other problem is the evil people outside who are fighting us due to lack of knowledge about the college. We keep preaching for peace because we are of the Lord and have contributed over 90% of what you see in the village.

“Kingdom College wants to create a world where everybody is free to do whatever he wants, where you can offer what you have to get what you want. We want to reintroduce trade by barter, where one can exchange garri with yam.  Now everybody is suffering; without dollars you cannot buy things, what is dollar; if Nigeria should go back to farming, the lost glory will be restored. Government is trying but they should do better, you cannot tell me that a lecturer at the University of Agriculture doesn’t have a farm to teach students practical work, just theory.

“So, if the government wants Agriculture to be the priority, let them introduce farming in the school system and make it practical. What is in our school system is a computer system where people’s money is being manipulated. We leave our own culture which is agriculture and we introduced another people’s culture in our school system. Government needs to return to agriculture and effectively introduce it to the school system”.